Nick curled his lip in obvious hatred. "I'm not going anywhere with him. I'd rather be dead."
Urian forced Nick to look down at Satara's body. "I'm going to make the wildly unfounded assumption that Satara's dead by your hand and not Tory's." Gripping Nick's chin, he forced him to meet his gaze. "Now, stay with me on this, Cajun. My father slit my throat and murdered my wife because he thought I'd betrayed him by getting married. Before that, he loved me more than his life and I was his last surviving child. His second in command. Now what do you think he's going to do to you once he sees her body? I can assure you, it won't be a fun-filled trip to Chuck E. Cheese. For all their animosity toward each other, Satara is his sister and she's served him well over the centuries. If you really want to stay here and have some fun with Stryker, I won't stop you. But I really wouldn't recommend it."
That seemed to get through to Nick. Sanity returned to his eyes. "Fine. I'll go with you."
"Urian," the fake Ash said between his clenched teeth. "I think they're catching on."
"Catching on to what?" Nick asked.
Tory rolled her eyes at the dense question. "That this isn't Ash."
The words had barely left her lips before they faded out of the room.
Zolan, Stryker's third in command and the leader of his personal Illuminati attack force, cleared his throat in the still silent room. "Um . . . boss, I don't mean this disrespectfully, but why are we still here? I mean, if Acheron has come to free Apollymi, shouldn't there be an explosion or something?"
The Daimons and demons looked around as if waiting for an opening to the outer world to appear or for Apollymi to burst into song and dance, or for something else unnatural to happen. Meanwhile, Apollymi just stood there completely stoic, appearing almost angelic and sweet, as she watched Stryker closely.
His second in command, Davyn, scratched the back of his neck nervously. "I agree, kyrios," he said to Stryker, using the Atlantean term for lord. "It doesn't feel like the end of the world."
Stryker turned a cold sneer to Apollymi. "No, it doesn't . . ."
Apollymi arched a taunting brow. "How does the song go, 'It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine'?"
Something was wrong and in an instant he realized what it was. Launching himself from his throne, he ran to the room just as Urian, Tory, Nick and what had to be Ash's twin brother Styxx vanished.
His anger over the obvious trick mounted until he saw Satara lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Fear washed away his rage as he ran to find her dead. Her eyes were glazed and her skin tinged blue.
His heart shattered as he pulled her into his arms and held her close, fighting against the tears of grief and pain. "You stupid psychotic bitch," he growled against her cold cheek, fighting the sobs that demanded release. "What have you done now?"
Apollymi stood in the doorway, aching for Strykerius as he rocked his sister's body in his arms, reminding her of the day she'd found her son's body dumped on the cliffs. Sympathy and a newfound respect for him tore through her.
The fact that he could love someone as broken as Satara said much for him. Yes, he could be cold-blooded, but he wasn't heartless. Closing her eyes, she remembered him the day they'd first met. Stryker had been young and bitter over his father's curse.
"I gave up everything I ever cared about for him and this is how he repays my loyalty? I'm to die in agony in only six years? My young children are now banished from the sun and are cursed to drink blood from each other instead of eating food, and to die in pain at only twenty-seven? For what? For the death of a Greek whore killed by soldiers I've never even seen? Where's the justice in that?"
So she'd pulled him to her ranks and taught him how to circumvent his father's curse by absorbing human souls into his body to elongate his life. She'd given him and his children shelter in a realm where the humans couldn't harm them and where there was no danger of his children accidentally dying by sunlight. Then she'd allowed him to convert others and bring them here to live.
In the beginning, she'd pitied him and she'd even loved him as a son.
But he wasn't her Apostolos and the more he was around her, the more she wanted to have her own child with her no matter the cost. She admitted it was her own fault that she'd put a wall between her and Strykerius. And the two of them had used each other to get back at the people they hated.
Now it had all come to this . . .
"I'm so sorry, Strykerius."
He looked up at her, his silver eyes swirling in pain. "Are you? Or are you gloating?"
"I never gloat over death. I may relish it from time to time when it's justified. But I never gloat."
"And I don't let challenges like this go unanswered."