Broken Dove (Fantasyland 4)

After I spoke, Lahn spoke but he said a bunch of stuff I had no clue what he was saying.

After he was done, Circe spoke and I looked back to her.

“Zahnin and Bain know some English, since they’ve been around me for a while, and been in Hawkvale for another while, but they don’t know much. Lahn was interpreting.”

“Ah,” I mumbled.

Zahnin said something in their language and I watched Circe grin then quickly beat it back.

“What did he say?” I asked.

She again looked to me. “You don’t want to know.”

Zahnin also thought I’d been stupid.

I couldn’t get uppity because he was so right.

I decided to remain silent.

Everyone else did too.

This did nothing for my trepidation.

Trepidation that turned into out and out panic when I noted Frey’s men Ruben and Oleg ahead of us on horses. They were galloping through the snow what looked determinedly.

The second they saw us, they reined in, took us in, gave Lahn chin lifts then wheeled around and galloped away.

They had not been looking for Chris.

They’d been looking for me.

I hoped this meant someone had found Chris.

Though, I had a feeling it also meant they were heading straight back to share that Lahn and his crew had found me.

This didn’t make me feel better.

I felt even worse when five minutes later the forest opened up and Karsvall came into view.

A Karsvall that had a shitload of men standing in front of it, one of them Apollo, as well as Chris looking healthy and fit (thank God), Finnie, Frey, some old guy I’d never seen before who had a weathered face and a shock of white hair that was such a shock that it kind of freaked me out (more than I was already, that was), and finally, the redheaded witch, Valentine.

I couldn’t think on the guy with white hair or Valentine being there after months of not seeing her.

No, heads turned our way, but after quickly assessing our audience, I only had eyes for Apollo.

He was holding himself very still and even from far away, I saw his face was granite.

Yep.

He was going to lose his mind.

Circe spurred her horse to go faster, Lahn followed suit and Zahnin and Bain did the same.

But Circe arrived first.

Without greeting, she launched right in and when she did, even though it was not in question, I totally knew I liked her.

“She was led away by the twin of Cora,” she stated.

Apollo didn’t tear his eyes from me when he ordered Lahn, also without greeting, “Put her down.”

Crap.

“Now,” he finished when Lahn didn’t move quickly enough.

However, Lahn had moved and so I had feet to the snow way before I was ready.

“She couldn’t know she was her twin, Apollo,” Circe went on. “The other Cora hasn’t been seen or heard from in months. We weren’t even sure she was still alive. And she explained your son was missing and she was concerned. The other Cora told her that they’d found him and he’d only talk to her.”

She was doing a bang up job explaining but I had a feeling so much blood was rushing to Apollo’s head, he couldn’t hear her because his reply was to me.

And it was another order.

“Come here.”

I held his eyes and said softly, “I’m sorry. I screwed up.”

“Come here,” he repeated.

“I know it was a big screw up, honey,” I told him.

“I do not know what this term means. I also do not give a bloody damn.” He came unstuck to lean slightly toward me. “Now, come…here.”

I took in a deep breath.

Then, keeping my gaze to his, I went there.

The instant I was in reach, he crushed me to him just like he’d done after Frey and his dragons saved Meeta, Loretta and I.

“I’m sorry,” I wheezed against his chest.

He gave me a powerful squeeze that I thought might break a few ribs before he abruptly let me go.

He took a step back and at the look on his face, which was not the relief I felt in his hug, I braced.

“You are lucky you have the opportunity to feel sorry, Madeleine. Your other choices were dead or captured, tortured and used to push me into doing something foolhardy to rescue you and then who knows. Perhaps my children would be without a father as well as a mother.”

Okay.

Yes.

Totally f**ked up.

Huge.

I heard a noise I knew was from Christophe, it was small but I felt it pierce my skin like a dagger.

“It was stupid,” I admitted, because it was and I wanted him to know I knew it.

“It bloody was,” Apollo agreed.

“I was worried about Chris,” I whispered.

It was lame.

I knew it.

So did Apollo.

“Before I left, I instructed that you not leave this house,” he reminded me.

He totally did.

I set my teeth to worrying my lip.

“For any reason,” Apollo continued.

I quit worrying my lip and asked cautiously, “Can we continue this inside?”

“We aren’t continuing this at all,” he clipped, his words ringing with an ominous finality that made me think that he was not talking about our discussion but something else entirely.

A chill slid over my skin that had not one thing to do with the cold.

Apollo turned to Achilles.

“Take her to the dower house.”

My heart stuttered painfully in my chest at his words.

It stopped altogether when he turned his back to me, moved sideways a step and commandeered his son by clamping him on the shoulder. Then he led Chris into the house, Chris looking back at me with an expression I couldn’t decipher.

There was relief there.

There was also, strangely, guilt.

Then the dark caverns of its interior closed in behind them and they disappeared.

* * * * *

Late that evening, I sat in the sitting room at the dower house, curled on the sofa with a shawl around my shoulders in an effort to beat back the chill that even the roaring fire was not keeping from the room.

My eyes were aimed out the windows.

As she always did, Cristiana lit torches in front of the house just in case we had visitors.

Something we often had.

At the very least, Apollo came every night.

Now, staring into the torch lit night, watching the heavy snow fall, I had a feeling Apollo wasn’t going to come.

His reaction upon my return was not bizarre. He was big on retreating into anger. I’d learned that lesson the hard way.

But there was something weird about this.

Something wrong.

Something I wasn’t certain I could set right.