That was when I heard an attractive, cultured, insanely bored-sounding female say, “Apollo, chéri, the other you holds a deadly weapon.”
I was about to take my eyes away from the two Pols to look where the woman’s voice was coming from but didn’t when I heard what I could swear was the hiss of steel.
Yep. I was right. It was the hiss of steel. I knew this because the romance-novel-cover Pol was now wielding a sword.
A freaking sword!
What the hell!
Then I pressed myself back into the wall when, with a practiced, economical, cool-as-shit (if it wasn’t scary-as-all-get-out and seriously gross besides) slice going around almost in a full circle, the romance-novel-cover Pol cut off the regular Pol’s hand.
Yes.
Cut off his hand!
I made a noise in my throat as I swallowed hard against the vomit that surged up and Pol emitted a violent rumble of fury and pain, clutching his still-there hand to his now stumped wrist.
Okay. I wasn’t hallucinating.
I was unconscious and having a very sick disgusting dream.
Still, even knowing this, I didn’t wake up which I really wished I would.
But no. The dream continued and the romance-novel-cover Pol with his big sword came around for another pass. I closed my eyes and shrunk back further, pressing into the wall behind me like I wanted it to absorb me because it looked like he intended to cut Pol’s head off.
I heard a thud of a body hitting floor (though not a second thud which would indicate a head hitting the floor) and I again swallowed bile and terror as police sirens sounded in the distance.
I didn’t know if this was good or bad. I could explain my need for a gun and I’d do my time if a jury of my peers thought I deserved it.
I couldn’t explain a beheading.
“We must leave tout de suite.” The woman said and she didn’t sound bored anymore. She didn’t sound freaked like I was (in a big f**king way). But there was a hint of urgency to her voice.
I opened my eyes just in time to be lifted up in romance-novel-cover Pol’s arms.
Uh-oh.
This wasn’t what unconscious felt like. I’d been that way often in my life and not just due to sleeping. I knew what it felt like. And this was not it.
His arms around my middle back and behind my knees caged me iron tight to his broad chest as he peered down at me, straightened and turned, walking to the middle of the room and stopping.
I would have protested. I should have protested.
I didn’t protest.
This was because I was looking in Pol’s eyes.
But this was not Pol.
I’d seen a myriad of looks in Pol’s eyes. Love. Hate. Fury. Annoyance. Passion. Humor. I could go on (and on).
This man in his weird clothes did not have any of the looks Pol had given me over the way too many years we were together.
He was gazing at me with a tenderness that was so acute I swear it looked like he was in pain.
And not a little of it, the tenderness or the pain.
“You’re not Pol,” I whispered.