Fantasyland: Broken Dove Part 36

We rode hard the rest of the night and all the next day.

Five times, we stopped to exchange horses. With Apollo's commanding presence and heavy bag of coins, this took us less than five minutes each time. He only spent another thirty seconds the first change of horses to order Torment and Anguish sent to Karsvall.

And he asked only twice when we stopped if I needed food.

Both times, I shook my head. Both times he got that answer, Apollo's eyes held relief. And both times, without further delay, we were again off. He didn't waste time asking after that. He knew my answer.

I was not hungry.

I was also not tired.

I was terrified.

So terrified, my mind was gripped with it so the long ride, the cold, the landscape, the villages flas.h.i.+ng by, the horse straining under me, the pounding of my bones, none of it penetrated.

None of it.

Apollo had his guys at his house and I'd seen Laures in action in the games so I knew they knew what they were doing.

But those three men laid in wait for us. If the ones that were sent for Christophe and elan were good at being sneaky...

I didn't let my mind go there. It kept trying to go there but I kept shutting it down. We would deal with what we found when we found it.

We just needed to get there to find whatever there was to find.

So I bent over my horse and did my best to keep her at Apollo's heels, thanking G.o.d Hans was really good at teaching me how to ride a horse and I'd had four months' practice.

I knew Apollo was terrified too. But hot-guy-bada.s.s-from-another-world terror manifested itself through fury. The kind of fury that wafted off him in a way that it seemed even the breeze was too scared of him to show up.

But I kept on his heels as dusk of the next day moved into a dark evening and we finally galloped through the village where I'd spent the night at The Swan.

The village outside Karsvall.

Ten minutes later, we galloped up a pine edged lane and I saw it.

Illumination, and it wasn't the moon.

We came out into a clearing and Apollo didn't slow so I didn't either. But I did see that torches and barrels of fire were all around, lighting the s.p.a.ce. There were lots of horses. Lots of sleighs. Lots of men. And also a big house I didn't take in but I did take in the fact that a light was burning in every window.

This was not a good sign.

Apollo reined in and I did the same beside him at the front door.

And I saw that there were bodies lined up in the blood spattered snow.

My eyes frantically slid over them, and although a couple of them were face down, none of them were faces I knew.

I had no time to feel this relief. Suddenly I was yanked from my saddle.

Apollo had his hands on my waist and he was tugging me down. When he had me on my feet, he grabbed my hand and dragged me to the house, barking, "My children?"

"They're fine, Lo." I heard Achilles say. "They're in elan'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 ta.s.sels 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 s.h.i.+rtless 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 s.h.i.+rtless and bleeding, tied to a chair in the center of the s.p.a.ce.

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.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l." I heard Hans mutter but I didn't hesitate.

No, I didn't.

I didn't hesitate or think.

I was f.u.c.king 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 "b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.ls" and one "by the G.o.ds" 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.