I decided to face it head on.
“When I said what I said to you at Brunskar,
I know my words harmed you,” I declared.
“Franka,” she said my name uneasily.
“This has been made very clear to me,” I
shared.
She seemed at a loss before she replied,
“Things were very…
emotional
at the time.”
“They were indeed,” I agreed. “This does not
erase the harm that I’d done.”
She took a step toward me, saying again,
“Franka.”
“Those I care about, who care about me, call
me Frannie.”
She stopped and stared.
“Even if I would never speak it aloud, until
now, I’ve always admired Apollo for many reasons. His service to my
country is one. Another is the love he has for his family.”
She looked to be fighting turning her gaze
away and she won, holding mine steady but saying nothing.
“This man I’ve long respected, it’s good to
see him again happy,” I declared.
A startled warmth moved through her gaze as
she took the last step toward me, reaching out to wrap her fingers
around mine.
“That’s kind of you to say,” she replied
quietly.
“Perhaps, but mostly it’s true,” I
returned.
Her lips curved.
“It may be the damage my words caused make it
so we cannot have what I have with the others who’ve found love
across worlds,” I carried on. “But my Noc has grown to care about
you both. So although it is not mine to ask anything of you, for
him I do so regardless. And what I ask is that we endeavor to get
past the awkwardness between us so that Noc can enjoy his time,
time that’s rather brief, with the two of you.”
“I know what happened to you,” she
whispered.
I fought lifting my chin and replied, “I know
you do.”
“My ex, the other Apollo, Pol, beat the
absolute crap out of me, doing it repeatedly. Once doing it and I
lost the son I carried.”
I blinked in shock and distress.
“When I went to my parents for help,” she
continued, “my father closed the door in my face.”
“By the gods,” I breathed.
She nodded and went on to tell her startling
tale of woe.
“I went on the run and I didn’t let anyone
close to me. Not for ages. Not until Apollo.”
I said nothing.
“In other words, Frannie. I get you.” She
looked beyond me, back up to the grand manse in the countryside of
Fleuridia she shared with her husband, his children by Ilsa, and
their little Valentine, and again to me. “The awkwardness was
because, well, even having changed, you’re kind of intimidating and
I didn’t know how to broach it with you.” She gave me a grin. “I’m
glad you knew what to do.”
“Well, I’m…” I cleared my throat, “glad
too.”
Her grin became a smile, she moved into me,
coming to my side and hooking her arm through my own.
Thus, she moved us again forward. “So now,
tell me. I’m dying to know. How did you react to my old world? I
have to admit, I’d love to take Lo there. See how he feels about
airplanes and Jacuzzis. You have to tell me everything. What did
you think the weirdest thing was? And the most wonderful?”
I shared this with her and she threw her head
back and laughed when I told her both were my introduction to the
glory of toilets.
And from there, Lady Madeleine Ulfr and I
wandered a lane lined in lavender.
And as we did, we became friends.
* * * * *
Noc
“She’s much changed.”
Noc didn’t take his eyes from the window as
he watched Frannie and Maddie wandering down the lane, arm in arm,
heads bent together even when he felt Apollo come to stand beside
him or when Apollo said those words.
“No, she’s not,” Noc replied
“I knew her well before you, my brother,” Lo
stated carefully.
Only then did Noc give the man his eyes.
“No you did not.”
Apollo Ulfr held his gaze.
Then he lifted his chin.
Both men turned their attention back out the
window.
And they stood there watching the women they
loved wandering a lane, their skirts and the fields of lavender
waving about them in a gentle breeze, their bodies bathed in
sunshine.
* * * * *
Lunwyn
Franka
I was riding Noc’s cock, both of us sitting
up, our eyes locked, when his arm clamped about my hips and he held
me down, full of him, and shifted to his knees.
He then dropped me to my back, covering me
and again moving inside.
Through this, my gaze on his never wavered,
nor did it when his hand found mine, linking our fingers and
pressing them into the bed as his other hand moved, pushing deep,
up my spine, the back of my neck, to curl against my scalp.
“Don’t stop lookin’ at me,” he growled.
“I won’t,” I whimpered, arching into him, our
position, his words, neither lost on me.
Like our first time.
Exactly.
“So goddamned beautiful,” he grunted as his
thrusts picked up speed. “Always so goddamned beautiful.”
“Darling,” I breathed, grinding into him,
moving urgently, the need nearly overwhelming me.
“Hold on, Frannie. Not yet. Look into my
eyes.”
“You have me,” I whispered, and he very much
did, now in every way.
My hands were roaming his skin, hungry.
His strokes gathered power as he drove into
me.
I moaned, losing hold.
Noc felt it.
“Don’t lose my eyes, baby.”
“I…won’t, my love,” I gasped.
His face darkened, his fingers in mine
clenched, I felt the metal at one biting into the webbing and he
groaned, “Now, Frannie. Let go.”
As the sound of his climax powered through
the room, the softer wisps of my own filtered through it and I
arced into him, pulling him deep, clasping him to me, and Noc
poured himself inside me, unhindered.
I was shuddering through the final glorious
moments when he collapsed on top of me, sinking his face into my
neck.
I took him happily, memorizing the feel of
him I’d already never forget, the smell, the sound of his harsh
breathing whispering against the skin under my ear.
In these times, we never needed to speak.
And this time, so different, but yet the
same, this was something we still did not need.
However, Noc felt something had to be
said.
And he said it by raising his head, taking
off some of his weight, and then lifting our hands he still had
laced together.
He brought them to his lips, his eyes on me,
and kissed the large Sjofn ice diamond there that nestled perfectly
with the plain gold band underneath.
He wore a band as well, on the hand that
still held my head.
I’d slipped it on under the bemused eyes of a
Vallee in a Dwelling of the Gods just an hour before.
His gesture was all that needed to be said
from my new husband to me, his new wife.
And for long moments as we gazed at each
other, his handsome lips to the beautiful rings he’d bestowed on
me, that was all that was said.
Eventually, Noc pressed our hands to his
chest and in the most profound moment of my life (and I’ll note all
the others on that list carried memories of him too), he declared,
“We are
so
gonna piss everyone off that we eloped on a
parallel universe and we didn’t invite anyone from this world or
the other.”
I felt my face form a scowl at his mentioning
a discussion we’d already had.
One which we ended in whole-hearted agreement
(of a sort, Noc was much the champion of being married, doing it in
my homeland, something that he knew meant much to me, and it being
rather private—he was not quite the champion of going it totally
alone, but he’d given in…for me).
“This is not their moment, Noc.”
“Not sure Sue’s gonna see it that way,” he
replied. “Or Dad. Or Dash. Or Aurora. Orly. Finnie. Frey’s gonna
give me tons of shit. And I don’t even wanna think how Jo is gonna
react.”
“She’s dealing with her own emotion
concerning that odious Glover,” I snapped and Noc’s brows rose.
“Odious? How’s Glover odious, sugarlips? It
was
Jo
who dumped
him
.”
It was indeed.
She’d explained this days prior to our being
spirited away for our holiday, stating, “I tried, Frannie. I really
tried to see it in him. But watching you and Noc, he didn’t have
it. So in the end, he just didn’t do it for me.”
She was falling into our new-world language,
then again she would as we’d been in that new world now for many
months.
She was also quite right about taking her
leave of Glover.
If he didn’t do it for her, it was time to
scrape him off.
“It isn’t easy dumping someone, Noc,” I
shared. “She feels awful.”
“She should. He was totally gone for her. And
he was a good guy.”
“Not good enough, this, I will note, I
always
knew.”
Noc shook his head but did it grinning.
He was still grinning when he declared, “We
need to have another ceremony when we get to Rimée Keep.”
“Whyever would we do that?”
He didn’t answer, he kept on his bent.
“And we need to have another one when we get
home.”
“The deed is already done,” I pointed
out.
“Right,
you
tell Sue she can’t wear a
crazy hat to some shindig,” he returned. “And by the way, being
married here is not legal at home and we get a tax break for being
married.”
“We’ll have a ceremony at home,” I stated
instantly.
Another grin from Noc as he muttered, “That’s
my Frannie. If she can keep her money so she can spend it on
herself or anyone else she wants to lavish shit on, she’s gonna do
it.”
“I do not mind your government knowing we’re
eternally joined. As you say, if I felt it prudent to part with the
money it would cost, when we returned home, I’d hire an operator of
an airplane to write it in the sky.”
That did not get me a grin.
That earned me Noc dropping his mouth to mine
and giving me a deep, wet, heated kiss.
When he lifted it and our eyes opened, he
whispered, “Franka Hawthorne.”
That name.
Such beauty.
“That’s me,” I whispered back.
His face started to grow soft when, suddenly,
we both stiffened.
This was because the room was tinted
green.
Noc lifted up alertly to an outstretched arm,
causing me to press my lips together to stifle the pleasured moan
for we were still joined and his movements were far from
unpleasant, doing this growling, “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”
I pushed up to my elbows and turned my eyes
to where my senses were guiding me.
And there, on the table by the window of the
lovely inn in which we were staying, was an elegant tea service set
out, its porcelain painted in a stunning motif of emerald
green.
From the spout, wafts of smoke drifted from
the heated brew inside.
Along with a glitter that was
unmistakable.
I felt a slow smile form on my lips as the
green tint of the room faded.
“Fuck, is she here?” Noc bit off.
“She’s not here,” I answered him and his eyes
came to me. “But she knows we’re wed and has left us a
present.”
“A present?”
I put a hand to his warm, wide chest. “Are
you fatigued, my love?”
“Are you crazy, gorgeous?” he returned but
didn’t wish an answer. He kept talking. “It’s my wedding night and
I’m feelin’ the need to beat my record.”
My brows drew together. “Your record?”
“Ten times, babe,” he stated, causing a
rather delicious tingle at the memory. “Tonight, I’m gonna go for
fifteen.”
My attention drifted to the tea.
He would best that.
Oh yes he would.
Splendidly.
And I would best my record of three.
Oh yes, I most definitely would.
And I’d do this
splendidly
.
It was time for some tea.
* * * * *
“So
this
is a bridesmaid dress,” I
murmured, staring down at myself.
I was of a mixed opinion.
The design was very fine.
The color—a pale pink—did not a thing for
me.
Cora, wearing her own dress, the same exact
one for reasons I couldn’t fathom, came to me.
“It is,” she confirmed.
“It’s the same as yours,” I told her
something she already knew.
“It’s that too.”
“I must say I don’t quite understand why we
need to be dressed identically.”
“It’s just the way it is,” she stated.
“In your old world,” I told her. “We’re not
in your old world. Since both Finnie and Circe are bound to this
world everlasting, in order that they can be her bridesmaids,
my-world Circe is marrying Dax in Lunwyn.”
“Yeah, but she’s giving him his kind of
wedding seeing as they’re doing the Justice of the Peace thing when
they get back home.”
I knew of this “Justice of the Peace
thing.”
But for Noc and I to “make it legal,” at the
inflexible demands of his stepmother, my dearest Jo (who was,
indeed,
very
vexed Noc and I had wed without her), and even
Valentine (who had reunited with her lover amongst great drama and
had become quite the romantic, in a detached way, of course) we had
not gone to a Justice of the Peace and then gone somewhere else to
have some cake, as Noc shared with them at first we would do (to a
calamitous uprising).
We’d had a “shindig.”
A
large
one.
I got a very fabulous dress out of the
situation and we were showered with gifts that were all very
lovely, even if we could afford to buy them ourselves. Not to
mention, having this gave us an excuse to go on what was called a
“honeymoon.” This we did in a tranquil place filled with astounding
beauty called the “Caribbean” where we were able to make love on a
blanket on a sandy beach with the sea lapping at our toes (amongst
other places, a number of them).