Bloody hell.
Keeping my focus on Circe and not looking at Noc, who I felt now at my back, I shook my still-lifted hand, stating swiftly, “He tried to talk me out of it.”
Her attention sliced to me, she hid the hurt and her face twisted. “Of course he did. He’s not that kind of man. But you’re just that kind of woman, aren’t you?”
The verbal strike came so unexpected I couldn’t stop myself from reacting physically, doing this like I’d been slapped.
“Circe.” Her name from Noc’s lips now came as a growl.
A disappointed one.
And a warning one.
She turned her gaze to him. “She is,” she bit off. “And you should know that.” She looked to me. “I know all about you. Baldur used to talk about you. He thought you were magnificent. Any time he mentioned you it seemed he was half in love with you.”
This was not a compliment.
Far from it.
And the idea of King Baldur, the Loathsome-But-Thankfully-Now-Dead finding me magnificent turned my stomach nauseatingly.
“I see you think what happened in there was not what actually happened in there,” Noc returned, “seeing as Lahn is right now prowling the foyer like a caged animal, looking for any excuse to march out here to check on you.”
Her pallor rose instantly as her eyes darted toward the doors to the restaurant.
This was not the right thing to say.
I stepped closer to her and immediately tried to soothe her fears. “He won’t. Noc will go to him.” I looked up at him. “And now might be a good time to do that, darling,” I suggested.
“No fuckin’ way,” he denied.
“I’ll be all right,” I assured him.
“You always are,” Circe cut in. “Wreaking havoc then blithely going on your way.”
I looked to her.
“My intention tonight was—” I began to explain.
“Your usual,” she intervened. “Malice. Wickedness. Toying with human beings just for sport.”
Without telling my feet to do so, at the force of her vitriol, I took a step back and ran into Noc.
His hand fell warm and reassuring on my waist.
I did not feel reassured.
“Your car, ma’am,” the valet said.
Circe turned to him and didn’t hesitate marching to her car where another black-short-pants-white-shirt-wearing young man was holding open her door.
“Circe, let me drive you home,” Noc called. “You’re upset. I’ll get you home safe and we can talk while I do.” His voice dipped and his fingers on me squeezed as he said, “We’ll call you and Josette a taxi.”
“Absolutely not,” Circe refused, swinging around the opened door to her car.
“It’s not smart to drive in your state,” Noc told her.
“I die in a fiery crash, that’s on her too,” she retorted, jerking her glorious head of hair my way before she folded into her car and slammed the door.
Noc pulled me out of the way even if we were of a safe distance, not to mention on the pavement, as she raced off in her vehicle starting fast and going faster.
I stared after her.
“You wanna tell me what in the fuck is going on?”
Still unrecovered from the altercation with Circe, I did not want to turn at Dax’s angry voice.
I had no choice but to turn at Dax’s angry voice.
Noc turned with me.
And oh yes.
Dax was angry.
My.
“Didn’t take a mind reader to see she was distraught and you let her get in her car and drive away?” Dax asked Noc incredulously and more than a little hostilely.
“She wasn’t in the mood to let cooler heads prevail,” Noc returned, doing this bitingly. “And now I gotta get my girls, my car and go after her to make sure she gets home okay.”
“Yeah, you do that, but do it knowing I’ll be wanting an explanation about why I feel like I’ve just been played and worse,” he lifted a long arm and stabbed a strong finger in the direction Circe roared off, “she was.”
“Fuck, shit, fuck,” Noc swore.
“You standing there being pissed is not making sure she gets home okay,” Dax informed him impatiently.
“Go get Josette,” Noc ordered to me.
Oh no.
I looked up at him. “I think I’d rather not leave you two alone.”
“Go get Jo, Frannie.”
And let the man I love get torn apart by a savage in front of an elegant other-world restaurant (or, he could try, Noc could likely defend himself quite well, still, they both could get hurt in the process)?
Categorically…
No.
I stared up at him and didn’t move.
He growled, no words, just the noise.
It was attractive.
But the look on his face meant this mingled with not a small amount of downright terrifying.
He turned back to Dax.
“Circe is a friend of ours. Frannie met you. Liked your manner. Liked the look of you. Liked your involvement with First Mother House. I’ll say no more about that, but I’m thinkin’ you’re a bright guy and you can put two and two together to understand why she orchestrated a fixup between the two of you at the same time you can put it together why Circe reacted violently to that, especially when it’s clear she took one look at you and was into you.”
“Are you…fucking…shitting me?”
As this ominous rumble came from Dax, I took a step back, my hands on Noc to try to make him take a step back with me, but he didn’t budge.
“So now you know what that was all about,” Noc went on. “And we’ll be sorting that out. You can tell me how pissed you are right now after you name your first son after me,” Noc stated audaciously and again looked at me. “Now, baby,” he dipped his face to mine, “go…get…Jo.”