Free Midnight Soul by Kristen Ashley

voice.
    He couldn’t be here. I had to have blacked
out.
    “Who are you?” my father asked.
    “Get Frey.” Noc’s voice ordered.
    “You’ll do no such thing!” my father snapped,
his deep voice no longer astonished but annoyed.
    “Fucking get Frey !” Noc demanded.
    “You’ll mind your betters,” my father
hissed.
    A moment of nothing before,
“Goddamn… get … Frey .”
    The pain drove deep as I chanced looking over
my shoulder and saw Josette disappear from the doorway.
    I also saw Noc, fury carved in his handsome
features, moving to me.
    How was he there?
    Why was he there?
    The pain remained, I couldn’t have slipped
into oblivion.
    Thus he was bloody there .
    “Know your place!” my father commanded on a
near-shout. “Remove yourself from this room this instant!”
    Noc didn’t remove himself from the room. He
arrived at my front, his eyes holding mine.
    His voice came as a shock, precisely the
gentleness running through it that belied the look of wrath seated
deep in his eyes. “Let go of the hook, baby.”
    “This is beyond the pale, a servant intruding
on private matters of members of the most powerful House in
Lunwyn!” my father decreed loudly.
    “Frannie, sweetheart,” Noc whispered,
ignoring Papa, and I felt his hand touch light at my waist, “let go
of the hook.”
    “Intolerable!” my father bit out. “Franka, is
this domestic your lover?” he demanded.
    “No,” I answered my father hoarsely. “You
must go, Noc,” I whispered to Noc, not wishing to whisper, but I
had the strength for nothing more. “Please. You must. It will be
worse if he doesn’t get to finish. I need to complete my
punishment.”
    A flare of rage blazed in his eyes but he
simply repeated, “Let go of the hook. Hold on to me.”
    “I need to endure or they’ll turn to
Kristian,” I told him.
    “Please, baby, let go. I got you,” Noc
replied.
    “Stand back,” my father ordered.
    “You must go,” I went on.
    “Promise, Franka, I got you,” Noc said.
    “Stand bloody back !” my father
commanded, his voice no longer affronted and annoyed.
    No, it was much worse.
    At the warning of it, sheer terror coursed
through me, almost paralyzing.
    “You must go,” I declared. “ Now or he’ll—”
    As I spoke my last, my father thundered,
“ Stand back! ”
    But through his thunder, I heard the whistle
of the whip.
    I knew he’d repositioned and I knew his
aim.
    It was not me.
    Therefore I did what I did next
automatically, without thinking. I did something I never did. Not
since I was a youngster. Not since I’d learned how vile it was,
what I had in me, what my mother gave to me, what I took great
pains to hide, using intrigue and torment like weapons not only as
was expected of a Drakkar, not only as a way to hold others at bay
so they wouldn’t be touched by the darkness of my soul, but as a
way to conceal the true power I held.
    I let go of the hook and twisted. Unable to
bury my cry of pain when the fire of the movement tore through my
back, I lifted a hand and swept it wide and high, the sapphire glow
bursting forth, the tip of my father’s lash glancing against it,
sending it back where it tore through the skin of his face.
    He fell back in surprise and pain, his feet
slipping from under him, landing on his arse.
    That would not mean good things for me.
    But at least he’d not landed the whip on
Noc.
    “Holy fuck,” Noc whispered.
    I turned back to Noc urgently.
    “You must go. I’ve done wrong. Kristian has
done wrong. I must endure or they’ll turn their attention to
Kristian and he won’t endure, Noc. He won’t . And I
must protect him.”
    “Franka, who the fuck is that guy?” Noc
asked.
    His look of shock barely penetrated when I
answered, “My father. And I must complete the punishment. I must .”
    “Baby, this shit is whacked.” He started to
unbutton his shirt. “Let’s get you covered. Frey can deal with him.
Let’s see if this place has a doc—”
    I’d heard my