He laughed bitterly. "The least you could have done was kill me, Artemis," he shouted. That had been his only intent when he'd first approached her.
But the moment he'd touched her, he'd felt real desire.
Unable to fathom that, he wiped his mouth and pushed himself to his feet. Turning around, he looked up at her statue which bore no resemblance to her whatsoever. He gave her a sarcastic salute.
His body strangely hungry, he left the temple and made the long walk back to the palace alone. And with every step he took, his anger built even higher than it'd been before.
It was eerily silent as he walked through the marbled corridors of his father's home with no destination in mind. Everyone had gone to see Ryssa's sacrifice. He wondered idly if it would work. If Apollo's favor could be swayed from the Atlanteans to the Greeks,
Not that he cared. Neither the Atlanteans nor the Apollites had been any kinder to him than the Greeks had been.
All any of them wanted to do was fuck him.
Sighing, he found himself in his father's large and impressive throne room—his first time walking into it, since the previous times he'd been bound in chains and dragged through the doors.
His gaze narrowed as he saw the two gilded thrones at the far end. Thrones that should have been his mother's and father's, but since his mother had been banished for his birth, Styxx had occupied her place. Too bad the old bitch had died in her isolation. She would have loved to see her precious Styxx become King.
Styxx. His baby brother.
Acheron cursed. If not for his eyes, he would have been the one to sit to the right hand of his father.
No one would dare mock him then. No one would ever have forced him to his knees to . . .
He snarled at the memories.
It was so unfair.
He'd never asked for this life. Never asked to be born. Never asked to be a demigod.
He heard Estes's voice in his head. "Look at him. Son to an Olympian. How much will you pay for a taste of a Greek god?"
Acheron didn't even know who his father was. His mother had always protested her innocence over his birth and no god had ever stepped forward to acknowledge him.
Angered by that fact, he crossed the room to sit on his father's throne. The man would die to see him perched on it and that gave him an instant moment of gratification. His father would have it burned.
Perhaps he should let his father find him here. It would serve the king right to know a whore had fouled his beloved throne.
A whore . . . he flinched with the thought.
By birthright, this should have all been his. Closing his eyes, Acheron tried to imagine what the world would have been like had he possessed blue eyes like Styxx.
People would respect him.
Respect.
The word hung like a phantom in his mind. That was the only thing he'd ever craved.
"Don't you want to be loved?"
He opened his eyes to see Artemis standing in the center of the room, studying him.
"Everyone claims they love me." At least while they screwed him. Unfortunately, that affection ended the minute they came. "I've had more than my share of other people's love. I'd rather do without it for a while."
She frowned. It was a delicate expression that he found oddly sweet. "You're a strange human."
He scoffed at that. "I'm a demigod. Can't you tell?"
Her frown deepened as she drew near him. "Whose issue are you?"
"They tell me Zeus."
She shook her head at that. "You're no son of an Olympian. I would know it if you were. We can always sense our own."
Her words went through his heart like a knife. "Then whose son am I?"
She cupped his chin in her warm, soft hand so that he looked up at her as she stared into his freakish eyes. Eyes he'd hated all his life. Eyes that betrayed him.
"You're human."
"But my eyes . . ."
"They are strange, but birth defects are common among your kind. There are no god powers inside you. Nothing to mark you as divinity. You're human."
Acheron closed his eyes as pain assailed him. So he was his father's son after all.
It was the last thing he'd wanted to hear. A birth defect. A simple accident of birth had deprived him of everything. He wanted to scream out in anger.
"Why are you here?" he asked, opening his eyes to find Artemis still staring at him.
She ignored his question. "Why do you not fear me?"
"Should I?"
"I could kill you."
"I asked you to, but you didn't."
She cocked her head as if he baffled her completely. "You're very handsome for a human."
"I know."
Artemis scowled at his words. They weren't said arrogantly. Instead, he'd said them angrily as if his beauty bothered him. He was so unlike any human she'd ever met.
If she didn't know better, she would believe his claim of divinity. There was something unnatural about the desire he created in her.
But gods and their issue had an essence that was unmistakable. All she felt inside this human was hatred, despair. He hurt so badly that it was almost painful for her to be near him.
"Why are you so sad?"
"You would never understand."
Most likely not. Sadness wasn't something she normally felt. As for despair . . .