Stygian

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  “Urian!”

  He snapped his head up. “Sir?”

  “How did they get past you?”

  “No idea. I was in the boathouse. Checked on Jason and Bryan. They were fine at the time. Went outside because they said they heard something. Then Trates was calling for assistance around front, so I headed that way. Next thing I knew, you were screaming that they were in a boat.”

  “You didn’t sense anything?”

  “I couldn’t pick up any smells because of the gunpowder residue. My hearing was shot from the explosions. Same for my vision. My ears are still ringing.”

  His father curled his lip. “I’m disgusted by all of you! Get out of my sight!”

  Relieved to have an end to that and still be in one piece, Urian exchanged a sideways glance with Davyn. But neither of them dared to speak until they were clear of his father’s hearing.

  Davyn let out a long, slow breath. “Damn, Uri.”

  “I know.”

  “Hold me?”

  Urian laughed before he pulled Davyn into his arms and gave him a hug. “Better?”

  “No! You scared the shit out of me! Between that and your father … I don’t think I’ll ever be the same.”

  “Yeah, well, I appreciate you, brother.”

  “Glad someone does.”

  Urian kissed his cheek before he released him. “Did everything go okay?”

  “Not really. But I made do. How about on your end?”

  “Not really. But I made do.” His gaze fell to the necklace around Davyn’s neck. Paris’s.

  Davyn looked down at it and touched it. “I still can’t believe he’s gone.”

  “I know. Seems like yesterday. Not seventy years.”

  He nodded. “He’d kick your ass if he knew you helped a Dark-Hunter.”

  “Yeah, he would. Stab me himself.”

  Davyn snorted. “I should do it for him.”

  “I should probably help you. If I had any sense I would.”

  “Urian!” his father shouted.

  Now there was a tone to make even Ares drop a load.

  Davyn turned a shade paler. “Glad I’m not you,” he whispered before he headed off down the hall.

  Resigned to whatever ass-crawling was about to manifest, Urian headed back toward his father’s office and opened the door. “You rang, my lord and tormentor?”

  “Don’t get cheeky with me, pido, I’m not in the mood. Come in and shut the door behind you.”

  Urian obeyed.

  “I think we have a traitor in our midst.”

  Those words sent a slice of fear down his spine. “Why?”

  “I keep running over everything that’s happened. It’s the only explanation for how the heiress keeps eluding us. Someone has to be helping her.”

  Urian kept himself completely still as the hair on the back of his neck began to crawl with guilt. “What do you want me to do, Solren?”

  “You know what I want! The head of the traitor. I want you find whoever it is and gut them!”

  Urian sighed. “Solren, have you ever considered that the words of the oracle could have been a game sent by the gods to make you destroy yourself? Like Oedipus? It was by trying to avert his fate that King Laius caused his own death. And the same for Oedipus. Had either king not tried to stop their fate, they wouldn’t have taken the very actions that caused it.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Sure I am. Solren, think about it. We are our own worst enemies. It’s by our own actions we’re destroyed.”

  “And by the sword the knot was undone.”

  “Pardon?”

  “The Gordian knot? Even the most complex and unsolvable problem can have a simple solution if you apply enough brute force to it.”

  “Um, I don’t think that’s what that means, Solren.”

  “Of course it is. Don’t you dare argue with me!”

  Urian held his hands up in surrender. He wasn’t about to argue philosophy when his father was in a mood this foul and armed. “When was the last time you took a soul, Solren?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  “Thinking you’re a little peckish. You might want to feed soon. Take the edge off.”

  “Fine! Bring me the heiress and I’ll be thrilled to feed on her and her unborn child.”

  Urian snapped his fingers. “I will see about that pronto. Anything else I can do for you?”

  He growled like a lion.

  Urian left immediately. And almost collided with Sabine, Apollymi’s favored Charonte since Xedrix had gone missing a few weeks back.

  “The goddess summons you.”

  Weird that she’d send her demon. Normally she just screamed in his head.

  Scowling, he followed the orange-fleshed demon back to Apollymi’s garden, where the goddess was not at the pool but out in the orchard where the rowan trees and black roses grew.

  Seriously concerned now, Urian approached with a great deal of caution. “You summoned me, akra?”

  She handed the rose she’d just cut to the demon beside her so that he could add it to the basket in his hands. “You should be honest with your father, Urian.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “You heard me. Lies are unbecoming for one such as you. And I’ve allowed yours to go on for way too long now. I kept thinking that you’d come clean with him. It bothers me to see Strykerius so upset. He’s gutted three innocent men tonight in his rage.”

  Urian glanced to the demon behind her, not quite sure what to say to that.

  Apollymi turned toward him with a biting stare. “Just like when you visited with Sarraxyn, and she violated my sacred pact to keep her cove private from all.”

  “Akra—”

  “Not a word, Urian. The bitterest truth is better than the sweetest lie. Your father deserves to hear it from you and not another. Sooner or later, the truth will come out. It always does. No matter how hard you strive to keep it hidden. It will crawl its way to the surface and those who have been lied to will turn on you with a vengeance unimaginable. Because with it comes a righteous fury fueled by betrayal. They trusted you, and trust is a sacred thing not to be abused. Of all people, you know this. And those so abused will demand an accounting, and they will rise up and demand blood for appeasement. Then you won’t be able to lie your way out. It will be too late for words to save you. Do you understand?”

  He understood, but it wasn’t that simple. His father would demand Phoebe’s life and that of Cassandra.

  How could he choose between them?

  “Have you ever had to choose between two things you loved most, akra?”

  A deep, dark, and bitter sadness burned in her eyes. It was so heart-wrenching that in that moment, he knew that she was well aware of what she was asking from him. “I have.”

  “Do you regret the decision you made?”

  “Every day of my life.”

  March 12, 2004

  Phoebe was in tears. She’d been trying to be strong and hide them, but this silence was shredding her.

  Closing the door to her apartment, she felt someone standing right behind her.

  “What’s wrong, agapi mou? Did the Muppet offend you? I’ll rip out his tongue if he did.”

  Her breath left her with a rush as she recognized Urian’s thick accent and then realized that he’d already lit candles for them all around her room. Turning, she threw herself against him and rained kisses all over his face and neck. “I thought you were dead!”

  He tsked at her. “You know me better than that. I just had to wait for it to calm a little.”

  She was already peeling his clothes off his body.

  Laughing, he helped her with his powers. “Take it you’re hungry?”

  “Starving, and not just for blood and soul. Se hriazome!”

  Urian’s eyes widened as she said “I need you” in Greek. In all this time, she’d only picked up a word here or there. Never had she ever said a whole phrase before. “You must have missed me

.”

  “More than you can imagine.” She sank her fangs into his neck and sent him reeling.

  Urian barely made it to the couch with her. She was absolutely wild tonight. So much so that she immediately slid herself onto him and took control with wanton abandon.

  She ravaged his neck and tore at his arms and chest with her nails as she rode him with fury. There was a strange kind of pleasure with the pain, while his head spun from her insistent hunger. Her emotions overrode his until he lost himself completely.

  He lost all sense of time as her body milked his and all he felt was Phoebe. He didn’t care about anything or anyone else. His life began and ended with her.

  Suddenly, the door slid open.

  Phoebe jerked up, clutching at Urian, who was too weak to even turn his head to see who was there.

  The door closed again.

  Panting and weak, Urian tried to focus his gaze. “Who was that?”

  “My sister,” she hissed, climbing off him to rush to the bathroom.

  Urian attempted to get up and go after her, but he fell back onto the sofa. “I’m going to wait here.”

  If Phoebe heard, she didn’t pause or say anything. She merely ran out of the apartment to catch up to her sister.

  After a few seconds she came back in and sat down primly by his side.

  “You okay?”

  “That was embarrassing.”

  “Let me guess? Your sister and Muppet had a little PMS meltdown over what they saw?”

  “I call him Sasquatch, but yes. Yes, they did.”

  He laughed. “Remind me later to kill him … and I won’t be calling him Sasquatch.”

  “Why? I think it’s quite fitting.”

  Urian scoffed. “Not really. That implies he’s intimidating and scary. Trust me, he’s not.”

  “Maybe not to your hulking, almost-seven-foot-tall ass he isn’t, but from my vantage point, he’s terrifying.”

  He snorted. “Trust me, don’t feed Muppet’s ego. If it gets any bigger, we’re going to have to put in for a larger apartment for them. I think it’s why his mansion was so big. They needed it just to house his inflated self-image.”

  Phoebe laughed. Until they heard a loud commotion from outside.

  “Ah shit …” Urian used his powers to summon clothes. Without being told, he knew Wulf had pissed off the natives and trouble was brewing. Because that out there was the sound of hell’s wrath, and only a Dark-Hunter in the middle of an Apollite commune could cause that much ruckus.

  Teleporting into the middle of it, Urian took one second to get the lay of the drama before he grabbed Wulf and inserted himself between the Dark-Hunter and the Apollite who wanted his head. Still weak from Phoebe’s feeding, he kept one hand on each of them to make sure they kept a safe distance from each other.

  “Enough!” Urian roared at the two of them.

  Wulf frowned at him. “Are you all right?”

  Not really. He felt rather queasy and he definitely didn’t need this shit.

  Urian released both men. The Apollite was taken off by some of Shanus’s watchmen, but he cast a parting malevolent glare at them.

  Grateful it was over, he wiped a hand over his sweat-covered brow. “You need to stay out of sight, Dark-Hunter.”

  “You really don’t look good. Do you need something?”

  Urian shook his head to clear it. “I just need to rest for a while.” He curled his lip at Wulf. “Can you stay out of trouble long enough for that?”

  “Uri?” Phoebe came up behind him and placed her hand on his forehead. “Did I take too much, baby?”

  Wanting to reassure her, Urian pulled her against his side and kissed her cheek. “No, love. I’m just tired. I’ll be fine.”

  He pulled away and had just started back for their apartment when his legs buckled.

  “Bullshit!”

  Much to Urian’s absolute horror, the Muppet came up and slung his arm over his shoulder to help him back to Wulf’s apartment.

  “What are you doing?” Urian asked angrily.

  “I’m taking you to Kat before you pass out.”

  Urian hissed at the very thought of being with her. “Why? She hates me.” Artemis’s handmaiden was more likely to gut him than help him.

  “So do I, but we both owe you.”

  Chris and Kat sat on the floor playing cards when they entered.

  Kat shot to her feet as soon as she saw Urian’s condition. “Oh jeez, what happened?”

  Phoebe rushed in behind them. “I think I took too much blood from him.”

  Wulf laid Urian down on the couch. “Can you help him, Kat?”

  Kat pushed Wulf out of the way. She held up two fingers in front of Urian’s face. “How many fingers do you see?”

  “Six.”

  She popped him on the side. “Stop that. This is serious.”

  Urian widened his eyes and tried to focus his gaze on her hand. “Three … I think.”

  Kat shook her head. “We’ll be back.”

  Cassandra watched in awe as Kat flashed them out of the room.

  “Now why didn’t she do that when we were being chased by Stryker?” Chris asked.

  Phoebe scoffed at the clueless human. “She’s taking him to Kalosis, Chris. I doubt any of you want to go into a realm ruled by nothing but Spathi Daimons and one really pissed-off ancient goddess who is bent on destroying the entire world.”

  He nodded like a clucking chicken. “You know, I really like it here. Not to mention, I can now look at Kat’s hand.” He picked up her cards and cursed. “I should have known she wasn’t bluffing.”

  Her face turning bright pink, Cassandra moved closer to her. “I’m so sorry I interrupted you two.”

  “Please don’t be. I mean, don’t make it a habit, mind you, but if you hadn’t come in, I might have killed him. He has a bad tendency to not tell me when I’ve taken too much blood. It scares me sometimes.” Actually, it scared her a lot, as she wondered if Urian didn’t have a death wish.

  There was something about him. A darkness inside that she’d catch a glimpse of from time to time that never quite went away. Whenever she asked about it, he’d tell her that she was imagining things. But she knew what she saw.

  He’d lived a long time and lost a lot of people he cared about. That kind of tragedy left its mark.

  Whether he owned up to it or not, her husband was very shattered.

  Wulf crossed his arms over his chest. “So Daimons can die from blood loss?”

  Phoebe gave him an arched stare. “Are you planning on using that against us?”

  Wulf shook his head. “I’d rather die myself than suck on another man’s neck. That’s disgusting. Besides, didn’t you tell me that’s how Apollites can be changed to Daimons? It begs the question of whether a Dark-Hunter could be made a Daimon, too.”

  “Yeah, but DH blood is poisonous to them.” Chris shuffled the deck of cards. “Isn’t the point of that so that no Daimon can feed off or convert you guys?”

  “Perhaps …” Phoebe watched Chris cut the deck again. “But then disembodied souls can possess a Dark-Hunter and since Uri and I share souls, it makes you wonder if perhaps a Daimon and Dark-Hunter could share one too.”

  “Let’s hope we never find that one out.” Wulf moved to sit on the couch in front of Chris.

  Phoebe turned back toward Cassandra. “So what did you want when you came to see me?”

  “I’ve been putting together a memory box for the baby. Notes and pictures from me. Little mementoes to tell him about our people and family after I’m gone, and I was wondering if you would mind putting something in there from you.”

  “Why do you need something like that when we’ll be more than happy to tell him anything he wants to know?”

  Cassandra hesitated as if there were something she didn’t want to tell her. She glanced to Sasquatch before she answered. “He can’t grow up here, Phee. He’ll have to be with Wulf in the human world.”

  Phoebe ground her teeth at that. Of course. Leave it to Cassie to be prejudiced against her own people. “Why can’t he grow up here? We can protect him just as well as Wulf. Probably more so.” At least they wouldn’t hate him for being part Apollite.

  Wulf glanced up as Chris dealt him a hand of cards. “What if he’s more human than even Cassandra is? Would he be safe here?”

  Phoebe hesitated. He should be, but … There were some Apollites who had a lot of problems with humans. Even as long as she’d been here, she still had trouble with a few once they learned her father was human.

  And she was grateful that at least they didn’t tie each other to stakes anymore and set fire to them.

  At least not often.

  Wulf gave Phoebe a meaningful stare. “I can protect him and his children a lot easier than you can. I think the temptation of having a human soul here would be way too much for some of your people to handle. Especially given how much they hate Dark-Hunters. What a coup—kill my son, get a human soul, and get revenge on the very thing all of you despise most.”

  Phoebe nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” She took Cassandra’s hand. “Yes, I would like to add some things to the box for him.”

  And Phoebe knew exactly what she wanted her nephew to have.

  So after she wrote her note, she excused herself and went to get her present for Cassandra’s box.

  She returned to her sister’s apartment a short time later with the book.

  Cassandra looked up with a frown as Phoebe slid it into the keepsake box Cassie still had out on the couch next to her. “What’s this?”

  Phoebe gave her a wicked grin. “It’s a book of Apollite fairy tales. Remember the one Mom used to read to us when we were kids? Donita sells them in her shop, so I went just now and bought one for the baby.”

  With suspicious eyes, Wulf picked the book up and flipped through it. “Hey, Chris?” He handed it to his Squire. “You read Greek, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s in here?”

  Chris started reading silently, then burst out laughing. Hard. “I don’t know if you want the baby to see this if you’re the one raising him.”

  “Let me guess?” Wulf glared at Phoebe. “He’ll have nightmares that Daddy is going to hunt him down and rip his head off?”

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