Fantasyland 04 Broken Dove (31 page)

“They’re fine, Lo.” I heard Achilles say. “They’re in Élan’s room—”

He said no more as Apollo pushed through him and kept dragging me behind him. I had half a mind to at least aim a relieved smile at Achilles as Apollo pulled us by but I had to keep up and watch my footing so I had no shot.

It was a good plan because, in no time at all, I was going up stairs.

Then down a hall.

Then I was being hauled into a bright room, and with his hand firm in mine jerking me into his side, I came to a halt, lifted my eyes and caught sight of the children in the bed.

My systems shut down instantly.

All I could do was see.

A boy, I knew he was eight, almost nine. A girl I knew who was six.

They were all Apollo, the girl a female version, a very cute, very pretty female version, but they both were all him. No red hair. No brown eyes. No freckles.

Dark thick hair. Olive toned skin.

Jade eyes.

They were beautiful.

Beautiful.

My heart started bleeding.

The boy was in bed with the girl, holding her close, and she was trembling so badly, she shook her brother
and
I could see the tassels on the canopy on her bed shaking as well.

She was petrified, her face saturated with it.

There was no blood. No visible injuries.

But one of them had gotten to her.

I felt this realization hit Apollo as his rage permeated the room.

The girl whispered a trembling, “Papa.”

At the sound of her little scared voice, it happened.

I was suddenly on fire. Every inch of my skin blistering. My eyes burning. My brain boiling.

Without a thought, not even knowing what I intended to do, I tore my hand from Apollo’s and raced out of the room, down the hall, the stairs and out the opened front door, my heavy cloak billowing behind me.

I stopped in the snow, my cloak flying forward to wrap around me, and I counted.

Eight bodies.

I turned instantly to the man standing closest to me.

Gaston.

I stomped to him, wrapped my fist in his sweater and snapped, “Where are the other two?”

“Maddie—”

I beat his sweater into his chest, got up on my toes and screeched, “
Where are the other two?
”

His fingers began to curl on my biceps and he started, “Maybe we should—”

I pulled from him, moved blindly away and saw it.

Tracks and drag marks in the snow leading along the front of the house and around the corner.

I sprinted that way, following the tracks. I raced down the side of the house, into the back garden, past a pretty gazebo, a large greenhouse and into the forest beyond where I saw two torches lighting the outside of a small outbuilding.

Without hesitation, I ran to it and stormed in.

There was a man hanging by his hands from a hook. He was shirtless and bleeding profusely from a variety of wounds as well as a serious pummeling he took to his face.

Hans and Remi were standing close to him.

There was another man, also shirtless and bleeding, tied to a chair in the center of the space.

Derrik was standing behind him.

Laures was working him.

When I arrived, all the men looked to me in surprise and they kept their eyes on me when I stomped straight to the man in the chair, shoving past Laures and I bent, getting right in his face.

“
What did you do to her?
” I shrieked.

A hand came to rest on my shoulder and I heard Remi whisper, “Maddie.”

I shrugged it off and wrapped my gloved hand under the man’s jaw and shoved it back.

He grunted but I dropped my face back to his and screamed, “
She’s just a little girl!
” I got closer, my fingers curling deep into his flesh. “You monster! What did you do to her?”

“Mad—” Remi tried again but I whirled and shot past him.

My hand darting out, I nabbed the knife on Laures’ belt.

“Bloody hell.” I heard Hans mutter but I didn’t hesitate.

No, I didn’t.

I didn’t hesitate
or
think.

I was fucking
focused
.

I turned back to the man in the chair, held the point of the knife to the hinge of his jaw and demanded, “Who sent you?”

The man’s eyes held mine and he said nothing.

I pressed the tip into his flesh, he pushed back against the chair and I screeched, “
Who sent you?
”

He again said nothing.

Controlled by emotion, still burning inside and out, I took the knife from his jaw and sunk it violently into the flesh of his shoulder.

He let out a pained grunt that didn’t register on me.

I just pulled the knife out to three simultaneous masculine “
bloody hells
” and one “
by the gods
” and returned it to his jaw.

“
Who sent you?
”

Then suddenly I wasn’t in his face anymore, neither did I have the knife.

I was, instead, pressed back deep into Apollo’s body with his arm around my belly.

And then, with Apollo, we leaned forward as he flashed the knife out.

And that was when I watched the gaping, red gash across the man’s throat slither open, blood pouring down his chest. He sucked in a breath, got zero air and an instant later, found his death with surprise in his eyes.

I had no reaction to this. I also had no time to have a reaction.

Without hesitation, Apollo turned both of us and we were across the room like a shot. He held me to his front as he held the knife to the man hanging on the hook’s throat.

“Now you know I will not waver,” he growled. “Who sent you?”

The man was staring with big eyes at the freshly dead man in the chair but when Apollo pressed the knife to his throat, his eyes shot to him.

And I watched them grow cold.

“The queen is just,” he announced bizarrely.

“The queen is not here,” Apollo returned.

“She’ll not be best pleased, you dispense justice in your gardener’s shack,” he stated and I finally looked around.

Yep. We were in a gardener’s shack.

I turned my head, tipped it back and aimed my eyes at Apollo’s stony face. “Honey, I bet I can make him to talk with those hedge clippers.” I threw a hand toward the man’s crotch. “He won’t be needing
that
in prison.”

Apollo spared me a glance as I heard Laures chuckle but just as quickly as he looked at me, he looked back to the man.

“Information or I get my lady some hedge clippers,” he shared.

The man’s eyes grew round for a half a second, before he covered it and declared, “I demand a trial.”

“You’ll not sit in prison, doling out information for leniency,” Apollo shot back. “You talk here, or you die here.”

Nice. That was a good line.

“You’re already to answer to Queen Aurora for coldblooded murder,” the man retorted, tipping his head toward the man in the chair.

“The queen is just,” Apollo whispered. “But she also lost her husband to the schemes of traitors.”

The man blanched.

Goodie.

Now we were getting somewhere.

Apollo moved back to target. “Who sent you?”

The man said nothing.

“Again, who sent you?” Apollo repeated.

The man remained silent.

I watched the staring contest from close up.

It was scary. It was also frustrating.

“For God’s sake, would someone just get me the hedge clippers?” I snapped.

Apollo again looked down at me. A second later, he pulled me away from the man but pushed me gently to the side and I found myself not held by him but—I looked up—by Achilles.

“Take her to the dower house,” he ordered. “Stay with her.”

“But—” I started as Achilles rounded my waist with an arm and started pulling me away.

Apollo’s eyes sliced to me.

“Dove,” he said softly. “Go.”

I glared at him. Then I glared at the man on the hook.

I transferred my glare back to Apollo and blew out on a sigh, “Oh, all right.”

Apollo’s eyes moved over my face but I lost sight of him when Achilles turned me to the door.

I was out the door but it wasn’t yet closed behind me when I heard him say, “Hans, hand me those clippers.”

The door banged shut.

I smiled.

Chapter Thirteen

Lioness

In my crazy dream that was tinted blood red, I heard Apollo order from far away a growling, “Leave us. Now.”

My dream drifted to some ruins around a pool filled with blood when I felt my cloak that I’d wrapped around me to keep warm after Achilles finally got me to lay down thrown off.

I blinked.

My skirts were tossed up.

I blinked again, twice, fast.

And I came awake when my tights were torn down my legs.

My heart instantly racing, I shifted up hurriedly, pushing up the bed but got only so far when two strong hands wrapped around my ankles, dragged me back down and tugged them apart.

I gasped when a man covered me.

Through the firelight casting a weak glow through the room, I saw Apollo’s face.

I should have relaxed seeing as it was him, but the look on his face made my entire body go wired.

His hand drove into my hair, fisting as he rumbled, “You are a lioness.”

Hunh?

“What? What’s going on? Are you—?”

He cut me off. “Not even of your blood, not even a word exchanged, barely a glance, for them, you sank a blade into a man’s flesh.”

I thought I knew what he was talking about so I said, “Well, yeah. I did. But why are you—?”

His mouth came to mine and I shut up because I could see his eyes were afire. They were searing into me and they were doing it in a particular way.

I knew that way. It was slightly different, not charged by adela tea.

But it was also the same.

His next words proved me right.

“You’re going to take me now, Maddie, and warning, my dove, I’ll not be gentle.”

Yes, his eyes were burning in a particular way.

My stomach dropped.

“Apollo,” I breathed then he was gone.

But he didn’t go far.

My skirts were thrown back up, my panties torn down my legs and his mouth was there.

Holy cow.

At his touch, more precisely how really good it was, my back arched off the bed and my heels dug into the mattress, but not for long. He grasped me behind the knees and threw my legs over his shoulders. After he accomplished that, he scooped my ass in both of his hands, brought it up, pressing me deeper into his mouth and he fed.

And boy,
how
he fed.

My hands went to his head, fingers sliding into his thick hair. My heels dug into his back. My neck arched and my lips parted, pants whispering out as Apollo wasted absolutely no time taking me there.

And then I was there, teetering over the edge, my orgasm within reach, it was going to be good, and I whispered, “Baby.”

Then his mouth was gone.

Before I could even whimper, I was rolled to my stomach, my hips yanked up roughly and he pounded inside, filling me.

“Fuck yes,” I breathed, my fingers curling into the covers.

“Ride my cock, Maddie, take it yourself,” he ordered and then I felt the slap of his hand sharp on my outer thigh.

I jumped even as heat radiated from the sting to right between my legs and I did what he ordered, rearing back, fucking myself on his cock.

Another smack to the thigh, another jump, more sting, more fire burning to the heart of me and, “Harder, poppy.”

Oh God.

This was good.

I’d never been spanked.

And I wanted more.

I moved faster, took him harder, gasping and straining against him.

“Am I in there?” he growled.

Oh yes. Fuck yes. He was in there.

“Yes,” I whispered.

His hands spanned my hips, his fingers digging in, he stopped my motion and slammed in himself, staying deep and grinding.