Carefully, my voice as drowsy and vague as my brain, I said softly, “I don’t think I’m your dove.”
His reply was immediate. “You are my dove.”
“I—”
Another squeeze of the arms, this could not be mistaken for anything but a “shut up squeeze,” before he said, “A dove has great beauty, but is easily broken.”
That was nice and all, poetic even, though a wee bit scary, and last, all true.
However.
“But—”
“She was ‘my beauty,’” he whispered, an ache in his voice that made my stomach hurt and my throat tingle and bad, no matter how out of it I was.
He knew I knew.
And he knew I was not her.
At that ache, I didn’t know why I did it, but it was me who cuddled closer as I whispered back, “I’m sorry.”
On my words, his body stilled for a brief moment before he turned into me and gathered me even closer as he murmured, “As am I.”
“Why are you—?”
He cut me off again with, “I could not save her.”
Oh boy.
He kept going. “But I can save you.”
Oh boy.
“Apollo—”
“Sleep.”
“I—”
“We will talk later. Now, sleep.”
I had a mind to ask about the sleeping arrangements. I also had a mind to thank him for saving me from Pol. Even if the way he did it was over the top and grisly, he still did it. I further had a mind to explore this parallel universe thing a bit more seeing as I was groggy, but I was still obviously there with him so there was a there to be.
Even if I had a mind to all this, I unfortunately blinked a blink that malfunctioned so that when my lids lowered, they stayed that way.
Chapter Three
Be Careful What You Wish For
I felt the sunlight against my eyelids so I opened them.
When I did, I saw a sea of satin sheets that were deep lilac in color covered in a quilted satin bedspread that was pool blue. Beyond that, a vast expanse of room that led to a wall on which there were four sets of arched French doors all covered in wispy, pure white sheers. The woodwork was painted an antique white. The walls a cool pale blue.
Between sets of doors two and three was a French provincial table on which was a large, etched glass vase out of which burst a thick, fluffy array of hydrangea blooms, the majority of them a delicate blue with one deep purple and one rich cream stuck in as a striking, but beautiful, contrast.
It was a room I’d never seen before. Yet I’d woken up in it.
I pushed up in bed, muttering, “What the—?”