Styxx (DH #33) (69 page)

Unlike her father, she knew who the real traitor was. If witnesses saw someone tall, blond, and looking like Acheron, it was Styxx. It had to be. Acheron would have nothing to gain by killing the king, other than vengeance, and he wasn’t the kind of person to go after vengeance for anything.

Not to mention Acheron would
never
have been in public uncovered, especially not a stew. Had he done so, he’d still be there, facedown, beating people off him.

“What have you done, Styxx?” she whispered through the tight lump in her throat.

Why would he plot against his own father? But then she knew. The history of mankind was written by sons and brothers wanting more, and willing to do anything to get it.

Even kill their own fathers.

“I have to find Artemis.” There was no one else who could save Acheron from this madness.

Ryssa headed for her door to leave, but before she took three steps, the doors opened to admit the same guards who’d arrested Acheron.

“Your Highness, you’re to be taken for questioning.”

Her heart chilled at those words. “Questioning? This can’t be.”

But it was. Surrounding her with their muscle and terrifying visages, they took her to her father’s study where he waited with Styxx. Never had she hated her brother more.

She gave them both the coldest look she could muster. “What is this, Father?”

He appeared so worn and exhausted that she felt awful for him. This was the worst sort of treachery. His handsome features were drawn tight with sadness. “Why would you betray me, daughter?”

She scowled at his question. “I’ve never done anything to betray you, Father.… Ever.”

He shook his head. “I have a witness who just came forward and said that you were with Acheron last night as he plotted my death.”

She leveled a killing glare at Styxx. He had to be the one who’d named them. There was no one else. “Then they are lying as they lied about Acheron. I was with Apollo last night. Summon him and see.”

Styxx’s face went white.

So, he’d thought to rid himself of her, too. She couldn’t believe her father’s stupidity where Styxx was concerned. How could he be so blind to such a selfish villain?

Relief etched itself across her father’s brow as he approached her. “I’m glad they’re mistaken, kitten.” He laid a gentle hand to her face. “The thought of my beloved daughter turning on me…”

What of his beloved son?

She looked past her father to see Styxx staring at the floor. “Acheron is innocent.”

“No, child. Not this time. I have too many witnesses who saw him there.”

Why couldn’t she make him see the truth? “Acheron would never be in a stew, Father.”

“Of course he would. He worked in one. Where else would he go?”

Anywhere
but
there. Her brother had hated every minute of being trapped in those places and being forced to sell himself for food and shelter. “Please, Father. You’ve done enough to Acheron. Leave him be.”

He shook his head. “There is a nest of vipers coiled around me, and until I uncover the name of everyone he spoke to, I won’t stop.”

Tears filled her eyes as she considered the nightmare they were going to put Acheron through. Again. Needlessly. Why could her father not see the truth? “The priests say that Hades reserves a special corner of Tartarus for betrayers. I’m sure the name of your real traitor is being carved there even as we speak.”

Styxx refused to meet her gaze.

So she looked back at her father. “In all these years, Acheron has sought nothing but love from you, Father. One moment of your looking at him with something other than hatred burning in your eyes. Nothing more than a kind word, and at every turn you’ve denied him and hurt him. You have shattered the son who only wanted to love you. Let him go before you do irreparable harm, I beg you.”

Still, her father refused. “He’s betrayed me for the last time.”

“Betrayed
you
?” she asked, aghast at his reasoning. “Father, you can’t believe that. All he’s tried to do is stay out of your sight. Away from your notice. He cringes any time your name is brought up, or Styxx’s for that matter. If you’d stop being so blind for one minute, you’d see that he has
never
willingly mixed with people and he has
never
betrayed you.”

“He was a prostitute!” he roared in her face.

“He was a boy who had to eat, Father. Thrown away by his own family. Betrayed by the ones who should have protected him from harm. I was there when he was born, and I remember how all of you turned away from him. Do you? Do you even recall when you broke his arm? He was only two years old and could barely speak. He reached for you to hug you, and you knocked him away so forcefully that you broke his arm like a twig. When he cried out, you slapped him for it, and walked away.”

“And that’s why he plots your murder, Father,” Styxx spoke up finally in a whiny, nasal tone. “Don’t let a woman sway you from what needs to be done. Women are our greatest weakness. They prey on our guilt and our love of them. How many times have you told me that? You can’t listen to them. They think with their hearts and not their minds.”

Her father’s face turned to stone. “I will not let him get away with it this time.”

Tears flowed freely down her face at her father’s blindness for the one true son he had. “This time? When have you ever allowed Acheron get away with anything?”

She blinked away the tears in her eyes as she tried to make him see reason. “Beware the viper in your closet. Isn’t that another thing you’re always saying, Father?” She cut a meaningful glare at Styxx. “Ambition and jealousy are at the heart of all betrayals. Acheron’s only ambition is to stay out of your sight, and were he to have jealousy, it wouldn’t be directed at you. But I do know of another who would gain immensely in his life were you gone.”

Her father backhanded her. “How dare you implicate your brother.”

“I told you, Father. She hates me. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hasn’t bedded the whore, too.”

Ryssa wiped the blood from her lips. “The only person in this family that I know of who sleeps with whores is you, Styxx. I wonder if Acheron was supposedly seen in your favorite stew.…” And with that she turned and headed out of the room and to the street to find Artemis and stop this before it was too late and Acheron was dead.

*   *   *

“
L
eave us!”

Acheron barely recognized the sound of his father’s voice through the vicious, throbbing pains that racked his body. No part of him had been left unviolated or free of abuse. It even hurt to blink.

Once the room was empty, his father approached him where he lay on a cold, stone slab.

To his complete shock, his father brought him a ladle of water. Acheron cringed, expecting the king to hurt him worse with it.

He didn’t. His father actually lifted his head and helped him to drink. But for the fact it would kill the king’s beloved Styxx should he die, Acheron would think it poisoned.

“Where were you last night?”

Acheron felt a single tear slide from the corner of his eye at the question that had been asked over and over again. The salt from it stung the open wounds on his cheek as he drew a ragged, agonized breath. “Just tell me what to say,
akri.
Tell me what will keep me from being hurt any more.”

His father roared with rage as he slammed the ladle down on the stone by Acheron’s face. “I want the names of the men you met with.”

And he didn’t know the names of the senators. They’d seldom offered any before they’d screwed him.

And Artemis would
never
speak up in his defense. If he breathed a single word of their relationship to anyone, she would make this torture session appear desirous.

Acheron shook his head. “I met with no one.”

His father buried his hand in Acheron’s hair and forced him to look at him. “Give me the truth. Damn you!”

Lost to the pain, Acheron struggled to think of some lie that his father would believe, but as with the interrogator, he came back to the one single truth. “I didn’t do it. I wasn’t there.”

“Then where were you? Have you a single witness to your whereabouts?”

Yes, but she’d never come forward. If he were Styxx and a prince, the goddess wouldn’t be ashamed of their relationship. But Artemis would never stand up for a worthless whore. “I have only my word.”

His father roared in anger. He reached for him, but before he could make contact, he froze in place.

Acheron held his breath as he tried to understand what was happening. An instant later, Artemis appeared beside him.

Stunned, he couldn’t do anything other than stare at her.

“Your sister told me what they’d accused you of. Don’t worry, your father will have no memory of this. Nor will your brother.”

Acheron swallowed as he tried to understand what she was saying. “You’re protecting me?”

She nodded. An instant later, he was returned to his room and healed. Acheron lay back on his bed, more grateful than words could express. But even so it didn’t erase the pain of what he’d been through. Any more than it concealed the fact that Styxx was planning to overthrow his own father. The father who loved him more than the air he breathed.

How selfish could Styxx be? Their father doted on him … gave him anything he wanted, and still it wasn’t enough.

Styxx wanted … no, he
demanded
everything.

What am I going to do?

Artemis materialized beside him. Her expression was sorrowful as she brushed the hair back from his face.

“Will Ryssa remember us?” he asked her.

“No. From this moment forward she won’t even remember that you and I know each other.”

That was for the best.

Acheron stared at Artemis, amazed at what she’d done. No, she hadn’t stood up for him, but she
had
saved him. It was a major breakthrough from the last time she’d left him to their “tender” care and he’d been gelded. “Thank you for coming for me.”

Artemis laid her hand to his cheek. “I wish I could take you away from here.”

She was the only person who could do it. But her fear of being caught with a worthless whore was too great. And maybe she was right. What good would it do for her to be ruined over him?

He wasn’t worth it.

Acheron kissed her on the lips even though he was still cold inside. He had nowhere to go and he was sick and tired of being here with people who hated him.

I want out.
But every time he’d tried to kill himself, he’d been stopped.

Because of his idiot brother.

Acheron froze at the thought.

Styxx …

In the blink of an eye the simplest answer to his predicament came to him. Why had he never thought of it before? It wasn’t himself he needed to kill.

Pulling back from Artemis, he held her hand. “You should go before someone stumbles in here.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Not if he had his way. “Tomorrow.”

Acheron watched as she faded, and the second she was gone, he immediately made plans for what was to come.

His father refused to let him die so long as his life was tied to Styxx’s, and Styxx was plotting the death of his father.

The answer was so simple.

If he killed Styxx, his father would be safe and Acheron would be free.

Peace. He would finally have peace from this stygian existence.

February 19, 9527 BC

Styxx scowled as he readied himself for bed. Something had been off all day. He remembered leaving Bethany and then …

There was a significant gap in his memory. The kind he only experienced whenever his uncle had drugged him or one of the gods had done something with him they didn’t want him to remember—and that was what concerned him most. Why had someone tampered with his memory?

Who
had tampered with it?

Most importantly, what had happened during those missing hours?

His jaw was sore as if it’d been punched, but he had nothing else to answer his questions. Frowning, he kept trying to piece the day together. How had he gotten from the palace steps to falling asleep in fresh clothes on the floor of his room? Had a servant not come to wake him for dinner, he might still be asleep there.

It didn’t make sense. No one else seemed to have noticed anything being off or odd. And because of his past, he couldn’t stand not knowing what had happened during those missing hours of his life.

There’s nothing you can do.

Still, it bothered him. Finishing off his wine, he went to bed, hoping that he slept through the night for once.

But he knew better.

The only time he had any kind of peaceful sleep was with Bethany.

He crawled into bed and sighed. Four more days until her return. Closing his eyes, he focused on her and did his best to shut out everything else.

*   *   *

S
tyxx woke up
to a fierce, stinging pain. Gasping, he opened his eyes to see a shadow staggering away from his bed as something warm gushed from his chest.

Blood. Someone had stabbed him while he slept.… Rage consumed him. Fucking coward!
No one kills me and lives!

Determined to mark his killer, Styxx jerked the dagger from his chest and shot across the bed after him. But the pain was so severe, he could barely breathe for it. Blood poured over him as he staggered from the bed. He went to throw the dagger, but his legs buckled.

He hit the floor hard. Over and over, he relived that moment when the Stygian Omada had returned from Atlantis, and had been ambushed by Thracians.…

I’m dying.
He knew it. Which meant Acheron must be dying, too.

The wound had gone straight through his heart and ruptured an artery. It was the only explanation for this amount of rapid blood loss. Tears filled his eyes as he thought of his Bethany.

How cruel to lose her now.

He fought Thanatos as hard as he could. But in the end, against all effort, he expelled one final breath and everything went dark.