“We need a doctor, Frey,” Noc stated.
“She’s committed treason and so has her brother. For that, she’s being punished,” Papa explained.
Frey turned to my father.
“And that punishment would come at the command of your queen if your daughter hadn’t moved to make amends,” Frey clipped, twisted at the waist and ground out to Josette, “Get Valentine. And find a bloody physician.”
Josette nodded at the same time she turned and vanished from sight.
I rushed across the room to my cousin, curled a hand into his sweater at his chest and begged, “You must go. You must take Noc. If I withstand what he wishes to mete, they’ll leave Kristian alone.”
I was too deep in my state to notice my cousin for the first time in our lives addressing me gently.
“And how long has this been the understanding, Franka?”
I simply replied on a plea.
“Please, Frey, let him finish.”
Frey looked in my eyes but a moment before his went over my head.
“Cover her, Noc, and take her from here.”
“No!” I cried as I felt careful hands on my shoulders pulling me from Frey.
The pain at my back was too immense to struggle so I didn’t. I watched Frey look to my father.
“You’re communicating with Anneka?” he asked.
“Family business is family business, Frey,” my father returned.
Frey’s tone deteriorated while Noc turned me to face him. I saw his chest bare and felt the agony of the whisper of material of his shirt hitting my back.
“Are you…communicating with Anneka?”
“I don’t have to answer that,” Father retorted.
“Kristian is more than a week’s sled ride away. If she’s taking guidance from you, that means you’re a sorcerer or she’s a witch. Either way, you or she are undeclared. Which is it?” Frey demanded.
“This is none of your concern, nephew,” my father snapped.
I flinched as Frey roared, “Which is it?”
At this juncture, my tortured cry slashed through the room as Noc lifted me to cradle me in his arms.
“Sorry, Frannie, so sorry, baby,” he cooed. “Stick with me. Hold on just a little longer until I can get you to a bed.”
I battled the pain of his arm against the torn flesh of my back and looked into Noc’s eyes. “He must finish.”
Noc’s face turned hard as he stated, “He’s not gonna fuckin’ finish.”
“Noc—”
“Quiet, Frannie. Frey’s got this.”
I shook my head fervently as Frey moved out of our way and Noc took us toward the door. “No, you don’t understand.”
“No, sweetheart, you don’t understand,” Noc declared, striding through the door and into the hall. “They didn’t get it. Now they’ll get it. And, baby, that means you are no longer alone.”
My panic overwhelming me, I barely heard a word he said as we moved down the hall.
I shifted my gaze over his shoulder toward the door, hearing Frey demand on an enraged bellow, “Talk, Nils. Now!”
But that was all I heard as Noc quickly carried me down the passageway.
“This isn’t good,” I whispered.
“It’s gonna be fine,” Noc assured.
I closed my eyes tight. “You don’t know.”
“What on…?”
This was a female voice, and I opened my eyes and turned my head to see the green witch rushing toward us.
“Frey needs you,” Noc grunted, not pausing a step, meaning Valentine needed to jump to the side as he forged right ahead, passing her. “Room at the back,” he finished.
I turned my attention over his shoulder and watched Valentine disappear in a tall, thin spiral of green smoke.
Noc kept moving.
I took in a deep breath, closed my eyes again, and for the second time that night, the second time in decades, I used my power, opened my senses and sought my brother.
I was out of practice and in immense pain. I couldn’t sense him.
Either that or she’d already broken him. With Kristian, it never took long.
“I can’t sense him,” I told Noc, still trying to do so and feeling us ascending stairs.
“Franka, just focus on you, yeah?”
“This could mean she might have already broken him.”
“Frey and Valentine have this.”
I opened my eyes only to narrow them at him. “What do those words even mean?”
Noc blinked as he kept climbing stairs, and when he was done with his blink, his lips quirked.
“There’s my sugarlips,” he muttered.
I didn’t have it in me to cut him with a reply. The pain jarred through my conscious and I felt bile drive up my throat.
I swallowed it down but whispered a horrified, “I may be sick.”
“Please, fuck, wait ten seconds until I have you in my bed,” Noc begged.
“I’ll try,” I promised, and fortunately, after what felt a great deal longer than ten seconds, I was able to keep that promise.
I bit back a moan as he carefully extricated his shirt from me and gnashed my teeth silently as he rolled me to my belly. Once he’d positioned me, I felt the covers being pulled up over my bottom.
I then watched as he reached to the cord beside the bed and tugged on it.
“How did you know to come to the buttery?” I asked.
He looked down at me. “Your girl. She woke me up, totally freaked.”
I felt my brow furrow. “Freaked?”
“Panicked,” he explained. “Worried about you.”