“Braxton!” She tries to move around him, but he swiftly turns to face her, pressing his finger to the tip of her nose. “No. Stay.” He spins back around and I see her eyes go wide as her jaw drops open and her cheeks turn red.
Ryker must see what I do because he grabs his shirt and quickly pulls it on over her head. “Let’s get you covered up, Red. Do you have a brush here somewhere?”
“I want to hear,” she pouts, watching Brax, who looks like he’s about to throttle my brother.
“Apollo, tell me what you did to her.”
“Brax, he took care of me. I was poisoned from the sandcrawler and had heat stroke. I’d been wandering for three days and he found me probably moments from death. He helped me recover.”
“Is that true?” Brax asks, looking slightly more relaxed.
Apollo nods. “I did. And once she was better, I basically ignored her for four days before I accused her of marrying you all just so she didn’t have to be alone and told her she was a selfish, annoying spoiled brat who was nothing but a burden to you.”
I expected Braxton’s fist to fly, I even clenched mine in preparation, but it was Ryker who struck first. Considering he was standing furthest from Apollo, it says a lot about his anger.
“How dare you say such things to my wife? If she didn’t clearly care for you, I’d kill you for upsetting her.” He turns and picks up Penny, who wraps herself around him.
I can see tears leaking down her cheeks as she looks at Apollo. He nods as he tells her softly, “Go with him, I’ll be okay, this is something we need to work out between us.” I hear a small sob escape her as she presses her face tightly to Ryker, and he heads towards the large cave they obviously use as a base.
I turn to Apollo and rub my right fist in my left hand.
“I don’t want to hit you, brother,” I tell him honestly.
“You have to. I was an asshole.”
“Do you believe any of those things you said?” Brax asks, grinding his jaw.
Apollo thankfully shakes his head quickly. “No, I didn’t even believe them when I said them. I honestly didn’t even know her, we had barely spoken. I was projecting my own issues on her.”
“Calling her a burden, saying she only married us to not be alone, that’s her biggest insecurities, so I’m going to have to hit you, but then since she’s forgiven you, we’ll be good,” Brax says, surprising me at his insightfulness of Penny.
Apollo nods and Brax gives him a swift punch to the gut, forcing the wind out of him as he bends over.
Brax pats his back twice before turning the way Silver went, presumably going to help with the horses and cart.
“You know she’s nothing like Caroline, right?”
He stands up straight, rubbing his stomach as he nods. “Yeah, I see that now. It was hard to believe until I saw her reaction to my magic.”
I smile. “She loved it, didn’t she?”
He laughs. “Yeah, I made it rain.”
My eyes widen. “You can do that? Wait! Was that yesterday morning?” He nods. “Holy shit! We saw the dark cloud, it’s how we ended up here! We were north east of here and we would have kept going east, but your storm cloud drew us in this direction.”
“That’s lucky.” I nod. “Indy, you need to hit me.”
“I don’t feel angry anymore.”
“You have to, we need to put it behind us and you need to punish me for treating her like that.”
“I’m not sure I can,” I tell him honestly, most of the anger having drained from me after finding both my wife and brother not only alive and well, but already caring for one another.
“You know, when I refused to talk to her, she tried to make peace with me. She brought me berries to eat, help build the fire and replenish the firewood, and I threw it in her face, asking if shethought doing that would make me like her.”
“That’ll do it,” I grumble before I punch him in the gut. He bends over my fist and I wait for him to recover.
He finally stands up and smiles at me, asking, “Better?”
