The Dark-Hunters (521 page)

It made me seethe and at the same time, there was nothing I could do to help.

How I hated being born a woman in a world where women were barely one step up from dirt.

Catera returned to his side.

Acheron glanced to the man who was still watching them. The man’s eyes were hungry.

Acheron’s were empty. “He wanted to purchase me.” It was a statement of fact as if he were more than used to it.

She laughed at that. “They all want to purchase you, akribos. If I ever wanted to sell you as a slave, no doubt I would be richer than Midas.”

A shadowed pain darkened his eyes at her words. “I should go back and prepare myself for—”

“No,” she said, cutting him off. “This day is yours to do with as you please. You work too hard. You can’t stay inside all the time.”

His jaw flexed at her words. “I don’t like being around people.”

“And yet you don’t mind having sex with them. I don’t understand you.”

He started away from her.

“Acheron,” she said, pulling him to a stop. “I’m sorry. I just…” She paused and rubbed his hand. “You can’t continue on the way you do. No one sees clients from waking to sleeping, day after day without stop. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the money you make for me, but at the rate you’re going, you’ll end up dead before you’re one-and-twenty.”

He gave a short, bitter laugh. “I told you, it’s what I’m used to.”

“And I told you that I wouldn’t let you be hurt at my house. I take care of my people, especially those who are as popular as you are.” She pressed a small purse into his hand. “Take the rest of the day and enjoy it. Go to a play. Go get drunk. Go enjoy being young while you can and I’ll see you this evening.”

The woman walked away from him.

Acheron gripped the purse in his hand before he tucked it inside his robes, then he headed in the opposite direction.

Torn, I stood there debating whom to follow.

I sent my bodyguard after the woman. I knew I couldn’t meet with her openly lest someone see us together and report it to my father. So I had him invite her into a small hostel.

I paid the owner to let me into a small room in the back where I could speak to Catera without being seen.

A few minutes later, my bodyguard appeared with Catera by his side. He left us alone and went to stand guard outside the door.

“My lady,” Catera said, shifting uneasily. “What can I do for you?”

“Please be seated.” I indicated the chair in front of me.

Obviously nervous, she took a seat.

I softened my expression, hoping to calm her nerves. “I wanted to ask you about…” I hesitated at saying “my brother.” Such knowledge might hurt him. “Acheron,” I finished. “Where did you find him?”

She smiled knowingly. “He is handsome, is he not? But alas, he’s not for sale. If my lady is interested in purchasing his services—”

“No!” I said, shocked at her suggestion. But then I realized it wasn’t out of character for her to think that. “He … He reminds me of someone.”

She nodded. “Yes, he’s almost identical in looks to Prince Styxx. A lot of my clientele thinks so as well. It’s been very lucrative for him.”

Little did she know it was the most destructive part about my brother. “Where did you find him?” I repeated.

“Why do you want to know?”

I didn’t dare tell her the truth. “Please,” I said quietly. “I can pay you whatever you wish, I just need a few questions about him answered.” I pressed a dozen gold solas into her hand.

She tucked them away. “I know not where he comes from. He refuses to speak of it. But by his accent, I assume he’s Atlantean in origin.”

“He came to you?”

She nodded. “He showed up at my back door several months ago. Dressed in rags and barefoot, he looked like any other beggar except that he was freshly washed and his clothes looked as if he had tried to keep them laundered. He was pale, thin and so weak from hunger that he could barely stand.”

I was horrified by what she described.

“He said he was looking for work and wanted to know if I had anything he could do. I told him that I wasn’t hiring, but he’d heard from another brothel that I was looking for a new prostitute. It was all I could do not to laugh at him. I couldn’t imagine anyone paying for such a pitiful creature. My first impulse was to throw him out.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I can’t explain it. Even though he was ragged in appearance, there was something undeniable about him. Something compelling that sent heat over me. It made me want to touch him even though he was skinny and frail. Then he said the most unbelievable thing of all. He told me that if I would give him five minutes, he would give me three orgasms.”

I gasped at her words.

She laughed at my expression. “I was surprised, too. I’ve been around plenty of boastful men in my time that such a claim was hardly unheard of. But I was a bit intrigued to hear that out of the mouth of someone so young. At first I thought he was like many of the young men who come to me, most of them with little to no experience, who think prostitution is an easy way to make money. They have no idea just how hard it is physically. How taxing it is spiritually. I figured he was from a farm and had come to the city to try and make it rich.”

I swallowed in dread before I spoke. “You made him prove his words?”

She laughed. “My lady, at my age, I’m lucky to get three orgasms in a year. So I told him if he was as good as he said then I would hire him. What I found out was that even half-dead from starvation he was better than he claimed. I’ve been with the best and his skills are completely unrivaled.”

My stomach clenched at her words. I knew only too well just how much practice he’d had. “So you took him in.”

She nodded. “It’s a decision I haven’t regretted. I had no idea just how handsome he would turn out to be once he had a few meals in him and some rest. Nor that he would be so strikingly similar to Prince Styxx. I kept him for three weeks before I let him work. From the first night he was taking clients, he was so popular that we had to start a waiting list.

“If you’re interested in purchasing an hour with him, I can put you on the list, but as it stands, it’ll be at least ten weeks before there’s an opening.”

I sat there stunned by her words. Stunned by what had become of the small boy I used to hold on my knee and bounce while he laughed.

What had they done to him? How could this be his life? It wasn’t fair and it made me want to cry.

“Is there any way I might speak to him privately?”

Catera looked skeptical at the suggestion. “He prefers not to speak with his clients.”

“I don’t want to be a client,” I told her sternly. “I happen to know him personally.”

She arched a brow at that. “A friend?”

“Something like that.” I said, unwilling to let her know the truth of our relationship. I pulled out more money and handed it to her. “Please. I will pay you anything if you can give me just a handful of minutes alone with him.”

She debated for several heartbeats before she answered. “Very well, if you can come by my stew tonight—”

“I can’t be seen by anyone in such a place.”

“I understand, but I doubt he’ll go out to meet you. He refuses to see anyone off the premises. Today is the first day since his arrival that I’ve been able to get him outside at all.

“But,” she said thoughtfully, “if you can come by right at dawn, there’s seldom anyone around. We’re cleaning up from the night and all our clients are gone. I could let you in to see him then.”

Relieved, I smiled. “Thank you. I’ll see you at dawn.”

MAY
18, 9528
BC

The morning was cold as if it were as afraid as I was. Alone, I snuck from the palace and crept silently through the city, following Catera’s directions until I found her stew.

As she predicted, there was no one around.

She let me inside through her back door, then led me quietly through the house to a room in the far back. I kept my head and face well covered and did my best not to look at the poor souls we passed.

She opened a door.

I stepped inside hesitantly, expecting to see Acheron. He wasn’t there. Instead, I heard water splashing in the room set off to the side and knew he must be bathing.

The musty scent of sex hung heavy in the room and I tried not to look at the freshly made bed. I closed my eyes as I thought of Styxx and the way he lived his life in comfort and peace while Acheron was forced to this.

I couldn’t imagine the degradation that Acheron must suffer every day. The pain.

He entered the room completely naked, toweling his hair dry. He pulled up short as he caught sight of me standing just inside the threshold.

“Forgive me, my lady,” he said in that sultry, smooth voice of his that held just a hint of an Atlantean accent. I was grateful that at least the balls were no longer lining his tongue. “I thought I was through for the night.”

I lowered my cowl.

Recognizing me instantly, he narrowed his gaze. “Well, if it isn’t Sister Ryssa. Tell me, are you here to save me or to fuck me? Oh wait, I forgot. When you save me, you do fuck me, don’t you?”

Tears pricked my eyes at his hostile disdain. But then who could blame him for it? “You don’t have to be so crude.”

“You’ll excuse me if my manners are lacking. Being a whore, I’m not very well versed in how decent people speak. The only time any of them converse with me is to give me instruction on how to better screw them.” He dropped the towel on the bed and moved to a chair by the window.

Ignoring me, he sat down and opened a box on the table. I watched in silence as he placed several strange weeds and flowers in a flagon. He lit them, then closed the lid. Picking up a small clay bowl, he held it to his face, covering his mouth and nose, and inhaled it.

“What are you doing?”

He took several breaths before he pulled the clay bowl away from his mouth. “I’m using Xechnobia.” At my frown, he explained it to me. “It’s a drug, Ryssa.”

“Are you sick?”

He laughed at that, then inhaled more of it. “That’s a matter of opinion,” he said after a small pause. A tic started in his jaw as he watched me closely. “I use it so that I can forget how many pairs of hands I’ve had on me in one day. It allows me to sleep in peace.”

I’d heard of such things, but in my world they didn’t exist. No doubt it was Estes who’d shown him the drug. I wanted to weep at what had become of the Acheron who used to bake bread and play games with Maia.

“So why are you here, Princess?” he asked.

“I wanted to see you.”

“Why?”

“I was worried about you. I saw you today in the market and wanted to see how you were doing.”

Acheron added more herbs to the pot, then blew on them to stir the embers around them. “I’m well. Now you can go home and sleep in wealth and good conscience.” The mocking sarcasm of his tone stung me soul-deep.

I shook my head as tears gathered in my eyes. “How can you do this to yourself?”

He arched a mocking brow. “I’m a trained dog, Ryssa. I’m only doing what I was well taught to do.”

“This is so demeaning. How could you have gone back to this?”

His eyes stormy, I saw the rage he bore me. “Gone back to this? Why, big sister, you speak as if
this
is a bad thing. For me it’s paradise. I only have to fuck ten to twelve people a night, generally only one at a time. I’m finally allowed to eat at a table, not off the floor or someone’s lap. No one makes me beg for food or punishes me the few days a year when I’m sick and can’t screw. If anyone hurts or beats me, Catera bans them from her stew. She even pays me for my work and I get a day off once a week. Best of all, when I go to sleep, I go to bed alone. I’ve never had it so good.”

I wanted to scream at the horror he described. The fact that I knew it was the truth only hurt me more. “And so you’re content to live like this?”

He set the clay pot down on the table and pierced me with his mercurial gaze. “What do you honestly think, Princess?”

“I think you’re worth more than this.”

“Well, aren’t you special to be able to see me as something more than a whore? Let me educate you on what the rest of the world sees. I left Atlantis and was sick for weeks from the drugs Estes had forced down my throat.”

I remembered well how ill he’d been when I had rescued him.

“I had nothing but the himation you gave me. No money, no clothes. Nothing.”

“So you went back to whoring?”

“What choice did I have? I traveled far and wide, while trying to find work doing anything else, but no one would hire me to work. When people see me, they only want one thing from me and I happen to be very good at it. Tell me, Princess, if Father threw you out tomorrow, naked on the streets, what would you do? What do you know how to do?”

I lifted my chin. “I could find something.”

“I defy you to try it, Princess.” He gestured toward the door behind me. “Go ahead. I don’t even know how to sweep a floor. All I know how to do is use my body to please others. I was sick and alone with no references, friends, family or money. I was so weak from hunger that even a beggar stole your himation from me while I lay on the ground, wanting to die and unable to stop him from taking it. So don’t come here now with your disdainful eyes and look at me like I’m beneath you. I don’t need your charity and I don’t need your pity. I know exactly what you see when you look at me.”

“Do you really?”

He stood up and spread his arms wide, showing me his perfect naked body. “I see it clearly on your face. What you see is the pathetic little boy who kissed his father’s feet and begged him not to send him back to whoring. You see the whore who pleasured a prince and was then thrown from his home.”

I shook my head in denial. “No, Acheron. What I see is the little boy who used to run up to me and ask why his parents didn’t love him. The same little golden-haired cherub who chased sunbeams in my room and laughed when they filled his palm. You are my brother and I will never see anything bad about you.”

The anger on his face intensified to the point I actually thought he might strike me. “Get out.”