Fantasyland 04 Broken Dove (47 page)

I lifted my hands to the sides of his sweater, curling my fingers in to hold on and forced myself to nod while blinking away the tears that threatened to flood my eyes.

Yes. He was beautiful. In
way
more ways than one.

He slid his hand back up to my jaw so he could again sweep his thumb across my cheek and moved in to kiss my forehead.

Then he moved back, the pads of his fingers digging in gently, and announced, “Now, we go tell Christophe and Élan you journey with us to Brunskar.”

My stomach lurched but I said nothing.

Crisis averted, a new trauma right on its heels.

Such was my life.

Oh boy.

* * * * *

Ten minutes later, I stood in the great room trying not to fidget with my hands. Apollo was standing up in the entryway listening to something Laures had to say but his eyes were on me.

The minute we got downstairs, we’d run into a maid and he’d called for the kids.

I was trying to keep it together but I feared if I had to wait one more second, I’d fail.

At that thought, luckily (kind of) I heard a commotion and saw Élan round the corner at a run, Christophe coming slower at her heels.

She stopped dead when she saw me.

I clenched my hands together and tried not to hyperventilate.

Her gaze shot to her dad.

“Is Miss Madeleine coming with us?” she called across the expanse to her father.

“Indeed, precious girl,” Apollo called back.

She instantly threw both her hands up in the air and cried, “Huzzah!” sticking out her booty and shaking it side-to-side.

Abruptly, she stopped doing this and turned to her brother, pointing at him, a triumphant look on her face.

She then announced, “Ha, Chris! Another girl is coming with us. That means when we stop to take lunch, we don’t have to shoot at things with arrows and have snowball fights. That means we can make snow castles and talk to the bunnies!” She stuck her booty back out and swung it around again, pumping her arms at her sides and crying, “Huzzah! Huzzah-huzzah-
huzzah!
”

I looked to Christophe.

He was watching his sister with a disgusted look on his face.

Shit.

He turned his eyes to me, that look dissolved and he grinned.

My heart thumped.

I grinned back then looked to Apollo.

He was smiling at his children.

Then he said, “Let us go.”

Élan dashed to me, grabbed my hand and started tugging me toward the stairs.

Feeling her little hand in mine made me catch my breath so hard, it hurt.

But I didn’t mind the pain.

I let her lead me up the steps, Christophe joined his father and they walked out first, Élan now skipping beside me as we followed and I tried to hold her hand in a casual way when I wanted to hold her so tight, I’d never be able to let go.

Apollo looked over his shoulder as he descended the front steps, his eyes dropping to his daughter then coming to mine.

And on his face, that tender look was way, way,
way
off the fucking charts.

Thus every inch of me warmed in a way I knew I could put on a bikini and the chill of Lunwyn wouldn’t touch me.

Élan was right.

Huzzah!

* * * * *

One hour and fifteen minutes later, my trunks packed into one of two sleighs, the guys on horses all around (including Quincy and Balthazar, Apollo, of course, and Christophe on his own mount, like his dad), I got into the sleigh I’d be driving, my eyes on Élan who was bouncing on her bottom in the seat, the fur throw in her hands, crying, “Sit, Miss Madeleine. Sit.
Sit!
Let’s be away!”

I looked to the sleigh behind mine that held Loretta, Meeta and Bella, the children’s maid.

I then looked to Apollo who was talking to Remi.

Finally, I sat, Élan threw the throw over me and I took the reins.

“Miss Madeleine is in, Papa!” Christophe called.

“Excellent,” Apollo replied then ordered to the group of ten riders and two sleighs, “Proceed!”

I flicked the reins, the horses moved, the sleigh started gliding over the snow as fat, fluffy flakes of more drifted down, and the horses around us closed ranks.

But I looked back to the house to see Cristiana standing in the opened front door.

When I caught her eye, she waved. Then she winked.

I smiled and blew her a kiss.

Then I turned to facing front just as Élan asked, “Do you know how to make snow castles, Miss Madeleine?”

“No, honey,” I answered quietly.

“I’ll teach you,” she declared.

My lips curved up.

Hu…

Fucking…

Zah!

Chapter Eighteen

Brunskar

“Wake her, Maddie.”

I heard Apollo’s soft words and looked up at him standing beside the sleigh.

Élan was tucked to my side, sleeping.

From my experience, the days were always short in Lunwyn so it was dark. That said, it was also late.

And we’d made it to Brunskar, the Drakkar seat.

We’d been traveling for ten days through Lunwyn and I knew the distance was long and the errand important because our hours on the go were longer than when Apollo and I were away on our aborted journey to Bellebryn.

This meant we usually took lunch
and
dinner by stopping along the way. It also meant Christophe was near-on dropping from his horse (but he’d never do that, as his father would never do that and Chris, I’d learned, was keen to do
everything
like his dad).

And usually, at the end of the day, Élan was asleep at my side.

So when we stopped, it was to get a sleepy Élan and an exhausted Christophe to their baths (Bella oversaw this), take our own (Meeta and Loretta took care of mine) and hit the sack.

During our long journey I’d learned that Christophe liked studying math and also English (or the language of the Vale). He timidly shared that he liked to study the language of the Vale because he wrote stories (this timidity evaporated when Apollo straight up bragged about how great they were which meant I was able to talk Chris into letting me read one when we got back to Karsvall). Adding to his artistic bent, he liked to draw.

But best of all, he liked to shoot his bow and arrow (and that bulls-eye was no fluke, he practiced any chance he got, even in the midst of eating a sandwich, and I saw close up that he was good at it).

This last was because he also shared what his father already shared with me. He wanted to be a soldier,
just
like his father.

Élan, I’d learned, did not like
any
studies. However she did like “serving tea” (when this was described, I knew she was talking about tea parties since Bella, various maids at Karsvall and her dolls were the usual attendees). She also liked to make snow castles and snow witches (what were referred to as snow angels in my world, except you punched a hat into the snow when you were done). And she liked pretty much everything else under the sun.

When she grew up, on the other hand, she was determined to marry Frey Drakkar, “The handsomest man in Lunwyn,” she’d breathed. This was her heart’s desire and she didn’t care that he was too old for her. She also didn’t care that he was married to Sjofn, or Finnie, the Ice Princess of Lunwyn. How she intended to overcome these rather large obstacles, I had no clue and didn’t ask. She didn’t need to know how huge they were so I didn’t share. She would grow out of it and find her own (age-appropriate, single, I hoped) hot guy.

I’d learned all this because Christophe often rode by our sleigh and chatted. He also would take his lunch and dinner with his sister and me. Part of this, I thought, was that he was intrigued with me and not because I looked like his mom. Instead because I stabbed a man and hit another one with a branch and a woman doing those things in this world was intriguing, especially to a boy. But most of it was because his father took his meals with us and nearly always rode by our sleigh and Chris did what Apollo did.

And I’d learned all I’d learned about Élan because she rode with me in my sleigh, was extremely talkative and got excited at every snowflake, stand of trees or bunny who hopped across our path, and she felt I needed to share in her excitement.

I didn’t care if she talked my ear off.

I would listen even if doing it lasted an eternity.

Needless to say, our days in the sleigh were little snatches of heaven for me. I loved getting to know the kids, especially since they were bright, funny, open and interesting.

The nights were the same.

Little snatches of heaven.

This was because, without me asking him to do so, the first inn we stopped in for the night, Apollo ordered a room for each of us and kept doing this throughout the journey. This meant, if the opportunity arose, the children saw him going to his room and me to mine.

But once they were tucked away, he came and slept with me in mine.

Before he slept though, he made sure
I
came, repeatedly.

Suffice it to say, Apollo missed me too. The first night we were back together, he’d communicated this by holding me in his arms all night (seeing as I was still on my period). He communicated this the first night my cycle was done by not delaying in giving it to me fast and heated (though the second time that night had been slow, gentle and sweet, as had the third).

Since that night, he just gave me the slow, gentle and sweet.

And every night, in his arms, I gave him not-so-fun bedtime stories (though, he’d asked for them) of my life growing up, my mom, my dad, my (kind of) friends and school. Anything and everything he asked, I’d whisper to him as he held me, stroked me and I talked myself to sleep.

He had not yet coaxed me to talk about Pol.

But I knew that was coming.

He had also not shared much about himself.

But I’d see to that once I knew I’d given him what he needed from me.

In other words, although that long cold journey should have been tedious, it was anything but. I loved every second and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

So I was disappointed we were there.

Brunskar, Frey Drakkar’s family seat.

Their annual gale was tomorrow evening.

We’d made it in time.

I looked from Apollo to Élan and gave her a gentle squeeze.

“Wake up, honey bunch, it’s time for bath and bed.”

She snuggled closer and my heart turned over. I wanted to let her snooze the night away, holding her close, keeping her warm. But I knew I couldn’t do that (as much as I wanted it) so I gave her another squeeze.

“Come on, Élan, time to get clean and then get warm.”

“I’m warm,” she mumbled into my cloak.

“You’ll be warmer in bed,” her father butted in, entering the sleigh.

He pulled the furs off her and put his hands under her arms, lifting her up.

When he had her close, she tucked her face in his neck, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist.

He looked down to me but I was already staring up at him.

Every time I saw him with his kids, holding sleepy Élan close, smiling as Chris chattered at him, I thought he’d never looked more beautiful.

Including now.

“I’ll take her in. Stay close to Draven, poppy, until you get in your room,” he ordered quietly.

I nodded.

He walked his daughter to the front door of the inn and I saw Christophe and Hans standing there, Chris holding the door open for Bella to precede him and keeping hold on the door so his father could do the same.

I looked away and aimed my eyes forward and up.

I’d seen it from a distance and when I did, I was glad that Élan had already fallen asleep.

This was because Brunskar was not like Apollo’s home or any of the finer homes we’d slid by on our way.

Brunskar was creepy as all get out and scary as hell.

Of course, it was dark but the front of it was lit up by what seemed like hundreds of torches, even some on its face up four stories and more on the roof.

Its stone looked black against the gloomy firelight and its white backdrop of snow. Its lines were straight and aggressive with five towers spiking into the air. Many of the windows were lit, likely because they had guests for the gale, and those windows, too, seemed aggressive. Whereas the windows at Apollo’s house were rounded in attractive trefoil arches, the windows of Brunskar were cut into spiked ogee ones.