Broken Dove (Fantasyland 4)

I felt the tenderness in his eyes sliding through my insides, however, I did feel it necessary to point out, “Just to say, the men who pay for it in my world, and the women who get paid, are what’s looked down on, Apollo. There’s more sexual freedom for those who are free to be…uh, sexually free.”

“Very odd,” he murmured and again focused more closely on me to say, “If Celise made you uncomfortable, my poppy, I apologize. She was not scheduled to meet me that night. However, she has favorite clients and I am one, so I’m not surprised.”

And I wasn’t surprised he was a favorite of the famous Celise whoever-she-was.

But I did wonder if he’d ever spanked her, drank adela tea with her or “explored” other things with her and I knew, for some reason, if he had, that would upset me.

A lot.

“Now, are we done with this topic?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered, not about to get into how much he explored the beautiful Celise.

His hands moved over my nightgown and he urged, “Then let’s move on to the other ones so I can get this charming but entirely in the way nightgown off you.”

I was suddenly not all that fired up about the other ones since they were harder but also because I wanted him to get my nightgown off of me.

Nevertheless, I persevered by stating, “What happened to bring us back to Karsvall, you’ve not mentioned it again.”

“No,” he confirmed readily. “This is because naught is happening. We’re waiting for men and missives to arrive but I don’t expect any of either until tomorrow.”

I loved it that he explained that to me but that wasn’t where I was going.

“Thank you for sharing that with me, baby,” I whispered and his hands stopped roaming so his arms could wrap around me again. “But that wasn’t why I mentioned it. I had a question.”

“And that question would be?”

“Well, the boys said frequently during dinner that night that we’re kind of at war.”

“Yes,” he stated.

“I’ve been thinking on it and that seems weird.”

“All of it is strange,” he agreed.

“No, I mean the part about being at war and that happening because someone attacked you and your family. I mean, a king somewhere, I would get. But why were you a target?”

His body went still.

Uh-oh.

“Apollo?” I called, even though he was right there. But his eyes had grown distant and I didn’t like that all that much.

He focused on me and I held my breath as he did this for a good long time without speaking.

I let out my breath when he broke his silence.

“There are two possible reasons for this,” he said.

“Okay,” I replied when he said no more.

“One is that I’m Queen Aurora’s strategist. I also served under King Atticus in this same position. This mostly included negotiations but there were skirmishes. Baldur was always conniving, he’d made some plays to wrest land from Lunwyn when he was the ruler of the now-gone Middleland. Most in Lunwyn don’t know about them because my men and I stopped them before they took hold.”

“Oh,” I whispered, unsure about where this was going, though still thinking it was pretty cool badass Apollo and his badass boys nipped that shit in the bud.

“Frey is a raider,” Apollo continued. “He is not a soldier. Lahn is a warrior but his country in the Southlands is much different than those in the Northlands. His army is highly trained, highly skilled, large in number and thus unbeatable.”

“Right,” I mumbled, thinking this was good news.

“What I’m saying is, although Lahn is very intelligent, and strategy would factor into what he does, his warriors are so trained, they need little direction, and so mighty, they always best a challenge. They’re known for it. This leaves Tor, who is also a warrior and a strategist. However, against our foes, we must put all our best minds together and Queen Aurora called upon me to be involved from the beginning. This could have made me a target, as any ruler or high-ranking general would be.”

This made sense. It sucked, but it made sense.

“And the other possible reason?” I prompted

He held my eyes, hesitated, but still, he gave it to me. “It could be that you were the target.”

What?

And why?

I picked one question and breathed it out.

“What?”

“Baldur has reason to be angry with all the couples who were brought together over the worlds. And Minerva herself connived to keep Tor and Cora apart by splitting Tor’s soul and putting the other half in a woman from your world. This, we feel, is not a coincidence.”

Oh boy.

“And you and I are now a couple brought together over the worlds,” he concluded.

It felt good him saying we were a couple. We hadn’t been together long but the time we had been together was intense. So yes, definitely good.

It didn’t feel good me being a possible target of angry ex-rulers and she-gods, though.

“This doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy, Apollo,” I told him.

“It doesn’t me, either, poppy. But we can’t know why they do what they do. We can only guess. And the coincidence is not something we can ignore.”

“Does Baldur have reason to be angry with you?”

“Except for fighting in the war against the traitors who killed Atticus and imprisoned Aurora and Finnie, a war where his son was slain, not especially.”

Well at least that was good.

“And…um, does he have a reason to be angry with the other me?” I asked hesitantly and his arms gave me a squeeze.

“No. Although I have met him at a variety of state affairs, and at some of them Ilsa was on my arm. But their meetings would be brief and insignificant to a man like Baldur.”

I nodded.

That was good too.

Except for one thing.

“So, with the attack, it was probably directed at you,” I guessed.

It was his turn to nod. “I have been thinking on this, Maddie, as it doesn’t make sense. The only thing I can consider that does is that they fired their dart to make a statement. That being that they didn’t have to use the mightiest weapons in their arsenal to make their first strike. The men who attacked us in Vasterhague were skilled. I do not like to think, if you hadn’t intervened, how that would have ended.”

I knew my face said “I told you so” when his lips curled up and his eyes lit with humor so I decided not to say it out loud.