Midnight Soul by Kristen Ashley

she’d done to betray her country, she’d
decline.
    He didn’t feel like the asshole who had lost
a bet. That moron who was in the position to take the hit of I
told you so .
    He’d felt like she’d betrayed him by
not being who he was certain she was by doing what he was sure she
wouldn’t do.
    All of this meant it was probably good she
was leaving tomorrow.
    First, she needed to get away from folks who
didn’t like her and didn’t mind in the slightest sharing that with
her. No one needed that.
    And second, Noc needed her away from him.
    He was going to go to Apollo and Maddie’s
wedding.
    After that, he was going to sail with Frey
and Finnie as they took Cora and Tor back to Bellebryn.
    When they’d offered him his own chests of
jewels and gold, he’d bartered instead for that. A few months in
this world, taking it in, seeing as much of it as he could see.
    Before he’d come here, discussing his
involvement with Valentine, he’d already put in notice at work.
    And then Valentine had assured him she would
find him a position in New Orleans and he was all for that. A big
adventure where he didn’t have to worry about reporting for duty,
any cases he’d left open, nothing.
    Then afterward, a new place, new job, new
start.
    And the good news was, Circe would be there
because she lived in New Orleans, so he’d have someone to hang
with.
    Valentine lived there too but Noc didn’t see
that woman hanging with anyone. Though he suspected if they found a
place that made good martinis, she might stoop to throw a couple
back with them.
    Queen Aurora (and Frey, and when Noc kept
refusing, the kicker, Cora) had insisted he take a small bag of
those ice diamonds and a small chest of gold. And with his
adventure in this crazy place, that was all he needed. More than he
needed (Circe had taken more but she’d had a seriously fucked-up
life, was trying to make a go of it in NOLA as an office manager of
a towing company, and after all she’d had done to her, she deserved
some cush and the means to spoil herself).
    And that was what he was going to get, what
he was going to do, what was up next for Noc.
    The beautiful, but grieving, Franka Drakkar
with her pretty mouth didn’t factor.
    “So she’s your type,” Cora said, taking him
back into their conversation, “But you’re not gonna go there.”
    Noc shook his head. “She’s from here, I’m
from home. I’m going home. But it isn’t even about that,
babe. Tor got you back. Frey got Finnie back. Won’t go on because
you were there, you know. Franka didn’t get her man back.”
    “Don’t say that in front of Apollo,” she
whispered. “Maddie suggested that and it pisses him off. He thinks
she’s incapable of any emotion, much less love.”
    “You four couples aren’t the only ones who’ve
known love, Cora,” he returned. “Not bein’ a dick, but that’s the
way it is. And she’s stone cold on the outside, babe, but inside
the woman is in some serious pain. She’s capable of emotion, just
like you and me, and I know that because I saw it.”
    What he didn’t share was that Franka Drakkar
might be capable of more of it, with the pain he saw in her eyes,
the guilt that seemed to visibly weigh on her at what she’d
done.
    She just, for some reason, wouldn’t allow
herself to let it show, even maybe fully feel it.
    That reason was a mystery and Noc was a cop.
Cops were big on mysteries. Solving them, to be precise.
    Fuck.
    Another reason he had to steer clear of
Franka Drakkar.
    Cora nodded. “I think your perception of her
is right, at least the way she is with you, for whatever reason she
gave you that particular Franka. What concerns me, honey, is that
it seems to mean so much to you.”
    That was what concerned him too.
    “Woman’s in pain, she gave me that, she gave
me time,” he tried to explain it. “Tomorrow, she’ll be gone and
eventually she’ll be just another memory of this place. But you
spend hours with a woman drinking whiskey