One with glowing eyes made of swirling silver. They were filled with a fury that matched the rage in his own heart.
Ribbons of white-blond hair twisted around her body as if they had a life of their own. She appeared wild and fierce in a ghost, wraith form, the very epitome of the ruthless goddess she was purported to be.
“Goddess Apollymi?”
She curled her lips. “You think another would dare step her foot inside my temple and dare my wrath?”
Given her temperament? Only if they were profoundly stupid.
“Now answer my question, Greek dog!”
Stryker met her gaze levelly, knowing that this particular goddess couldn’t abide cowardice in any form. “I delayed because I thought you were asking me here to kill me. And I apologize profusely, akra, if that was an incorrect assumption. Now, I’ve come to ask your guidance and benediction. I throw myself on your mercy.”
She laughed. It rolled through her temple like thunder and caused part of the ceiling to crash down around him, threatening his life with more daylight as it streaked ever closer to his body.
But he was desperate enough to pay it no heed. “Please, akra. I come here to beg vengeance against my father.”
Her laughter died instantly. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because I’m also the son of the Atlantean queen he slaughtered.”
“You never knew Xura. Your father took you from her womb before you were born, and you were raised in Greece among his priestesses. Why should you have loyalty to your mother or to me?”
Stryker flinched at the truth. But there was a lot more to it than that. His childhood had never been happy. In truth, it’d been bitter and miserable. One he held against his father and hated him for. “Among women who lived in terror of my father and his capricious moods, and who had no love of me because of him. Only fear that I might prove no better a man than what sired me. I assure you, akra, I hold no loyalty to any of them. They never brought me anything other than heartbreak and misery.”
The wind settled down as she raked a suspicious glare over his body. She swept him from head to toe as if trying to gain insight to his charac ter. “You come to me with an offer of loyalty while telling me that you’re loyal to none?”
She was right. He’d never given it to anyone. The closest he’d ever come was Zephyra. His first wife had been the one he’d intended to die beside. To this day, he owed his fealty solely to her.
But his father had seen to it that he’d had no other choice than to let her go. More to the point, that Stryker had been forced to make Phyra hate him forever.
“I freely admit that I’m worthless, akra.” Stryker drew a ragged breath at a truth he didn’t want to face. “In all honesty, I care nothing for myself or anyone else … except for my children. They’re all I have that I value.”
He prayed that she saw the truth of his heart in his eyes. “And my father has damned them. I beg you, please spare them, and I will do anything you ask me. And I mean anything at all. Take my life. My soul. Whatever it is you ask, I will do without hesitation. Just don’t let them die. Not like this. Not for something they took no part in. Again, I beg you, akra. And I have never begged for anything. Not from anyone.”
“And that is why I called to you, Strykerius. I knew we could come to an accord. That our hatred for Apollo would be enough to bind us.”
With a sweeping grace, she crossed the room so that she could stand before him. There was a light that shone from her so bright that it was almost blinding to his Apollite eyes, and it forced him to lift his hand up to shield them.
Her ghostly fingers cupped his chin. “Aye, Strykerius. I can show you how to live past Apollo’s decree and thwart his curse. But the cure is ofttimes worse than the malady. However, if you are brave enough, and can suffer the taste of it, you and your children will have life eternal. Walk by my side and serve me, and I will show you how to claim the entire world. Together, we will rebuild what they’ve destroyed. Fight with me and the world shall belong to the Atlantean gods once more, and the Greeks will choke to death on our wrath.”
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled at her words. Bargains with the gods never worked out well for the weaker party. He knew that better than anyone.
Yet for his children, he would barter with the darkest powers in existence.
Apollymi.
“I will do as you say, akra”—he made sure to use the Atlantean word for “lady and mistress” to placate her ego—“Forever.”
A warm smile curved her lips as she manifested a beautiful golden chalice. With one long black nail, she cut open her wrist and bled into it, then offered it to him. “Drink, m’gios. If you dare. And I shall reveal my realm to you. There you and your children and people can live where the daylight will never again harm you. From this day forward, you shall be as my son. A member of my pantheon, and an Atlantean god. I will show you the key to Apollo’s destruction, and together we will make your father pay and you will regain everything he took from you.”
Stryker wrapped his cold hand around her cup and nodded. “Here’s to the future. May it rain nothing save the blood of the gods and humanity for all eternity.”
June 29, 9527 BC
Apollymi froze as she heard Strykerius’s panicked voice shouting for her aid. Throughout her despised Kalosis hell realm, all was quiet instead of the loud celebration that had been taking place only moments before.
For days now, the remnants of the Apollite race who’d agreed to join Strykerius for their war on humanity had descended here to pick out homes and start new lives in this realm where Apollo’s deadly sunlight could never reach them.
As they settled in, Strykerius had been busy with the birth of his twin sons—the first Apollites born after their grandfather’s curse.
Now something was terribly wrong.
She flashed herself to Strykerius’s side where he and his wife had taken up residence in the smaller temple next to hers. Hellen lay in their bed, still too weak to stand after birthing her sons.
While his wife held one infant in her arms, Strykerius stood to the side with Urian—the baby that Apollymi had ripped from Bethany and placed in Hellen’s womb so that the Greek whore could birth him without anyone else knowing. It was a secret Apollymi intended to keep to herself forever.
Yet by the stern frown on Strykerius’s face, Apollymi knew something had gone wrong with the child she’d hand-chosen to be her vengeance upon the world.
“What is it?”
His face ashen, Strykerius drew a ragged breath. “We’re losing my son.”
The grief in his voice tugged at her heart, and that caused her fury to rise. Urian would not die. Apollymi had made a vow to that.
Before she could rethink her actions, she took the baby from his hands. He was much smaller than the other infant they’d named Paris. Because of the disaster that had come from her combining Apostolos’s life force with Styxx’s, Apollymi had refused to do that with Paris and Urian—she would never again make that mistake. Instead, she’d bonded Urian to Paris’s and Strykerius’s DNA only enough to mask the baby’s origins, never knowing that Apollo would be cursing them just hours later when she did so.
Sadly, prophecy and foresight weren’t among her powers.
Yet now that she stared down at the infant who struggled to live, she wondered if she’d made a grave mistake in not tying his life force to that of his twin brother.
For Strykerius was right. Unlike Paris, Urian wasn’t thriving.
She glanced over to his brother, who was pushing away from his mother’s breast and fussing about it. An odd thought occurred to her. “How much has he eaten?”
“Nothing.” Hellen choked on a sob. “Neither has Paris. They both refuse to suckle.”
Apollymi wanted to curse the woman’s stupidity. But then, she was a Greek. Intelligence from her was too much to hope for. “They don’t want your milk, human,” she spat at her.