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.
Given the severity of the punishment, Acheron might have thought the god loved his sister. But he knew better. Apollo was no more capable of love than Artemis was. It was nothing more than a show of power. A warning to others who might think of turning on Apollo who was now telling everyone that he'd destroyed Atlantis to get back at the Apollites.
Stupid bastard. And stupid people for believing his lies.
Acheron kept his silence, not to protect the god, but only because Apollo's pathetic arrogance amused him.
By his own stupidity the god was going to be undone. Even now Acheron's mother sat in her prison, plotting the god's death . . . along with Artemis's. No sooner had Apollo damned his people than Apollymi had gone to Strykerius, Apollo's condemned son, and showed him how to circumvent death by taking human souls into Apollite bodies and thus elongating their lives.
No wonder Savitar had failed to tell Acheron the name of the goddess Acheron would be fighting.
It was his own mother. She was the one leading the Daimon army that was set on its own vengeance. He should have known.
But then his revenge had been more direct. He'd hunted down the ones who'd killed his sister and nephew—those who'd survived his mother's attack, and he'd made them wish they'd never been born with nerve-endings.
Now he was at war with his mother.
Acheron sighed heavily. "One day, I'm going to kill those damned Fates."
But it wouldn't be today. Today he was meeting with Artemis to see why she'd been shrieking and threatening to kill him these past months. Between her and his mother ranting at him, this was the first time since he'd died that his head had been clear of their incessant nagging.
He felt the ripple of power down his spine that signified her arrival. He stiffened in expectation of her shrewish voice. When she didn't start yelling at him, he turned his head to find her hesitating.
"Why so nervous, Artemis?"
"You're very different now."
He laughed at her acute sense of perception. He was different. No longer a subservient slave, he was a pissed off god who wanted the entire world to leave him alone.
"I don't like your hair black."
He gave her a droll stare. "And I don't like your head attached to your shoulders. Guess we can't all have what we want, huh?" He narrowed his gaze on her. "I don't have time for this shit. If all you want is to gawk at me, then you can admire my back as I walk away from you."
He turned his back to her.
"Wait!"
Against his better judgment, he hesitated. "For what?"
She had approached him cautiously as if terrified of him. "Please don't be angry at me, Acheron."
He laughed bitterly at her words. "Oh, anger doesn't even begin to describe what I am at you. How dare you bring me back."
She gulped as her features drew taut. "I had no choice."
"We all have choices."