The Dark-Hunters (520 page)

I’d wanted to choke him for his obstinacy.

Even more upsetting were the rumors I’d heard of political trouble between Greece and Atlantis. Our truce seemed to be threatened. What would happen to Acheron should war resume? Even though Father and Styxx denied it, Acheron was still a Greek prince. He could easily be taken prisoner and executed …

I wondered if Father had considered the fact that if Acheron were killed, he’d lose his precious Styxx in the process. Most likely, he’d forgotten that bit of prophecy.

But I remembered and I ached for a brother I doubted I’d ever see again.

Acheron was lost to me now.

If only I could see him one last time …

SEPTEMBER
21, 9529
BC

Estes died two days ago while he was staying with us on Didymos. Styxx and my father were naturally heartbroken. But I wasn’t so stricken. While a part of me was saddened by his untimely death, another part rejoiced. Though Estes had been rather young to have had the seizure that claimed his life, I couldn’t help but wonder if it hadn’t been sent by the gods to punish him for what he’d done to Acheron. Perhaps it was uncharitable of me to think that. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder.

We were headed now for Atlantis to collect Acheron and bring him home at long last.

Home where he belongs.

Because of the impending war with Atlantis, Father intended to close Estes’s house and sell it. I couldn’t be more thrilled by the prospect. And I was sure that Acheron would be even more so. No doubt he wanted to see it kept even less than I did.

Before we’d left home, a suite had been prepared for Acheron at the palace. I couldn’t wait to see him again. What I could almost find humorous was that, after avoiding me for so long, Father and Styxx allowed me to accompany them. Of course that was only so that I could keep Acheron away from them. But I didn’t care so long as I saw him again.

Just a few days more and we’d reach Atlantis. This time, when I collected Acheron, he would stay where he was safe.

SEPTEMBER
26, 9529
BC

I was excited beyond excited when I saw Estes’s house again. Not much had changed since my last visit. Even the same servant opened the door. He seemed surprised to see the three of us, especially my father.

“I’ve come to collect Acheron,” my father announced. “Show me to him.”

Without a word, the gloomy old man led us down the same hallway I’d traveled once before. Down to the room that had haunted my nightmares and thoughts.

My happiness died as we reached it and reality came crashing down on me.

Nothing had changed.

Nothing.

I knew it before the servant opened the door.

When it swung open my worst fears were confirmed with crystal clarity.

“What is this?” my father roared.

I covered my mouth with my hand as I saw Acheron on his bed with a man and a woman—all of them were completely naked and writhing entwined on the linen sheets. I was horrified by the sight of what they were doing to Acheron. Of what he was doing to them.

In all my life, I’d never seen such depravity.

The man pulled back from Acheron with a feral curse. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded in an equally imperious tone. I could tell by his bearing that he was an Atlantean of wealth and power. “How dare you interrupt us!”

Acheron gave one last playful thrust and lick to the woman’s body before he rolled over onto his back. He lay unabashedly naked on the bed, smirking.

“Prince Ydorus,” Acheron said to the angry man addressing my father. “Meet King Xerxes of Didymos.”

That took some of the bluster out of the prince, but not much.

“Leave us,” my father demanded.

Offended, the prince gathered his clothes and his companion and did as my father ordered.

Acheron wiped his mouth on the sheet. His skin once more had that sickly, gray cast to it. He was even thinner than he’d been the last time I’d seen him in this room, his features gaunt. He was again adorned with the gold bands on his neck, arms, wrists and ankles.

Worst of all, I saw the balls on his tongue flash in the light as he spoke. No longer did he clench his teeth as if embarrassed by what he was. Now it was as if he took pride in it.

“So what brings you here, Majesty?” Acheron asked, his tone mocking and cold. “Do you wish to spend time with me, too?”

It was then I realized the hurt boy I’d saved was gone. The man on the bed was bitter. Angry. Defiant.

This wasn’t the youth who’d fearfully snuck out of his room so that he could feel the grass on his feet.

This was a man who had been used one time too many. And he wanted the world to know exactly how much he hated it and everyone who was part of it.

“Get up,” my father snarled. “Cover yourself.”

One corner of his mouth quirked up in a mocking expression. “Why? People pay five hundred gold pieces an hour to see me naked. You should be honored you get to look for free.”

Father strode over, grabbed him roughly by his arm and pulled him from the bed.

Acheron covered Father’s hand with his own and tsked at him. “It’s a thousand gold pieces an hour if you want to bruise me.”

Bile rose in my throat.

Father backhanded Acheron so hard he fell to the floor where he sprawled naked on his back.

Laughing, Acheron licked at the blood on his lips before he wiped it away on the back of his scarred hand. “It’s fifteen hundred to make me bleed.”

My father curled his lips. “You’re disgusting.”

With a wry grin, Acheron rolled to his side and gracefully pushed himself up from the floor. “Careful, Father, you might actually hurt my feelings.” He walked around my father like a proud, stalking lion, looking him up and down. “Oh wait, I forgot. Whores don’t have feelings. We have no dignity for you to offend.”

“I am not your father.”

“Yes, I know the story well. It was beaten into me years ago. You’re not my father and Estes isn’t my uncle. It saves his reputation if everyone thinks I’m some poor waif he found on the streets and gave shelter to. It’s fine to sell a homeless beggar, a worthless bastard. But the aristocracy frowns on those who sell their blood relatives.”

Father backhanded him again.

Acheron laughed, unfazed by the fact that his nose was now bleeding along with his lips. “If you really want to hurt me, I’ll ring for the whips. But if you continue to strike my face, you’ll make Estes unbelievably angry. He doesn’t like anyone to mar my beauty.”

“Estes is dead,” my father roared.

Acheron froze in place, then blinked as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “Estes is dead?” he repeated hollowly.

My father sneered at him. “Yes. Would that it were you in his place.”

Acheron took a deep breath and the relief in his eyes was tangible.

I could almost hear his thoughts in my head.

It’s over. It’s finally over.

Acheron’s obvious relief made my father furious. “How dare you have no tears for him! He sheltered and protected you.”

Acheron looked at him drily. “Believe me, I’ve paid him well for his shelter and concern. Every night when he took me to his bed. Every day when he sold me to whomever paid his price.”

“You lie!”

“I’m a whore, Father, not a liar.”

Father attacked him then. He beat and kicked furiously at Acheron who didn’t bother to fight or protect himself. No doubt he’d been trained to take that too. I ran to Acheron, trying to shield him.

Styxx pulled Father back. “Please, Father,” he said. “Calm down! The last thing you need is to tax your heart. I don’t want to see you die as Estes did.”

Acheron lay on the floor once more. His face, covered in blood and bruises, had already started to swell.

“Don’t,” he said, pushing me away. He spat the blood from his mouth to the floor where it landed in a stark red splatter.

“Get out,” Father snarled at him. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

Acheron laughed at that and cast a look to Styxx. “Rather difficult for that, isn’t it?”

Father started for him again, but Styxx put himself between them.

“Guards!” Styxx shouted.

They appeared instantly.

Styxx indicated Acheron with a jerk of his chin. “Put this trash on the street where it belongs.”

Acheron pushed himself to his feet. “I don’t need their help. I can walk out the door on my own.”

“You need clothes and money,” I told him.

“He deserves nothing,” my father said. “Nothing but our scorn.”

Acheron’s battered face was completely stoic. “Then I am rich indeed from the abundance of that which you’ve shown me.” At the door, he paused to smirk one last time at our father. “You know, it took me a long time to realize why you hate me so much.” His gaze went to Styxx. “But then it’s not me you really hate, is it? What you truly despise is how badly you want to fuck your own son.”

My father bellowed in anger.

With his head held high, Acheron left the room.

“How could you?” I asked Father. “I told you years ago what Estes was doing with him and you denied it. How can you blame him for this?”

My father snarled at me. “Estes didn’t do this. Acheron did it himself. Estes told me of the way he parades himself around. The way he tempts everyone. He’s a destroyer just as they said at his birth. He will not rest until he ruins every person he’s around.”

I was appalled. How could a man renowned for his practical sense be so blind and stupid?

“He’s just a confused boy, Father. He needs a family.”

As always, Father ignored me.

Disgusted by him and Styxx, I rushed from the room, after Acheron.

I caught up to him as he was leaving the house and pulled him to a stop. The torment and pain in his silver eyes cut through me. There was no pleading from him this time. No asking me why. As with everything else, he merely accepted this as his due.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Does it matter?”

It did to me. But I knew he wouldn’t answer.

I pulled my cloak off and wrapped it around his shoulders so that at least his nudity would be covered. I raised the cowl to shield his head and beauty, knowing it would be modest protection from the world around him.

He placed his hands over mine, then lifted my right hand to his bloodied lips and kissed the knuckles.

Without another word, he turned and left.

I stood in the doorway watching him as he walked through the crowded street and realized that he was wrong. He did have dignity. He walked down the street with all the proud bearing of a king.

MAY
17, 9528
BC

I was in the market square today, shopping with my maid Sera, when I saw an exceptionally tall man pass by me. At first I thought it was Styxx, especially when a sudden gust of wind blew the cowl off of his head and I saw his incredibly handsome face.

But as I started to call out to him, I noticed that he wore the scarlet chiton of a prostitute—it was forbidden by law for prostitutes to appear in public wearing anything else and their heads must always be kept covered. If practicing prostitutes were caught mixing with people without that mode of dress to warn “decent” people what they were, they could be executed on sight.

Acheron quickly covered his head again as he moved through the crowd.

He looked much better than he had the last time I’d seen him. His skin was golden and tanned, and he was no longer painfully thin. His chiton covered one shoulder, leaving the other bare. An engraved golden cuff encircled his left biceps over an arm that finally had serious muscle to it.

My word, he was without a doubt the most handsome of men—even if he was my brother. I’d have to be blind not to notice.

Leaving Sera to browse over cloth, I followed after him, so grateful to find him alive and well.

But it broke my heart that he was still selling himself.

He met an attractive older woman at one of the booths who held a ring up to him.

“Does this fit?” she asked.

He handed it back to her. “I don’t want a ring, Catera. But I thank you for the thought.”

She returned the ring to the vendor, then ran her hand up and down his bare arm in an intimate caress.

A lover’s caress.

He didn’t react to it at all.

“My precious Acheron,” she said with a laugh. “You’re so unlike my other employees. You take only what you earn and nothing more and you tip every servant at the stew, which is why they’re so kind to you. I don’t think I’ll ever understand you.” She took his hand and led him through the booths. “A word of wisdom to you, akribos, you need to learn to accept gifts.”

He scoffed at her words. “There’s no such thing as a gift. If I were to take that from you, sooner or later you would ask a favor from me in return. Nothing in life is ever truly given without expectation.”

Catera tsked at him. “You are far too young to be so jaded. Whatever did they do to you to make you so suspicious?”

He didn’t say anything.

But in my heart, I knew the horrors of his past. Knew what had stolen his trust. No doubt I was one of the key factors that had turned him into this bitter stranger I barely recognized.

As they walked, the woman chatted endlessly, trying to entice him to notice other trinkets and such. He would only look at them silently, then turn away.

I stayed back, making sure they didn’t notice me. Not that it was difficult. Acheron kept his eyes cast down as if unwilling to look at anyone around him while Catera saw only him.

A man came up to them and pulled her aside.

Acheron wandered a few booths over while they spoke. It hurt me to watch him. To see the way the vendors curled their lips at his approach. The way “decent” people averted their eyes or looked scornfully at his clothes.

But even more horrifying than that was the way their expressions shifted the moment they saw his face. The blazing hot lust was undeniable. The intensity of it frightening.

Little did they know that but for an accident of birth and my father’s unfounded hatred, Acheron would have been their future king.