“Too true, but this is mad, Lo.” Achilles was still whispering. “Once the troubles are over and Maddie takes her place at your side, everyone will know she’s a replacement of the one you cared so deeply for and lost.”

Having just made this decision, he’d obviously not thought of that and it caused not a small amount of unease.

But he had made this decision. And Apollo Ulfr was many things, one of them decisive.

Therefore, he asked his cousin, “Have I ever cared what people thought?”

“No, but has it occurred to you that Maddie might?’ his cousin asked him.

It, of course, hadn’t, and this idea, too, troubled him.

But time never stopped and people accustomed themselves to a variety of things, given enough of it. They would accustom themselves to the new Ilsa. And if she was discomfited by it in the meantime, he’d just keep her close and not take her out in society.

He explained his decision by saying, “She’s been in the company of her guard for four months, Lees, and five have fallen. Derrik so deeply, he confronted me and asked to take her away.”

“Gods,” Achilles muttered, shock on his face, but not surprise.

The shock was that Derrik would confront him. The lack of surprise was that Achilles knew it might happen.

“Precisely,” Apollo said tersely. “She’s extremely spirited. She’s also exquisitely beautiful. And I know you have not missed there are other things about her which would pull at any man.”

“Have they pulled at you?” Achilles asked quietly.

Apollo didn’t answer.

Instead, he stated, “For her protection, I must take her as wife.”

Achilles remained silent.

Apollo did not.

“Therefore, if she chooses to stay here, I bid you to keep her protected from the attentions that might come at her, as well as see to my affairs and keep an eye on Christophe and Élan. Élan will have no issue with her. Christophe may have difficulties coping.”

Achilles nodded.

Apollo continued. “If she is to stay here, when I deliver her in the morning, I will collect Derrik and take him with me.”

Achilles nodded again.

Apollo went on. “Upon my return, we’ll see to a quiet wedding.”

Achilles didn’t nod at that. He held Apollo’s gaze and said nothing.

Apollo ignored the reservations in his cousin’s eyes and kept speaking.

“If she comes with me, dispatch the guard as I instructed, however not the men I chose. You choose who to send but send four of them. I’ll wed her along the way.”

Again, Apollo didn’t nod.

Instead, he advised, “I urge you to take some time to consider this, cousin.”

“I have no choice but to sleep on it,” Apollo replied.

He watched his cousin take in a breath and let it out.

Then he again watched his cousin nod. This did not surprise Apollo. They’d grown up together, alongside Laures, Draven and Derrik. Achilles knew when Apollo’s mind was made up, there was no changing it.

And Achilles would champion it, if not in word at that moment, when the time came, he’d do it in word and deed. For Apollo and, he was in no doubt, also for Ilsa.

Therefore, Apollo nodded back and ended the conversation by leading Torment into the stables.

* * * * *

His fist on his c**k pumping, his eyes closed, the vision of her running her tongue up the underside was in his brain.

Her face, he knew.

But he’d never had that tongue.

Or those eyes.

Eyes that were burning on him now, burning on him and through him even if only in his imagination.

Fathomless.

A mystery.

His mystery.

On this thought and the small enigmatic smile she gave him before she rolled her tongue around the tip, his head pressed back into the pillows and Apollo stifled his own groan as he spent himself on his stomach.

Slowly opening his eyes to the dark of his room, he milked the last beads from his shaft as she continued to steal his thoughts.

Then he reached to his nightstand, opened the drawer and pulled out a handkerchief. He wiped up his seed and tossed the cloth aside. He then yanked the covers over him and turned to his side, stretching out his arm to curl around the pillow and pull it to him.

Tonight, a pillow.

Tomorrow, something else entirely.

He’d lied to his cousin.

He didn’t intend to sleep on anything.

He intended to sleep with something.

Yes, he’d made a colossal mistake.

One he just no longer had any intention to rectify by sending her away.

On that thought, Apollo closed his eyes and faded to sleep.

* * * * *

At sunrise the next day, with his gloved hand on a lead to a horse that was hitched to the sleigh prepared to take Ilsa forward or back, Apollo saw her standing on the steps of the inn.

She was wearing a fur cape, holding a fur cap in her hand, her auburn hair shining in the sun and her eyes were aimed at him.

He pulled back on Torment, halting close and looking down at her.

She looked up, and before he could speak, she snapped, “Bellebryn.”

Then, without delay, she stomped through the snow to the sleigh.

Knowing he was cursed and not caring in the slightest, when she did, Apollo smiled.

Chapter Seven

Away to Bed

I was learning something new.

That was, you could not stomp out your anger when a man had your hand tucked in the crook of his arm and was leading you up some stairs behind an innkeeper.

You also couldn’t do it when you were in the presence of an aristocrat, even if you weren’t one yourself (officially), because that wasn’t the done thing.

But I already knew you couldn’t throw a hissy fit in public, it was rude—in this world, my world or any world, no matter how much reason you had to do it.

That said, I was going to do it when we reached our room.

Yes, our room.

The first day gliding over the frosty tundra with Apollo had gone relatively well. This mostly had to do with Apollo riding beside me through the snow and not attempting conversation.

On my way through Lunwyn the first time, as the men rode close to my sleigh and we chatted, for the most part, my attention had been taken from the landscape.

Without that diversion, I was able to more fully take in the beauty of what was around me. The rolling plains covered in soft snow twinkling in the sun. The vistas dotted with green pines tufted with white. The small villages we passed, sleepy and closed away from the cold, smoke drifting lazily from chimneys coming out of roofs covered in marshmallow blankets.

As the glorious white horse with its smoky gray mane (the contrast to Apollo’s fantastic beast, which was smoky gray with an unusual white mane) pulled my dark green lacquered sleigh, I could give it my full attention. And I saw it was far more beautiful than I’d noted on the way in.