He was guiding his horse, his eyes riveted to the tracks in the snow.
But he let his steed avoid the trees and low hanging branches.
There were two sets of small tracks.
Two sets of small tracks that stated that unless Christophe was abducted by a dwarf, he’d run away with Nathaniel.
And if he’d done this, once they found him, he would embrace his son.
Then he’d tan his arse.
As if sensing these were his thoughts, he heard Achilles call out from behind him, “Stay calm, Lo.”
Easy advice to give, not having a son in these times…or ever.
Not advice he could, or would, take.
“Apollo!” He heard Frey shout, also from behind him, these two being the two Apollo had chosen to search with him as the men separated in order to cover more ground.
It was not luck but good tracking skills that they’d noted quite close to the house how the boys had swept the snow to hide their tracks. They’d followed the well-disguised (but not well enough) trail. Then they’d found where the boys had thought they were safely away and had stopped bothering to hide their tracks.
At Frey’s shout, he looked up from the snow and caught sight of what was approaching them.
It was a horse and on it was a man who did not look like he belonged on a horse in a frozen forest, but instead would look perfectly at home on the deck of a ship.
And this was because he was the man who taught Frey everything he knew about ships.
The man who was now first mate on Frey’s ship.
And a man who’d mastered the art of curmudgeonry.
Kell.
Kell’s horse was dragging a narrow pack sleigh and perched precariously on top of its load was Nathaniel.
In front of Kell on the horse was Christophe.
Bridling fear that had turned into anger, Apollo reined in Torment and felt Frey and Achilles rein in on either side of him.
Kell approached and stopped his horse and sleigh but feet from the men.
Without a greeting, Kell looked right at Apollo and called out, “Found these two settin’ up a tent and tryin’ to build a fire. Seein’ as I didn’t ‘spect you’d want your boy, and whoever that lad is”—he jerked his head to indicate Nathaniel behind him—“to be bear food, I convinced ‘em to come with me.”
From the mutinous look on his son’s face, and the terrified one on Nathaniel’s as he eyed the Head of the House where he was employed, Apollo wondered briefly how Kell had convinced them of anything.
He had no opportunity to ask for Frey spoke.
“Bears are hibernating, Kell.”
“Aye.” Kell nodded. “Too true. But I reckon they’d come out for a tender morsel of boy meat.”
Apollo watched his son pale and knew how Kell convinced them to go with him.
He dug his heels into Torment and his horse led him to the side of Kell’s.
“Put him down,” he commanded.
Kell’s eyes in his weathered face gave Apollo a once-over.
And Apollo knew what he saw when he said, “Will do after you tell me your feelin’s about corporal punishment.”
Apollo speared him with his scowl.
“Put. Him. Down.”
Kell held his angry gaze for a moment before his went to Frey and finally he slid Christophe to his boots in the snow.
The minute Apollo heard the crunch, the leather of his saddle creaked as he dismounted.
He put a hand to his boy’s shoulder and led him away from the horses and into the trees.
He felt his son’s tight muscles and saw his set face but when Apollo stopped them, Christophe didn’t hesitate to tip his head back and look right into his father’s eyes.
Now he felt pride, as well as anger.
Bloody hell.
Apollo took a deep breath and let it out before he said quietly, “You are very aware there is danger.”
Christophe’s eyes flashed but he said nothing.
Apollo did not do the same.
“Thus you would be very aware that the news you were missing would cause panic and distress.”
He saw his son swallow but he remained silent.
“Bella was beside herself,” Apollo told him, and at that, he lost his son’s eyes. “Look at me, Chris.” Christophe looked back to him. “The news of your disappearance was kept from your sister. But if it had not been, if she was the one to discover you were gone, how do you think she’d feel?”
Finally, he spoke.
“Bella told us she was lunching with us.”
“She?”
He watched Christophe clench his teeth but he said nothing.
“So, you’re not saying Maddie’s name now?” he asked.
Christophe looked to the side.
“Give me your eyes, son,” Apollo ordered on a squeeze of his shoulder.
Christophe looked back.
“Why did you run away?” he queried.
“I didn’t want to be around her.”
“Why did this make you run away?” Apollo pushed.
“I just didn’t want to be around her.”
“And you ran away instead of discussing this with me?”
His lips twisted into a half-sneer when he stated, “You want to be around her.”
“I do,” Apollo agreed. “She makes me laugh. She makes me happy. She—”
“She does all that because she looks like Mum,” he bit out.
Apollo took in another deep breath and let it out.
Only then did he speak.
“You know that’s not true.”
“Yes?” he asked, his boy’s voice filled with sarcasm. “How?”
“You’ve spent time with Maddie. You’re very aware she isn’t your mother.”
“Yes. I’m very aware of that, Father. Are you?”
His hand again tensed on Christophe’s shoulder but this time it did it of its own accord.
By the gods.
That grief.
That anger.
Apollo had been mistaken.
He should not have left it this long.
He stared into Christophe’s eyes.
“Yes, son,” he whispered. “I’m very aware of that. I’m very aware that losing your mother felt like half my soul had been torn away. I’m very aware that the only moments since she passed that gave me joy were the moments I spent with your sister and you. I’m very aware that I had grown so accustomed to feeling joyless that I lost hope I’d ever feel that way again, the way only your mother could give to me. And I’m also very aware that at first, I was much like you. I felt anger that Madeleine could look so like your mother and not be her. This anger came after I held hope, even though I knew it was wrong, perhaps even cruel to expect that of Maddie, that she would be your mother returned. And I treated Madeleine to that anger when I understood she was not.”
He watched the flash of relief hit his son’s eyes, relief that his father understood, and in a perfect world Apollo could leave it at that.
But this wasn’t a perfect world. It was a complicated one. And it was Apollo’s duty to guide his son into learning how to navigate it.
Thus he forged ahead.
“However, once I shared time with her without those expectations and it became abundantly clear that Madeleine was not your mother, she did many things to bring me joy. She did many things to make me angry. She did many things to make me think. She did many things to make me wish to keep her safe. She did many things to make me feel.”
He saw his son’s face getting red, either increased anger or another emotion, Apollo did not know.
But he didn’t stop.
“Your sister never knew your mother. But if you’ve been paying attention—and Chris, I know you pay very good attention—you’d have seen that Maddie does many things to bring your sister joy.”
“Mum was a better mum,” he stated mutinously. “Élan will never know. Élan will never know how good a mum Mum was.”
&nbs
p; That grief.
Gods.
He had been sorely mistaken.
“No,” Apollo whispered. “And you are correct. Your mother was a better mother because you were hers and she was yours and there is never a better mother to have than your own. And your sister will never understand that, which is a tragedy we both know well. But would you not allow me to have what Maddie gives me, allow your sister to have what she could give her, allow yourself to have what she so wants to offer you, even if it isn’t the same, even if it isn’t as good, simply because you deserve it and she deserves the privilege of giving it?”
“You act like it’s better than what Mum could give.”
He was still whispering when he returned, “I have never done any such thing.”
Christophe again looked to the side and said nothing.
Apollo didn’t force back his eyes.
Instead, he moved his hand to curve his fingers around the side of his son’s neck and dropped to a knee in the snow.
“You are my little man,” he told him quietly.
Christophe didn’t look back to his father but he did swallow.
“I forget,” Apollo went on. “You are such my little man, so brave, strong, grown-up, I forget that you’re still my little boy.”
Apollo watched his lips tremble, the vision cut deep into his soul, but he kept speaking.
“I was mistaken. I knew there was something amiss. I understood you were struggling. I understood why, Chris, seeing Maddie dressed in our House’s colors, ready to take my arm. Something you remembered was your mother’s and mine.”
At that, Christophe cut his eyes to his father. There was anger in them, defiance.
But mostly pain.
Apollo sustained that wound and gave him a squeeze.
“I was mistaken,” he repeated. “Mistaken in thinking that my little man could work through that hurt and see things as they are, the happiness your sister and I have with Madeleine in our lives. The happiness you could glean having her in yours. I forgot that you’re still my little boy and being such, I should see to you.”
“I’m not a little boy,” Christophe snapped.
“No, you aren’t, yet you are. And, my son,”—Apollo leaned into him just as he pulled Christophe close so they were nearly nose-to-nose, his eyes steadily holding his son’s—“until you’re a father, you won’t understand this. But I was mistaken in something else. That being I want you to be my boy for as long as I can have that. I will have decades of you being a man. Now, I must cherish the time when you’re my boy and take care of you as a father should while you are. This I will do. I will rectify these mistakes and from now on, look after you.”
“Does that mean you’ll be sending her away?” Christophe asked, his tone very much not like anything Apollo had heard from him.
It was ugly.
“Is that what you want?” he inquired. “For me to be alone again? For your sister to lose a woman’s touch?”
“Élan has Bella,” Christophe retorted.
“Indeed,” Apollo acceded. “And what will you leave me?”
Christophe clenched his teeth.
Apollo did not give up, for he couldn’t.
He loved his son.
And he was in love with Madeleine.
“And what will that leave Maddie?” he pressed. “I have you. Élan. Achilles. Draven. As you know, that list goes on. If I were to send Maddie away as you wish, what would she have?”
Christophe knew the answer to that but instead of saying it aloud, he slid his eyes away.
“I know not how to heal your hurt, for even having Maddie, I still mourn your mother,” Apollo said gently. “I mourn her for myself and I mourn her for you and your sister. Thus I know that hurt will never completely fade away. What I also know is, your mother is lost to us, but we still live. And the only way to do that is to live, finding as much laughter and happiness along the way as we can.”
Christophe kept his eyes averted and as he did, Apollo knew he was feeling too much for this to be sorted now, in the cold and snow, while men were out looking for his son and many were worried.
“We’ll talk more when we’re home and those who are worried know you’re safe.”
Christophe finally looked back to him. “I’ll ride with Lees.”
Apollo endured yet another wound and shook his head.
“You’ll ride with your father.”
Christophe clenched his teeth but he said nothing further.
Apollo straightened from the snow and moved to Torment, guiding Christophe with him with his hand back to his shoulder. Achilles, Frey, Kell and Nathaniel watched silently as he mounted then bent and pulled his son up in front of him.
Christophe held himself stiffly, clearly trying to stay as far away from his father as he could.
Without a word, Apollo spurred Torment into a canter, pulling ahead of the men who were silently following them, wishing to be home to put minds at ease, especially Maddie’s.
He did this with his own mind in turmoil.
The Queen’s strategist, general to her soldiers, as his thoughts chased each other through his brain, he could not settle on a strategy of how to help his son deal with his pain and his grief.
He’d expected too much from him.
But this was not Christophe’s burden.
It was Apollo’s mistake.
Madeleine looked like his mother and Christophe had not even reached double digits. He would not process the differences between the two women as an adult would.
He would struggle.
Apollo knew the instant he explained Maddie’s existence months ago that Chris was uncomfortable with it.
He should have kept watch and planned how to battle it should demons arise.
He should have seen to his son.
These thoughts assailing him, his attention focused on the forest opening up in front of them as they arrived at the house, Frey growled, “Bloody hell.”
Apollo knew why Frey sounded annoyed.
Finnie was atop a steed and galloping toward him.
Frey put heels to his horse and shot forward, thundering, “Wife! I told you—”
“Maddie!” she cried, cutting off her husband, her eyes not to him but to Apollo, her horse in full gallop as it brought her toward them. “Maddie’s gone!”
Even as he felt his son do the same, Apollo went completely still and only at the last minute reined in as Finnie pulled back her own reins so swiftly, her horse wheeled under her.
She turned her head as it did to keep her eyes on Apollo as she continued with her dire news.
“We’ve turned the house upside down, men have gone to the dower house.” She finally stopped her horse and her eyes were still on Apollo. “Ruben found two sets of tracks, both he says were female, leading away from the house. All the women at the house are accounted for so we don’t know for certain who’s with her. But the tracks abruptly stopped and there’s no other sign.”
She drew in a breath, her eyes wide and concerned, before she finished on a whisper, her words landing yet another blow straight to Apollo’s soul.
“She’s disappeared.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Fucked Up. Huge.
Something was not right.
And that something not right was not the fact that thirty minutes ago, Cora, the Gracious surprised the absolute crap out of me by showing up in Apollo’s study telling me that she and Prince Noctorno were riding to Karsvall and found a young boy Noctorno knew to be Apollo’s son. Said boy refused to budge from where he’d dashed from them and was holed up in the trunk of a tree.
That was, he refused to budge unless he saw me.
The house was in disarray, people were freaked, most of the men were out looking for Chris and I was alone in the study, fretting and wishing I could do something.
And this was something I could do.
Not to mention, this was Cora, the Gracious. A woman of my people. One of the women of four co
uples united over worlds.
One of us.
And, let us not forget, I was freaked too.
Chris was gone and with the enemies we had, that could mean anything.
None of it good.
And most of it really not good.
So I’d followed her seeing as she said Prince Noctorno was with Chris and seeing as she was Cora, the Gracious.
And I knew it was her. I’d seen newspapers in Hawkvale, and even Lunwyn, that had pen and ink drawings of her that were printed beside articles that described what she wore to some ball or when she’d do a good deed, like visiting a children’s hospital.
Why she was there with Tor and we didn’t know they were coming, I didn’t know.
Then again, Finnie and Frey had shown without warning so maybe the bird sent with the message they were coming got shot for someone’s supper (or something).
As I followed her, and followed her, and followed her, deep into the forest around Karsvall, worried we were getting into a zone that was unprotected by Apollo’s witches, I began to realize that things were not right.
First, if I thought about it (which I hadn’t) the fact that she’d mentioned Prince Noctorno repeatedly and she’d done it just like that was weird.
She called him Prince Noctorno.
Now, I didn’t know any aristocracy from the Vale, so maybe I was wrong, but the dude was her husband and she was from my world. I couldn’t imagine she’d address her husband as Prince Noctorno unless she was at some official function. And truly, I couldn’t even imagine her doing it then. I hadn’t been to an official function with Apollo but I couldn’t imagine addressing him as anything but Apollo, even to servants, as he called me Lady Ulfr or Lady Madeleine to them.
And that was another thing. She was from my world.
But she spoke like she was from this world.
Now, I’d heard that Americans who lived in England (or wherever) could take on the accent. But she hadn’t been in this world for decades, for goodness sakes. I couldn’t imagine her talking just like people from this world.
Not yet.
Further, I couldn’t imagine Christophe wanting to see me.
For two weeks he’d been doing his best to avoid me.
Demanding to see his father, sure.
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