Their first date.
I was aghast.
Surely, my magic said more than hamburgers for a first date.
“I find this highly disturbing,” Lavinia murmured.
I did as well.
I mean, hamburgers?
Valentine and I turned our attention to her.
She shifted her eyes from the couple to us. “All the beauty you can make with your magic, you use it to meddle in people’s lives?”
“We give them what they want,” Valentine replied.
“And that man,” Lavinia gestured to the restaurant across the street, “did he want her?”
“He does now,” I shared the obvious.
Lavinia rolled her eyes skyward.
Even though we’d just started, Valentine made it known that she was quite done talking about this.
“We’ve a booking at Arnaud’s in half an hour. Noc, Dax and Circe are meeting us there. We must be going.”
Lavinia sighed and we all moved to where Valentine had parked her car.
“These conveyances, I cannot get used to them,” the other-world witch muttered as we did.
“I felt the same,” I shared. “As you seem to enjoy spending time in this world, we’ll teach you how to drive. Trust me, it’ll make it better.”
Lavinia cast horrified eyes to me.
I smiled a small smile.
The car made a noise while its lights flashed, telling us the doors were open.
Valentine headed to the driver’s side speaking.
“That job complete, having been away, I have many lined up, Franka,” she said to me. “Are you ready for your next?”
This one was hardly a challenge.
And it ended in hamburgers.
I was very much ready for my next.
“Of course,” I replied to her over the roof of the car. “Do you have one in mind?”
“Yes,” she stated.
I studied her face and the look on it made a thrill gather at the small of my back.
“Your next client seeks revenge,” she whispered.
I held her eyes, and at her words, my smile was still small.
But it spoke volumes.
* * * * *
Korwahk
“Stop drooling, sugarlips.”
“Mm?”
“Babe.”
“Yes?”
A shaking “Frannie,” mingled with an arm tightening around my shoulders, curling me to Noc’s front meant I was forced to tear my eyes from the Korwahk warrior.
Oh so many moons ago, I’d briefly met him back in Fyngaard, although after the troubles he’d quickly been away home.
He was one of Lahn’s most trusted lieutenants.
His name was Zahnin.
And his ferocity of appearance was a match for Lahn’s. I’d found him most frightening, and as lovely as many things on him were to look at, at the time I did not admit to the relief I felt when I heard he was gone.
But now, here, in his homeland in its capital city of Korwahn, standing on its Majestic Rim, awaiting the ceremony that was soon to commence, he was with his wife.
And his children.
Before Noc pulled me away, I’d been watching the little boy crawling up his long, stout leg while Zahnin was tickling, squeezing and throwing up in the air his baby girl, catching her as she giggled uncontrollably. And she kept doing so while he blew kisses into her neck.
Then, easily tucking her in his long, strong arm, he’d bent to haul up his toddler son, the boy going up shrieking his glee, and the warrior juggled them both against the large expanse of his bare, brown-skinned, painted chest, to their abandoned delight.
Through all this, his exceedingly pretty Fleuridian wife, Sabine, stood pressed close to his side, both her arms wrapped around his middle, and looked on with unconcealed adoration.
Of her children, of course.
But mostly her husband.
I could understand this.
His smile was white and wide, transforming his face.
There was no fierceness there, not now.
Only love and happiness.
Something that veritably beamed from him when he’d finally turned his attention from their children and gazed with open and frank devotion at his wife.
Right then, I looked up to Noc and saw no fierceness either.
His smile was white and wide but it didn’t transform his face.
My Noc always showed me his love and the happiness I gave him.
And the devotion he gave to me.
Thus I melted into his body.
“Would be jealous you’re pervin’ on that guy if you didn’t wake up happy to be back in your world and feelin’ the need to go down on me,” he noted.
I frowned.
Noc kept smiling. “You told me a year ago that I’d be in an adobe house that had running water only because it was fed direct from a river, that house in a parallel universe, waking up in that place to get the best blowjob of my life, I’d be intrigued, but I’d think you were crazy.”
“This is hardly the topic for discussion on a day like today,” I snapped. “Circe and Lahn haven’t invited us here for you to be rude.”
He dipped his face closer to mine, still smiling. “Babe, first, no one understands a fuckin’ thing I’m sayin’ seein’ as no one speaks English. And second, you think there aren’t gonna be a lotta blowjobs goin’ around today, you’re very wrong. Weddings make people horny.”
Well!
“That may be so but you don’t discuss it moments before the joyous festivities begin.” I admonished. “Regardless if people don’t understand you, that wolfish look on your face speaks volumes.”
His wolfish look got even more wolfish (which I had to admit, though not to Noc, was most attractive). “If they had airplanes here, I’d hire one to skywrite how good my woman is at giving head.”