His gaze burned as he stared at the floor and he remembered his father putting him into a dress once. He'd barely stepped foot into his father's temple when Apollo had changed his clothes in the blink of an eye."Now you look the part of your true nature. Perhaps I should geld you, too . . . if only I didn't need you to breed. I can only hope your sons have more testosterone than you do." Those words and the humiliation he'd felt were still branded inside his soul. His father's derision had hardened him to the point he had nothing left for anyone else. "Have you any idea how painful that is to admit even now?"
Her gaze softened as she took his hand and held it against her heart. "Is that why you loved me? Because you didn't think you could do better?"
His anger snapped at such a question. "I loved you because of the way you made me feel whenever we were together. Like I mattered to you. In your eyes, I was the man I'd hoped to be even while my father told me the only thing I'd ever be was a disappointment to him. And I haven't felt that way since the night I walked out the door and left you. You say you died that night. I've died every night since then. Every one."
Her nails dug into the flesh of his hand. "I hate you, Stryker."
Honestly, he didn't expect anything more from her. It was all he seemed to elicit out of everyone. His heart aching, he started away from her side. She caught him and pulled him back until he was lying in her arms. Startled, he locked gazes with her.
"You're still as stupid now as you were then."
His temper flared at her angry words, but before he could tell her to fuck off, she pulled his head to hers and kissed him with a passion so furious it made his senses swirl.
Cupping her head in his hand, he breathed her in and let the feel of her lips chase away all the bad memories that haunted him. It was amazing the lies a person could hide. The shame that they never wanted exposed. It was so much easier to pretend that his father had loved him, that it had been an oversight that caused Apollo to curse him along with the rest of the Apollite race.
But the harsh, bare truth . . . it was something Stryker had never wanted to face. His father hadn't cared. And that was hurtful. Angry. Debilitating.
He closed his eyes as Zephyra nipped his chin and took away the pain of his reality. Dissolving their clothes, he rolled until she was on top of him. She was the only one he'd ever given power over him to. He belonged to her and he knew it. She'd branded herself into his soul eleven thousand years ago that day on the dock when she'd run from him. And if he had to die, he wanted it to be by her hand. By the hand of someone who had at least loved him for a little while.
Reaching up, he cupped her face in his hands while he savored the sight of her naked body on top of his. He trailed his hands from her face down to her breasts. Lush and full, they, too, had haunted his nights and left him aching for the loss of her and for moments like this one.
"When are you ever going to learn me, Stryker?" she asked.
"How so?"
She traced the lines of his lips with one long fingernail. "I say things in anger that I never mean. When I told you to leave, all I wanted was for you to stay. I wanted to hurt you the way you'd crushed me."
"You told me I was worthless."
"That I did mean. But only because you were packing your things to obey your father and to leave me. That made me feel worthless too and so I struck out at you."
And those words had ruined him. His anger surged anew. "And you'd made me feel like my father did. Like I was less than a man. His criticisms had always hurt, but yours cut me all the way to the bone. They left scars on me that still haven't healed."
She slapped at his chest. Not painfully, but forcefully enough to get her point across that she was still angry at him. "What do you think you did to me? Have you any idea how many times in my life I was called a whore? Before I went to Artemis, I went back to my father. He took the money you'd left with me and then threw me out to the streets. He told me that if I couldn't hold on to my husband I should go spread my legs for another who might find some use for me."
He winced and then glared, wishing he'd known about it. "I would have killed your father had I known."
"But you didn't and that's why I hated you even more. You knew what kind of hell I'd lived in before you married me. That my father was abusive and harsh. What did you think I was going to do on my own in a world where a woman couldn't even shop unless a man was with her?"
He pulled her down, over him. So close that he could feel her breath fall against his face. "All I could think of was my father killing you because of me and then making me live, knowing what I'd done to you, what I'd forced him to do. He would never have given me the peace of death. And I knew that was the one thing I wasn't strong enough to bear . . . living on after your death that I caused."
Zephyra wanted to forgive him. She did. But she'd been hurt so badly. Those early years with Medea had been so difficult, and while Artemis had given them shelter, she'd never been kind to either of them. She'd changed so much since the night he'd left.