The door opened and my brief conversation
with Cora was interrupted when my husband entered the room.
All eyes, including mine, Cora’s, Maddie’s,
Finnie’s, Circe’s, Aurora’s, Josette’s, and the bride—the other
Circe (attired in a dress that was
far
more becoming than my
own)—went to him.
His eyes came to me.
I saw his face go soft, his gaze drop to my
gown and his lips tip up before his attention turned to the
bride.
A bride he was “giving away.”
Although this was said to be against all
tradition, Jo was not only my maid of honor at our other-world
ceremony, she’d also walked me down the aisle and placed my hand in
Noc’s.
She’d done this sobbing.
Like a ninny.
Gods love her.
“Is he ready?” Circe asked Noc as he
approached.
“Babe, you don’t haul your ass into that
sanctuary and soon, Dax is gonna tear in here and drag you down the
aisle himself,” Noc answered.
Me and my friends all gave each other
knowing, delighted looks.
Circe gathered her skirts and her bundle of
adela tree twigs and bustled to Noc, declaring, “Then we must go.
Dax impatient is not a good thing.”
“Dax impatient to make you his wife is
probably a great deal worse,” I shared.
Circe gave me big eyes.
Even so, I noted they were glowing and
happy.
Oh yes.
Yes.
I did
so
enjoy when a carefully
crafted scheme succeeded.
At Finnie’s command, we all collected the
arrangements of flowers we were to hold in our hands, and we lined
up in order to start the proceedings.
I was the last in line before Circe and
Noc.
Jo had been my maid of honor but Circe had
also stood up with me.
And I was to be Circe’s maid of honor and
Josette was also to stand up with her.
And an honor it was.
Indeed.
As we’d been told (and actually practiced the
night before, for reasons beyond me—we were all walking down an
aisle and then standing at the front of the pews, listening as the
Vallee droned on and on, it was hardly worth the military-style
drilling Finnie forced us through), we filed out and did as we’d
practiced.
We all got to the front and took our places
opposite Dax, who was standing alone wearing a well-cut suit,
looking impatient (and looking that frighteningly).
He was scowling down the aisle (like Circe
was going to do anything but maybe throw decorum to the wind and
run down the aisle to him), waiting for the doors Noc and Circe
were to come through when something not practiced happened.
This was Frey’s booming voice ordering,
“Stand!”
I looked to Jo at my side and then watched as
the meager audience (the outside of the Dwelling was heavily
guarded, there were two Noctornos, two Dax Lahns and two Circes in
that room and it wouldn’t do for anyone who shouldn’t to see
that).
After all stood, suddenly, filing in from the
side, came Frey’s men. As they moved along the back wall to the
aisle, Frey fell in in front of them.
We then saw Apollo’s closest soldiers
following Frey’s, led by Apollo.
When they traversed the aisle, Lahn and Tor
got out of their pews and joined the men.
They marched up the aisle before Noc even
guided Circe into the sanctuary.
When they made it to the front, they lined up
around the bridesmaids and to the other side around Dax, turning
and standing almost what appeared to be at attention, watching as
my husband finally guided Circe into the room and slowly walked the
bride down the aisle.
I reached out a hand and found Jo’s, hers
already searching mine.
We held on as we watched Circe’s lips quiver
while she made her approach, taking in the assemblage in front of
her, a woman who was once violently stripped of everything, her
family, her virtue, her freedom. She’d had no one to whom to turn.
No one she could trust.
And now she had the armies of four countries
at her back and six sisters at her side.
I felt my own tears welling when suddenly,
the room filled with green.
“Fabulous.” I heard Frey mutter
sardonically.
I understood his lament.
Valentine did very much like to cause a
drama.
But I heard this at the same time I heard on
the other side of me, Circe’s wondrous, whispered, “Oh my
God
.
Pop
.”
And then I saw an older man who’d formed from
a rise of green mist move out of a pew toward Noc and Circe, who
had just made it to the middle of the long aisle.
“If you don’t mind, son,” he said to Noc, his
eyes never leaving Circe, “I’ll take it from here.”
“Who’s that man?” Jo whispered to me.
“My dad,” Circe whispered to Jo.
Both Josette and I cut our gazes to Queen
Circe who was openly weeping.
And hugely smiling.
We looked back to Circe as Noc took one look
at the bride, dipped his chin and stepped aside.
The man I would eventually know as Harold
Quinn walked his other-world daughter to her groom, grinning like a
lunatic, his eyes filled with pride as they rested on both the
daughter he claimed and the daughter he made before he guided the
bride to the man she loved.
Noc moved to stand by Lahn and Tor.
But before I turned to the couple to watch
them wed, I caught sight of her standing in the shadows at the
back.
She was wearing a fabulous dress of jade
green.
Love is everything
. I heard
Valentine’s voice whisper in my ear.
Every way love can
be.
And then, a cat’s smile flirting at her lips,
she faded away in a beautiful drift of jewel-green smoke.
* * * * *
New Orleans
Noc
“I say, I’ve kept you up long enough. It’s
time for me to find my bed…and my wife, and you yours,” Kristian
stated.
Noc, sitting outside with his brother-in-law,
having a whiskey while Kristian enjoyed a cigar, nodded.
It was definitely time.
He liked the man but he liked his wife
better.
They rose from their padded chairs and lifted
their chins at each other as Kristian moved through the courtyard
toward the carriage house at the other side where Franka had
created a guest suite.
Noc left the bottle and glasses where they
were on the table between the two chairs and walked into the
house.
He went through it, knowing the doors were
locked, the windows closed and latched.
He checked them all just the same. There were
precious beings sleeping under his roof, a number of them, and it
was the man he was that he’d make sure they were safe.
At the top of the stairs, looking up and down
the hall, he saw no light coming from under the door to the master
suite, or any of the others.
Except a dim light coming from under one in
the middle of the hall, a door that led to a room that was painted
pink.
He felt the grin hit his mouth but his body
jerked when a different door, the one right beside him, opened.
Noc’s father blinked sleepily at his son then
grunted, “Damned bladder.”
And then his dad lifted his hand, patted
Noc’s shoulder, and walked the opposite way, toward the
bathroom.
Noc walked toward the light.
He put his hand on the handle and turned it,
opening the door a crack, doing it silently.
He stopped it at just a crack when he heard
his daughter speak.
“Really, Momma?” Amara was asking in her
little girl voice.
“Really, my sweetest love,” Frannie
replied.
“Daddy did that?”
“Yes, my darling, your father did that. He
did that and more. So much more.”
There was a beat of silence before Amara
declared sleepily, “Mm, I believe it. Daddy’s so sweet.”
Noc grinned again.
“He is that, beautiful Amara Judith,” Frannie
agreed. “He’s also something else.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s my valiant.”
Noc’s body locked.
“What does that mean?” their daughter
asked.
“That means, precious girl, your daddy is my
hero.”
Noc closed his eyes and rested his forehead
on the doorjamb.
“He’s mine too,” Amara declared.
Noc’s throat closed.
“I know, baby,” Frannie cooed. “Now it’s very
late. I’ve told you your story. It’s time for you to go to
sleep.”
His daughter’s sounded dreamy as she shared,
“I can’t wait to find my valiant.”
Frannie’s tone was crisper when she returned,
“We’ll talk about that in thirty years.”
Amara’s voice was higher when she asked,
“Thirty?”
“Go to sleep, darling.”
“I’m not gonna be thirty-six when I get
married.”
“Amara, my love,
sleep
.”
“All right.” Noc heard his girl mumble.
At that, Noc moved from the door, down the
hall and into his and Frannie’s room.
He went straight to the window.
He didn’t pull the curtains closed.
He stood looking down at their quiet
courtyard with its riot of flowers, all of it lit by moonlight.
He heard her enter behind him.
“Has Kristian finished his cigar?” she asked
his back.
“Yep,” he answered the window.
“Foul things,” she murmured and the door
clicked.
Noc stared at the courtyard.
Frannie came right to him, circling him with
her arms and fitting herself to his back.
“I love having the house filled with family,”
she whispered.
She was talking about Dad and Sue, Kristian
and Brikitta and their three boys visiting.
She was also talking about their own five
kids.
Four boys.
One girl.
Amara right smack in the middle.
“Noc,” she said softly, “is everything all
right?”
He looked from the courtyard to her hands at
his stomach, her diamond blinking faintly in the moonlight. He felt
her breasts pressed to his back, the belly she’d nurtured his five
children in tucked to his ass.
He could smell her.
He could feel her power contained but still
emanating through her.
And it took no effort at all to pull her face
up in his mind’s eye, that delicate neck, her beautiful mouth, her
gorgeous hair.
Her arms around him tightened.
“Darling? Are you okay?”
Noc took her wrist and pulled it to his side,
forcing his wife to circle around to his front.
She kept hold of him, and when he stopped
her, she tipped her head back to catch his eyes.
He let her wrist go and lifted his hand to
cup her jaw.
Holding her there and drawing his other arm
around her to pull her close, he dipped his face to hers and
studied the woman he loved, so goddamned beautiful, even more right
then, lit by moonbeams.
“My valiant,” he whispered.
He saw those beautiful blue eyes of hers
warm.
And then he saw them grow bright with
wet.
She lifted up on her toes so that fucking
amazing mouth was a breath from his.
But she didn’t kiss him.
She whispered back.
Two words he never believed.
Two words he knew she believed down to her
glorious soul.
“My hero.”
This concludes the Fantasyland Series.
Thank you for reading!
*****
Read an excerpt from
Until the Sun Falls
from the Sky
,
the beginning of Kristen Ashley’s The Three
Series!
My dress was blood red.
This, I thought, was farcical. I mean
blood red
? Were they serious?
“Smile. Be nice. Respectful. Always
respectful. Remember, you’re representing the Buchanans,” my mother
at my side whispered urgently to me. Her eyes did not leave the
length of the hall and her bearing was stiff as we walked
side-by-side.
She was nervous and excited. Unbearably
so.
It was driving me nuts.
I didn’t need her to say this to me. Since
I’d received my invitation to The Selection she’d been coaxing me,
coaching me, and constantly reminding me that I was a Buchanan and
what that meant.
Like I’d ever forget.
In fact, since I was told when I was thirteen
what being a female Buchanan meant, I’d never forgotten. Not one
word. They were burned on my brain.
I didn’t answer her, just stared down the
long hall.
It was, as it would be, lush but spooky. A
dark gray carpet runner flanked by polished dark wood floors.
Matching gray walls with pristine white cornices and ceilings.
Every six or seven feet a small, exquisite sconce dripping crystals
was affixed to the wall, enough of them to light the way but not
enough of them to take away the shadows. Much further apart along
the walls there were doors, all of them closed. At one end was the
elevator we rode down however many stories and at the other end was
the door to where we were heading.
And in between it was a long walk.
Way too long in blood red satin shoes with a
pencil-thin heel and an ankle strap that was so dainty it
threatened to break with every step I took.
“I think these shoes were a bad idea,” I
grumbled under my breath to my mother.
“Leah…” she started in the warning mother
tone I’d heard her use with me many a time over the years.
“No seriously, I fear a massive shoe
incident. The Buchanans can’t have a massive shoe incident, not at
something as important as A Selection. What would that do to our
reputation?”
“Don’t worry about your shoes. Your shoes
will be fine.”
“No, I don’t think they will. I think we
should leave, find me another pair of shoes, and come back,” I
suggested.
“You don’t have another pair of shoes that
would be appropriate.”