Authors: Sherrilyn Kenyon
Hoping for the best, Styxx took a tentative sip. It pained him to admit it, but Dionysus was right. It was delicious. And very different from what he’d known in Didymos.
As Styxx listened in on their conversation, he learned that Dionysus had been banned from Olympus and sent to live in the mortal realm.… The real reason for his planned hostile takeover. Dionysus wanted to return to Olympus and throw his father from the mountain.
Likewise, Camulus’s godhood was all but gone and he wanted the heart carved out of someone named Talon.
In the middle of their conversation, they stopped talking to stare at him. “Human?” Dionysus asked.
Don’t I wish.
“God of drunken lunatics?” he shot back at Dionysus.
Camulus laughed.
Dionysus not so much. “Can you feign an Atlantean accent?”
Styxx wiped his mouth with his napkin. “It’s been a while since I heard one, but I think I have it.”
The Olympian actually appeared impressed. “Where did you get that?”
“I spent three years in Atlantis. I heard it a lot.”
“Ah, well, just so you know, your brother’s accent comes and goes.”
“Noted.”
Dionysus swirled his wine around in his … glass. That was the correct word for it. “I might live to regret this comment, but I think we’re going to pull this off.”
Styxx only wished he shared their optimism.
I better enjoy my limited freedom
. Because sooner or later, something was going to happen and he’d be relegated back to hell soon.
He was sure of it.
February 17, 2004
Styxx sat alone in the Cafe Pontalba at a table near one of the large doors that opened onto the street where tourists thronged in the midst of pre–Mardi Gras celebration. The waitress had just taken away his plate and card.
Drinking his beer, he stared at the foreign people who made no sense to him. They were all very odd.
Like you’re not?
True. He was so out of place, he couldn’t stand it. And he hated playing with people’s lives. At first, he hadn’t minded his assignments. Get close to the Dark-Hunters who worked with his brother and report back to Dionysus and Camulus. Play with their heads and confuse them a little.
Something made infinitely easier because he could hear their thoughts. But what had stunned him was how much love and respect the Dark-Hunters bore his brother.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t reconcile the Acheron they knew with the cowardly brother who’d stabbed him. The brother who’d ruthlessly oiled his body and held him down so that Estes could brand “whore” on his groin and laugh while it was done to him.
The brother whose greatest wish was to pay money to see Styxx violently raped.
His twin had never been caring about other people. Justifiable given Estes’s abuse, Acheron had been bitter and angry.
Hurt.
Maybe people did change. The gods knew Acheron had had plenty of time for it while he’d left Styxx to rot in isolation.
Still … why wouldn’t such an altruistic, “decent,” and benevolent person check on his own brother?
At least once in eleven thousand years?
As the waitress returned his card, Styxx rubbed at his temples. He had a splitting headache from the voices that echoed all around him. That had been the only good thing about being on the island. The only voice in his head had been his own. And even it had faded and gone quiet after a few thousand years.
Not even the keepers Artemis had sent at odd intervals had verbal thoughts. Rather their thoughts had been pictures so vivid, he’d drawn them in the sand after they left. Then the tide would come and wash them away and leave him with a new slate to draw on.
His phone rang. Styxx checked the number and was grateful it wasn’t one of the Dark-Hunters Dionysus had been rerouting to his cell. Since he couldn’t hear their thoughts over the phone, it made talking to them even more difficult than normal.
“What do you need?” he asked Camulus.
“Did you find out about the woman? Does Talon know she’s his wife reincarnated?”
Yes, he did, but Styxx refrained from sharing that. He wasn’t sure why. Just that the hopeful delight in Camulus’s tone made him wary. Besides, he understood the pain of losing the woman he loved. He wasn’t callous enough to torture another man with something like that.
Not even for his own freedom and sanity.
“I don’t know,” he lied.
Camulus cursed. “Find out!” He hung up.
“You look like you’re about to splinter that thing.”
Styxx glanced up to see Nick Gautier in front of his table. He’d bumped into the kid a few days ago while he’d been helping to set up one of the Dark-Hunters. This man was a Squire—modern day servant or employee, rather—to Talon, the Dark-Hunter Camulus wanted to torture most. Apparently, Talon had killed Camulus’s son in battle, back in the Dark Ages, and the god ached for vengeance over it.
And yet they all thought that Styxx should be willing to forgive Apollo for all his transgressions that had cost Styxx’s son
his
life.…
Yeah.
“Hey, kid.” Styxx slid the phone into his pocket. Standing at six foot four, Nick was physically older than Styxx and yet he seemed like an infant to him. There was an innocence to the Cajun boy that Styxx wasn’t sure he’d ever possessed. If he had, he must have still been in a pana.
Nick took the chair in front of him, turned it around, and straddled it. “Are you sure you’re all right? You seem a little off.”
There was an understatement. Nick was the only one in town who really concerned him when it came to discovering he wasn’t Acheron. Apparently, his brother had a tight-knit relationship with Nick that Acheron didn’t have with other people.
“It’s the Daimons. Too much shit going on.”
Nick laughed. “I hear you. And on top of everything else, school is kicking my a-s-s. I wish I could pay one of you to take my finals and write my papers. I don’t know what it is about them, but every time I have to sit down to a test, I choke and can’t remember how to do anything right.”
Styxx snorted at his words. “So what you’re telling me is that you’re having performance anxiety issues?”
“What…? No! Hell to the no!”
Styxx laughed at Nick’s righteous indignation. He could see why Acheron took a liking to Nick, and it went a long way in explaining why Galen had befriended him.
There’s a fire inside you, boy. Even though you walk around like Atlas with the weight of the world on your young shoulders, you do it and still hold on to your dignity.
He’d never understood those words until he met this kid. It was a perfect description of Nick Gautier. And Styxx admired the way the boy watched after his mother and protected her. Theirs was a very special bond, and he liked to think that had his son Galen grown up, he’d be a lot like Nick.
“Ah, crap.” Nick dug his phone out.
Styxx held his breath, hoping that wasn’t his brother on the phone. If it was, he was busted.
“Hey, Ma. Nah, I’m sitting with Ash at the Cafe P. You need something?” He pulled a pen out of his pants pocket and grabbed a napkin. “Skim milk. Sliced cheese. Bread.” He paused and frowned. “Ah, Ma … do I got to?” He absolutely cringed. “Fine. Girly things I don’t want to know about. Gah! No, Ma, don’t go there. I am your son, you know? I don’t want to know that, either. Love you. Bye.” He hung up the phone and sighed. “You don’t know how lucky you are that you were born before women had tampons. I swear they were invented for no other purpose than to cause endless hours of shame, humiliation, and torture to men. ’Cause nothing says whipped better than a man in the grocery store holding a giant pink flowered shrink wrapped monstrosity. Least they could do is put them in a plain brown wrapper or unmarked black box or something ubiquitous.”
Styxx had no idea what tampons were, but the expression on Nick’s face told him that he better not ask. Chalk it up to another thing Dionysus had forgotten to give him the definition to.
Nick shoved the paper into his pocket while he continued to rant. “And why do they always wait until they’re down to the last one before they restock? Not like they don’t get it once a month on a fairly regular schedule … If I did that with the toilet paper, she’d slaughter me in my sleep.” He growled then got up. “I’ve gotta make an emergency run. See you later.”
Laughing as he ascertained the definition of “tampon,” Styxx inclined his head to Nick and watched as the kid disappeared into the crowd. He got up and left a twenty-dollar bill on the table as a tip then headed out.
Nick had no idea how lucky he was to have a mother who loved him the way his did. It was all too rare in the world.
Styxx wandered back to the hotel where they were staying. He’d barely closed the door to their room before Camulus appeared and backhanded him so hard, he broke the sunglasses Styxx had been wearing.
Pain exploded through his head. “What the hell?”
“You lie to me again and I will gut you.”
Styxx wiped the blood away with the back of his hand. “You’ll have to pick a better threat. I’ve already had a god gut me. Really don’t give a shit about it now.”
“Fine. I’ll geld you.”
He laughed. “Been there and done that, too. Want to try three for three?”
Camulus scowled at him. “You’re insane, aren’t you?”
At this point, it was a good bet.
But he didn’t speak. Rather, he pushed his way past the god and went to get another bottle of beer from the small fridge. He popped the top and sat down on the couch to silently wait for his next assignment.
Something that was growing harder by the day. He was tired of screwing with people’s lives. His own had been toyed with enough by the gods that he was getting more and more resentful of what Camulus and Dionysus wanted of him. At the rate they were going, he was about to demand to be returned to his island.
Apollo or no Apollo.
February 21, 2004
Styxx gaped as Camulus appeared with an unconscious, bleeding woman draped over his shoulder. He recognized her as Sunshine Runningwolf, the woman who was Talon’s reincarnated wife.
“What did you do?”
Camulus didn’t respond as he tossed her down on the bed then used his powers to heal her bullet wound. Next, he tied her, spread-eagle, to the bed.
Fury ripped through Styxx at the sight. “What are you doing.” It wasn’t a question. It was a demand.
“Making sure she doesn’t leave.”
“You don’t have to tie her up like that.”
“Why not?”
It’s degrading.
But Styxx couldn’t say that as memories shredded him. It set off a panic within him so ragged that he could barely breathe for it. He remembered the way he’d been tortured and violated, over and over, while tied down like that.
Unable to stand it, he jerked the knife out of his boot and cut her loose.
Camulus arched a brow. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“She won’t escape.”
“You are overstepping your place, human.”
Styxx curled his lip. Apparently he couldn’t learn his lesson with the gods, because the next words out of his mouth were extremely stupid. “Fine, Apollo. Do your worst to me.”
“What’s going on here?” Dionysus asked as he joined them.
Camulus glared at Styxx. “Your pet was about to get his ass kicked.”
Styxx snorted. “And yours was about to have his ass handed to him.”
Dion made a sound of disgust deep in his throat. “I’m really getting tired of separating you two. Now stop it!” He turned his attention to the unconscious woman on the bed. “Why is she here?” he asked Camulus.
With smug satisfaction, the Gallic war god folded his arms over his chest. “To torture Talon. He has no idea what we’re doing to her and it will make him crazy. I literally ripped her out of his arms while he was powerless to stop me.”
Styxx could only imagine how nasty the expression was on his own face. Because the minute those words were out of Camulus’s mouth, Dionysus zapped him out of the room and into his bedroom so that he couldn’t hear their conversation.
Or so they thought.
“Now that’s he’s gone, Cam, explain yourself. What have you done?”
“I broke in and took her from Talon so that he’d know who holds her. You wanted him out of commission. I assure you, he’s going insane from the fear of what I might be doing to her. I’m sure by now he’s contacted Acheron. We need them as riled as possible, is that not right?”
“It is. So what are we going to do with her?”
“Rape the shit out of her.”
Styxx’s sanity told him to stay out of it, but he couldn’t. The thought of Camulus doing that to her or anyone …
He wanted the god’s heart in his fist. Before his common sense could prevail, he barged back into the room. “Touch her and I’ll tear both your arms off and beat you with them.”
Dionysus caught the Gaul before he could attack, and glared at Styxx. “Do I have to put you back in Hades?”
Styxx held Camulus’s gaze with his. If he didn’t come up with an alternate plan, fast, that bastard would have his way, and as Styxx knew firsthand, while Dionysus might not participate in raping someone, he damn sure wouldn’t stop it. He’d merely walk away and leave the human to the perversity of their captor.
No matter what, he wouldn’t stand for it.
“I have another idea.”
Camulus started for Styxx, but Dionysus caught him again and pushed him back.
“Stay in your corner, Gaul. Let’s hear him out.” He turned his attention back to Styxx. “Go on.”
Styxx forced himself to stay calm. “You want to mind-fuck all of them. Right? That is why I’m here?”
“Yes.”
Styxx hesitated. It was the last thing he wanted to do to anyone. But if he didn’t, something a lot worse would happen to the woman. “There’s a chest in my hut that contains Eycharistisi.”
Dionysus’s jaw went slack. “How the hell did you get that?”
“It was a gift.” Those words stuck in his craw. Estes had left it as a reminder of what he could do to Styxx whenever he wanted and Styxx had kept it to remember why he’d been justified in killing his uncle in cold blood.