Unable to cope with it, Urian set the sketchbook back right where he’d found it. Honestly, what disturbed him the most about that book …
He saw his own future. Phoebe had only been dead a handful of years and it still burned inside him like a raging furnace. For Styxx, it’d been eleven thousand years and he still ached as much now as he had then.
That did not bode well for Urian. Because he knew the other truth.
He still missed Xyn. Just as much today as he had the day she’d vanished.
That pain never ended and he knew it.
Maybe that was why he was so drawn to Styxx. They were bound by similar tragedies and had been born virtual contemporaries in ancient Greece. Well, not quite. Styxx was the same age as his father, but close enough.
Urian glanced back at the sketchbook and cringed. So that’s what I have to look forward to. Bitter insanity.
So awesome.
January 20, 2009
Just after midnight, Styxx woke up covered in sweat. Urian wanted to weep for him. He was so cold, his teeth chattered. Feeling for his grieving friend, he pulled another blanket over Styxx’s shoulder, then stepped into his field of vision. “How are you?”
His expression said clearly that he was broken.
When he didn’t respond, Urian squatted down next to the bed until their gazes were level.
“I know,” he whispered. “I still wake up and expect to find Phoebe beside me.” Xyn too on the really bad days. “I haven’t even deactivated her cell phone. I keep it so that I can call and hear her voice on those hours when I feel like I can’t take it anymore. It’s not fair that we’re forced to live without them while the world goes on, oblivious to the fact that it’s missing the most vital part of it.”
He let out a bitter laugh to try to clear the pain that was choking him and making him want to scream out from the injustice of it. “It’s why I’m here with your hairy ass. I don’t want to see Tory and Ash. Not because I hate him like you do, but because they remind me of what I no longer have. And while I don’t begrudge them their happiness, it makes my loneliness burn even deeper.”
Styxx finally blinked. “Why do you talk to me, Urian?”
“I don’t know. You’re entertaining when you’re not catatonic or in a coma. Or in a homicidal rage. Why do you talk to me?”
“Because I can’t hear your thoughts.”
Urian scowled at the last thing he’d expected him to say. “Excuse me?”
Styxx sighed. “It’s something I’ve been able to do from birth. With a tiny handful of exceptions, one of whom is you, I hear every thought in someone’s head.”
So he shared that talent with Spawn. Wow, that was not something he envied. “That has to suck.”
“It does indeed. That was what made me so lethal on the battlefield. I knew what my enemies were going to do and I could cut them off.”
“Yeah, okay, that would not suck.” Urian had meant to make him laugh, but if anything it darkened Styxx’s mood, so he changed the subject. “You think you could eat something?”
“I don’t know.”
Urian handed him a bottle of water. “You need to sip this. While I know you can’t die from hunger or thirst, you still feel both. I’ll go recon the fridge while you take a shower.” He rose to his feet, then left the room so that Styxx could have some privacy.
Though he was a little worried that he might do something drastic. Hoping for the best, he went into the kitchen to make them both sandwiches. It was one of the few things he knew Styxx really liked.
That and spaghetti, but sadly Urian couldn’t cook. He needed Danger for those skills.
Without a word, Styxx came over to get his sandwich from the counter.
Urian swallowed his bite and wiped his chin as he watched Styxx dig in with gusto. “You know, food still tastes weird to me. It’s hard to get used to eating when I lived on blood for eleven thousand years.”
Styxx frowned at him. “I’m surprised you haven’t filed down your fangs.”
“Hadn’t really thought about it. But I’ve never seen myself without them. Too old to change now. Might throw off my bite and I have enough trouble chewing as it is. You probably don’t realize chewing is a skill. And the first time I bit my tongue … be glad you weren’t there for it.”
Well, so much for his humor. That, too, had fallen flat.
Without so much as cracking a smile, Styxx sat down to eat his ham sandwich. “What made you decide to go Daimon?”
Urian paused at a most personal question that he hated answering. Because the truth … not for public consumption. Last thing he wanted was to relive the day that had set them on the course of hunting down Phoebe’s family.
Not to mention, he’d been a fool to get caught like that.
So as much as he loved Styxx as a friend, he didn’t want to share a story of that much rampant stupidity. At least not tonight. Instead, he defaulted to a partial truth that was kind of right … ish. “Rage, mostly.” That was true … “My best friend was a couple of years older than me and he refused to fight the curse. So I watched him age to an old man in less than twenty-four hours, screaming in utter agony the entire day until he decayed into nothing but dust.”
While he hadn’t seen Darius actually die, he’d witnessed plenty of others do it, so it wasn’t entirely bullshit. “All I could think about was that he’d never harmed anyone. Never even been in a fistfight, and all because of my own grandfather over something that happened before I could walk. It pissed me off. But after losing Phoebe, I can understand why Apollo was so upset and cursed us. I’d have done as much, if not more, if they’d murdered my son and beloved mistress, too.”
Styxx released a painful sigh. “He didn’t love Ryssa.”
Urian arched a brow. “What?”
“She was a possession. Nothing more. Most of the time, he bitched about her whining and complaining … which she did all the time, about everything.”
“That’s not what Ash says.”
“He and I had two entirely different sisters. She coddled him and hated me.”
“Why?”
Styxx swallowed his bite of food. “What can I say? I’m an asshole. As for Acheron, she felt sorry for him. In her mind, she was convinced that I stole our father’s throne and his love from my brother.”
“Is that why he calls you a thief?”
Styxx shrugged. “I don’t know. Ironically, I didn’t even want the throne. I just wanted a family that didn’t hate me.”
He could understand that, given the fact his father had killed his wife and cut his throat.
Urian finished off his sandwich. “I’d have gladly given you some brothers. Man, there was so much testosterone in that house, I don’t know how my mother and sister stood us. But we were mostly happy. Although my older brothers said that my father was a very different man after Apollo cursed us.”
“How so?”
Urian shrugged. “He was happier and much more easygoing.” He picked up the pickle from his plate. “The only thing I really hated was not seeing sunlight.” He laughed bitterly. “My father used to get so mad at me when I was a kid. I’d sneak out, trying to catch a glimpse of the sunrise. And he’d start screaming that if I wanted to burst into flames, then he was willing to begin the process by setting my ass on fire if I didn’t get to safety.”
Styxx laughed. “He loved you.”
“Yeah, to the day he cut my throat. I’ve never understood it. After Darius died, I adopted his son and daughter.” They had come along after Nephele and Geras had both died. “When Ida and Mylinus died, it about killed me. I can’t imagine ever getting so mad at them that I’d do something like that, and they weren’t technically mine.” Just as he’d been with Neph and Geras. So long as he lived, he’d never understand his father’s motivation. “How do you cut your own son’s throat?”
“I don’t know, Uri. I’ve never understood it, either. When I was just a boy, my own mother tried to kill me for giving her a birthday present. She stabbed me I don’t know how many times.”
Urian’s eyes widened with incredulity. Was he kidding? “Your mother?”
He nodded. “Ryssa, too.”