I tossed my head. “A trait of which I’m most proud.”
His next came abruptly, with no warning.
Though, even warned, it was one thing all my life I knew I could never endure without breaking.
“You know I love you.”
I took a small step back.
My brother did not take this nonverbal cue.
“From the first memory I have of you, I fell in love with you. As a child, you were so beautiful, dazzling, and that never changed. And even then, I felt your strength.”
“Please, Kristian,” I whispered.
“I would not be here without you.”
“That’s not true.”
“You know it is. My mind would have broken. They’d have driven me literally mad.”
I shook my head. “Kristian, don’t.”
He ignored my plea.
“I will love you until my dying breath. And I will tell my children stories of your courage and strength and the depth of love you had for me so often they will love you until their dying breath. And they will share this with their children in a way that the name Franka Drakkar will never die, but will be spoken with devotion and reverence until my line ceases to exist.”
I felt them, cold and wet, hovering on my cheekbones. The burn in my throat threatened to consume me as I fought to keep them back, but I failed.
They fell down my cheeks.
“Please go to this other world and find happiness, sister,” Kristian whispered.
I nodded, swallowed, and more tears fell.
He opened his arms and continued whispering.
“Now please come here so I can hold you.”
My feet moved me directly to him, right into his arms.
They closed around me.
The instant they did, the sob wracked through me.
It was painful, pain so deep, there was no cure.
And it was cleansing, a clean so thorough, I’d never, not once in my life, felt so pure.
“I wish I had magic like you do,” he said into the top of my hair. “I’d wipe away the scars that mar your beauty with ugly memories and remind you that you were never allowed to be happy. Doing this making you believe you have that right and you should reach for it.”
“Y-you…m-must…stop,” I stammered through my weeping.
“For you, Franka, I will stop.”
And he did as promised, holding me as the wet poured forth. Years of tears I was not allowed to shed, I did so, letting them leak into my brother’s shirt, dousing it, giving him the privilege for once, of returning the favor and absorbing my pain.
When I quieted to unladylike hiccoughs I didn’t have the energy to feel mortification over, his arms tightened and he said quietly, “You give Brikitta and I what you wish to give from your treasure, love, and we’ll accept it with glad hearts.”
I nodded.
One of his arms left me so he could put a fist light to the underside of my chin. He leaned back as he lifted it and looked down at me.
“I shall call Josette to see to you. Would you like me to share with the others that you’ll need to miss drinks and will join us at the dinner table?”
This meant I looked a fright.
Gods.
I nodded again.
He smiled at me tenderly. Shifting his fist so his hand cupped my jaw, he swept his thumb through the wet there. Once he’d done this, he bent and touched his lips to my forehead.
He straightened, gave me another squeeze with his one arm and held me steady until I made a slight move to share I was all right to stand on my own.
He let me go and went to the cord that would send Josette to me.
He pulled it and moved to the door.
Stopping at it, he turned to me. “I’ll see you at dinner, sister.”
I again nodded and replied, “You will.”
Another tender smile before he started to close the door behind him.
“Kristian,” I called.
He stopped and tipped his head to the side.
“You know I love you too,” I told him.
He stood solid in the doorway, eyes on me, and I watched them grow bright with wet.
I also watched the one tear fall.
And I heard the hoarse of his voice that was so beautiful, if it held healing power, the scars on my back would vanish in but an instant, when he replied, “That, my beloved sister, you truly must know I always, but always, knew.”
And on that, he shut the door, disappearing behind it.
* * * * *
Averting my face from Noc (who was my dinner partner, again) an hour later, with Josette’s assistance, feeling and more importantly looking refreshed, I sat down at the table as Noc held my chair.
Regardless, I averted my face, for I looked refreshed but Noc had a way of seeing beyond the surface, and tonight of all nights, this was something I didn’t wish him to see.
I busied myself with my napkin, my jaw tilted away from him as Noc took his own seat.
My efforts were instantly foiled when he barely got his arse in his chair before his lips were at my ear.
“Baby, what the fuck?”
Damn.
And he hadn’t even properly seen me!
I smoothed my napkin over my lap.
“Pardon?” I asked with an effort at innocently, failing miserably because this trait was something my parents stripped from me when I was five, so I had no idea how to pull it off.
“Look at me.”
Oh blast.
I couldn’t demur, he’d force the issue. At the dinner table. And it was safe to say I’d already endured enough mortification at this dinner table.
I turned to Noc and he pulled his head away while I did.
His eyes traveled my face and I fought both a blush and shifting in my chair.
He looked at me and his repetition was this time growled.