Artemis saw the hatred in Acheron's gaze, the scathing condemnation.
Their angry breaths mingled and the air around them snapped furiously as their powers clashed.
But it wasn't his fury she wanted.
No, never his fury…
She wanted anything but that.
Her gaze drifted over him. Over the perfect sculpted planes of his face, his high cheekbones, his long, aquiline nose. The blackness of his hair.
The eerie mercury of his eyes.
There had never been a mortal born who could equal his physical perfection. And it wasn't just his beauty that drew people to him. It wasn't his beauty that drew her to him. He possessed a raw, rare kind of masculine charisma. Power. Strength. Charm. Intelligence. Determination.
To look at him was to want him.
To see him was to ache to touch him.
He had been built to please, and trained to pleasure. Everything about him from the sleek muscles that rippled to the deep, erotic timbre of his voice seduced anyone who came into contact with him.
Like a lethal wild animal, he moved with a primal promise of danger and masculine power. With the promise of supreme sexual fulfillment.
They were promises he delivered well on.
In all eternity, he was the only man who had made her weak or turned her head.
The only man she had ever loved.
He had the power in him to kill her. They both knew it. And she found the fact that he didn't intriguing and provocative. Seductive and erotic.
Swallowing, she remembered him as he had been when they first met. The strength of him. The passion.
Defiantly, he had stood in her temple and laughed when she threatened to kill him.
There before her statue, he had dared do what no man before or since had ever dared…
She could still taste that kiss.
Unlike other men, he had never feared her.
Now, the heat of his hand on her flesh seared her, but then his touch always had. There was nothing more she craved than the taste of his lips. The fire of his passion.
And with one mistake, she had lost him.
Artemis wanted to weep with the hopelessness of it all. She'd tried once, long ago, to turn back the hands of time and redo that morning.
To win back Acheron's love and trust.
The Fates had punished her severely for the audacity. He was gone and not even they would help her reclaim him.
For the last two thousand years, she had tried everything to bring him back to her side.
Nothing had worked. Nothing had ever come close to making him forgive her or to journey back to her temple. Not until she thought of the one thing he could never say no to—a mortal soul in jeopardy.
Acheron would do anything to save the humans.
Her plan to make him responsible for her DarkHunters had worked and now he was back.
If she could just keep him.
"You want me to release them?" she asked.
For him, she would do anything.
"Yes."
For her, he would do nothing. Not unless she forced him to it.
"What will you do for me, Acheron? You know the rules. A favor requires a favor in return."
He released her with an angry curse and stepped back from her. "I've learned better than to play this game with you."
Artemis shrugged with a nonchalance she didn't feel. At this moment everything she cared about was on the line.
If he said no, it would destroy her.
"Fine, they will continue on as DarkHunters then. Alone with no one to teach them what they need to know. No one to care what becomes of them."
He released a long, tired breath.
She wanted to comfort him, but knew he would reject her touch. He'd always rejected comfort or solace. He was stronger than anyone had a right to be.
When he met her gaze, it sent a raw, sensual shiver over her. "If they are to serve you and the gods, Artemis, they have things they need."
"Such as?"
"Armor, for one. You can't send them out to fight without weapons. They need a way to procure food, clothes, horses, and even servants to watch over them in the daylight while they rest."
"You ask too much for them."
"I ask only for what they need to survive."
"Yet you never asked any of that for yourself." She was hurt now by that fact.
He never asked for anything. Because he knows it gives people power over him. He would rather suffer abysmally and do without than to ever rely on anyone for anything… even kindness.
"I don't need food and my powers allow me to procure everything else I need. As for protection, I have Simi. They won't last alone."
No one lasts alone, Acheron.
No one.
Not even you.
And especially not me.
Artemis lifted her chin, determined to have him by her side no matter the consequences. "And again I say to you, what will you give me for what they need?"
Acheron looked away, his gut tight. He knew what she wanted, and the last thing he wanted was to give it to her. "This is for them, not me."
She shrugged. "Fine then, they can do without since they have nothing to barter with."
His fury ignited deep at her casual dismissal of their lives and well-being.
She hadn't changed at all.