“Okay,” I replied, hoping he knew that word too.

“We meet. She no talk,” he declared.

I drew in breath.

He kept going.

“No good. Bad. Talk good.”

Hmm.

Seems I was getting another Cristiana style lecture with a lot fewer words.

“Talk is good, Zahnin,” I agreed.

“Warrior. You. Talk.”

Again few words but there was no mistaking it was an order.

I wasn’t sure I was ready. I wasn’t sure what to say. I just knew what I needed Apollo to say but I wasn’t sure he had it in him to say it.

And I didn’t know how I’d feel even if he did.

Even so, I said, “Okay, Zahnin.”

“Warrior suffers.”

Oh God.

I stared up at him. “Apollo suffers?” I whispered.

“Warriors’ women no talk, warriors suffer.”

Okay, this guy was a big guy, a hot guy, a scary guy, because even if we couldn’t converse all that great, you didn’t need words to know he was seriously edgy.

But he cared about his wife.

A lot.

And he was trying to do something nice for Apollo and me.

Which meant I hoped his wife cared about him too.

A lot.

Hesitantly, I reached out, touched his hand briefly and said, “Thank you. I’ll think about it.”

His brows shot together over narrowed eyes and I was right.

Definitely edgy.

“No think.” He leaned into me. “Talk.”

I thought it best to agree at that juncture, and not simply because his limited vocabulary meant we couldn’t have a full-blown discussion.

So I did.

“Okay, Zahnin.”

He nodded sharply once then instantly turned and prowled down the steps to his horse.

He mounted the horse in a fluid motion that in and of itself would get him a contract with a Hollywood agent which would then lead to a resurgence of the western.

Once astride the mighty beast, he looked at me and called curtly, “Inside.”

I pressed my lips together, nodded, waved my farewell, then put my hand to the doorknob and went inside.

Once I’d closed the door behind me, I took six tentative steps in and looked right.

The door to Apollo’s study was closed.

That likely meant he was in there which thankfully meant I wouldn’t run into him.

I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding and hurried to the stairs. Once up them, taking no chances, I hurried to Élan’s room.

The instant I appeared in the doorway, she looked up from pointing at a doll in a little chair and saying something to it (and it was clear the doll had misbehaved and Élan was telling her off), her beautiful green eyes came to me and lit.

“You came!” she cried delightedly, like the queen of Lunwyn had shown at her door (and this could happen for her, the country’s princess was only a short horse ride away).

Taking her in, she was one thing my old world could not offer me. Not ever.

And she was perhaps the only thing that could make me forget everything and just feel happy.

“Of course I came,” I replied, walking in taking off my gloves and grinning at her. “I haven’t had a more important invitation in years. No,” I corrected. “Decades.”

Her head tipped to the side and she planted her hands on her little hips, her eyes watching me undo the catches of the cloak at my throat.

Then they lifted to my face.

“You’re not wearing a hat,” she observed.

“No,” I agreed, swinging the cloak off my shoulders.

“You always make me wear a hat,” she noted.

I dropped the cloak and gloves to an overstuffed flower print chair and turned my full attention to her.

“I do.” I lifted my hands in front of me in the “don’t shoot” position. “And before you say it, you’re right. I should. Just like you always should. It’s important to keep warm in order not to catch a chill and it’s just as important for me as it is for you.” I dropped my hands and grinned at her again. “It’s just that I was so excited to get my invitation from Dax Lahn to attend your party, I forgot.”

“Chris doesn’t wear a hat,” she pointed out.

I approached her and stopped when I was close.

I bent slightly at my knees as well as at the waist to get closer and stated, “He should. He should stay warm and healthy just like you and me. But he’s a boy and boys have reasons for not doing things like that. Reasons we girls will never understand, no matter how hard we try. But we just have to be smart and do such thing as wear hats when it’s cold and be even smarter and when boys do things that make no sense, just let them do it. It’ll be their price to pay in the end if they have a stuffy nose. Am I right?”

“Chris gets grumpy when he gets a stuffy nose,” she informed me.

“We all do, honey bunch,” I returned.

“Not me.” She smiled. “That means I don’t have to go to the school room. I can lie in bed and Bella will bring me flavored ices for my throat if it hurts and Papa will come up and read me stories.”

Only Élan would find the silver lining of having a cold.

“I bet you’d prefer being outside making snow castles,” I told her and she screwed up her face.

It cleared and she said, “Bella gives me flavored ices even when my throat doesn’t hurt and Papa reads me stories too. So having that and being able to make snow castles is better.”

I was glad she had come to that conclusion even if I didn’t like suddenly having the vision of Apollo reading stories to his daughter in my head. It reminded me of how wonderful he was which could make me forget when he was not.

That had happened in the early days with Pol too. He’d do something awful then revert to the Pol I fell in love with and I’d forget. In the end, before I gave up the effort, I made myself forget.

Then, eventually there was enough bad that no amount of good could erase it.

If you put up with it, they dished it out.

Apollo was not Pol. I knew this completely.

The fact still remained that if you put up with it, they were going to dish it out.

And it got worse.

I’d put up with it from Apollo.

He’d again dished it out.

And it got worse.

I stopped thinking these dire thoughts when I felt Élan grab my hand and tug.

“You sit here, next to Ariel,” she instructed, sitting me next to a doll with a crown and a very pretty knit dress the likes of which I had several of in my wardrobe.