“Why, Urian? Why would you do this?”
“I didn’t want you to fight and get hurt, Solren, and I wanted a present for Paris. So it seemed like a good way to accomplish both goals.”
How many times had he been on the brink of strangling the boy only to have Urian turn around with a logic so sweet and loving that it pulled him back from homicide?
Until the day he’d learned the staggering truth.
Trates had been as nervous as always. Flittering about in his study.
“What are you doing?”
“I have news, kyrios. Distressing news.”
“About Acheron or the Dark-Hunters?”
“Neither.”
That had stopped Stryker cold. “What then?”
Trates had swallowed hard and hesitated. “Urian.”
By then, Urian had been his last surviving child. Stryker had lost all of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And two unofficial “spouses” he’d refused to marry lest he give the women some false hope that they might claim a part of him that he was incapable of offering them. Since he knew he’d never love them, it just seemed wrong to marry them under a lie.
So many of his family had fallen that his heart had grown to ice and his blood had turned to pure venom.
He was dead inside and he knew it.
Except for Urian.
His son alone held his love and devotion.
Stryker had thought himself above being hurt until Trates spoke. “Your son has married a daughter of the heiress’s bloodline.”
“What?”
“It’s true, kyrios.” Trates had shown him the pictures. Of Phoebe and Urian. “He’s running interference between our searchers and her sister, Cassandra. He’s been helping to cover her tracks.”
And still a part of Stryker had refused to believe it. In the back of his mind, he’d convinced himself that Urian’s enemies had concocted a lie to put distance in his heart for his son. To spread discord in their house. After all, it was just the sort of thing they would do.
That was easier to believe than his son had betrayed him.
But he hadn’t been able to let it go. And so he’d gone to Elysia and there he’d met Phoebe himself.
The stupid chit had no idea who he was. She’d sat one afternoon and talked to him about the most asinine of topics until he’d wanted to strangle her. Why Urian had wanted to marry her, he couldn’t imagine. While she was pretty enough, she was immature and insipid. Gossipy about Hollywood starlets and soap operas. Things Urian would know nothing about and care even less for.
He’d tried to understand their relationship and had left even more baffled.
Then he’d waited for Urian to tell him the truth.
Stryker had dropped hints that he knew. But Urian had deftly turned the topic to something else.
Until that fateful night …
Everything had gone wrong.
He’d learned about Acheron being the true son of Apollymi and her lies to him. That had hit him like a sledgehammer. All these years, he’d thought Apostolos was dead and that he was her chosen son.
Instead, he’d found out that he was a puppet and Acheron was her beloved child. It had gutted him. Worse, Urian had killed their own to protect the bitch he knew Stryker wanted dead.
So when Shanus’s call had come in while Urian was out that Phoebe had gone trelos …
Stryker had been torn between his duty as a father and to his people, and his fury over being betrayed. When he’d gone there, his intention had been to kill Phoebe. To unleash his wrath on her for the lives she’d taken.
They’d fought and fought.
In the end, he’d been unable to do it. For the first time in his life, Stryker had shown mercy. Instead of killing her, he’d brought her back to Kalosis and locked her up. His intention had been to tell Urian later and let him deal with her.
Then when they’d faced Acheron and Wulf in Dante’s Inferno … he’d absolutely lost his fucking mind. Acheron, a two-bit whore, loved by Apollymi in spite of turning against her and her cause, surrounded by countless Hunters who were loyal and willing to die for him, in all his smugness. For Acheron to stand there, taunting and judging him when all he was trying to do was save his people.… And Apollymi with her taunting him about Urian’s betrayal when he’d done nothing to deserve it.
Because in the end, Stryker had only had one person in his entire life he could depend on. One person he could love. One person who loved him. And the gods had taken her from him.
Everyone else used him and lied while they did so. They tried to kill him or threw him away like he was garbage. Or worse, the gods took them from him and left him barren and alone.
Except for Urian. He was the only one Stryker had depended on and needed.
Then to find out that the one and only person he thought he could rely on was also a fraud …
It’d shattered him. The pain of losing that sole person in his world who loved him had been more than he could bear. It had destroyed him and so he’d lashed out and done to Urian what the entire world had done to him since the moment he’d been violently thrust from his mother’s womb into the cold and unfeeling hands of a wet nurse who’d rather see him dead than fed.
But even then, he’d known that Acheron wouldn’t let his son die. Stryker had merely severed their bond so that Urian couldn’t hurt him anymore.
Because Stryker knew that Urian was the one and only person who would always have the power to bring him to his knees.
He was his son. His beautiful boy. Regardless of what Urian did or how badly he hurt him.
The bastard was his son. And Stryker would always love him. No matter what pain Urian gave him, he wouldn’t care.
It was why he’d kept Phoebe alive. Even though Stryker knew he should kill her. That so long as she lived, she was a danger. He couldn’t do it. He could lie to himself and everyone else about why he’d done what he’d done. He could lie about what happened to Phoebe. Tell them all that he’d killed her and cut Urian’s throat.
It changed nothing. Because he couldn’t kill what his son loved. And though he could cut his son’s throat, he couldn’t kill his boy.
Worse, Stryker had relived that day a million times over and had lashed himself with guilt and remorse. With so many could-haves and should-haves. He would sell his soul for one chance to go back and change what he’d done to them.
That was why he didn’t believe hell was real. Life was hell. It existed solely to torment the living, and death was the reward for having endured it.
Stryker choked on tears he hadn’t realized were falling until Bethany dropped her hand from his face, released from the nightmares of his past.
At some point during the horrors, Zephyra had pressed herself against his back to comfort him and had buried her hand in his hair.
His breathing ragged, Stryker wasn’t sure what to expect from Styxx and Bethany. Given the memories of Urian he’d just passed to them, he half-expected both Styxx and Bethany to gut him where he stood.
Instead, Styxx jerked him forward into a fierce embrace. When he whispered in his ear, his voice was thick with emotion. “From this day forward, we are brothers, Stryker. I will never again consider you my enemy.”
Swallowing hard, he nodded.
Likewise, Bethany wiped away her own tears. “Thank you for loving my son so. I am honored to share him with you. Now let’s find him so we can both set his ass on fire.”
*
“What do you mean, we’re lost?” Urian glared at Davyn. They had barely gotten to him in time with the dragonstone before the gallu had struck and killed him. Even so, their rescue wasn’t going quite as planned.
“I’m still weak from my attack, so my tracking abilities are down.”
“Why isn’t he a gallu?” Blaise asked. “I thought everyone they attacked converted.”
“Not if you eat one of them first.” Davyn flashed him a grin. “You get all kinds of perks, we learned. Ability to walk in daylight. And a freaky immunity to their bites.”
Xander scowled. “So it’s like a cure?”