Stygian

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  “Let me go!” Xanthia screamed, kicked, and pinched.

  Urian ground his teeth against the pain. “Calm down.” He regretted those words as soon as they passed his lips. How could he have forgotten that the worst thing to ever say to anyone when they were furious was to calm down?

  Invariably, it only pissed them off more.

  First lesson he’d learned as a boy when dealing with Archie and Theo. He still had the scar on his left cheek from one of those blatant acts of stupidity.

  Bethsheba had the gall to laugh. “You do have your hands full with that shrew.”

  And that got him one massive heel kick to his thigh. Urian grimaced.

  “Do you mind not antagonizing her further?”

  Xanthia slammed her head back into his nose.

  Urian felt it break instantly. Sonofabitch! He almost lost his grip on her as the pain of it split his skull and his eyes watered in protest.

  “Enough!” His father’s shout finally succeeded in calming his wife down. While she might not fear him, she had a healthy respect for the fact that his father held no love or loyalty to her and wouldn’t hesitate to rip out her heart to feast on it.

  Urian set her down on her feet so that he could wipe away the blood that was pouring from his nose.

  His father’s eyes widened in fury the moment he caught sight of his injury.

  Xanthia shrank back to stand behind him.

  Yeah, wasn’t this perfect? Now she liked him again. She even clutched at his chalmys for protection.

  He passed an irritated grimace at her.

  “Are you all right?” his father asked in a concerned tone.

  Urian had a moment when he considered telling his father the truth—that his nose felt like shit and that he was done with Xanthia’s theatrics. But sadly, her children loved her, and he loved her children. “I’m fine, Solren.”

  Still, his father’s gaze narrowed threateningly on Xanthia. “Go home. Now.”

  She ran off.

  Bethsheba walked toward Urian with a sassy, seductive swagger. She pulled out a piece of soft deerskin cloth so that she could tenderly blot and care for his nose. And as much as he hated to admit it, his body did react to the gentle warmth of her fingers cupping his chin. Especially the way she traced his lower lip with her thumb to soothe the throbbing where Xanthia had busted the center of it. “Your wife should appreciate the care you have for her well-being. And the fact that you saved her life.”

  “I don’t blame her for her fury. She’s a good woman. I’m an average husband.” Whatever problems they might have, Urian wasn’t about to see her reputation tarnished or her character abused by anyone.

  Bethsheba snorted at that. “You’ve raised a remarkable son, Strykerius.”

  “I know.”

  Stepping back, Bethsheba removed a tribal emblem necklace that was nestled snugly between her breasts. “For that reason, I shall leave you in peace, good Urian. When you come to your senses and realize that your shrew is unworthy of a man of your caliber, call us. So long as I reign, the Marzanni are forever allies to the Apollymians.”

  She leaned forward to kiss Urian’s cheek and to whisper in his ear. “When you’re ready to ride a real woman, my thighs will be wet and open for you.”

  If those words weren’t enough to make him salivate, the sound of her ragged breath and the scent of her blood mixed with his were almost enough to make him grab her right then and embarrass them both. It was all he could do to not accept her invitation on the spot.

  Because the truth was, he hadn’t been with anyone in days. He’d been starving since his wife had insulted him and he was dying for something to eat.

  And after the fight with Xyn, he was hornier than hell. He’d been without any form of compassion or care. He felt so lost and alone.

  Adrift. Honestly, he just wanted to feel welcomed somewhere. By someone.

  As if she knew his thoughts, she gave him a hot, hungry kiss that left him hard and aching with longing. She ran her tongue across the cut on his bottom lip. “Just put a drop of your blood on the amulet and call my name. I’ll hear you and come instantly.”

  With a wistful sigh, she stepped back and inclined her head to his father. “Take care, Strykerius. May we meet again one night.”

  “Indeed.” His father opened the portal for them so that they could take their leave.

  Urian didn’t move or speak until after they were gone.

  Not until his father approached him and took the deerskin cloth from his hand. “You’re a royal fucking idiot. I can’t believe you came from my loins.”

  “I know.”

  With a disgusted sigh, his father shook his head. “How long have you been sleeping at Tannis’s home?”

  Urian let out a ragged sigh before he confessed the truth. “Three days.”

  “Have you fed?”

  “Not really. Tanny’s tried to feed me some of her blood in a cup, but I haven’t felt like taking any of it.”

  His father grabbed his arm where he had fresh bite marks. “Yet you’ve been feeding your children.” There was no missing the angry condemnation in that tone. “You know you can’t keep feeding them if you’re not taking anything for yourself.”

  Urian knew. It was the quickest way to make an Apollite sick. And it could give them a rare disease that would kill them.

  “I’m only feeding Geras. He won’t go to sleep unless I rock him. He only takes a little right before he drifts off.”

  A tic started in his father’s jaw. “You coddle that boy. He’s getting too old for that kind of foolishness.”

  “Just looking out for my son, as my solren taught me to do.”

  Disgusted, his father flung his arm away. “The difference being that I am your solren.”

  Urian gave him a chiding frown. “In my heart, Geras is as much mine as if he’d come from my seed.”

  His father grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked him closer. “Nay, Urian, there’s a difference. I was there when you slid into this world, still covered in your mata’s blood. My hands were the first that held you. My face, the first you saw. Even before your mata’s. I held you every day of your childhood. I promise you that whatever love you have for that boy pales in comparison to what I feel whenever I look at you and your brothers and sister, knowing it is my blood you carry. Knowing my hands delivered you into this world, and that your welfare falls unto me all the days of my life. That it was my blood that caused you all to be cursed by the gods. You’ve no idea how much I hate myself for that. How much I hate my father. Not because he cursed me. But for what he did to my children, and theirs. And if your wife does not do right by you, I will see her throat ripped out. For her life is nothing to me, but your happiness is all.”

  “I will make sure to convey your insanity to her, Solren, forthwith.”

  His father winced before he kissed Urian’s forehead and playfully shoved him away. “You try my patience, pido.”

  “Someone has to, Solren. Otherwise your head will grow too swollen to fit inside your helm. And you need that for battle.”

  Growling, his father headed off toward the theocropolis. “I blame your mata!”

  “She always blamed you.”

  “And we both overcoddled you when we should have taken a heavy strap to your ass.”

  “Now he figures that out?”

  Urian arched a brow at Archie’s low tone as his brother stepped out of the shadows behind him. “Dare you to say that louder. And to your solren’s face.”

  “I’m not you, Uri. Me, he’d put through a wall.”

  Yeah, right. “He’s never struck you any harder than he’s struck me.”

  “I would beg to differ. He was a much harsher parent prior to the curse. Ask Theo. There’s a reason why we curb our tongues and actions more than you younger assholes. Guilt rides him harder than you know.”

  That Urian believed.

  Archie grabbed him in his huge paw of a hand.

  What the hades? W

hen Urian tried to fight him off, he only intensified his fierce hold.

  “Stop it, Uri, before I slap you. I want to see how much damage you took from Thia.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re my little brother and I don’t like to see you hurt.” Grimacing, he straightened his nose for him.

  Urian hissed in pain. “Is it fixed?”

  “Aye … you’re as pretty as my sister again.” He curled his lip. “That has to be painful.”

  “Hurt less before you rebroke the bone.” Urian gingerly fingered it.

  Archie scoffed at his irritable mood. “C’mon. Let me see you home.”

  “I’m fine, Archie. Besides, your concern frightens me.”

  “Then we’re even. Your stupidity scares me.” He slapped him on the arm. “You know where I am if you need me or a place to sleep today.”

  Well, this night kept getting stranger and stranger. Baffled beyond his ability to cope, Urian decided to head home and check in with Xanthia. It seemed like the right and decent thing to do, given all that had transpired.

  At least that was what his thought had been until he opened the door to his home and heard a most distinctive sound …

  And he knew his daughter was far too young to be rutting with a man. Or his son.

  His suspicions were foul enough. And he knew before he pushed open the door to his bedroom what he was about to walk in on. So the sight of his wife sprawled naked on top of another man didn’t shock him.

  The fact that it was his brother-in-law did.

  Only had it been Davyn would he have been more stunned. But the moment Erol’s blood-drunk gaze met his, he had an even more sickening realization.

  This was why Archie had been so nice. So concerned about him. Xanthia must have made a pass at his brother earlier, and unlike Erol, Archie wasn’t a complete and unethical bastard. No doubt he’d wanted to warn him but hadn’t had the heart.

  Instead, he’d offered Urian a place to stay.

  Comfort for the fact that his wife was a whore …

  “Wow … don’t I feel like an asshole. I turned down a queen so that you could screw an unscrupulous bum.”

  Xanthia sat up and faced him without a bit of remorse in her eyes. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she glared at him. “Is that all you have to say?”

  Not really. His head rang with a number of insults. Insults that his tongue begged him to unleash. But his children didn’t need to be awakened to such violence against their mother. “Just for you to get your scrawny ass off him so that I can kill him. Not because I give a shit who you spread your legs for, but because he did this to my beloved sister, and I don’t want to traumatize our children. So as soon as he’s dressed, I’ll take care of him … oh, and after this night, dear Xanthia, consider us divorced.”

  June 27, 9506 BC

  Urian’s head spun while Bethsheba came in his arms with a shrill battle cry. Laughing at her enthusiasm, he sank his fangs into her throat and let her blood invade his mouth so that he could feed on her sweetness. There was something about whenever she climaxed that made her all the tastier to him.

  He didn’t know if it was something about her adrenaline or if it came from her being a different form of Daimon. Whatever it was, she made his senses reel. Quickening his strokes, he lost himself to her cries and her scent.

  “Majesties?”

  Urian cursed in frustration.

  Sheba went rigid in his arms as her climax was cut in half. First lesson he’d learned when he’d moved in with her—make sure she was done completely with her orgasm before he finished or there would be hell to pay.

  She let out a shriek that challenged the elasticity of his eardrums as she flung a heavy gold wine cup at the hapless maid. Fortunately, the girl was used to dodging projectiles from her volatile mistress. “Damn it, Niva! What have I told you about interrupting us?”

  Cringing, the petite blonde picked up the cup and deftly policed the wine before it stained the rugs and resulted in a beating for the girl for her carelessness. Which would have later caused a fight between Urian and his wife after he defended what Bethsheba viewed as a lowly servant.

  “Forgive me, Majesty. But I have visitors for King Urian … his brothers are waiting for him.”

  Sheba let out a frustrated breath as Urian gave her an apologetic grin. Stroking her intimately and deftly beneath the covers in an effort to placate her ire, he nuzzled her breast with his whiskers. “Sorry, my love. They have always been my bane.”

  She yanked at his hair. “Should I have them beheaded?”

  Urian laughed. “Tempting … but nay. They are my brothers and my solren would demand satisfaction for it. Let me see what they need and I shall spend the rest of the night making this up to you.” He pressed a kiss to her bare stomach and breast, then moved to slide over her.

  She caught him and wrapped her legs about his waist, holding him between her thighs. “I will be here, naked and waiting for your return. Don’t take too long.”

  “I’ll return, posthaste.”

  With a precious pout, she released him.

  Urian slid from the bed, washed quickly, and grabbed his linen shendyt from where his wife had tossed it earlier when she’d attacked him for her “dinner.” Raking his hair back from his face, he grabbed a lightweight robe and left their room, which had been carved from the heart of an ancient mountain that Bethsheba’s people considered sacred to the goddess they served as devoutly as his father did Apollymi. The dark stone walls were soothing to their eyes that Apollo had cursed them with and it kept the temperature cool.

  Quite similar to Kalosis, the only real difference was that humans could actually access this home.

  If they climbed high enough.

  That being said, Sheba’s culture was nothing like the Apollymians’. Which made it hard for him at times whenever he paused to dwell on it. He’d married Bethsheba out of anger, and he was paying for it in ways he’d never imagined.

  While she was kinder to him than Xanthia had ever been, he still didn’t love her. And he felt every bit as used.

  Thia had wanted a protector to keep her safe from the humans and to guarantee her and her children a permanent place in Kalosis. Sheba wanted an attack dog to unleash at her command. One with no will of his own. She expected unquestioning obedience. A loyalty that overrode his conscience.

  She’d wanted Urian Deathbringer.

  That myth had only lived to avenge his mother. A rabid hellhound who wasn’t as mindless as she’d assumed. What he found out here in the human realm after his temper cooled was that he bore no hatred or grudge whatsoever toward humanity. They were that far beneath him. He was completely ambivalent toward them.

  He reserved his hatred solely for the gods who’d cursed his people.

  And away from his family and Apollymi, the volcanic heat inside his blood only seemed to arise whenever injustice occurred. Day-to-day, without his brothers around to nettle him for shits and giggles every time they drew near, he was rather mellow.

  Frightfully so, in fact.

  He’d had no idea just how quiet and introspective he actually was.

  Worse than that, he really missed Sarraxyn. More than he’d have ever thought possible. So much so that he no longer even cared that she’d lied to him about her abilities.

  Part of him just wanted to see her again—even if it meant apologizing. But he didn’t know how after all this time.

  In truth, he barely recognized the stranger who resided inside his skin nowadays. He really had lost himself. And that feeling was rammed home hard when he opened the door to the ornate throne room where Archie and Theo waited.

  They turned toward him, then gave him their backs so that they could continue their whispered conversation, because neither of them realized he was the one they’d come to visit. They thought him a stranger.

  I haven’t been away that long.

  Well, almost a year. But still …

  They shouldn’t haven’t forgotten what he looked like. Or failed to recognize their own flesh and blood.

  Bitterly amused, Urian glanced around the familiar room. Black marble was veined with gold and dusted so as to awe and impress any who came here, not that it appeared to have any effect on his obtuse brothers.

  Sheba was big on intimidation. Hence her two pets she kept chained to her throne. Agitated at the presence of his brothers’ unfamiliar scent, both oversized lions were pacing around and growling at Archie and Theo, straining at their chains as they sought a way to get nearer their intended victims.

  He paused to grab them a bit of steak from their larder. “Shh, Nero, Leo … it’s all right.” Urian tossed the raw meat onto the golden platters set on the floor next to Sheba’s throne.

  They immediately pounced on the food.

  Archie was the first to gape at Urian’s half-naked state. “Damn, Uri. What happened to you?”

  Scowling, Theo moved to his side so that he could paw at Urian’s hair, which now flowed just past his shoulders. “What’s this?”

  Urian snatched at the tiny braids Sheba had plaited with care that were interwoven throughout his hair with beads. While it was the fashion of his father’s people to keep their hair length just below their ears, Sheba’s tribe wore theirs much longer. Urian’s now fell past his shoulders. “It’s a sign of nobility among their culture. The long silver and gold beads mean that I’m their ruler.”

  “And the eye makeup and face paint?” Theo fingered the intricate pattern that Niva painted along the left side of Urian’s face and hairline every morning and from the tip of his nose to just under his chin.

  -->