He again started moving toward me, his eyes locked to mine. “I spoke harshly to you. I said things I deeply regret. It was inexcusable, Madeleine, and I apologize.”
He meant that. Every word. I knew it. I knew by the way he was looking at me and I knew by the way his words sounded.
He meant it a great deal.
But it didn’t make me feel a thing.
Or, at least that’s what I told myself.
Instead, I held my ground and held his gaze. “I appreciate that. Now, if you’d lead me to Valentine, I’ll be requesting that she send me home.”
He stopped two feet in front of me and studied me closely.
I could read the anger in his eyes. Controlled anger.
I could also see the worry.
That was uncontrolled.
“You can’t think I’d simply allow you return to your world,” he remarked.
“No, I can’t think that,” I agreed. “You’ll only allow me do what you want me to do. You have a way with getting your way and I have a way of giving it to you. I must admit, I’ve been too in pain to think about this rationally over the last couple of days. But just moments ago, on my way to you, it all became very clear what I have to do and where I have to be. Now, I’ve just had a lovely time with Élan, a time we both enjoyed. I’m not happy to leave her but I’m hoping that will be a nice memory to leave her with.”
And I hoped it was.
When I was gone, I knew she’d miss me. She liked me. It would be a blow.
But better I leave now than later when her father sent me away.
As for me, I couldn’t think about how leaving Élan would feel.
So I didn’t
Without pause, I kept going.
“And I happened on Christophe. I hope the words I found to say to him have helped in some way, though that’s doubtful. But I only have one choice and it’s not a good one, but it’s the right one. Since Valentine is here, regardless of what you’d let me do, Apollo, she’s the one who has the power to send me back and I’ll be asking her to do it.”
I could feel the emotion emanating from him. It wasn’t good emotion. It was frightening emotion. But I told myself I didn’t feel that either.
“You are not safe in the other world,” he reminded me.
“I’m not safe here,” I reminded him.
He shook his head. “What I said to you was unwarranted, Madeleine, this is true. But you strike back by committing the same sin? Inflicting your own wounds in this way? After all we’ve shared, all we’ve become to one another, asking with not one ounce of emotion to leave me?”
“What you said was inexcusable, unwarranted and unforgivable,” I replied, holding his eyes and squaring my shoulders. “I’ll not accept Pol’s physical abuse for a decade only to come here and allow his twin to verbally abuse me.”
I heard his sharp intake of breath even as his torso straightened abruptly and the mood in the room, already not good, degenerated further.
I told myself I didn’t feel that either.
“I’ve said this before but I will remind you again. I am not him, Maddie,” he said shortly.
“You aren’t,” I stated on a sharp nod. “You strike out in a different way that’s just as undeserved and perhaps not as physically painful, but it still hurts.”
“I apologized.”
“He used to do that too.”
His head jerked and I got another flinch, this one not almost imperceptible.
This one I couldn’t miss.
He felt those words. I’d wounded him.
No, I’d wounded him with the understanding of how deeply he’d wounded me.
I told myself I didn’t feel that either.
“In all the beauty that we’ve shared, in all the beauty you’ve given me, I forgot,” I told him. “I forgot I was trying to find my way. Forgot it so deeply, I lost it again. Until that woman pointed it out. And then you did what you did and it became even clearer.”
“What woman?” he asked, his brows drawing together.
“Franka Drakkar,” I answered.
He shook his head again but this time did it and took a step closer.
I didn’t move.
He spoke.
“Nothing that woman says is worth hearing.”
“You’re wrong,” I returned. “It was. After she said it, I took it in. I just took it in the wrong way. You see, how I see it is that I was Pol’s whore. A whore with a ring on my finger. I bought that, being me. Being who I am. Being a woman who likes nice things and wanted a good life. A life not like the one my mother lived with my father. Scraping and saving, existing day to day, paycheck to paycheck, but not doing that happily, knowing my home was a warm place where love thrived. Doing it putting up with shit. Living with negativity choking her every breath. I wanted so badly to make sure I had none of that, but all I wanted, I was blinded to what I bought when I took the easy way out and became a whore.”
“Madeleine—” he started but I ignored the new look on his face. The look that was not confused or angry or concerned. The tortured look that hurt so much to witness, it threatened to make me feel something, and I talked over him.
“In my world, a man treats a whore like Pol treated me. He doesn’t treat his wife like that.” I threw a hand his way. “Now I’m your whore, but without the ring, even though you’ve offered it. And I don’t want to be a whore, Apollo. I’m sure I could sally forth in this world and maybe make a living at it, and that’s the only thing I could do. I’m good at nothing else. But I don’t want that. I’ve been doing it way too long. I’m done with being a whore. So, since I can’t get on in this world without whoring myself to you or someone else, I’d rather go home and take my chances.”
“You are not my whore,” he whispered and it was not one of his sweet whispers. Not by a long shot.
It, like the look in his eyes, was tortured.
I told myself that didn’t affect me either.
“Then what am I?” I asked.
“I want you to be my wife,” he stated.
“And your son?” I pushed.
“He’ll come around in time.”
“Or maybe not,” I retorted. “Maybe, for the father he adores, he’ll just get better at hiding the pain.”
Another flinch before Apollo closed the distance between us and lifted a hand to cup my jaw, murmuring, “Another fatal error.”
I had no clue what he was talking about but I wasn’t going to ask.
He was touching me.
And I knew if I didn’t end that, and this conversation, and soon, I’d most assuredly feel something.
So I started, “Apollo—” but he talked over me.
“Franka’s drivel. This is what brought the dark to your eyes,” he declared.
Oh.
That was what he was talking about.
He was absolutely right.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “If there’s dark in my eyes, she put it there. But she wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t nice how she said it but what she said was absolutely right. You have a lot to give, Apollo. I have nothing but my body. And I’ve taken what you can give. Including when you treat me like shit.”
His fingers tensed into my skin as his eyes flashed, but I kept going.
“And really, is the world richer for me being in it?” I shook my head. “No. It isn’t. Not in any—”
His fingers again tensed in my skin, his eyes again flashed, but brighter, angrier, before he interrupted me.
“Cease speaking.”
“Cease interrupting me,” I shot back.
When I did, suddenly (and worryingly), he smiled
And I so wished he hadn’t done that because I could tell myself I didn’t feel a lot of things but I couldn’t tell myself I didn’t feel that smile.
Crap.
“You listened to Franka’s drivel, I won’t listen to yours,” he declared.
“Apollo—”
I stopped speaking this time not because he interr
upted me but because he bent close even as his hand slid under my ear, his fingers curling back into my hair, and he yanked me closer.
“I have had maid and whore, paid for the best of the latter, and not one of them have I even remotely felt anything for. Certainly I haven’t fallen in love with them.”
Oh my God.
Did he say what I thought he just said?
All of a sudden, I wasn’t breathing.
“And poppy,” he kept going before I could cope with the bomb he’d just dropped, “can you honestly stand there and tell me the world isn’t richer for you being in it when you just sat down to play at drinking tea with my daughter? I would doubt, if she understood the concept, that she would agree you do not make this world richer.”
My heart clenched but I forced myself to breathe so I wouldn’t pass out.
“As you know,” he kept at me, “Christophe is reacting badly to the reminder that he lost his mother. He is far from unintelligent but too young to recognize what he’s feeling is the resurgence of grief.”
His hold on me tightened before he continued.
“And yes, poppy, this was caused by you but that doesn’t negate the fact that it has nothing to do with you and furthermore is not your fault.”
I opened my mouth to say something but Apollo didn’t give me the opportunity.
“It’s the fault of fate and it’s my fault. He lashed out and I deserved it. I wasn’t seeing to him and his making that clear caused me great pain. I deserved that too. But not for one second do I believe that my son won’t come to terms with the situation and see the richness you bring to my life, my daughter’s life, any life you touch, including his, and in the end he will cherish it. I simply have to remember to take heed to the fact that he lost his mother and honor her memory, keep her alive for him in ways that don’t involve you. This, I will do. And he will respond to it. I’m sure of it.”
“You can’t know that,” I said quietly.
“I most assuredly can,” he returned firmly.
And he didn’t stop there.
“We’re both agreed that the way I behaved after finding Christophe, and then finding you again in danger, was inexcusable. But Poppy,”—he leaned even closer—“you followed the wrong Cora into the forest. You put yourself in danger. Even if it was the right Cora, it would have been the wrong thing to do. Although I understand you were worried about Chris, it was reckless.”
“I already admitted that,” I pointed out.
“You did. And I let all that was happening get the better of me. I spoke careless words that harmed you. I forgot, with my son wishing so badly to be a man and thus acting with a maturity that is beyond his years, that he’s just a boy. I also forgot, with the strength of will and heartiness of character you consistently display, that you are broken and I must handle you with care.”
Strength of will?
Heartiness of character?
He thought that of me?
And even with that, he also thought I was broken?
“I’m not broken,” I whispered.
His voice went soft. “Dove, you’re shattered. I know this because you think you’re my whore. I know it because you think you don’t have anything to offer when just your kindness moved two women who have not known you for long to arm themselves and venture into a frozen forest on the chance that you might need aid.”
This, I had to admit, was true.
I just hadn’t thought about it like that.
Apollo still wasn’t done.
And he returned to an earlier theme I hadn’t processed the first time he broached it, it pretty much rocked my world then, so I sure wasn’t prepared to hear it a second time.
“It is my responsibility as the man who loves you and wants you to be his wife to mend what’s broken in you. With Chris, I’ll not forget again that I must care for my son. With you, I’ll not forget again that I must treat you with care.”
I stared into his eyes.
He stared into mine.
I waited for the room to melt. For the earth to shake. For someone wearing a trendy t-shirt and jeans to run into the room, point at me and shout that I’d been punked.
None of this happened.
So I asked, “You love me?”
“Yes, Maddie, I do,” he replied instantly and my stomach dropped.
But he still wasn’t done.
“This being precisely why two days have passed with me needing to worry about the not insignificant fact we’re at war but the only thing on my mind was the look on my son’s face when he showed me his pain and the look on yours when you gave me the same. Thus, for the first time in so long I don’t think there was a time before, I had no idea what to do. I had to see to my son, who, I’m sorry, my dove, needed time away from you. But even so, I did not need the same. And I felt acutely the longer I left you with the words I spoke to you, the harder it would be for me to mend what I myself had broken. And still I was unable to act, fearing just this type of response. I only did anything because I’d been told you were in this house attending Élan and I knew I could not have you under my roof and allow you to leave without at least you knowing the depth of my regret and the sincerity of my apology.”
“You didn’t know what to do?” I asked, my voice sounding as shocked as it was.
“No idea,” he answered firmly and it was not an admission.
It was a declaration.
Oh dear.
I had already started to feel something. A lot of somethings. A lot of big somethings.
But now I was feeling more.
And part of that was confusion.
“You didn’t spend the last two days preparing to send me to Estranvegue?”
Suddenly, he dropped his hand and leaned away.
“Where did you hear of Estranvegue?” he asked in an eerily calm voice that I had the distinct feeling was not calm at all.
Uh-oh.
“It doesn’t matter,” I answered quickly.
“Oh yes,” he returned. “It does.”
“Apollo—”
“Where did you hear of Estranvegue?” he pushed.
I stared him in the eyes and didn’t answer.
I had a more important question. I’d already asked it but I still couldn’t believe it.
So I asked it again.
“You’re in love with me?”
“Yes, Madeleine,” he bit out. “Now, where did you hear of Estranvegue?”
He was in love with me.
Apollo Ulfr (the good one) was in love with me.
Oh my God.
Oh yes.
I was feeling something.
Something big.
“You’re in love with me,” I breathed.
“Yes,” he clipped and his hand came back to curl around the side of my neck and he again bent close. “I’ll ask again, poppy, where—?”
I cut him off with, “Why?”
He clamped his mouth shut then opened it to ask, “Why?”
“Yes. Why?”
He shook his head in confusion. “Why what?”
“Why are you in love with me?”
He blinked before he lifted his other hand to the other side of my neck, his eyes locked with mine, and asked in return, “Why aren’t you answering my question?”
“Because it’s obviously more important to know why you’re in love with me and because I’ll get someone in trouble if I answer your question,” I finally answered.
“You ask a question that has no answer,” he returned. “Now answer mine which actually does.”
Really?
He thought my question had no answer?
Honestly, I could not believe that men in this world, just like in my own, thought they could get away with that “I love you because I love you so just believe it and let me get back to the ballgame” nonsense.
Well, this man couldn’t.
I mean, there was no ballgame to get back to. It was a war, and, well, a bunch of other stuff.
&nbs
p; But still.
“It has an answer, Apollo,” I retorted.
“You are correct. It does,” he declared. “It has an answer that would take a decade to speak out loud. But, as you seem determined to have it, in an attempt to put it succinctly, I fell in love with you because I brought you to this world, a world all new to you, and turned my back on you. You didn’t grow morose and retreat into yourself. You didn’t become frightened, get overwhelmed by your fears and lock yourself away. You challenged a chef to a cooking duel over seafood.”
I stared at him thinking that I did do that.
I didn’t know it was hot-guy-from-another-world-love-worthy, but I did it.
Apollo kept talking.
“I fell in love with you because I was in a battle to the death and you didn’t run, even when I told you to. You retrieved my sword and smashed a man on the head with a lamp in an effort to aid me.”
I continued to stare mostly because I’d been so engrossed in all that was happening, I actually kind of forgot I did that.
That was something Finnie would do.
And the warrior queen Circe.
And, well, me.
Apollo continued to talk.
“Further, the most beautiful, most intelligent women I know have been torn to shreds in Franka Drakkar’s claws. She got hold of you and you didn’t blink.” He paused and scowled at me. “Until she struck deeper and you let it sink in then fester without speaking to me about it. That last is not part of why I love you, but it’s part of you so it also is. Even though, at this point, it’s bloody frustrating.”
I wanted it, I’d demanded it, but I could take no more.
So I whispered, “You can stop talking now.”
“Certainly,” he replied. “Though I will only do so noting that I have not scratched the surface. For instance, I’ve not mentioned how it feels to have you give your body to me so freely, this freeing me in a manner I never had before. A manner I treasure. A manner that builds our closeness in ways I’ve also never experienced before. Or how magnificent it feels to know that my daughter extends an invitation to a tea party, and although things are not right between us, you still come and give her what she desires even knowing it might include a confrontation with me.”