Something they were all very much aware of, and it pained Urian to see his mother’s plight. The constant sadness behind her smiles that never faded. Or the longing in his father’s gaze whenever he thought of his first wife Apollo had forced him to divorce.
Their mutual torment was so bad that Urian had often wondered if he and his siblings had been conceived the only times his father had ever managed to have sex with his mother. So when she’d proposed leaving Kalosis to return to the human realm a few days ago, his father had begun immediate preparations. Stryker had done everything to hasten the journey but pack for her.
With her beautiful features contorted by grief, his mother cupped Urian’s face in her hands. “I hate to leave my babies. But all of you can come see me, anytime you want. You know that. You’ll always be welcome wherever I am. I’ll make sure to keep a dark place that’s safe.” Biting her lip, she glanced between them. “You will come see me?”
Urian nodded. “I’ll come.”
“I know you won’t break your word.” She kissed his brow. “My precious, Uri. You’ll watch after your brothers and sister for me?”
“Don’t you trust us?” Archie asked defensively.
She tsked at him as she stepped over to her eldest. “You know I do. But you have your own wife and child, now, and another on the way. Urian’s still at home.”
“’Cause no one will have him.” Theo cast an evil smirk toward Urian that cut him all the way to the bone.
Normally, Urian would have lashed out and struck him, but he was too grief-stricken over his mother to bother.
“Theo!” Their father cleared his throat sharply in warning.
Alkimos, who was leaner, like Urian, but whose features were identical to Stryker’s, took up the torment. “Why are you so angry, Solren? We all know Urian’s still a virgin.”
All his siblings burst out laughing at him over that, adding even more blows to his ego.
“Enough!” their father roared.
Urian felt his gut shrivel at the mockery his brothers knew went straight to his heart.
Which was why they did it. Bastards!
“Freak,” Alkimos whispered in his ear.
Urian ground his teeth, tempted to slug him for that insult, but then he knew he’d be the one to get into trouble for striking the first blow—which was what his brother wanted. They were forever taunting him to violence.
He had no idea why he was so different from his brothers, yet there was no denying it. It was as if everyone could feel it and they all reacted to something he couldn’t understand or help.
Like he was defective.
His mother returned to hug him, and that only made it worse. Because he knew she wouldn’t be here tomorrow to make it better when they started this shite with him. Tomorrow, he’d be alone with their cruelty without her precious balm to soothe it.
Urian fisted his hands in her cloak, choking on the words he wanted to say. He wanted to beg her to take him with her, or to stay so that he wouldn’t feel so alone and unwanted.
Both would be selfish and dangerous.
Closing his eyes, he winced at the memory of what had prompted her departure.
The Daimon who’d been trapped in Kalosis too long.
Urian and Paris had been walking with their mother, to shop for fabric so that she could make Tannis a new chiton. Both of them had been complaining mercilessly over the task neither had wanted to be dragged into.
“Why isn’t Davyn doing this?”
Paris had smirked at him. “You’re such an ass. He doesn’t like to shop any more than you do.”
Their mother had rolled her eyes. “Would you both stop complaining! Your sister needs something pretty. Erol is too nasty to her. It’s time she had something to make her smile again. I don’t like seeing my children so unhappy.”
That had only made Urian screw his face up more. “Then why are we here again?”
Before she could speak, he’d heard the outraged bellow. “Human!”
Three seconds later, the Daimon had attacked, aiming to rip out their mother’s throat.
Paris had grabbed their mother while Urian cut the Daimon off and prevented him from reaching her. He’d been prepared to kill the Daimon without hesitation. Luckily, it hadn’t come to that.
No sooner had Urian reached for his sword than his father appeared to stab the Daimon through the black mark over his heart. As soon as the blade penetrated the stain left by the human soul he’d consumed, the Daimon splintered into pieces.
Urian had stepped back in relief, but his mother had been shaken to the core. And this time, she hadn’t calmed down.
Rather, their mother had become more withdrawn and fearful than ever before.
The unspoken truth had grown like a monster they could no longer deny. If she remained, it was only a matter of time before her soul became too great a temptation for someone else. She couldn’t stay here in this realm anymore.
If Urian went with her to live, and one of the humans learned he was an Apollite, she would be killed for being his mother.
He knew those horror stories as well as his mother did. Humans burned alive any man, woman, or child they caught harboring an Apollite. To humanity, such a person was worse than a Daimon. They were traitors and heretics. And used as examples to scare off anyone else who might take mercy on any of his people.
I have to let her go.
For her sake as well as theirs.
Yet it was so unfair. She was his mother and he wanted to keep her with him as long as he could.
She felt that way too. Her reluctance to leave was evident in the way she held on to him and his siblings.
“Come to me anytime you need to,” she whispered in his ear. “I will always have a safe place for you, my precious baby.”
Urian nodded. “I love you, Mata.”
She tightened her arms around his shoulders. “And I love you more, my Urimou.” Kissing his cheek, she let go and stepped over to Paris.
Paris drew a ragged breath as she straightened his chalmys and repinned it with his fibula. “My child … you’ve never learned to properly drape a cloak.”
His brother smiled down at her. “If I did so, you wouldn’t feel useful.”
With a wistful smile, she smoothed it down with her hand. “You will watch over Urian for me? Make sure the others don’t hurt him?”
“You know I will. He gets on my nerves, but he is my twin. Besides, Davyn likes him better than me most days, anyway.”
She laughed at that. “Where is Davyn?”
“Outside with the wives.”
“Good. I didn’t want to leave without seeing him.”
Sick to his stomach, Urian stood back while she finished saying her good-byes and waited for the next wave of hell he knew would be unleashed.
It came a few minutes later, as expected. The instant his father announced who’d be escorting their mother to her new home in the human realm.
“All right, Urian. You have six hours to see her settled. I expect you back long before dawn.”
Archie cursed and sputtered in outrage. “Why does Urian get to go and not one of us?”
“The goddess willed it so.”
“It’s not fair!”
The look on their father’s face would have quelled anyone with a brain.
Sadly, Archie was missing that vital organ as he continued complaining.
Finally, their father cut him off with one sharp glower. “And I don’t care, Archimedes. Now step aside and let them leave.”
Urian sighed at the glares he collected as he and Trates, along with two other Daimons, left through the shimmering portal with his mother.
Out of the four of them, he was the only one who could command the limani portals that led to and from Kalosis. A gift not from their father as the others all assumed, but from Apollymi herself when he’d been a boy. Oddly enough, his father hadn’t questioned why the goddess had bestowed it upon him. Rather he accepted it without comment.
Urian had never asked when Apollymi told his father about that gift, and his father hadn’t volunteered it. Instead, his father had just accepted the fact that one day Urian had shown up with the key to open the portals and not once had they spoken about the what-for or why.