"Looks like you'll be getting your wish sooner rather than later, huh?" he said flippantly.
She clutched the sheet to her chest. "There has to be a way out of here."
"Yes, but they have one advantage. The demons aren't nocturnal. They can box us in day and night. We can only feed after dark."
"Can you bring humans here?"
In theory, yes. But things were seldom so simple. "Only if they stumble into a bolt hole. Something much easier said than done. We usually only get kids with those traps, and a large number of Daimons, including myself, have trouble swallowing the soul of a child. Even if they are human cattle."
Her gaze darkened with fury. "They've killed our children without flinching."
Again, not so simple. "Their parents kill our children, not them. They're innocent in this fight. My father forced me to be a monster when he cursed me to this life, but I refuse to lose all sense of myself to his lunacy."
She shook her head. "You're a warrior. Are you telling me that you've never slaughtered a child in battle?"
"I trained for war as a mortal, but I never battled until after I became a Daimon. So no, I've never taken the life of a child. Having been a father, I don't know if I ever could." He narrowed his eyes on her. "And that doesn't make me a coward."
Zephyra held her hands up in surrender at his hostile tone. She'd inadvertently struck a nerve when she hadn't meant to. "It never crossed my mind." At least not over his inability to harm a child. Other things he'd done . . . That was another story.
As he got up from the bed, she saw the tattoo on his right shoulder blade that had escaped her attention while she'd been focused on their earlier play. It made her do a double take as the tattoo fully registered in her mind. No, it couldn't be. . .
"Stop," she said, pulling him back to examine it.
It was a broken heart with thorny vines twisted through it and a sword that plunged down its carmine center. But it was the ribbon and the name it contained that covered the tattoo that made her breath catch in her throat. Zephyra.
Beneath it were eighteen small black teardrops that formed an intricate pattern. She traced them with her fingertip. "Who are these for?"
"One for each of my children and grandchildren. And one for each of my wives."
But it was her name he'd put inside the ribbon. Hers alone that marked his broken heart. She glanced up to meet his gaze as he looked at her over his shoulder. Memories of their past together and conflicted emotions ripped through her. He was so familiar and so alien.
"Who are you, Strykerius?"
"I'm a lost soul," he breathed quietly. "I had a purpose at one time, but I stumbled on the path of it."
"And now?"
His gaze narrowed dangerously. Seductively. "I see what I want again, but for the first time in my life, I'm not sure if I can claim it. I should have never left you and I know it."
She laid her hand against the stubble of his cheek. "I'm a servant of Artemis. I owe her for taking me in when no one else would."
"Haven't you paid that debt a thousand fold?"
Zephyra paused. Had she? Artemis could be so fickle and cold. Over the centuries, Zephyra had executed countless humans for Artemis and others who'd defamed or offended the goddess. Strange how she'd never really thought about leaving Artemis's service before this. She'd been content to stay in the shelter of the goddess's temple and merely exist. Her only goal in all these centuries had been to protect her daughter.
How could she not have had a goal other than that? Because her last goal had been to grow old and love a man who'd walked out the door and broken her heart. Her spirit. Her life. After that, she'd vowed to never set herself up again for so much pain. Once had definitely been enough for her.
Stryker turned around on the bed to face her with a look so intense and raw it raised chills on her body. "Join me again, Phyra. Stand by my side and I will lay the world of man at your feet. We will find a way to break my father's curse and take our place in the sunlight."
"I haven't touched daylight in over eleven thousand years. Not since the night we were warned of the curse."
"I would give that to you."
She shook her head in denial. "You promised me the world once before and then you threw it in my face."
"I'm different now, Phyra. I'm not a scared child living in his father's shadow. I've learned from my mistake and I swear that I will never again leave you."
She wanted to believe that but didn't know if she could. Promises were so easy to make and so hard to keep. It was a rare person who could carry through their execution. "And yet you'll die in two days if we don't feed you."
"Even in death, I shall find a way to be by your side."
Those words set her anger on fire as he reminded her of the vow he'd taken at their wedding. "How dare you!" she snarled, shoving him back.
"I don't understand."
"You mock me with those words."
His expression was true bafflement. How could he not know? "How so?"