Authors: Sherrilyn Kenyon
Now, he suspected they had sensed whatever had attracted Archon and Asteros to him. Whatever Apollymi had done to protect her son must have lured them to him, too.
However, none of that mattered now. He had an Egyptian demigoddess to worry over and meet up with.
Closing the lid, he practically ran up to his room to collect his things and go. It’d already taken him longer to pack than he’d meant for it to.
It wouldn’t be that long until nightfall. But he’d travel through it. They’d done many marches at night so as to hide their numbers and protect their troops. Plus it saved water not to travel during the heat of the day. The soldiers and horses had a lot less exhaustion.
Styxx turned to leave then froze as Apollo appeared in his room. He cursed under his breath at the god’s inconvenient timing. “What?”
Apollo let out a bitter laugh. “Tone, prince. You still haven’t learned the proper tone.”
Grinding his teeth, Styxx really wanted to punch the bastard. “Aren’t you bored with me yet?”
Apollo gave him a lopsided grin. “If you were your mewling, obsequious sister, yes. I’d be bored with you. But it’s the fact that you continue to fight me even after all I’ve done to punish you for it that fascinates me. Most humans learn their lessons.… You don’t. Why is that?”
Styxx reached for his saddlebags. “I’m dumber than most.”
Moving faster than Styxx was prepared for, Apollo grabbed him and turned him around so that Styxx could see himself in the mirror with Apollo standing behind him. The Olympian didn’t touch Styxx. Rather he locked gazes in the mirror. “If only you were, I could forgive you. But it’s knowing how intelligent you are that fascinates me.” Apollo touched his cheek.
Styxx jerked away, but Apollo refused to let him leave their reflection. He yanked Styxx back to the mirror.
“See what I mean? Why do you continue to fight me?”
“I have no stomach for men in general and you in particular. Your touch reviles me.” How many times did he have to say it before Apollo got the message?
Apollo jerked Styxx against him. “And yet you’re so beautiful … even scarred as you are, I crave you.”
Styxx cringed. “You gave your word to all that I was free.”
“And I’ve never regretted anything more. Yield to me once … just once.… Come to me as you would your betrothed, and bend to my will, and then I will leave you in peace. Forever.”
Sure he would.
“I don’t believe you.”
Apollo tried to grab him, but Styxx caught his hand and jerked it away. It didn’t deter the Olympian at all. He wrapped his arms around him and tried to kiss him. “I can’t get you out of my mind. How many more people do I have to take from you before you bend to me?”
Styxx fought hard for his freedom. “You killed Galen?”
“Not personally, but yes. And I’ll kill the rest if you don’t give me what I want.”
Styxx cried out as Apollo sank his fangs deep into his neck to feed.
The door to his room opened.
A sharp, feminine gasp froze him instantly. Eyes wide, Ryssa stared at them with horror etched into her fragile features. Styxx could only imagine the sight they made with Apollo’s hand still pressed against his slave’s brand on his groin and the god feeding from this neck.
Completely unperturbed, Apollo laughed and lifted his head then kissed Styxx’s cheek while he cupped him in plain sight of his sister. “Would you care to join us, Ryssa?”
That set her off into one of her legendary shrieking fits as she began grabbing things in the room and hurling them at him and Apollo. Ducking the first clay vase, Styxx broke away from Apollo and glared at him.
Apollo sneered at Ryssa. “I am not putting up with this. I’ll be back when you calm down.” He flashed out of the room, leaving Styxx alone with the termagant.
She continued to scream out in a tone that rendered her words unintelligible as she sought to strip his room bare of projectiles.
“What in the name of Zeus is going on in here?” his father roared as he snatched the clay wine jug from her hand before it became another pile of broken fragments on the floor.
Sobbing in hysteria and ignoring the question, Ryssa kept her fury concentrated solely on Styxx. “How dare you! You disgust me! I wish you were dead!” She whirled about and stormed from the room.
His father returned the jug to the table as Styxx pushed himself up from the floor. “What did you do to her?”
“Nothing, Father. I didn’t do anything to her at all.”
His father moved to go after her. But Ryssa met him at the door. Without a word to their father, she crossed the room with a tranquility that concerned him. Expecting her slap, Styxx caught her left hand as she tried to deliver it. But the moment he did, he felt something sink painfully into his abdomen.
Stunned, he stumbled back to see the large bloody knife she’d hidden in the folds of her gown.
She lunged to stab him again.
Styxx grabbed her wrist and held it tight as his father finally realized what was going on.
Instead of calling for the guards, his father pulled Ryssa back and took the knife out of her hand. “What have you done, daughter?”
Styxx’s knees buckled as the room spun around. While it never felt good to be stabbed, gut wounds had to be the worst. Breathing raggedly, he lay down and tried to focus.
“He’s sleeping with Apollo! Selfish bastard! He’s taken everything from me! Everything!”
Flat on his back, Styxx felt a tear slide from the corner of his eye as pain racked him while his father comforted Ryssa on the other side of the room. In spite of the agony, he laughed in bitter amusement.
Every member of his family, except his father and Bethany, had stabbed him.
But I’m young still. There’s plenty of time for that to change.
Blood rushed between his fingers as he applied as much pressure as he could to the wound. Yet it was hard. His hands were shaking and he felt like he was about to vomit.
Still his father ignored him while the king dealt with Ryssa’s hysterics.
“Father?” he breathed.
“Oh dear gods … Guards!” His father finally left Ryssa to check on him. “Fetch the physician!” Swallowing hard, his father started to touch Styxx’s blood-covered hands then refrained. “Does it hurt much?”
No, it feels fucking wonderful. I live for my family to stab me.
Was the man insane? Of course it hurt. His sister had just tried to gut him.
“However much it hurts, it doesn’t hurt enough for what he’s done. He’s humiliated me for the last time! I wish you could die like a normal person, you bastard! You’ve been nothing but misery to everyone since the day you were born. If you died tomorrow no one would miss you except that Egyptian whore you found. And even she wouldn’t care for long. You’re nothing!” She ran for him.
His father stood up to catch her before she reached Styxx again. As his father pulled her back, she spat in Styxx’s face.
He wiped it away with the back of his scarred, bloodied hand.
Why didn’t I leave here sooner?
He shouldn’t have wasted five seconds of time on his brother. The gods knew Acheron wouldn’t waste it on him.
I should have left that damned crown in my room and been on my way to Egypt.
Maybe he could still ride later tonight. He just needed someone to stitch the wound. As Ryssa had pointed out, it wasn’t like he could physically die from it. Though to be honest, he died a little inside every time they attacked him.
The physician gasped as he saw him on the floor. “Highness?”
Styxx opened his eyes. He moved his hands aside for the man to examine the gaping hole. The physician pulled Styxx’s chiton up so that he could tend it.
The physician sucked his breath in sharply at the amount of damage. Mostly because on anyone else, the wound would be fatal. Blood loss wasn’t the problem. But Styxx had seen enough injuries like this in battle to know the inevitable outcome. Within a few days, the soldier always died in extreme and utter agony. Because of that, the soldiers with these wounds were often killed just to put them out of their misery. It was something that still haunted him. But during war they couldn’t afford to waste their limited supplies on someone who wouldn’t live anyway, and it was cruel to let them die slowly in agony when there was no help or hope for them.
His father finally returned. The horror in his eyes confirmed Styxx’s dire prediction.
“It’s bad, Majesty,” the physician said as he worked to stop the blood flow. “Most don’t survive a wound like this.”
His father sank to his knees by his side. Tears welled in his eyes. “Styxx?”
He bit back a groan. “I’ll live, Father. I’ve had worse in battle.”
The physician appeared skeptical.
Styxx brushed his hand across the scars he bore. “Trust me.”
For the first time, the physician nodded. “So it appears, Highness. I need to stitch this and I can’t give you wine to drink.”
Styxx turned his head toward the chest by the window. “Bring me that.”
His father frowned as the physician complied. “What is in it?”
Styxx didn’t answer as the physician returned with it and Styxx dug out the Morpheus root he hadn’t used since Bethany had come back into his life. “Do you know how to prepare this?” he asked the old bald man.
“You heat it, but I don’t know how much to use.”
Styxx pulled out the right amount and handed it off to him so that he could begin the preparations while his father watched with an even deeper frown. Hissing in pain, Styxx clenched his teeth. “It’s a drug, Father. One that won’t take the pain away, but it’ll make me not care that I feel it.”
“How do you know about such things?”
Your perverted brother.
The words hovered on his lips, and were hard to bite back. His father had been blind to Estes, and while it angered him, what good would it do to scream at his father over his abuse now?
He’d killed the bastard and the eternal damage was done. No need to worsen it.
Luckily, the physician returned. Styxx inhaled the herbs and gave them a few minutes to take effect before he nodded at the man to start closing the wound.
Trying to distract himself, Styxx locked gazes with his father whose countenance was a mask of total disbelief.
“It dawns on me that I know very little about your life and even less about you.”
What? Did his father want to play catch-up now? Given the amount of blood loss and pain, Styxx really wasn’t in the mood for a lengthy father-son conversation.
But what really hurt were the memories of Galen standing by him whenever he’d been wounded. In his mind, he saw himself on that day when the wooden spike had torn through his side in Atlantis. Cocky and stupid, Styxx hadn’t been paying attention. But the moment the spike went in, he’d cried out in utter agony. Galen had pulled him back and protected him from their enemies. Too weak to even hold a dagger, Styxx had been completely defenseless.
“I’ve got you,
mou gios.
Don’t worry. Nothing’s getting through me.”
Even though Styxx was taller, Galen had carried him off the field of battle and held his hand the whole time they’d closed the wound.
“Squeeze when it hurts, and don’t worry about breaking anything, Highness. Trust me, if my deceptively strong Thia wasn’t able to break it during her childbirths, there’s no damage you can do. And at least you’re not threatening to cut off my balls, fry them up, and feed them to me.”
Only Galen could have made him laugh while in that kind of pain and misery.
Afterward, the old man had gotten him drunk.
Gods, how he missed him.
Damn you, Apollo!
Was it not enough that he’d killed Galen? Why torture Ryssa, too? She already held more than her fair share of hatred for him—why would Apollo worsen it?
I should have just fucked him and got it over with.
Not that it would have mattered. Had he given in, Ryssa would have seen a lot more than him trying to fight Apollo off. Maybe in time she’d calm down and realize what was really going on.
Who are you kidding?
Ryssa would
never
take his side in any matter.
Once the physician was finished and had cleaned Styxx’s wound thoroughly, his father called for the guards to help him to bed.
“It’s not necessary,” Styxx said, amazed that his speech wasn’t slurred. “I can do it.” Grinding his teeth against the pain that came through in spite of his drug, he pushed himself up and stumbled into bed. His head reeling, he lay there, trying to get the room to stop spinning.
He heard the sound of his father nearing his bed. “Is any of what Ryssa said about you and Apollo true?”
Opening his eyes, Styxx gave him a vacuous stare. His father really wanted to go into this right now?
What the Hades? Why not? It wasn’t like Styxx was suffering in agony or anything.
Too high to care or hold back, he blinked at his father. “Yes, Apollo has buggered me. Repeatedly. No, I didn’t instigate it. I damn sure never enjoyed it. And I really wish she’d keep him inside her so the bastard would leave me alone.”
For once, his father didn’t remark on his crudity. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
If he didn’t know better, he’d swear his father was on something, too. “I believe your exact words were for me to suck his balls and cock, and to bend over and take it wherever Apollo wanted to shove it so long as I kept him happy for
you
.”
His father looked as horrified and ill as Styxx had been when the bastard had said it to him.
I didn’t mean it.
Little late for that thought.
“How long has it been going on?” his father asked.
“Since you put me in the Dionysion when I was a boy.”
The color faded from his father’s face. “I don’t understand.”
“They invoked the gods, Father,” he said bitterly. “So they came for me … in more ways than one.”
“Is that why you hate me so?”
“It certainly didn’t endear you to me, and neither is this fucking conversation. For the love of Olympus, Father, I’ve been stabbed by your daughter and it hurts. I just want to bleed and suffer in peace and silence, if that’s not too much to ask? So please, have mercy on me for once in my wretched life.”