Midnight Soul Read Online Free Page A

with laughter.
    I ignored this and told him, “I don’t know
these games.”
    He again smiled. “That would be me showin’
you how they work.”
    I took in his smile.
    I looked in his eyes.
    There was amusement there (as there seemed to
be since he entered the room, something I’d never encountered in my
life, such good humor).
    There was also intelligence, a great deal
that could not be hidden even if, for some reason, he were to wish
to try.
    And there was kindness, so much, there was
more than enough to exploit should one have that in mind.
    But there was no guile.
    Even Antoine had an agenda when it came to
me. To anyone. That was how one lived in my world. Not just my
universe, the world I lived in due to the status I carried.
    Noctorno Hawthorne of the world of magical
gadgets had none.
    And staring in his eyes, I felt a sensation
gathering behind mine I hadn’t felt since I was a young child.
    “You should not be kind to me,” I
whispered.
    His expression changed.
    It did not go wary.
    It warmed with a gentleness that made it feel
my insides were unravelling.
    “Franka,” he whispered back.
    “You should not be kind to me,” I
repeated.
    “Babe—”
    “I’ve done terrible things.”
    He said nothing, just stared right into my
eyes, unafraid, without judgement, holding my gaze steady.
    “I love my frosted country,” the whiskey (or
the wine) made me whisper. “They don’t think so. They don’t know. I
can’t…” I shook my head, enough of my faculties still intact not to
give him that. “I don’t let that be known. I’ve traveled the
Northlands extensively. But there’s nothing like the air in Lunwyn.
I prefer it in the many months it’s covered in snow. I prefer the
chill. I prefer the cold air carving through your innards, washing
them clean.”
    Something flickered in his gaze.
    Curiosity.
    “Franka—”
    “I would do nothing… nothing …to betray
my country.” My voice dropped beyond a whisper to nearly nothing.
“But for him.”
    “I get it.”
    I shook my head. “You don’t.” I lifted a hand
weakly then dropped it in my lap. “They don’t.”
    I was referring to Queen Aurora. Frey and his
Finnie. King Lahn and his Circe. Prince Noctorno and his Cora.
Apollo and his Madeleine. The green witch Valentine. Lavinia.
    Everybody.
    “They get it,” he returned.
    “No, they don’t.”
    “They get it, sweetheart. You don’t think if
those men had the same choice as you, their women taken, tortured,
living in the pits of hell every day for weeks, fucking months …or those women had that choice with their men…they
wouldn’t make the same choice as you?”
    “I shared this exact sentiment with them and
they—”
    He leaned deeply across the seat over the
table that separated us, very close to me, and his voice was the
lash of a whip when he interrupted me to state, “ Lied .”
    He did not move away as he continued, and
when he did his voice was no less strong.
    “They fuckin’ lied, Franka. I know those are
good men who have done remarkable things for their countries. I
also know they wouldn’t hesitate to do anything in their power to
keep their women safe and free from harm. So, since they weren’t in
your position, they can say whatever the fuck they wanna say. But
today, when Cora and Circe and Maddie and Finnie were taken, if
they weren’t made safe as quickly as they were, if you think for
one fuckin’ second each one of those men wouldn’t make a deal with
the goddamned devil to make that so, you…are… wrong .”
    He jerked a finger at his chest and didn’t
cease talking.
    “I know, ’cause I’m a man like that. And if I
had a woman I loved like those men love their women, I’d do it and
I wouldn’t fuckin’ blink .”
    That sensation behind my eyes became stronger
as I asked, “You would?”
    “Fuck yes,” he stated inflexibly. “And I
wouldn’t even blink.”
    It had started, and for the first time in
decades I could stop the flow of words