The Dark-Hunters (552 page)

“You drugged me!”

She bolted from the bed. “Forgive me, Acheron.”

Of all the things she’d done to him … this betrayal sliced him most fiercely. “What have you done?”

Artemis didn’t speak as she watched him turn from human to blue and back again.

He tried to reach her, but she made sure to keep her distance until he’d passed out. There was no telling what he would have done to her had he seized her. As he collapsed on the floor, she finally let out a breath in relief.

Leave it to Hypnos to make the one concoction that not even gods were immune to. She’d been terrified that it wouldn’t work on Acheron.

Thank Zeus that it had.

Her hand shaking, she pulled the dagger from its concealed sheath on her thigh. Hephaestus had forged it on Olympus and like the drug, it too would work on a god. She’d even coated the blade with Titan blood just to be sure. One slice and Acheron would be dead.

Biting her lip, she stood over his perfect, naked body that was sprawled sideways and watched as he breathed ever so slightly. His blond hair fell over the handsome features of his face, making him look almost boyish and harmless in his repose.

She remembered the times those full lips had pleasured her. The flash of happiness in his silver eyes when he looked at her. But that was when he’d been human. Now he was a threat not only to her, but to every god on Olympus.

One cut
 …

His throat was exposed, just waiting for her. But as she moved to sever his carotid, an image of him laughing with her went through her mind.

“I love you, Artie.”

No one had ever loved her. Not like him. Acheron had never hurt her. He didn’t demand. He only asked.

And he gave freely of himself …

Kill him, damn you! Do it!

Artemis gripped the knife tightly. She lifted it with every intention of stabbing him. But she couldn’t. Over and over, images of him played through her mind.

Acheron loved her and she loved him.

Sobbing, she dropped the knife and placed her head on his chest. As a man, he’d exposed her and threatened her in a way no one else ever had. As a god, he threatened the very existence of her pantheon. She needed to be rid of him.

But she couldn’t.

Furious over her own weakness, she put him back in bed. She traced the line of his jaw and wanted to weep. She would have to do something.

Maybe she could find one of the other gods to kill him …

*   *   *

Acheron heard someone scream out. The sound was horrifying and gut wrenching. It echoed through his room. Rolling over in bed, he tried to get up, but couldn’t. The drug Artemis had given him was still pressing down on him. He had no control over his body at all.

Then he heard Apollodorus crying.

“Theo! Appie need theo! Mama! Mama come to Appie. Mama!”

Acheron wanted to go to the baby, but he couldn’t. His head was swimming viciously and even the subtlest movement made him queasy.

“I’ll be there tomorrow, akribos,” he whispered to his nephew before he passed out again.

And still the screams echoed in his drugged stupor.

JUNE
25, 9527
BC
NOON

Acheron came awake to the sound of ultimate grief. Someone was wailing as if their heart was splintered. Blinking open his eyes, he found the sun bright, streaming through his open windows.

His head pounding in agony, he pushed himself up in bed, but almost fell as his stomach lurched sharply. He hadn’t awakened this sick since he’d left Estes’s home. It felt as if he’d overdosed on something.

Artemis.

There in the blinding light, he remembered her “gift.” More than that, he remembered her holding a knife over him as she debated whether or not she should kill him.

“You fucking bitch,” he snarled.

An instant later, his doors were thrown open. The sound echoed so sharply in his head that it made him flinch and made his head pound even more. “Not so loud,” he whispered.

The next thing he knew, Styxx had him by the throat. He shoved him back on the bed to straddle him. “Are you drunk?”

Acheron shook his head.

Styxx backhanded him. He pulled the arc of herbs from the table next to the bed and flung it into Acheron’s face. “You worthless whore. You lie in here on your drugs and drink while my sister was murdered!” Styxx punched him again and again.

Acheron tried to block the hits, but his muscles and reactions were still sluggish from Artemis’s drugs. It took a full minute for those words to permeate the fog in his mind. “What did you say?”

“Ryssa’s dead, you bastard!”

No! The denial echoed in his head. It wasn’t right. Styxx was being an ass.

Surely not even the gods who hated him would do this to him.

Shoving Styxx away, Acheron forced himself out of bed and staggered down the hallway to Ryssa’s rooms. Oblivious to the fact he was naked, he walked in to find the king holding Ryssa in his arms. She looked like a doll. Her face was blue, and her body …

He choked on what he saw. She’d been ripped to pieces. Her face and body ravaged by something that looked like large claws. There was blood all over the bed and floor. Falling to his knees, Acheron couldn’t breathe or even think past the agony of what he saw.

Ryssa was dead.

And it was then, there on the floor before him, that he saw Apollodorus and the nurse. Both bloody. Both dead.

Acheron banged his head against the stone floor, trying his best to clear the fog in his mind. To feel something other than the shattering of his heart.

“I heard them…” he whispered as the reality of last night slammed into him with fists more powerful than any that had hit him before.

Damn you, Artemis!
He had the powers of a god, but not the power to come and save the only two people who’d ever loved him. And why? Because that whore had drugged him!

He screamed out in anguish.

At that instant, in his mind, he saw the entire event unfold. Saw the ones who’d come into the room from the windows and slaughtered them. He heard Ryssa screaming out for his help.

Heard Apollodorus again begging for his uncle …

Suddenly, something slammed into his ribs. The force of the blow knocked him to his side. Looking up, he saw Styxx’s furious face as he kicked him in the stomach. Then his twin was on the ground, slamming his head against the stone floor over and over again.

“Why wasn’t it you, you worthless maggot!”

Acheron couldn’t even think to protect himself. In that moment, he wanted to die too. There was no reason for him to live. Ryssa and Apollodorus were gone.

Even Artemis had tried to kill him.

Impotent rage roiled through him. Roaring from the force of it, he shoved Styxx away from him, but before he could regain his feet a bright light exploded through the room. Acheron lifted his arm to shield his eyes as Apollo manifested.

There was complete silence as the god looked slowly around the room taking in every detail. Even the king had stopped crying in expectation of the god’s reaction.

Apollo didn’t speak as he saw Ryssa lying dead in her father’s arms and his son’s lifeless body still in the arms of his savaged nurse.

“Who did this?” Apollo demanded through clenched teeth.

Styxx pointed to Acheron. “He let them die.”

Before Acheron could think to deny those words, Apollo spun on him and hit him with his fist so hard that it lifted him from the ground and slammed him into the wall ten feet above the floor.

Acheron fell to the ground, his body aching. Apollo grabbed him by the hair and wrenched his head. Acheron tried to push him away, but his muscles were still too weak.

The god backhanded him. Blood and pain exploded as his nose was broken and his lips split. The god set on him with such fury that Acheron couldn’t even recover from one blow before two more were delivered to him.

“Artemis!” Acheron shouted, needing her to help calm her brother.

“Don’t you dare say my sister’s name, you filthy whore!” Apollo grabbed a dagger from his waist and snatched at Acheron’s tongue. He sliced it off.

Acheron choked on the blood that poured through his mouth. Unimaginable pain throbbed to the point all he could think was to try to crawl away from Apollo.

But Apollo grabbed him by the throat in a grip so searing it burned the god’s handprint into his skin.

“Akri! Ni!” Xiamara’s cries filled the room as she appeared above him and dove for Apollo. She knocked the god back from him and put herself between them.

“Out of my way, demon,” Apollo demanded.

Her response was to launch herself at the god. The two of them tangled in a flurry of light and feathers as they pounded each other.

Tears filled Acheron’s eyes as he fought against the pain that was trying to drag him into unconsciousness. His only thought to kill Apollo, he crawled to where the god’s knife had fallen. His own blood coated the blade. With a fury born of grief and all the years where he’d been abused, Acheron seized it and spun on the combatants.

Ryssa had meant nothing to Apollo. No more than he meant to Artemis. His sister had loathed the god and now the bastard acted as if her death meant something to him.

It wasn’t right and by the gods who’d birthed him, he wasn’t going to let the god get away with attacking his mother’s demon. His fury set fire to the blade, causing it to glow as he raced toward them.

Acheron set his gaze on Apollo and was oblivious to the fight. All he could focus on was stabbing the god through his callous heart. But just as he reached Apollo, the god knocked Xiamara back, into Acheron. She turned into him with eyes wide as his stomach shrank in the realization that Apollo had slammed the demon into the knife …

Acheron felt her blood coating his hand. Looking down at the wound, she staggered back with a small cry of pain. He wanted to say something to her, but without his tongue, it was impossible.

He grabbed her against him as she struggled to breathe.

She lifted a bloodied hand to place it to his cheek. “Apollymi loves you,” she whispered in Charonte—a language he somehow understood even though he’d never heard it before. “Protect your mother, Apostolos. Be strong for her and for me…” Then the light faded from her eyes as her final breath left her body.

Acheron threw his head back and tried to vent the fury inside him. But it came out as a strangled cry. Grabbing the knife, he spun on Apollo.

Apollo caught his hand and wrested the knife from him. The god seized him again by the throat and threw him down to the ground. Acheron kicked him back and rolled to his side.

A shadow in the corner caught his eye. He froze as he saw Artemis standing there, watching the fight with her hands over her mouth. Her eyes were filled with horror.

Needing her, he reached a hand out toward her.

She shook her head no and took a step back, out of her brother’s sight.

In that instant, something inside him died. Coldness filled every raw inch of his body.

Artemis refused to intervene. Even now when he was wounded and hurt more than any human should ever be hurt, his love wasn’t enough. He didn’t matter to her.

Tired, grief-stricken and defeated, he rolled over onto his back at the same time Apollo appeared before him. He met the god’s angry glare. Growling in rage, Apollo sank his dagger deep inside Acheron’s heart and sliced him open all the way to his navel.

Unmitigated agony burned through him as the god slowly gutted him on the floor, no more than three feet from Ryssa’s body, and right there, before Artemis.

Tears fell from his eyes as the light and pain began to fade …

*   *   *

Artemis remained in the shadows, silently weeping as she watched her brother kick Acheron’s dead body aside. It wasn’t until Apollo approached the king on the bed that the king realized Styxx was also lying dead in the doorway.

Not that Artemis cared about the prince.

Her heart aching, she slid down the wall to crouch in the corner as her teary gaze remained on Acheron and what was left of him.

She’d thought his death would bring her relief. Instead agony over his loss tore through her with a finality that left her bereft of any thought. Only raw emotion.

It hurt on a level she’d never known existed.

The king’s cry of pain matched the one in her soul as Apollo took Ryssa from his arms and he realized that his heir was dead.

For all his dignity and power, the king crawled on the floor to Styxx and screamed as he rocked his son against him.

No one mourned Acheron.

No one save her.

Unable to stand the sight, she returned to her temple where she shattered every mirror, every piece of glass and pottery. Her rage roiled through the room, laying waste to everything around her.

What had she done?

“I let him die.”

No, she’d tried to kill him. Last night, she’d wanted him dead. But never had she dreamed just how much he meant to her.

His touch, his friendship …

Now he was gone. Forever.

“I love you, Acheron,” she sobbed, tearing at her hair.

It’s over. No one will ever know about the two of you now. You’re safe.

It seemed so petty a concern compared to the fact that she’d live out eternity without ever seeing his face again …

*   *   *

Apollymi gasped as she felt the weight in her chest lift. Without being told, she knew that she now had the ability to leave Kalosis.

Leave …

“No!” she screamed as she realized the significance of that. There was only one way for her to gain her release.

Apostolos was dead.

Those three words chased themselves around in her head until she was sick from them.

Unwilling to believe it, she ran to her pond and summoned the universal eye. There in the water, she saw Xiamara lying dead on the palace floor and Apostolos …

No!

From the deepest part of her being, a scream of rage and grief swelled and when she gave vent to it, it shattered the pool and rocked the garden around her.