Valentine studied her friend and wondered if she didn’t sense it.
Lavinia was nowhere near as powerful as Valentine was.
However, she held great power. She should be able to sense it.
Where she sat across from Lavinia in the warm comfort of her rooms in the palace, she asked, “Do you not sense it?”
“I sense it,” Lavinia replied.
As Valentine thought.
“Unusual in your world, no?” Valentine asked.
“Unusual and unlawful,” Lavinia replied shortly.
Yes, from what Valentine had learned, it was.
Intriguing.
Valentine’s gaze drifted back to her crystal as she purred, “Hmm…”
“The only reason I like that look on your face, Valentine, is because I sense your interest in Franka Drakkar will mean you will not leave our world as you’d planned after Apollo and Maddie’s wedding. I enjoy your company. Over the last months, I prayed to the gods our troubles would end without too much destruction and heartache. But with the fondness I hold for you, I still faced the end of those troubles with a heavy heart for I knew it would take you away, for there would no longer be any reason for you to come back. Therefore, even if the reason you’d stay, or return, is Franka Drakkar, I’ll take it.”
Valentine nodded, touched in spite of herself at Lavinia’s words.
Valentine made a habit of not connecting with mere mortals. Not that she was a goddess, but she was also no mere mortal. This, a habit she’d broken of late, precisely when she’d started dabbling in travel between the worlds, her own and the women she’d brought here.
“No, indeed, I do believe things will continue to be interesting in this world,” she raised her eyes to Lavinia. “The good kind of interesting this time.”
Lavinia shook her head, a smile playing at her mouth, and Valentine knew if she didn’t feel it was beneath her, she would have rolled her eyes.
Valentine felt her lips curl at her friend’s reaction, but her thoughts strayed.
There had been much that had happened over the last years in this universe. It took a great deal of attention. So it wasn’t a surprise that the few people she knew in this world, most of them quite clever, had not taken the time to scratch under the surface of Franka Drakkar.
The truth of the matter was Valentine would have been interested in her even if she was as vile as they all thought she was.
In this world, much more than Valentine’s own (even though it was still prevalent in her own, irritatingly), a woman had very little power.
In this world, she had to rely solely on her cunning and wits, her looks, her sexuality, anything at her disposal, in order to get what she needed, grasp hold of what she wanted, wield as much power as she could amass.
These were not weak weapons in any arsenal, a woman’s or a man’s.
It was just, for some reason Valentine didn’t understand, the organ swinging between a man’s legs put him at an advantage.
In this world, where wars were still fought with swords, bows and arrows, it was understandable physical strength was valued.
Understandable but still unacceptable, as the successful reign of Queen Aurora would attest.
And from what Valentine knew, Franka Drakkar enjoyed a good life with no paid occupation, traveling the Northlands, flitting from ball to ball in fine dresses, wreaking havoc as sport as she injected her venom, her aim so true there were many who actually feared her.
Yes, Valentine found Franka Drakkar very interesting.
She had business to attend to, amongst other, more intimate needs to be met, at home. Those intimate needs she hadn’t seen to in a long time.
She needed to return to New Orleans, see to that business, then spirit back for the wedding.
She was in the mood to do a little scratching, dig beneath the surface.
And it was what lay under the skin of Franka Drakkar that she wished to discover.
* * * * *
Noc
“You’re brooding.”
“I’m not brooding.”
“You’re totally brooding.”
“Who even says brooding?”
“They do here.”
Noc scowled at Cora.
Princess Cora, to be precise. Her twin was an evil one, and now a dead one, a casualty of yesterday’s dramas, and not a big loss.
Her body had been spirited to her parents in Hawkvale.
Fucking spirited.
Apparently they grieved.
But they were the only ones.
Jesus, this place was fucking crazy.
It was also crazy interesting.
But it was still fucking crazy.
The woman sitting next to him had to seriously love her man to give up their world to live in what seemed to Noc like a Renaissance Festival run amuck. A really good one. But with all that snow outside, a really cold one.
Though Cora had told him Bellebryn, where she lived, was much farther south and had a different climate.
“We have weather like Florida. Cool winters, warm summers, sunshiny days,” she’d said then shot him a huge smile. “Without the humidity, which makes it totally perfect.”
Noc shook himself out of his thoughts and carried on the conversation.
“She’s not that girl,” he stated as to the reason of why he was “brooding.”
Cora’s beautiful face got even more beautiful when she openly showed her concern.
“I don’t know her, but from what Frey and Apollo say, she is, as in she really is,” she replied. “And Maddie told me the story of what she’d said to her, right to her face, and, Noc, it was not nice.”