Stygian (Dark-Hunter #27)

“He told you I stabbed him.”

“Yeah, one night when he was really tore up and drunk and I was asking him about some of the scars on his body. As many and as bad as most of them are, the huge jagged one in the center of his chest directly over his heart tends to stand out.”

Ash frowned at his words. “What scars?”

“Dear gods, Ash … have you never looked at your brother? They’re all over him. Even his face.”

No, he’d never seen scars on Styxx. But as Urian pointed out, he never really looked at him.

Only through him.

“Where is he?”

Urian narrowed his gaze. “Why? So you can hurt him again? Forget it. He’s gone someplace safe so that you won’t have to worry about him darkening your doorstep ever again.”

“Yeah, he’s so altruistic with his billion-dollar bank account.”

“If you’re talking about the money you set up for him when you dumped him off without a second thought? He transferred that back to your account before he left New York. That, too, has been closed for three years.”

Sick of this game, Ash ground his teeth. “You know, I can find him without you.”

“You hurt him, Acheron, and I swear to the gods I loathe that I will beat you down for it. For once in your lives, can you not think of him and just leave him alone? It’s all he wants. You’ve already forgotten him for three years. What’s another three hundred?”

Those words were harsh. But harsher still was the truth behind them.

Ash swallowed. “I want to talk to my brother.”

Urian sighed. “Fine. He’s in the Sahara. Literally. Living like a Bedouin. I had dinner with him and haven’t heard anything since. That’s all I know.”

Inclining his head, Ash left Urian and went to locate Styxx.

*

Careful to stay invisible, Ash watched Styxx feed his horse and camel. Urian hadn’t exaggerated the horrors of Styxx’s meager existence in the least. But for the vivid blue eyes that were ringed in kohl, Styxx would easily pass for a Bedouin. Dressed all in black, he had his keffiyeh pulled over his mouth and nose, concealing his hair and features completely. The only color on his body was the brown sheath for his scimitar and the red agal wrapped around his black keffiyeh. And the two brown leather arm sheaths for the throwing knives they contained.

The horse nipped at the black leather pouch on Styxx’s hip.

Styxx laughed. “Ah, you caught me.” He scratched the horse’s ears and patted her neck. “Yes, they’re for you.” He opened the pouch and pulled out apple slices that he fed by hand to his horse. “Good, right?” His horse actually nodded and snorted.

The camel made a sound of annoyance. “Don’t worry, Wasima. I haven’t forgotten you.” Styxx went to share some with his other mount.

Once the animals were fed and secured, and after he’d washed off his hands in the small oasis, Styxx headed into a tiny black tent.

Ash followed him in and was stunned at what he found. The “prince” had a modest bedroll on top of a worn-out Persian rug where a big brown dog lay sleeping beside metal bowls of half-eaten dog food and water. Next to the bedroll was an iPhone on the ground hooked to a small speaker that was playing Disturbed’s “Criminal” low enough to be heard in the tent, but not so loud as to drown out the sound of someone approaching outside. A backpack, saddlebags, four medium-sized solar lanterns, one rifle, and nothing else.

Unaware of Ash’s presence, Styxx stripped down to his akarbey.

Damn, Urian wasn’t kidding. The scars on Styxx’s body were horrifying to look at. When, where, and how had Styxx gotten those? And when Styxx squatted in the corner to search his backpack, Ash’s breath caught in his throat as he saw Apollo’s sun symbol that spanned the entire width of Styxx’s shoulders.

As a god, Ash knew exactly what a mark like that meant and all the horrors it entailed.…

Fierce ownership.

It was a warning to any god who saw it that Apollo would fight hard to keep Styxx as his slave. And Apollo didn’t do that lightly. The Olympian god had never marked Ryssa as his property. He hadn’t cared enough about her to do it. For that matter, Artemis had never officially marked Acheron, and they’d been together thousands of years before Tory had freed him.

And as Ash stared at the mark, Ryssa’s last day, with her screams of how Styxx had seduced Apollo, took on an ominous tone. While Ash might have been wrong about many things to do with his brother, the one thing he knew for a fact was that Styxx was completely and staunchly heterosexual.

But Apollo wasn’t. And if Styxx had fought his ownership, Apollo would have retaliated with a vengeance. Look what the bastard had done to his own people.…

His own son.

Acheron himself.

Tory’s words about the gods in human form rang with a frightening possibility. He’d always wondered how Styxx could be so vicious to him. How his own twin brother could essentially assault himself whenever he attacked Acheron.

Apollo castrating him made a lot more sense than Styxx doing so. The Olympian would have wanted vengeance on Ash for having slept with Artemis and “defiling” her. The savagery of that attack over Artemis made a lot more sense than Styxx attacking him for a woman he couldn’t have cared less about.

Putting an apple in his mouth and holding it there with his teeth, Styxx stood up with two bottles of warm water and a sketchbook and pencils. He sat down on the bedroll without disturbing the dog, then opened the water to sip at it. While he ate the apple, he turned to a page in the book where there was a sketch of a woman who sat in a beautiful meadow, holding an infant in her arms. The baby’s hand was on her lips as she smiled down at him. Even though it was only a drawing, the love in her expression was haunting.

Ash’s gaze went to Styxx’s left hand, which held his apple, and then down to the names of his wife and son that Styxx had meticulously carved into his own flesh.

An ultimate tribute. Not something a man would have done lightly.

The full magnitude of what Styxx had lost and how much his brother had loved his family slammed into him with such force that for a moment he thought he’d be sick.

Styxx set the apple aside and wiped his hand against his thigh, then leaned over so that he could draw. Ash winced as he watched the way Styxx had to use his left hand to wedge the pencil into the grip of his damaged right hand so that he could use it. The way Styxx did it said that he was so used to making accommodations for his partially paralyzed hand that he didn’t even think about it anymore.

Tears misted in Styxx’s blue eyes as he lovingly brushed his fiercely scarred right hand across the page. “Miss you, Beth,” he breathed before he began filling in more details. He pushed the book back a bit as he worked, and it was only then Ash realized why.

He was protecting it.

Every so often, a random tear would fall as Styxx worked. Silent and focused, he would wipe it away on his shoulder and keep drawing.

Awed by his brother’s heart and talent, Ash sank to his knees to watch Styxx’s precise, expert strokes. He’d had no idea that his brother could do such.

Once it was finished, Styxx sniffed back his quiet tears and flipped through the book that was filled with pictures of the same woman and the baby boy at various ages that ranged from newborn to adulthood. It was as if Styxx had created the memories of his wife and child that he’d wanted to have.

Memories that had been stolen from him.

By Acheron’s mother.

But what tore out Ash’s heart was how much the boy looked like Bas. And when Styxx paused on a drawing of Styxx holding his wife and child, Acheron had to leave.

Sobs tore through him as Urian’s words came home to roost and he thought about trying to live without Tory and Bas for even one day. Never mind centuries.

How could I have asked him to save my wife’s life and embrace the killer of his own?