“Noc—” I began to protest but he again leaned closer.
“Frey know you got magic?”
Uncharacteristically, I allowed my eyes to slide away.
“Frannie,” he called.
My eyes slid back and I snapped, “Cease calling me this.”
He ignored my demand and asserted, “I gotta know. You don’t want me to say anything, I gotta know.”
I felt my lips part in surprise at the fact that he’d just shared he’d keep my secret.
“And if your dad says shit, I gotta be on the ball with that too,” he carried on.
Oh balls.
I should have thought of that.
“I don’t practice,” I told him swiftly, lifting my head slightly but lowering it when the numbness in my back disappeared and fire shot through my mutilated flesh. “I don’t ever use it. I just…inherited it from my mother. She uses it.”
Noc nodded. “Gotcha.”
“You must believe me, Noc, for I’m telling the truth,” for some reason I persevered. “When I was young, I experimented with it. But seeing what she did, how she used hers.” I shook my head. “I didn’t want a thing to do with it.”
He lifted a hand and cupped my cheek, saying comfortingly, “I said gotcha, baby. That means I get you. I understand you. It’s all good. I got your back. Okay? You get that?”
I wasn’t sure but I thought I did, therefore I gave a slight nod.
“Now, relax for me, yeah? I’m gonna go get another towel, take this one off, change it.” Even as his mouth got tight, his voice turned into a mutter while his attention wandered to my back. “Blood’s soaked this one through.”
Humiliation belatedly stole through me, and I closed my eyes against the sight of his fine-looking face set with anger that warred with concern.
“You good with that, Frannie?” he asked.
This name, it was common. I detested it.
I didn’t say that.
I sighed, kept my eyes closed and replied, “Whatever you wish to do, Noc.”
“Babe,” he said.
I lay there, unmoving.
“Sweetheart, look at me.”
I didn’t wish to but felt it would be a show of weakness if I didn’t.
Therefore I did.
“Gonna take care of you,” he promised, the look in his eyes now one of warmth and determination. “Get you back to fit. And I’m gonna see he’s taken care of too. Do you believe me?”
I wished to do that.
But that would not happen.
“He’s a member of a powerful House, Noc. You may not understand this but that means something. He’s detested by Aurora, as he was by Atticus, for reasons I don’t know but it wasn’t surprising. The king and queen felt even less for my mother. They do not consort with the royals and only allowed Kristian and I to do so when we were younger through my uncle, Frey’s father. Regardless of that, his position, and hers, gives them leeway. And further, I went to him uncoerced.”
“When’d it start?” he asked.
“Pardon?”
“Got scar tissue he didn’t get to opening up this go, Frannie, so don’t think you can pull one over on me. This is not your first time. How old were you when it started?”
“I don’t understand the import of that information,” I declared haughtily.
“Just tell me how old,” he pushed.
“If it’s that interesting to you, five.”
He rose.
Immediately.
Coming straight out of his crouch in a powerful surge, he stood towering beside me on the bed.
And now, at the expression on his face, I fought cowering before him.
“Five?” he whispered.
I fought the pain as I pushed up on my forearms, beginning, “Noc—”
“Five?” he hissed.
I stared up at him, unable to speak in the face of his fury.
Fury on my behalf.
Something that had never happened, not from Kristian, not from Antoine.
Not from anyone.
“You were coerced, Franka, whether you know that shit or not,” he bit off, and before I could utter a noise, even if I had no intention of doing so, a knock came at the door and Noc barked, “Come in!”
He then prowled to the door as a maid came through with towels.
He did this continuing to bark, just not as loudly, and dispensed with the “pleases” and ludicrous “that’d be awesomes” and behaved like the man he would be if he was of this world.
In other words, he issued commands.
“Change the towel with a clean, cool one on her back. Give her the goddamned sleeping drink so she can get some relief from the pain. And get the fucking doctor in here.” He was at the door the maid had scurried through and he turned to me. “You move from that bed, baby, I’m gonna be fuckin’ pissed. Let her take care of you, drink the goddamned drink, get some rest. I’ll be back.”
I had no earthly clue what “fuckin’ pissed” meant.
I still nodded.
Noc watched me do it.
Then he swept out the door.
Chapter Four
How It Was Going to Be
Noc
It took three of Frey’s guys to pull Noc off the man.
Even accomplishing this, he still struggled against their hold, knowing every blow he’d dealt didn’t make him feel better, but that didn’t mean he didn’t get gratification each time his fist landed in the asshole’s flesh.
“I understand your anger, Noc, but this is not helping,” Frey said from close.
“It defies belief you’d allow that…that…man to lay his hands on me.”