Broken Dove (Fantasyland #4)(93)

He said nothing for long moments. He just held me intimately, pressed close, both of us on our knees.

Finally, he broke the silence. “You’re seeping. I will wash you and we will sleep.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

That got me another squeeze and a kiss on the neck.

Then he moved away to settle me gently in the bed and he bent to brush his lips on my jaw before he left me.

Then he set about undoing me.

And he did this by washing me, sliding my nightgown on me, smoothing his hands over the material then joining me in the bed, pulling the covers up to my shoulders and gathering me close, tangling me up in him. He did all this tenderly, with that look I felt in my belly and around my heart on his face.

He also did it like I was breakable, but precious.

Cherished.

No one had touched me that way.

Not in my life.

He held me tight to him as he rolled side to side to turn out the gas lamps beside the bed, leaving us with nothing but the firelight.

When he settled us on our sides, he drew me even nearer and I felt his lips at the top of my hair.

“I tell you now, my poppy, for years, I never thought I would again be happy. Never again.” He tucked me closer and finished on a rough whisper. “So I never imagined I could be happier.”

At his words and all they meant, my heart slammed in my chest, but I burrowed deeper, shoving my face in his throat, unable to say anything. Only able to feel.

“Sleep, Maddie,” he murmured.

“Okay, honey,” I forced out.

I felt his lips leave my hair and he kept one arm around my shoulders, holding tight while the other one moved down my back to smooth over my bottom, cupping me there lightly as if he wished to sooth the warmth that his hand left there. Warmth I didn’t mind in the slightest.

I should have slept. Everything I knew, everything I’d learned, everything that was me told me to keep my mouth shut.

But in his arms, all he’d said, all he’d done, all we gave each other, I didn’t.

My voice so quiet, it was even difficult for me to hear, I told him, “All my life, I’ve never been happy. So I never imagined even being that way. Until now.”

He heard me.

I knew because that got me another powerful squeeze that took my breath away and I felt his lips back at my hair.

“I wish you to share why this was with me, Madeleine.”

“I will, honey,” I wheezed.

He heard the wheeze and loosened his arms.

“Not now. Now we sleep,” he commanded and at his arrogant, bossy command, I smiled against his skin

“Right,” I muttered.

“But I want you to sleep knowing how much it means to me that I’ve made you happy.”

I took in a trembling breath and to let him know I knew how much it meant, and hopefully let him know how much what he said meant to me, I pressed my lips to the skin of his throat for a kiss. Then I turned my head and pressed my cheek at its base.

He continued to hold me close.

I burrowed closer, tightening my arms around him.

And I slept.

Chapter Sixteen

Skulking

“I cannot believe we’re doing this.”

That was Meeta.

“Shh!”

That was Loretta.

We were skulking through the forest toward the main house.

We were doing this because Apollo told me two things the night before.

One, the men he was waiting for had arrived, they’d been set to patrolling and thus all of Ulfr land was now protected. This meant it was safe for us to leave the house and wander around without an escort. Apparently his soldiers had been out on leave (kind of, I had a feeling “leave” meant “leave on missions Apollo didn’t think it necessary for me to know” and I didn’t really want to know so I was okay with that) but now they were back.

Two, he’d given the children my cookies and they’d love them.

“It’s lucky I had one before I gave them to Christophe and Élan,” he’d told me, grinning. “For when I went back for more, they were gone.”

This made me happy. Not only that the kids had liked them but also that he’d gone back for more which meant he liked them.

That night, I was to have dinner with them.

Suffice it to say, I was freaking out.

I wanted to ask Apollo for one more day (or seven of them) in which I could make them a variety of things. Snickerdoodles. Chocolate fudge. Lemon meringue pie. And I wanted to do this because I wanted them good and primed to meet me.

But I’d told Apollo I’d have dinner with them that night and I couldn’t go back on that now. He was excited (in his badass other world soldier type of way) for me to do it so I had to do it.

For him.

But in thinking about it (okay, fretting about it), I decided that I couldn’t walk into a room with them and keep my cool.

Unless I saw them again.

Therefore, during dinner one night when Apollo offhandedly told me their schedule—breakfast with him, studies, lunch, outdoor activities then back to studies before he spent time with them in the evenings—I was skulking through the forest with Meeta and Loretta in order to spy on them during their “outdoor activities” (whatever those were).

For moral support, I’d brought Meeta and Loretta along.

For obvious reasons, I had not shared with either woman, or Cristiana, that I was from another world. But knowing I looked so much like the other Ilsa, in other words, their dead mother, Loretta got me and understood my concerns about how the kids would react to me (if not all my concerns about why I was the way I was about them).