Just like Apollymi.
Honestly, the thought of killing the goddess’s son didn’t sit well with her. It never had. But sometimes the one had to be sacrificed for the many.
Or did it?
Maybe, just maybe there was another way out for all of them.
August 20, 9532 BC
Styxx stood behind his father as his uncle rode through the palace gates with his friends. His blood ran cold at the sight of his uncle’s entourage and what it meant for him.
Panic, cold and brutal, gripped him and it took everything he had not to run and bolt himself into his room. Only the knowledge that his father would batter down the door and beat him for it kept him where he was.
Estes dismounted and rushed to embrace his father. “Xerxes! It’s so good to see you again.”
“And you, my brother. A pleasure as always.”
Estes walked up the three steps to pull Styxx into his arms. “How’s my favorite stallion?” he whispered in his ear. “Are you ready to ride?”
Styxx would have shoved him away, but Estes held him too tightly.
Kissing him on his cheeks, Estes stepped back so that he could return to his father’s side.
Styxx refused to look at the men who’d traveled with his uncle. He had no wish to see their faces or the hunger he was sure darkened their gazes. Nor did he pay attention when his uncle introduced them.
His father threw his arm over his uncle’s shoulders. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re here. Even more so than normal.”
“How so?”
“I have to journey to Thessaly in the morning and I didn’t want to leave Styxx alone for so long.”
Styxx stumbled at that.
His father scowled at him. “Are you all right?”
Fuck no. Literally.
Styxx glared at his father. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“I only found out two days ago and didn’t want to worry you.” Against his will, Styxx glanced to his uncle. The lascivious light in Estes’s eyes nauseated him. “I’ll be more than happy to stay as long as you need me to, brother.”
Of course you would, you sick bastard.
As his father led them inside, Styxx hung back, his head reeling with panic. Why had he not gone to the summer palace with Ryssa and his mother last week?
Because they hated him and would have made his trip and stay with them miserable. Not to mention, he wouldn’t have been able to see Bethany until his return.
But this …
He felt suddenly queasy. His stomach cramped in dread. No one would be here to keep Estes from him. No one.
Day or night …
His heart pounding, he waited until his father was alone to speak to him.
“Father?”
Sighing, he turned to Styxx with high agitation showing on his face. “What?”
“May I please go with you to Thessaly?”
His father scowled. “Are you insane? Didymos needs someone in the capital to make decisions, especially now that war’s looming.”
“Estes is here. He can do it without me. Please, Father.”
Still his father glared at him. “He’s not the heir. You are. We’re on the brink of war. Our people need to know they have strong leadership should I have to be away for any reason.”
Styxx couldn’t breathe as true fear gripped him. He couldn’t stay here with Estes. Alone …
“Please, Father.”
“What is wrong with you?”
Estes’s threats rang in his head and he had no doubt his uncle would carry out any and all of them. He wouldn’t hesitate to drag Styxx off to Atlantis and use him for his perverted games and personal profit.
Styxx couldn’t breathe a word of his fears to his father. If he did …
Somehow, like Ryssa, his father would blame him for causing it. He’d be thrown out like Acheron and then forced to whore for a living.
I have no one.…
With no choice, he backed down. “Nothing, Majesty.”
“Then leave me in peace to make preparations.”
Styxx bowed then headed to his room, intending to bolt himself inside until his father returned.
He fastened the door and turned around only to realize he wasn’t alone. Shit.
Estes was seated in his receiving room. “Greetings, fair nephew.”
“What are you doing here?”
Estes dropped his hungry gaze to Styxx’s groin. “I’m sure you know what I want.”
Styxx started for the door, but Estes cut him off faster than he’d have thought a man could move.
Estes leaned back against the door with a taunting grin. “Should we call for your father?”
His breathing labored, Styxx glared at him. “Why did you sell me to Didymosians?”
That knocked some of the cockiness out of the bastard. “What?”
“Contrary to what you told me, I heard them talking. Two of my father’s senators. How many more of our citizens know what you’ve done to me?”
That evil, lewd light returned to his uncle’s eyes. “I don’t really think you want that answered. For the sake of your mind. But don’t worry. They won’t tell your father. He’d kill them for it.” Estes jerked him into his arms. “Now give me a proper welcome, nephew.” He moved to kiss him.
Styxx shoved him away. “Get off me.” He tried to run to his bedroom, but Estes tripped him, knocking him to the ground.
Before he could regain his feet, Estes had him pinned with his arm twisted painfully against his spine and his wrist between his shoulders. “Shh, little squirrel.” He bit Styxx’s earlobe then breathed into his ear. “While I adore your brother, there are some things that you do excel at over him.” He shoved something into Styxx’s mouth and held his jaw shut. “Swallow.”
Styxx did his best to spit it out, but it was useless. Against his will, Estes forced it down his throat.
Laughing, Estes kissed his neck. “That’s it, my little stallion. We’re going to have a lot of fun in the coming weeks while we wait for your father’s return. But don’t worry. I shall be kind and you won’t remember any of it.”
The room began to spin out of control.
Styxx closed his eyes as he thought about Bethany. If he didn’t show up for weeks would she still be there for him?
Or would his lengthy absence make her hate him, too?
September 17, 9532 BC
Styxx felt a single tear slide from the corner of his eye as his uncle finished with him and “dismounted.” As their latest twisted game, they’d tied him facedown on a table with his arms spread and his ankles secured to the table legs. But the worst was the mock bridle Estes used to gag him with. A bridle they’d utilized while “riding” him.
Laughing and congratulating him on his “skills,” his uncle’s friends applauded Estes and handed him a kylix of wine. Estes took a drink then grabbed a handful of olives before he returned to kneel down beside the table so that he met Styxx’s shame-filled gaze.
He tsked. “Sorry, little Phallas. I hadn’t realized you were lucid, and here I’d promised you I wouldn’t do that to you, didn’t I?” He brushed the hair back from Styxx’s face.
Bellowing in rage and horror, Styxx tried to break free. He wanted his uncle’s throat so badly, he could taste it.
Estes laughed then stepped back.
Before Styxx could stop it, his gaze swept the room to see that there were more than just six men in it. He slammed his eyes shut as complete humiliation racked him. He was the center entertainment for a party of Didymosian noblemen.…
Damn you, Estes!
And damn me.
Estes pressed Styxx’s head against the table then kissed his brow. “Shh, squirrel. Calm down before you hurt yourself.” He opened the small chest that was near Styxx’s head and rummaged through it. “This should make you quiet and compliant again.”
Styxx winced. He was so tired of being drugged, especially against his will.
Estes m
oved out of his line of sight so that he could insert the drug in the rudest manner possible while the others bid for the next ride on him. As his uncle held it inside him to make sure it took effect, Xan stepped forward to speak alone with Estes. “I heard the princess returns next week.”
“She does, indeed.”
“How much for a night with her?”
Estes tsked. “I can’t do that. She has to go to the marriage bed pure. Or else my brother would have both our lives.”
“A woman has more than one hole in her body. Put a chastity belt on her and name your price. I want her, Estes.”
“It will be as dear and costly as my sweet niece is.”
“I knew it would be. You’ll do it?”
“I’ll make it so.”
Styxx tried to fight as those words slammed into him, but there was nothing he could do as his head and the room began to spin. Closing his eyes, he expelled a breath and let the drug take him far away from their cruelty.
* * *
Styxx came to as someone cut his hands loose from the table. Groaning, he winced as the bridle was rudely yanked from his mouth and he saw his uncle in front of him.
Estes freed his legs. “Get up.”
Styxx tried, but his arms and legs were numb from having been tied for so long. His entire body was stiff and aching. He wasn’t sure how many hours or days had passed. With Estes and his herbs, there was never any telling.
His uncle pulled an Atlantean formesta around him. “Your sister and mother have returned early.” He backhanded Styxx. “I need you lucid enough to greet them.”
Styxx licked the blood away from the corner of his lips as he tried to focus.
Growling, Estes seized him and dragged him into the bathing room. He threw him down beside the pool then dunked Styxx’s head into the water to revive him.
Styxx sputtered and coughed as his thoughts finally cleared enough for him to think for himself again.
“Your mother and sister just docked a few minutes ago. They’re on their way home. Wash and dress, and meet me downstairs. Hurry.” Estes dunked his head one more time then got up and left.
His breathing labored, Styxx coughed the water out of his lungs then crawled into the pool to bathe the stench of Estes and the others off him. And as he did so, he remembered Xan’s proposal for Ryssa.
Estes’s acceptance.
Dear gods, they were going to do this to Ryssa. That sobered him instantly. While Ryssa hated his guts, he couldn’t allow them to rape his sister. The shame alone would kill her. She wasn’t strong enough to survive something so foul.
Or worse, she’d tell their father and he would throw her out for it. A ravaged princess would be worthless to the king, and she was just stupid enough to think her father wouldn’t do that to her.
Styxx pulled himself out of the pool and quickly dressed. When he reached for his razor, he froze at the sight of his reflection. His eyes were sunken and swollen. Red and bloodshot from the drugs. He barely recognized himself. He’d lost weight and was extremely pallid. His wrists were bruised and cut from where he’d fought to free himself and there were small cuts around his mouth from the bridle. Even his lips were chapped and bleeding.
Gripping his razor, he quickly groomed himself so that neither his mother nor Ryssa would berate his disrespectfulness in meeting them unkempt. As soon as he could, he went downstairs to find Estes and the staff waiting to greet the royal envoy.
Estes smiled at the sight of him. “I forget how handsome you are when you’re fresh and upright.”
Styxx seized him and shoved him back into the wall. “You touch my sister, you bastard, and I will bathe in your entrails.”
His uncle laughed. “Ryssa holds no interest for me. She never has. It’s only beautiful men I covet.”
“You sell her and—”
Estes grabbed his throat in a grip that instantly immobilized him. “Keep your impotent threats to yourself. I’m not one of your servants to be cowed by a royal frown, boy. I’m a veteran of more battles than you’ll ever see. And I’ve made meals off bigger and tougher men than you. So don’t think for one moment you can sober up and intimidate me. You ever threaten me again and you will pray to the gods to return you to these days where I actually care what happens to you. Do you understand?” He tightened his grip to the point that Styxx almost lost consciousness.
Then he shoved him back and released him.
Panting as the blood returned to his head and pierced his skull with a pain so foul Styxx saw stars, he glared at the bastard. I have to stop this. It was bad enough that Estes abused him and Acheron.
“She’s your sister, boy. You protect her, no matter what.” His father’s words rang in his head.
It was the only thing he’d never failed to do. And it was the one thing his father would find unforgivable.
The musicians began playing outside. Estes nodded to have the doors opened and went out to greet them. His throat still burning from Estes’s hold, Styxx followed then descended the steps so that he could help his mother and sister down from their chariot.
The moment she saw him, his mother curled her lip. “You look appalling. I don’t know what whore you withdrew from on my arrival, but you could have at least washed before you approached your mother.” She refused to take his hand. Instead, she brushed rudely past him, letting everyone know that the queen had no use for her son.
But then he was used to that.
He held his hand out to Ryssa.
Like her mother, she refused to touch him. She stepped down and raked him with her disdain. “What have you done? Drank and whored every day Father’s been gone? Your condition is execrable.”
I should let you be gang-raped, bitch, and throw it in your face. See then how you’d take being bridled and ridden like a horse.
Ryssa headed for the stairs.
Styxx pulled her to a stop. “We need to talk.”
She jerked her arm out of his grasp. “In spite of what you think, you’re not king yet. You do not command me.”
“Ryssa—”
“Go back to your whore and wine, brother. Or better yet, for the sake of the gods, get some sleep and sober up before your father sees you and learns what a pathetic waste stands to inherit his throne.”
Unlike their mother, Ryssa ignored Estes and continued on into the palace.
Laughing, Estes moved to clap Styxx on the back. “That was certainly rude of them, wasn’t it?” He leaned in to whisper to Styxx. “So tell me, nephew. Are you ready to pay me to watch your sister be violated and put in her place?”
A part of him wanted to see it so badly that it frightened him. He was so tired of Ryssa’s and his mother’s criticisms when he’d done nothing to deserve them.
It would serve Ryssa right to taste the degradation he knew so intimately. But as his gaze fell to Xan and he saw the giant size of the Atlantean, he knew that bastard would tear his sister apart. Just as he’d done Styxx.
No matter how much he hated her, he couldn’t allow that to happen. He had to stop this.
But how?
September 19, 9532 BC
Since the queen’s return, Estes hadn’t dared to keep Styxx as drugged as before. It was both a curse and a blessing. And right now, Styxx didn’t want to remember any of the past few horrific hours he’d spent while he occasionally heard his mother and Ryssa laughing together as he’d been kept against his will in Estes’s rooms, next to his sister’s.
With any luck, he’d never have to be so debased again.
Styxx finally got the rope free from his bruised, bleeding wrist. It’d taken him hours to work it through.
His hand burned from the strain of contorting it so that he could tug at the rough, thick strands. As quickly as he could, he untied his other one. Normally Estes chained him or tied his hands apart from each other. Tonight, for reasons he didn’t want to think about, Estes had tied them together and stretched them over Styxx’s head to secure him to the bed.
Th
en the bastard had passed out before he had a chance to part them.
Grimacing, Styxx snatched the gag from his mouth while Estes slept soundly by his side. With a deep sigh, Estes rolled over and threw his thigh over Styxx’s. His hand quested a part of Styxx’s body that revolted him. Careful, lest he wake his uncle, he disentangled himself enough so that he could free his ankles and slide off the bed.
His heart pounded as he considered his options. There was no way to get word to his father in time. Even if he did, he fully believed that Estes would be able to twist it so that his father would never believe him. His mother would be worthless. Ryssa was stupid to a supreme level.
If he tried to arrest Estes, everything would come out. And he had no doubt that his uncle would have him committed again and then taken to Atlantis to be bought and sold.
The only real option he had left him sick to his stomach.
But it was the only way to make all of this stop. The only way to protect his brother and sister.
Himself.
You’re a pathetic coward. His own disdain rose up to silence the voices of the gods in his head. A real man would have already done it.
Yet it wasn’t that easy. He’d never hurt anyone before. Not intentionally.
I have to do this. His uncle had left him with no choice. If he didn’t, Ryssa would be raped, too.
If I let that happen, how would I ever be able to live with myself?
The same way he’d been living with his conscience and the humiliation Estes and the others had given him.
One heartbeat at a time.
But no matter what, he couldn’t let Ryssa be harmed. Not when he could stop it.
And Acheron would never leave Atlantis. Not so long as Estes lived …
With a trembling hand and abject horror in his heart, Styxx pulled his pillow across the bed. He held it to his chest, staring at his uncle’s naked body.
Gods forgive me for what I’m about to do.
Before he could change his mind or run, Styxx forced himself to slam the pillow down over Estes’s face. Estes let out a muffled bellow as he grabbed Styxx and tried to fight him off. Styxx wrapped his body around Estes’s as he used every trick Galen had taught him to hold on and make sure that he didn’t loosen his grip until Estes went limp in his arms.
Styxx (DH #33) Page 26