Broken Dove

by Kristen Ashley

  “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 fucked 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.

  I’d already apologized, admitted I’d messed up.

  Now I didn’t know what to do except give him some time.

  Time I figured he’d take, considering the last time he retreated into anger it had taken four days and me approaching and laying myself bare to sort things out.

  I wasn’t going to give it four days this time.

  But I was going to give him space.

  This meant a thrill of surprise shot through me when I heard the front door open and close.

  I turned my head to the door to the sitting room, half expecting someone else to show there. Therefore I was even more surprised when Apollo’s big frame filled the doorway.

  He hesitated in it before he took a step inside the room.

  I pulled myself out of my stupor and made a move to get to my feet.

  I stopped when he ordered curtly, “Halt.”

  I blinked.

  Halt?

  His weirdly formal order made my heart begin to race as I stared up at him standing across the room from me.

  Far away.

  The length of a room that for some reason felt like an ocean.

  And it felt like an ocean because his face was impassive. The same as he’d given me when he was angry at me before.

  I hated it when he was like this; it scared the crap out of me.

  But it was definitely better than him hitting me (or kicking me).

  He also got over it.

  And this time, I deserved it.

  So I settled in to take it.

  “What you did today was beyond foolish,” he stated.

  I drew in a deep breath, nodded, and said softly, “I know, honey.”

  “My son missing, I did not need to bring him back to find you were the same.”

  “No,” I agreed. “You didn’t.”

  “I instructed you not to leave the house,” he reminded me (again).

  I took in another breath, this one through my nose, before I nodded and said, “I know, Lo. What I did was stupid. So stupid. And I’m so, so sorry.”

  He showed no indication he heard my apology.

  Instead, he declared, “I’m uncertain if you’ve been informed, but unlike you, Christophe did not get played by trickery. He ran away.”

  “Cristiana explained,” I told him, and she had, when Achilles escorted me home after Apollo turned his back on me.

  This was not a surprise either. Chris had not been in a good way since Brunskar.

  It sucked that he’d been moved to that. He had to be feeling things deeply, bad things, things he couldn’t work through on his own in order to be moved to do something like that, especially in times like these. I was worried about why he had been and his current state of mind.

  But I didn’t figure now was the time to broach that particular subject.

  “My son has a variety of things preying on his mind. He needs his father’s attention,” Apollo announced.

  I again nodded, this time slowly. I didn’t do it slowly because I wasn’t expecting that Apollo would want to look after his son. I did it slowly because he was saying those words but I got the impression he not only meant them but also something else.

  “And I have a variety of things to think on,” he continued.

  That didn’t sound good.

  “Like what?” I asked, my voice weak with fear because I didn’t like the way this conversation was going at all.

  “I’ll discuss that with you after I’ve thought on them,” he stated. “In the meantime, I shall need to attend my son so I shall n
ot be attending you.”

  Shit.

  There it was.

  Oh God.

  God.

  God.

  My chest had compressed, making it hard to breathe, but I fought it and slowly gained my feet at the side of the sofa.

  “Apollo—” I whispered.

  He allowed me to get no further.

  “I’ve made some grave mistakes. I must see to rectifying them.”

  What did that mean?

  My heart started hammering in my chest so my voice sounded breathy when I asked, “What mistakes?”

  “I’ll explain when I’ve thought on them, come up with a plan, put it in action and rectified them,” he declared.

  “You’re still angry with me,” I deduced quietly.

  “Livid,” he bit off, his formal aloof demeanor slipping as he said that two-syllable word in a tone that proved it absolutely true.

  Then, unbelievably unfortunately, he spoke on.

  I’d felt the edge of his tongue when he spoke without controlling his emotion before doing it.

  Each time he’d done this, it had gutted me.

  But this time, it destroyed me.

  “It would seem I am much like your father, Madeleine, for no matter how I wish to keep you from harm, you consistently find your way into it by making rash decisions that lead to dire consequences.”

  After he finished, I stared at him hoping he did not just say that.

  Or, since he obviously did, that he would immediately take it back.

  I’d told him all about my father.

  He knew. He freaking knew.

  He knew that wasn’t right and he knew how his saying that would make me feel.

  I stood there, staring at him, and gave it time.

  Apollo didn’t take it back.

  “He didn’t wish to keep me from harm,” I whispered and I wanted to kick myself because it sounded uncertain and it bloody wasn’t. Then I pointed out, “When offered the chance, he didn’t even try.”

  “Or he may have been smart enough to know when he should give up.”

  Now, he did just say that.

  He’d said it.

  Straight up.

  I knew because I felt the blow and when I did, I flinched and put a hand to my belly to soothe the pain that shot through me.

  Apollo’s face didn’t change in the slightest as he witnessed this.

  I had fucked up. I knew it. I knew it was huge. I admitted it. I apologized for it.

  But even as big as it was, an attack this brutal was undeserved.

  Completely underserved.

  “Attempt to stay safe and not do anything unwise, if you can manage that,” he went on, his tone ominously final, and a chill of pure frost slid over my skin, making me shiver. “We will speak further when there’s something to say.”

  I had things to say.

  I had tons of things to say.

  I didn’t get a single thing out.

  This was because, for the second time that day, for the fourth time of our acquaintance (yes, I fucking counted), without another word, after having lowered the boom on me, Apollo turned and walked away.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Where did you go from there?

  “I’ve seen some serious stuff on this world, and I mean serious. Serious cool. Serious crazy. Serious sick. But this was serious beautiful.”

  Circe, Finnie, Loretta, Meeta and I were in the sitting room of the dower house and Circe was explaining the procedure of getting her magic back.

  Loretta was cuddling and cooing to Circe’s drowsy, close-to-a-nap baby daughter, Isis.

  Meeta was cuddling (but not cooing) to Finnie’s snoozing Viktor.

  I was trying to contain a very active Tunahn, Circe’s baby boy, a child Circe shared was immune to naps (and sleep on the whole most of the time).

  I was listening because it was interesting.

  I was also not listening because my heart was bleeding.

  It had been two days since I’d fucked up huge, Apollo came and took his anger out on me, and I had not seen or heard from him since.

  This was not a surprise. It must be said, the man could hold a grudge.

  But this time it was worse.

  He had a right to be angry.

  But the way he expressed that was not okay.

  In thinking on it, it occurred to me that it had not been okay the first time he did it. Or the second. And definitely not the last.

  I’d run away from Pol so I wasn’t his literal whipping post.

  I didn’t need to be with a man who used me as his verbal one.

  I mean, seriously.

  Since Apollo was again keeping a distance, Cristiana, Meeta and Loretta were keeping an eye on me, Cristiana especially. But this time, I didn’t feel it was up to me to go to Apollo and apologize.

  No way.

  It wasn’t like I’d screwed up and tried to pretend it wasn’t a big deal and told him to just get over it. I’d owned up to it straight away.

  Then he’d way overreacted.

  In fact, I wasn’t sure there was any situation where his reaction would be appropriate.

  Or, honestly, forgivable.

  Since we left Brunskar I’d been feeling more and more like shit because Apollo had so much to offer and I had so little.

  I sure as hell didn’t need him to point that crap out.

  The good news was, Apollo allowed Élan to come have lunch with me yesterday, at her request. This was super sweet and I loved spending time with her because she was super sweet. She was also so exuberant, witnessing her natural delight at pretty much everything was the only time I could forget my growing anger.

  The other good news was, Finnie and Circe came and went as they pleased. And with the men holed up talking about dragons, elves, witches and war plans, they had time to come and go as they pleased. So I was getting to know Finnie more and Circe better, which was nice, since they both were great.

  The bad news was not only was Apollo entirely absent, so was Chris.

  Chris had run away because of me.

  This was weighing on my mind. I was worried. I was hoping Apollo was giving him what he needed. And I felt powerless because I couldn’t do anything to help.

  In fact, it was me that was the reason he hurt.

  Knowing I was causing pain to Christophe didn’t suck.

  It killed.

  That was also weighing on my mind and call me selfish, I knew he had things weighing on his mind too, but Apollo had to know it.

  And still he attacked.

  I’d thought on it (and thought on it) and there was no way to twist what Apollo had said into being understandable.

  It just wasn’t right.

  During her visit the day before, I had learned that Circe and Lahn, with Zahnin and Bain as Circe’s personal guard, had been transported here by Valentine.

  I say Circe’s guard because Lahn didn’t need a guard. He was a one man guard all on his own and only a fool would attack that man. I mean, those birds didn’t even attempt to peck away at him and they were brainless creatures formed from magic but still, they knew better than to even try.

  Circe told me that upon arrival in Lunwyn, Valentine had immediately sensed I was in danger and Lahn, Zahnin, Bain (with Lahn bringing Circe along because he refused to be far from her) sprang to my rescue without telling Apollo or anyone they were here.

  Apparently, the ritual Circe was conducting to recoup her powers had gone a lot faster than expected. Since Valentine was already there to tell them she was moving them all to Lunwyn when it was finished, she’d just moved them all to Lunwyn.

  The real Cora and Tor were with them but could not come because he had something pressing happening, seeing as he was not only a marked man with a marked wife but also a prince of two realms so shit had to get done.

  They were arriving as soon as whatever royal stuff he had to do was done.

  The other five hundred (yes, five hundred) members of Circe’
s personal guard that Lahn insisted accompany her to the Northlands were riding their horses up from the Vale seeing as Valentine wasn’t real hip on transporting an entire army.

  Depending on how good of time they made, they’d be here in three weeks to a month.

  So now we were in my sitting room visiting.

  And I was trying to figure out how I could sort the latest mess I’d gotten myself into.

  What I was trying not to do was think about the fact that maybe I didn’t want to.

  I hadn’t had any sleep since it happened. Not a wink. I was mentally exhausted (for, Lord knew, it was a veritable impossibility to become physically exhausted because with a housekeeper and two ladies maids, there was nothing for me to do).

  All I could do was think on what Apollo said to me. How ugly it was. How uncalled for it was. How he had to know how it would wound me.

  And last, that he’d let that sit for two days, maybe expecting me to go to him and smooth things over like Cristiana advised before.

  And perhaps I should.

  But I felt deep down inside that I shouldn’t.

  I took a lot from Pol.

  I had to draw a line with Apollo.

  But the man he was, maybe he wouldn’t come to me.

  See?

  All this crap in my head, it was no wonder I couldn’t sleep.

  Not to mention, worrying about Christophe and still feeling like an idiot because I’d done something so immensely stupid to start all this off.

  I was so over it.

  The problem was, I was over it, but it just wasn’t over.

  I was beginning to see the wisdom of Captain Kirk loving them and leaving them as he boldly went where no man had gone before (in the case of some of his alien partners, probably in two ways).

  Because it hurt to love.

  Especially when you fucked up.

  Huge.

  Then they fucked up.

  Arguably even more huge.

  Because where did you go from there?

  And yes, I loved Apollo. I fell for him the instant he’d looked at me, his eyes filled with tenderness and pain. I knew this because alone at night (and also when I was alone during the day), when I wasn’t worrying or being pissed, I ran over every moment we’d shared in my head.

  In doing this, I knew that a man who could look like that was a man who could feel anything, everything, and do it deeply, completely, magnificently.