Authors: Sherrilyn Kenyon
Even more concerned than before, Bethany held him there. “I am worried about you. I know something dreadful has happened.”
“And it was terrible, indeed. I was kept from seeing you, my precious lady.”
She rolled her eyes at his silliness. “You awful, wretched, thoughtless beast. You make me forgive you when I want to be angry at your neglect.” Smiling down at him, she brushed her hand through his soft hair.
“I will take your anger so long as it doesn’t turn to hatred. I could never live if I thought you hated me.”
“See, there it all goes. No trace of anger inside me now. Damn you, Hector. You stink!”
He pressed her hand to his face so that she could feel his smile. “How I’ve missed you cursing me.”
“And how I’ve missed loving you, you aggravating man.” She lifted his hand to her heart so that he could feel it beating for him. “Against everything I’ve tried to do to prevent it, you have crawled into a part of me where only you can do me harm. Do you understand, Hector? And I am a vengeful woman whose wrath is unimaginable. Do not make me turn that against you. For both our sakes.”
“So long as there is breath inside me, I will never do anything to intentionally harm you, Beth.” He rose to his feet and gave her the sweetest kiss she’d ever known. “I unfortunately have to travel for the next few weeks. But I will be back here as soon as I return. I swear it.”
“You better.”
He pulled her into his arms and breathed her in. “One day, I shall tell you what happened. But for now…” He kissed her. “I will be counting down the heartbeats until I see you again.”
Bethany held him to her and let the innocence of his kiss breathe life into her. “I miss you already.”
“Not as much as I miss you.”
Styxx forced himself to let her go and turn back toward his horse. He took a moment to watch her pick up her basket and pole, and wondered if she’d still love him if she knew what he’d done. How ruthless he’d been to his own uncle.
She deserved so much better than him. He couldn’t fathom why she loved him when no one else did.
Please don’t ever hate me, Bethany.
There would truly be no worse torturous hell.
September 26, 9532 BC
Styxx hung back as his father and Ryssa approached his uncle’s Atlantean home. Unwanted memories brutalized him as he remembered what had happened to him the last time he was here. And still the most agonizing were the memories he didn’t have. He’d never know exactly everything that had been done to him.
I wish we could burn it to the ground.…
Nothing about the abysmal place had changed. It was just as Styxx remembered it. Right down to every horrid stone.
Lenas, his uncle’s manservant, opened the door to stare at them.
His father stiffened at the servant’s insolence. “I’ve come to collect Acheron. Show me to him.”
Lenas opened the door wider to admit them. He raked a heated stare over Styxx’s body.
They do look alike … amazing. I wonder if he’s as good in bed.
Styxx cringed. Estes hadn’t just shared Acheron with his friends and patrons, but also his staff. As they headed down the hallway, strange images flashed in his mind.
Were they memories?
They came and went so fast that he couldn’t be sure what his mind wanted him to see or know.
Trying to push those thoughts aside, Styxx slowed as they neared a room where the sounds were all too familiar. Lenas gave him a knowing stare before he opened the door of the bedroom where Acheron was working with two patrons.
“What in the name of Hades is this?” his father roared.
Eyes wide with horror, Ryssa covered her mouth and turned away.
Styxx couldn’t breathe at the sight that greeted them. Completely naked, Acheron was buried between a woman’s legs while a man took full advantage of Acheron’s squatting position for his own pleasure.
The man pulled back from Acheron with a feral curse. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded with an equally imperious air. “How dare you interrupt us!”
There was a tone his father wasn’t going to appreciate, and Styxx was extremely glad he wasn’t the fool who’d used it.
Acheron gave one last playful lick to the woman’s body before he rolled over onto his back. He lay unabashedly naked on the bed, smirking.
“Prince Ydorus,” Acheron said to the angry man addressing their father. “Meet King Xerxes of Didymos.”
That took some of the bluster out of the prince, but not much.
“Leave us,” their father demanded.
Offended, the prince gathered his clothes and companion and did as the king commanded.
Wise move, buddy.
With a sickly gray cast to his skin that Styxx was all too familiar with, Acheron wiped his mouth on the sheet. His features gaunt, he wore those damned gold bands on his neck, arms, wrists, and ankles.
Licking his lips suggestively, Acheron intentionally flashed the
erotiki sfairi
that lined his tongue. Styxx gave his brother credit for that stupidity. Especially when Acheron lay back on his bent elbows and spread his legs wide to their father to ram home what he was.
“So what brings you here, Majesty?” Acheron asked, his tone mocking and cold. “Do you wish to spend time with me, too?”
Styxx flinched at an angry, defiant offer he knew went through his father like a sword. Acheron had no idea what he was setting into motion, but Styxx did. He just didn’t know how to stop it.
Worse, were the memories of the times he’d been where Acheron was. All too well he understood that hatred and rage that wanted to lash out and throw into his father’s face what Estes had made them do. To make the king deal with the reality that had been forced onto them against their wills. Acheron’s volatile emotions set his own on edge and left him raw and emotionally bleeding.
“Get up,” their father snarled. “Cover yourself.”
One corner of Acheron’s mouth quirked into a mocking expression. He bent his knees and assumed a sexually inviting position Styxx was glad Ryssa couldn’t see. “Why? People pay five hundred gold pieces an hour to see me naked. You should be honored you get to look for free.”
Brother, stop!
But Styxx couldn’t get the words out as forgotten details slammed into him. Suddenly, he remembered being in this room.
With Acheron and without.
“Four thousand solas for the first crack at them! Who wants to taste Greek divinity and royalty?”
“How do you like that, Highness? Tell me how much you crave my cock.… Beg me for it like the little bitch you are.”
Styxx flinched as he tried to force it all away and focus. But it was impossible. He wanted to do something other than stand here and relive a horror that never should have happened to either of them.
Their father grabbed Acheron roughly by his arm and pulled him from the bed.
Acheron covered his hand with his own and tsked at him. “It’s a thousand gold pieces an hour if you want to bruise me.”
Fifteen hundred to make him bleed …
Styxx flinched as he called Estes’s price list.
The king backhanded Acheron so hard, he fell to the floor and sprawled naked onto his back.
Styxx gasped as pain exploded in his own skull. It was so harsh a blow that for a few seconds, he couldn’t see straight.
Laughing, Acheron licked the blood from his lips before he wiped it away on the back of his branded hand. “It’s fifteen hundred to make me bleed.”
Styxx backed away as Acheron validated his earlier memory.
His father curled his lips. “You’re disgusting.”
Styxx’s stomach heaved. That was what his father would think of him, too, if he ever learned that he’d worn the same bracelets as Acheron. He saw himself bleeding on the floor, not his brother. This was exactly what would happen to him if his father ever found out he’d been sold.
If he ever saw the brand Styxx carried next to his cock.
And if he ever learned Styxx had murdered his uncle …
His father would gut him himself. Just as his mother had done him.
With a wry grin, Acheron rolled to his side and pushed himself up from the floor. “Careful, Father, you might actually hurt my feelings.” He walked around their father like a proud, stalking lion, looking him up and down. “Oh wait, I forgot. Whores don’t have feelings. We have no dignity for you to offend.”
“I am not your father.”
Styxx winced at the severity of his father’s condemnation against his twin brother and he remembered how tortured and conflicted his father had been when he cut Styxx’s arm open.
“Yes, I know the story well. It was beaten into me years ago. You’re not my father and Estes isn’t my uncle. It saves his reputation if everyone thinks I’m some poor waif he found on the streets and gave shelter to. It’s fine to sell a homeless beggar, a worthless bastard. But the aristocracy frowns on those who sell their blood relatives.”
How Styxx wished that was true.
Their father backhanded him again.
Styxx wiped away the blood on his face before anyone saw it. But his father and Ryssa were too intent on Acheron to pay his condition any heed. Thank the gods for that one small mercy.
Acheron laughed, unfazed by the fact that his nose was now bleeding, along with his lips. “If you really want to hurt me, I’ll ring for the whips. But if you continue to strike my face, you’ll make Estes unbelievably angry. He doesn’t like for anyone to mar my beauty.”
“Estes is dead!” their father roared.
Styxx cringed at the unadulterated rage in those words.
Acheron froze in place then blinked as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “Estes is dead?” he repeated hollowly.
The king sneered at him. “Yes. Were that it were you in his place.”
Acheron took a deep breath and the relief in his eyes was tangible. His thoughts rang in Styxx’s head.
It’s over. It’s finally over. The twisted bastard’s dead and I’m free.…
For the first time, Acheron met his gaze. Styxx saw his own shame, self-loathing, and absolute relief mirrored in those swirling silver eyes that were set in an identical face.
And while they were free of Estes’s future acts, nothing would ever erase those done to them in the past.
I know, brother. And I’m so sorry.
Acheron’s relief made their father furious.
“How dare you have no tears for him. He sheltered and protected you.”
Scoffing, Acheron turned his dry gaze toward the king. “Believe me, I’ve paid him well for his shelter and concern. Every night when he took me to his bed. Every day when he sold me to whomever paid his price.”
“You lie!”
Those words slashed across Styxx and stole his breath, and left him gaping in disbelief.
You fucking piece of shit! How could you deny what is right in front of you?
How could he call Acheron a liar when he bore witness to it?
In that moment, for the first time, Styxx was truly glad he’d killed Estes. His only regret was that it hadn’t been more violent and painful an end.
Acheron glared at the king. “I’m a whore, Father, not a liar.”
With a bellow born of grief, fury, and hatred, the king attacked his brother. He beat and kicked furiously at Acheron, who didn’t bother to fight back or protect himself in any way.
Styxx struggled to breathe under the ferocity of his father’s assault as his own body reacted to every blow. It was all he could do to remain standing. If he didn’t do something fast, they were all going to learn the truth of the twins.
Gods help them both if that happened.
Racked in agony, he pulled his father away from his brother. “Please, Father,” he said between gritted teeth as he struggled not to show his own pain. “Calm down. The last thing you need is to tax your heart. I don’t want to see you die as Estes did.”
As expected, the reminder that Estes had been younger and had died of a supposed seizure in his sleep calmed his father and gave Styxx a chance to suppress the damage his father had done to him. He wiped the blood from his face again while his father glared down at his twin.
Ryssa had gone to Acheron’s side.
“Don’t,” Acheron said, pushing her away. He spat the blood from his mouth to the floor where it landed in a stark red splatter.
“Get out,” their father snarled at him. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”
Those words hit Styxx even harder than his fists had.
Acheron laughed at that and met Styxx’s gaze without flinching. “Rather difficult, isn’t it?”
The king started for him, but Styxx put himself between them. He had to get them apart and sort through this.
Somehow.
“Guards,” he called, wanting them to pull his brother to safety until their father calmed.
They appeared instantly.
Acheron glared at Styxx with a hatred that was palatable.
I know you hear me inside your head, brother. Just like you always did when we were children, and I want you to see how much your precious father really loves you that he could throw us out so easily.
Tell me truthfully, Styxx, do you suck and lick Father’s cock and balls at night? You must choke on his testicles and suck him hard and dry for him to be able to love you so and deny me.
Rage, dark and deadly, blinded him as Acheron’s vicious thoughts hit him hard. How dare Acheron throw that in his face when Acheron knew exactly how much it hurt! It was beyond cruel. Even harsher was the memory he had of Acheron oiling Styxx’s body and prepping him for the men Estes sold him to.
Welcome to my world, brother.…
There had been no remorse in Acheron over what had been done to Styxx, not even when Acheron had seen Styxx’s horrendous scars left by the priests. His brother had mocked those, too.
Next time you should let the brands cool before you masturbate with them.
In that moment, Styxx wanted to kill his own brother. Twin or not.
Instead, Styxx jerked his chin toward Acheron. “Put this trash on the street where it belongs.”
Acheron pushed himself to his feet. “I don’t need their help. I can walk out the door on my own.”