Broken Dove(116)

Oh yeah. He was good at this sword shit.

Alas, as this was happening, Apollo was momentarily engaged in doing it, so the guy went for the knife on his belt.

Before I could cry out a warning, Apollo came back and carved his saber through the side of the guy’s neck.

A sickening spray of blood spurted.

I gasped and took a step back.

The guy lifted a hand to his neck, his eyes slid to Apollo and then he fell down on his knees right before he crashed to his front.

Okay, well.

I was thinking he, too, was a goner.

Holy cow.

I stared at the bodies and blood littering our little sitting room and I did this for a millisecond before Apollo roared, “When I tell you to run, you bloody do what I say!”

I looked to him to see his eyes were burning and not in a good way. Not that there was anyone left to talk to that wasn’t dead or unconscious but still, those burning eyes were locked on me.

“I—” I started.

He began to move my way and cut me off.

“Did it occur to you that if you’d run, you could have called for assistance?”

He stopped in front of me so close my head was tipped all the way back to keep hold of his gaze.

And seriously, our date—which included its shaky start, sure, but it also included great champagne, delicious food and Apollo and I eventually chatting and laughing, another fab horse ride back with Apollo, a brilliant kiss and the promise of an orgasm (or more than one since he’d said we’d be doing it repeatedly)—but it ended in death and destruction and him shouting at me and being sarcastic—I don’t think anyone would blame me that his words pissed me off.

“Did it occur to you that, seeing as I didn’t run, I was your assistance?” I shot back.

His mouth clamped shut and a muscle ticked up his jaw and into his cheek.

I took that as “no.” I also decided to take it as “thank you for helping me defeat the bad guys” when he jerked away from me and stormed into the bedroom.

I decided the bedroom was a much better place to be than amongst the grisly mess in the sitting room, so I followed him.

When I did, I saw he was tugging on a velvet cord with a thick tassel at the end and he didn’t do it once. I counted eleven times before he scowled at me and stormed back into the sitting room.

I really didn’t want to go back there, but after what happened, I also really didn’t want to be far away from Apollo and his sword. So I followed him back to see him bent over one of the guys, the unconscious one, his fist in the guy’s hair holding his head up.

“Unconscious,” he clipped. “Useless,” he ground out as he threw the guy’s head back and it thumped against the floor.

I put a hand to my belly, the gruesome tableau hitting me full on as Apollo stormed to one of the two dead bodies. He bent and started to go through the man’s pockets.

“What are you doing?” I asked, deciding on focusing on him so I didn’t focus on anything that might make me hurl.

His gaze cut to me and he didn’t answer my question.

No.

Instead he declared, “Four men in this room. Four weapons. And you.”

“Apollo—”

“You could have been hurt.”