The Dark-Hunters (557 page)

His black hair was tinged with red tips. His eyes slanted exotically like a feral cat and they were a deep, blood red. But the moment those eyes fastened on Savitar, they lightened with friendship. The metal around his neck folded down from his handsome face to show a man no more than a year or two older than Acheron.

“Savitar-san,” he greeted with a crooked grin. “It’s been a long time.”

Savitar inclined his head to him. “And I’m calling in a favor.”

With one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, Takeshi tsked as he looked about the beach. “Sav, you can’t keep doing this. I’m running out of places to put the bodies.”

Savitar laughed. “Nothing like that.” He stepped back to allow the two of them to size each other up. “Takeshi, meet Acheron. Acheron, this is Takeshi-sensei. Listen to him and he’ll teach you to fight in ways you can’t imagine.”

Takeshi narrowed his gaze on Acheron. “You would have me train a new god?”

Savitar leaned in and whispered something to Takeshi that he couldn’t hear.

Takeshi nodded. “As you wish, brother.” Stepping toward Acheron, Takeshi smiled and knocked the staff out of Acheron’s hands. He let out a long sigh of disappointment. “I have much to teach you. Come and learn the art of war from the one who invented it.”

Cocky, Acheron went with him—after all, he was a god now, surely he could fight. At least that’s what he thought until Takeshi pinned him to the ground with a move so fast, he hadn’t even realized the man had gone into motion until Acheron was face down in the sand.

“Never take your eyes off your opponent,” Takeshi said before he moved back and allowed Acheron to rise. “And never think you don’t have to work for a victory. Even now, you could surprise me.”

Acheron frowned.

Takeshi rolled his eyes. “Surprise me, Atlantean. Attack. This isn’t a dance party.”

Acheron went for him and again, he landed face down in the sand. “You know, this isn’t building my confidence. In fact, I think I’m just going to lie here for a bit and take in some sun.”

Takeshi laughed, then patted him on the back. “Get up, Acheron.” He looked over to where Savitar was now sitting on a rock watching them. “He doesn’t anger easily. This is good.”

Acheron laughed bitterly. “Yes, I’m more of a simmer slowly until it boils over and ruins everything kind of man.”

Takeshi turned back to Acheron and handed him his staff. “Just remember, anger is always your enemy. You must keep your emotions in check. The moment you lose control of them, you lose the fight every time.”

Acheron twirled the staff around and brought it into a defensive block.

Takeshi tsked at him. “Always be the attacker. A defender never wins.”

“Defenders get their asses kicked,” Savitar said. “Trust me. I’ve got crack impressions on every pair of shoes I own.”

Takeshi arched a brow at Savitar. “Do you want to teach him?”

“Not really.”

“Then shut up or grab a sword and come help.”

The humor fled Savitar’s face. “Is that a challenge?”

“It would be if I didn’t know for a fact that you’re too lazy to rise to one.”

“Lazy? Mesoula?”

“Eqou,” Takeshi taunted.

Savitar flashed from the rock to stand before Takeshi with a sword the likes of which Acheron had never seen before. He brought it down across Takeshi’s vambrace. The next thing he knew, the two of them were at war.

Takeshi scoffed. “Ah, you fight like a sissy demon.”

“Sissy demon? Have you ever met a sissy demon?”

“I killed three this morning.”

Savitar swung at his throat. The blade whistled through the air, narrowly missing the man’s Adam’s apple.

Feeling neglected, but grateful he wasn’t in the middle of this titanic brawl, Acheron went to sit on the rock Savitar had vacated.

Savitar shoved Takeshi back. “Your mother was a goatherder.”

“It’s an honorable profession.”

“Yeah, for a goat.”

Takeshi swung around and kicked Savitar away. Savitar flipped over and came back with an upstroke that barely missed gutting him.

Takeshi shook his head. “Have you been drinking this morning? How did you miss me? I swear I’ve fought old women with better reflexes.”

“The fact you fight old women tells me just how rusty you’ve become. What? Your ego needed the boost and they were the only ones you could find you could beat?”

“Savitar, Savitar, Savitar. At least I won. Wasn’t it you who had to cry to the counsel to come save your ass from an attack of a four-year-old?”

Savitar gaped in feigned anger. “Four-year-old … tarranine demon. Don’t forget the most important part. Those bastards are hatched full grown and it wasn’t just one. It was a swarm of them.”

“So you admit you had help?”

“Oh, that’s it, sensei. You’re tasting sand…”

Acheron shook his head at their bantering. While they were being harsh to each other, there was a good-natured spirit that let him know they didn’t mean a word of it. It was as if they were sparring with words the same way they were sparring with their swords.

Honestly, they amazed him. He’d never had a friend he could do that with. He envied them that.

Savitar twisted out of a nasty-looking headlock. “Hey, aren’t we forgetting something?”

“Your dignity?”

Savitar rolled his eyes. “No, you have me confused with you again.” He pointed to where Acheron sat. “Aren’t you supposed to be training
him?
”

Takeshi let out a taunting breath. “So you admit my superiority by deflecting my attention to the neophyte…”

“I’m not admitting shit. I’m merely pointing out the fact that you and I know how to fight and he doesn’t. Might be a good idea for him to learn.”

“True.” Takeshi put his sword across his shoulders where he held it with both hands and smiled at Acheron. “Are you ready to begin again?”

“Sure. My ego’s had enough time to recover a modicum of dignity. Let’s make sure we crush it again before I mistake myself for a god.”

Takeshi laughed. “I like him, Savitar. He fits with us.”

“That’s why I called you.” Savitar handed his sword to Acheron. “Good luck, kid.”

“Thanks.”

Acheron spent the rest of the day training with Takeshi, who had to be the worst taskmaster ever born. He worked him until Acheron was sure he’d drop from sheer exhaustion. By the time the sun set and he was free to rest, his entire body ached.

Even so, he felt more confident in his skills than he’d ever felt before.

Savitar handed him his staff. “Go home to Katoteros and we’ll begin again in the morning.”

Still unsure why Savitar was helping him, he wished the older … being … good night and returned home.

Acheron pulled up short as he saw Artemis waiting in the throne room for him. “What do you want?”

“I haven’t seen you in days.”

“And what a beautiful thing they have been.”

She narrowed her gaze. “I told you that you’d have to feed from me.”

Acheron looked at her coldly. “I think I’d rather be a sadistic monster … like you.”

She curled her lip at him. “So that’s it then. You’re just going to be mean to me.”

“Mean to you? Mean?” he repeated angrily. “Fuck you, Artemis!” His words were punctuated by a blast of wind so strong, it knocked her onto her ass on the floor. He stalked toward her and saw the fear in her eyes. There was a time when that fear would have ignited guilt and compassion within him. Today it just pissed him off. “I was butchered on the floor by your brother while you watched it happen. Then, when I was finally happy someplace, gods forbid, you tricked me into drinking your blood to bind me to you. And you think I’m mean? Bitch, please, you haven’t seen mean yet.”

She covered her ears with her hands and cringed on the floor.

That actually succeeded in turning his anger away from her to him since he had a twinge of pity for her and he hated himself for it. She didn’t deserve his pity. Only his contempt.

“I loved you, Acheron.”

He scoffed. “If what you’ve shown me is love, I’d rather you hate my guts and be done with me.”

She burst into tears.

Acheron leaned his head back and cursed at the fact that those tears affected him. Why did he care? What the fuck was so wrong with him that he actually wanted to comfort her?

I’m even more defective than she is.

He slammed his staff down on the floor, making her cry even harder. “What do you want from me, Artie?”

“I want my friend back.”

“No,” he said bitterly. “You want your pet back. I was never your friend. Friends aren’t ashamed of each other. They don’t live in fear of other people seeing them together.”

She looked up at him with her green eyes swimming in tears. “I’m sorry. There, I said it. I wish I could go back and repair everything that’s happened. But I can’t. I wish I could save our nephew. I wish that I’d been more decent to you. I wish…” She paused, but it was too late. He’d heard it loud and clear.

“That I’d never been a whore. Trust me, what you feel about that is a pittance compared to my sentiments. You were never the one they degraded and used. I’m the one who has to live with that past. Not you. You should be grateful those nightmares don’t haunt your sleep.”

“I have my own nightmares, thank you.”

Perhaps she did. After all, she was the pitiful child who had to tolerate Apollo.

She looked up at him. “Food can’t sustain you anymore, Acheron. You don’t even have to eat human food again. But you do have to feed from me or you will revert to the Destroyer’s Harbinger. You will have no compassion for the world and you will destroy it.”

A muscle worked in his jaw. He wanted to call her a liar, but he knew the truth. He already felt those violent urges inside him. And he hated her for this “gift.”

Cursing, he held his hand out to her.

She took his hand and he jerked her to her feet and into his arms. Then, just as he started to ravage her throat, he pulled back and bit into her gently.

At the end of the day, he wasn’t a monster. He wouldn’t brutalize her even if she did deserve it.

He’d made her a promise and though he may have been a thief and a whore, he wasn’t a liar. He wouldn’t serve to her what she’d served to him. He would always be better than that.

Artemis sighed as she felt Acheron’s powers surging around her. His skin marbled to blue while he drank. The heat of his breath on her flesh ignited her desire, but when she tried to remove his clothes, he stopped her.

“I’m in no mood to play with my food, Artemis.”

She closed her eyes as she heard his voice in her head.

When he’d taken his fill, he stepped away from her. His eyes were blazing red as he wiped the blood from his lips. “I need time away from you.”

Those words sliced through her. “What are you saying?”

“Send a kori to me with your blood.”

“No.”

This time, he turned on her with all his powers ignited.

Artemis shrank away at the sight of his true god form. He was massive and terrifying.

“You will do as
I
command,” he snarled through his fangs. “You brought me back against my will and you will not tell me how to live this new life. Do you understand?”

She nodded slowly as her heart broke again over what she’d lost. “While you’re telling me what to do, you should know that when I brought you back, Styxx came with you. And he’s filled with even more fury and hatred than you are.”

Acheron cursed at the mention of his twin. “Where is he?”

“He’s on the Vanishing Isle, under the care of a god who owes me a favor. He can’t harm anyone where he is and he’s in a good place with his every desire fulfilled.”

“Then leave him there. I have no wish to ever see his face again.”

“Rather difficult, isn’t it?”

He curled his lip at her reminder. “Don’t push me, Artie. I’m one step away from the edge and it wouldn’t take much to step over it. Trust me, you don’t want me there. Now get out of my sight. I don’t ever want to see you here in my domain again.”

Her tears started falling again, but this time they didn’t affect him. He refused to allow that. She’d changed him from the man he’d been.

The whore was dead and a god of destruction had been born. Cursed. Hated. Powerful. Lethal.

His hatred for the world was carved into his heart. His past was a weight he carried on his back and his future was uncertain.

He had enemies aplenty who wanted him dead, an angry mother out to end the world, a baby demon who needed to be fed every few hours, two lunatics training him for a coming war neither would explain, and a horny goddess who only wanted him chained to her bedpost.

Yeah … it was “good” to be back in the mortal realm. He couldn’t wait to see what tomorrow would bring. Too bad he had no warning for his place in it.

Damn the Fates—his sisters who’d betrayed and condemned him to this existence.

One day, he’d pay those bitches back too.

APRIL
10, 9526
BC
MOUNT OLYMPUS

Acheron didn’t know why he’d agreed to meet Artemis. The mere thought of looking at her right now was enough to make him physically sick—if he could get sick. For almost a year, he’d been cleaning up Apollo’s mess. There were remnant Apollites turning into soul-sucking Daimons on a daily basis.

Not that he blamed them, really. It’d been a small group of men that the Atlantean queen had sent out to assassinate his sister and nephew. Jealous over the fact that Apollo no longer came to her bed, the Atlantean queen had turned her venom to Ryssa. In the middle of the night, the queen’s men had snuck into Ryssa’s bedroom and killed her while she was feeding Apollodorus.

Then after Apollo had finished killing Acheron, the god had turned on the very race of people he’d created. Since the assassins had made it appear as if an animal had torn into Ryssa and Apollodorus, Apollo cursed them to feed on each other. Only Apollite blood could sustain them. What was it with Apollo and Artemis and blood?

If that wasn’t enough of a curse, Apollo had banished them from the sun so that he’d never have to see them again and be reminded of their treachery. And not to be outdone, he’d then condemned their entire race to die slowly and painfully on their twenty-seventh birthday—the same age Ryssa had been.