Ash ground his teeth. “I don’t want to hear it. And for your information, I’m not the only one who hated him. You have no idea how many people wanted him dead in his human lifetime.” His eyes glowed with fury. “Did Styxx ever tell you that he had no friends … because no one could stand the arrogant bastard?”
Urian was aghast. “Arrogant? My God, Ash, you are blind. Have you ever, ever once spoken to him?”
“I’m out of here,” Ash growled.
Urian stepped forward to pin him with a merciless glare. “You leave, and I’ll have Tory hold you down to hear what I have to say. Things you need to know.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me … Because tonight when you lie down in your bed and your wife snuggles up to you and you smile with happiness, I want you to take a minute and imagine in the morning when you wake up in that same bed and reach for her warmth, it’s gone. Forever. That you’ll never know another minute of having her limbs tangled with yours. Never wake up and feel her body pressed against you. Then imagine going into Bas’s room and finding it empty, too. All the plans you had for him, gone forever. Then I want you to take a minute and imagine the kind of love and decency it took for Styxx to go with me into Kalosis and embrace the woman who murdered them. For you, Acheron. The brother who hates his guts.”
Urian paused to let those words sink in. “Now I admit I’m not as big a man as you are, Ash. But I can tell you right now, I wouldn’t piss on my father to save the world, never mind hug him to keep my brother from sharing the pain I have every time I think of Phoebe … which is every other heartbeat. I’m a vindictive son of a bitch. Because after the fit you pitched where you blasted him through the wall just moments before we went down to Kalosis, I would have gutted your mother for what she took from me. And here’s another thing you don’t know. She whispered something to him before he hugged her, and it was fucking cold and brutal.”
Snorting, Urian shook his head. “And then, after he went down there to save your wife. To keep you from spending the rest of eternity in hell, he took a blade for you from my father. I was there, Acheron. I saw it. No lies. Truth. Yeah, you healed him, and then you turned around and put the man who had just saved your life, and your wife’s, completely out of your mind. You turned your fucking back on him. I was the one who took him home that night and you never once asked about him again until today.”
Urian sarcastically bit his lip. “Oh and by the way, you forgot to pull the poison out of him when you healed his wound. For two months he lay in a coma, burning with fever and delirium, and I had to get Savitar to come in and help him because when I asked you, you told me he was doing it for attention. So while I love you like a brother, I consider Styxx my family, too, and unlike you, Styxx has no one else in this world. Poor bastard got stuck with me alone. Can you imagine that nightmare?”
Drawing a ragged breath, Urian curled his lip in disgust. “He left that apartment a couple of days after Savitar brought him out of his coma, over three years ago. He saved your life and Tory’s, and it took you three and a half years to realize he’d left.” He applauded sarcastically. “Good job, brother. Good job.”
Ash wanted to hold on to his hatred for Styxx. He needed it. But right now …
“And you know what I’ve always found fascinating, Ash? You never once asked me how I met your brother.”
Ash looked away as shame filled him.
“It was in Katateros, just so you know. I went out for a walk on the beach and heard something in the temple down the hill from yours. I found him inside, alone in the dark, with scraps to eat, and when I asked him if there was anything I could bring him, do you know what your arrogant bastard brother asked me for?”
Ash shook his head.
“Fresh water. That’s all Mr. Selfish wanted. He was having a hard time desalinating the river seawater to drink. Now I know you don’t like to eat, but the next time you’re home, I want you to take Tory and walk around your island and have her point out the edible foods she finds there, because there aren’t many.”
“I assumed one of you was taking food to him.”
“You’ve assumed a lot of things about him that aren’t true. Such as telling me that he was in the Elysian Fields for eleven thousand years. He wasn’t. Artemis put him on a Vanishing Isle completely alone. No one to talk to, and again with no supplies whatsoever. Not even a hammer.”
“That’s not what she told me.”
“Because Auntie Artemis never lies. Ever. About anything … such as having an eleven-thousand-year relationship with you that resulted in the birth of a daughter my age she never told you about until a handful of years ago. Artemis is the fountain of absolute truth, especially where you’re concerned. Her kind, benevolent care for all those centuries was why Styxx didn’t complain when you dropped him in Katateros. It was how he knew how to survive there with nothing. But the real question is why did he leave?”
“I assumed he got bored.”
“There you go again with the assumptions.” Urian dropped his gaze down to the tattoo on Ash’s body where his Charonte daughter slept. “Our precious little Simi demon attacked him unprovoked and … well, she did kill him. But he didn’t stay dead, obviously. Now before you call him a liar for that, too, I want you to know he never told me that story. Ever. I overheard it from Simi when she was bragging to her sister about ripping apart the bad copy of you who tried to hurt her akri. In fact, Styxx never says a word against you. Ever.”
“He told you I stabbed him.”
“Yeah, one night when he was really tore up and drunk and I was asking him about some of the scars on his body. As many and as bad as most of them are, the huge jagged one in the center of his chest directly over his heart tends to stand out.”
Ash frowned at his words. “What scars?”
“Dear gods, Ash … have you never looked at your brother? They’re all over him. Even his face.”
No, he’d never seen scars on Styxx. But as Urian pointed out, he never really looked at him.
Only through him.
“Where is he?”
Urian narrowed his gaze. “Why? So you can hurt him again? Forget it. He’s gone someplace safe so that you won’t have to worry about him darkening your doorstep ever again.”
“Yeah, he’s so altruistic with his billion-dollar bank account.”
“If you’re talking about the money you set up for him when you dumped him off without a second thought? He transferred that back to your account before he left New York. That, too, has been closed for three years.”
Sick of this game, Ash ground his teeth. “You know, I can find him without you.”
“You hurt him, Acheron, and I swear to the gods I loathe that I will beat you down for it. For once in your lives, can you not think of him and just leave him alone? It’s all he wants. You’ve already forgotten him for three years. What’s another three hundred?”
Those words were harsh. But harsher still was the truth behind them.
Ash swallowed. “I want to talk to my brother.”
Urian sighed. “Fine. He’s in the Sahara. Literally. Living like a Bedouin. I had dinner with him and haven’t heard anything since. That’s all I know.”
Inclining his head, Ash left Urian and went to locate Styxx.
Careful to stay invisible, Ash watched Styxx feed his horse and camel. Urian hadn’t exaggerated the horrors of Styxx’s meager existence in the least. But for the vivid blue eyes that were ringed in kohl, Styxx would easily pass for a Bedouin. Dressed all in black, he had his keffiyeh pulled over his mouth and nose, concealing his hair and features completely. The only color on his body was the brown sheath for his scimitar and the red agal wrapped around his black keffiyeh. And the two brown leather arm sheaths for the throwing knives they contained.
The horse nipped at the black leather pouch on Styxx’s hip.
Styxx laughed. “Ah, you caught me.” He scratched the horse’s ears and patted her neck. “Yes, they’re for
you.” He opened the pouch and pulled out apple slices that he fed by hand to his horse. “Good, right?” His horse actually nodded and snorted.
The camel made a sound of annoyance. “Don’t worry, Wasima. I haven’t forgotten you.” Styxx went to share some with his other mount.
Once the animals were fed and secured, and after he’d washed off his hands in the small oasis, Styxx headed into a tiny black tent.
Ash followed him in and was stunned at what he found. The “prince” had a modest bedroll on top of a worn-out Persian rug where a big brown dog lay sleeping beside metal bowls of half-eaten dog food and water. Next to the bedroll was an iPhone on the ground hooked to a small speaker that was playing Disturbed’s “Criminal” low enough to be heard in the tent, but not so loud as to drown out the sound of someone approaching outside. A backpack, saddlebags, four medium-sized solar lanterns, one rifle, and nothing else.
Unaware of Ash’s presence, Styxx stripped down to his akarbey.
Damn, Urian wasn’t kidding. The scars on Styxx’s body were horrifying to look at. When, where, and how had Styxx gotten those? And when Styxx squatted in the corner to search his backpack, Ash’s breath caught in his throat as he saw Apollo’s sun symbol that spanned the entire width of Styxx’s shoulders.
As a god, Ash knew exactly what a mark like that meant and all the horrors it entailed.…
Fierce ownership.
It was a warning to any god who saw it that Apollo would fight hard to keep Styxx as his slave. And Apollo didn’t do that lightly. The Olympian god had never marked Ryssa as his property. He hadn’t cared enough about her to do it. For that matter, Artemis had never officially marked Acheron, and they’d been together thousands of years before Tory had freed him.
And as Ash stared at the mark, Ryssa’s last day, with her screams of how Styxx had seduced Apollo, took on an ominous tone. While Ash might have been wrong about many things to do with his brother, the one thing he knew for a fact was that Styxx was completely and staunchly heterosexual.
But Apollo wasn’t. And if Styxx had fought his ownership, Apollo would have retaliated with a vengeance. Look what the bastard had done to his own people.…
His own son.
Acheron himself.
Tory’s words about the gods in human form rang with a frightening possibility. He’d always wondered how Styxx could be so vicious to him. How his own twin brother could essentially assault himself whenever he attacked Acheron.
Apollo castrating him made a lot more sense than Styxx doing so. The Olympian would have wanted vengeance on Ash for having slept with Artemis and “defiling” her. The savagery of that attack over Artemis made a lot more sense than Styxx attacking him for a woman he couldn’t have cared less about.
Putting an apple in his mouth and holding it there with his teeth, Styxx stood up with two bottles of warm water and a sketchbook and pencils. He sat down on the bedroll without disturbing the dog, then opened the water to sip at it. While he ate the apple, he turned to a page in the book where there was a sketch of a woman who sat in a beautiful meadow, holding an infant in her arms. The baby’s hand was on her lips as she smiled down at him. Even though it was only a drawing, the love in her expression was haunting.
Ash’s gaze went to Styxx’s left hand, which held his apple, and then down to the names of his wife and son that Styxx had meticulously carved into his own flesh.
An ultimate tribute. Not something a man would have done lightly.
The full magnitude of what Styxx had lost and how much his brother had loved his family slammed into him with such force that for a moment he thought he’d be sick.
Styxx set the apple aside and wiped his hand against his thigh, then leaned over so that he could draw. Ash winced as he watched the way Styxx had to use his left hand to wedge the pencil into the grip of his damaged right hand so that he could use it. The way Styxx did it said that he was so used to making accommodations for his partially paralyzed hand that he didn’t even think about it anymore.
Tears misted in Styxx’s blue eyes as he lovingly brushed his fiercely scarred right hand across the page. “Miss you, Beth,” he breathed before he began filling in more details. He pushed the book back a bit as he worked, and it was only then Ash realized why.
He was protecting it.
Every so often, a random tear would fall as Styxx worked. Silent and focused, he would wipe it away on his shoulder and keep drawing.
Awed by his brother’s heart and talent, Ash sank to his knees to watch Styxx’s precise, expert strokes. He’d had no idea that his brother could do such.
Once it was finished, Styxx sniffed back his quiet tears and flipped through the book that was filled with pictures of the same woman and the baby boy at various ages that ranged from newborn to adulthood. It was as if Styxx had created the memories of his wife and child that he’d wanted to have.
Memories that had been stolen from him.
By Acheron’s mother.
But what tore out Ash’s heart was how much the boy looked like Bas. And when Styxx paused on a drawing of Styxx holding his wife and child, Acheron had to leave.
Sobs tore through him as Urian’s words came home to roost and he thought about trying to live without Tory and Bas for even one day. Never mind centuries.
How could I have asked him to save my wife’s life and embrace the killer of his own?
Urian was right. He was a fucking prick. And he knew nothing about his brother.
Pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, Ash fought for control as he saw the drawing Styxx had made of the boy holding a teddy bear. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear his brother had met his son.
Now that he thought about it, even their wives favored each other enough to be related.
Was it possible that he’d allowed his hatred for Estes and Ryssa’s jealousy toward Styxx to infect him so completely and color his own opinions? Surely he wouldn’t have been so easily swayed.
Would he?
All his life he’d preached to others that there were always three sides to every event—yours, theirs, and the truth that lay somewhere in the middle.
Yet when it came to his brother …
Emotions don’t have brains. Ash knew that better than anyone. He’d said it to every Dark-Hunter he’d ever trained.
And as he stood on the solitary dune, looking out at a hot, vast desert, he remembered how much Styxx had hated being alone as a child. How many times he’d sneak into Acheron’s room and be beaten for it. But Styxx hadn’t cared. He’d come to Acheron regardless.
Brothers. Forever and always.
Styxx had tried to make amends so many times. He’d reached out and Acheron had slapped him away. Repeatedly. Worse, Ash had walked away from Styxx for centuries and hadn’t even given him a single passing thought.
Not once.
It’s amazing the damage we do to ourselves and others when all we’re trying to do is protect ourselves from being hurt. How many times had he said that to a Dark-Hunter?
But then advice was always easier to give than to follow.
Needing to set this right, Ash returned to the tent. He stood outside for several minutes, debating the sanity of this.
But he wasn’t a coward.
With a deep breath for courage, Acheron opened the tent flap. “Styxx?”
The dog crouched low and growled at him.
His brother was now sitting forward, holding a blood-soaked cloth to his pinched nose while he calmed the dog beside him. “I didn’t fucking do it.”
Baffled, Ash frowned. “Do what?”
“Whatever it is you’re here to accuse me of. I am not a god. I cannot travel from here to wherever you live in the blink of an eye. It would take me a solid week to reach even a modest village.” The anger and hatred seared him.
And Ash knew he deserved it. “I came to thank you for the present you sent to Sebastos.”
“An e-mail would have sufficed.”
“Would you have
gotten it?”
“Eventually.”
Ash shook his head as he saw the other two blood-soaked cloths on the ground. “You still get headaches, too?”
“Yes, and the biggest one of all just traipsed through my door.” Styxx pulled the rag back to check the bleeding, which was still pouring. He folded the cloth and returned it to his nose. “What do you want?”
Forgiveness. Yet he had no right to ask this man for it. Urian had been right. Styxx had tried to kill him, but Styxx had come at him openly. Hell, he’d even warned him he was gunning for him.
He, on the other hand, had gone at Styxx’s back. And both had struck for the same reason. They’d just wanted an end to their suffering.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes,” Styxx snarled, “you’re an asshole and I’m a bastard. What the fuck is wrong with the men of my family that they always want to interrogate me when I’m in pain and bleeding?”
Ash dropped his gaze to the row of brand scars that ran the length of Styxx’s side. They started in his armpit where no hair could grow because of the burn-damaged flesh and vanished beneath his waistline. Even his nipple was severely disfigured. Those unique scars tweaked Ash’s memory and brought out a long-suppressed act of stupidity on Ash’s part. He cringed as he remembered when he’d seen the scars that covered his brother’s groin and thighs in Atlantis.
What did you do? Masturbate with a hot poker?
Instead of punching him as he should have, Styxx had curled into a ball and said nothing. He’d just stared at the wall.
Ash ground his teeth, wishing he could go back in time and slap himself for that cruelty. It was obvious someone had tortured the hell out of his brother.
And he would have had them as a kid.…
Stygian (The Dark-Hunter World Book 28) Page 55
