What would the child think when he grew older and Styxx and his father told him what Acheron had been? Would it matter to the child that all of it had been against Acheron's will? That he would never have done it had there been any choice?
Or worse, would he be like Maia . . .
His gut tightened with the thought. Picking up the boy, Acheron held him against his chest as tightly as he could without hurting him. "Please don't ever hate me, Appie. I couldn't take that from you."
Appie loves theo.
Acheron cherished every syllable.
"How touching."
He opened his eyes to find Artemis standing in front of them. "Have you ever seen Apollodorus?"
She shrugged. "Not really. Apollo has bastards aplenty. But he is cute enough I suppose for a smelly small human."
Acheron tried to hear her thoughts. But unlike the humans, it wasn't easy. He had to strain for it and then he could only get pieces of them.
Put the child down. I wanted to be with you. "Where's its mother?"
"With Apollo."
She rolled her eyes and sighed. "Doesn't that thing have a keeper?"
"Yes and at the moment, the keeper would be me."
She put her hands on her hips.
"Sit down, Artie and meet your nephew. His bites don't hurt." Unlike hers.
Her entire demeanor showed her agitation as she sat down beside them. "Is it wet?"
"He's not wet."
Apollodorus held one hand in his mouth as he stared curiously at Artemis. She's not right, theo . . .
Acheron laughed at the thought.
Artemis glared at them. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing," he said, wondering why she couldn't hear the boy's thoughts too. It made him curious how much the powers of the gods differed from each other—maybe there were a lot of things he could do that she couldn't . . . "As a god, do you ever hear what other people are thinking?"
She rolled her eyes. "I do my best not to. They're always boring. Either they're scheming to hurt someone or begging for something. People are insects."
Her rabid hostility caught him off guard. Although some of the people he'd known in his life were so low, he wouldn't insult an insect by linking them to the cretins who'd abused him. "Including me?"
She brushed her hand through his hair. "No. You're quiet to me. I never hear your thoughts. It's why I like being with you."
He found it disconcerting that he couldn't hear what she was thinking.
Still, as a god, shouldn't she know when she was sitting next to another one? How could she not know what had happened to him last night? "Do you sense anything different about me?"
"Other than the fact you're cuddling a smelly boy, no." She dropped her hand. "I know you humans put a lot of stock in the anniversaries of your birth, but really all it marks is one year closer to death. Who'd want to celebrate that?"
Acheron snorted at her answer. So she couldn't sense his unlocked godhood. Fascinating. "I wasn't talking about my age."
"Then what? You haven't cut your hair and I can tell by the way the small thing is climbing on you and you're not wincing that you haven't been beaten. What else has happened?"
The fact that she could be so cavalier about his beatings set his anger off. The bitch should have to suffer through the pain and humiliation of one to understand it wasn't something to be taken so lightly. "Nothing."
She waved his hostile answer away dismissively. "You're such an odd man."
Apollodorus crawled over to Artemis. They stared at each other for a full minute before he smiled and put his wet hand on her arm.
"Ow! Disgusting." She wiped it away.
Acheron held his arms out and Apollodorus returned to him.
"How do you stand that?" Artemis shivered as he picked the boy up and Apollodorus gave him a wet kiss on his cheek.
"I love him, Artie. There's nothing disgusting about him."
She shivered even harder as if it were the most repulsive thing she could imagine. "You want your own child, don't you?" Her accusatory tone amazed him. It was as if she thought him an imbecile for wanting something like that.
Acheron held his nephew close as he considered a question that had never crossed his mind. "Since I can't have any, I've never thought about it really."
"But if you could?"
He looked at his nephew and smiled. He'd give anything to be able to create something so precious. "I can think of no greater gift than to have my own child look at me the way Appie does."
"Then we should find a baby for you."
He scoffed at the thought before he changed the subject to one that really mattered and was a lot more feasible. "Tell me something, Artie. If I were a god, would you acknowledge our friendship to other people?"
She made a sound of utter disgust in the back of her throat. "You're not a god, Acheron."
"But if I were . . ."
"Why do you ponder such ridiculous thoughts?"
"Why do you avoid answering me?"
"Because it doesn't matter. You're not a god. I told you, your eyes are a deformity. Nothing more."
How could a god be so blind as not to see another of its kind? Or was his mother really so powerful that she'd managed to shield him so completely from all gods? "And you've never known a god to have eyes like mine?"
"No."