“I’ve never eaten either.”
Simi sucked her breath in as if that were the worst thing she’d ever heard. “That’s right. You eats the blood! Except you don’t no more.” Fanning her face, she danced around excitedly, then handed him both bags. “Open them! Open them!”
He obliged her.
“Now eats!”
Urian wasn’t sure about this. Cringing, he held one up to his nose.
Simi made a rude noise and popped his hand. “Would you stop! You done been eating on the people! Stop being all finicky. Eat the dang chip! Unlike the people, which don’t be getting the Simi wrong, ’cause they’s mighty tasty, them’s chips is good! Eat it!”
He laughed at the demonic tone that somehow managed to be childlike. “Yes, ma’am.” He bit into it and gasped. “Holy shit, that’s good.”
“Told you! Eat more!” She held up the bag for him. Then she made an adorable noise and dropped it so that she could run to another room.
After a few minutes, she came back with several drinks. “Fruitsie juicies! You gots so much catching up, akri-Daimon!”
Simi scooted in beside him and started pulling more snacks out of that tiny purse, then turned the TV on to something called QVC, where she educated him on modern shopping.
“Why are you doing this, Simi?”
She lay beside him on the floor with her feet up on the couch—he didn’t know why, but most Charonte slept and relaxed like that. Cocking her head, she scowled at him. “Don’t you know, akri-Daimon?”
“No idea.”
She reached up and touched his chest where his mark used to be. “You gots the heart sadness. Friends don’t leave friends alone when they heart-sad.”
“I didn’t know we were friends.”
She snorted at him again. “Of course we are. That’s how you make friends. You see somebody when they heart-sad and you walk over and say, it’ll be okies and you hug them and share your chips. Then you’re friends.”
She took his hand into hers and held it. “See. Friends. The Simi don’t bite you. You don’t bite the Simi. We friends.”
“I guess it is that simple, huh?”
Nodding, she tilted her head back to watch more TV.
She was still there a few hours later when Acheron came to see him. Only Simi was asleep, which was easy to tell as the little demon came with a giant snore.
Cocking his head, Acheron actually lifted his sunglasses up to rest on top of his head as he studied his sleeping demon. “I wondered where she’d gone off to. This was the last place I’d have looked for her.”
“She’s quite the chatterbox.”
Acheron laughed. “You’ve no idea.”
“Oh, you would be wrong there. Got a pretty good earful tonight.”
Still laughing, he nodded. “I can imagine.” Clearing his throat, he sobered. “How are you doing?”
“Been better.” Urian tucked the blanket he’d draped over Simi higher around her chin. “But she helped a lot.”
“Yeah, she has a way of doing that.” Acheron jerked his chin toward the door. “You got a minute?”
“Why?”
“There’s something I think you want to see.”
“Unless it’s my father’s head on a platter, not really.”
Acheron lowered his sunglasses to cover those screwed-up eyes. “I wouldn’t take that bet. C’mon.”
Taking care to not disturb Simi, he got up to follow Acheron toward the back door. Acheron used his powers to open it so that Urian could see the dawn that was breaking over the water.
Out of habit, he hissed and headed for the shadows.
Acheron caught his arm. “It won’t hurt you. I swear.”
His breathing ragged, Urian looked up at him in disbelief. “Really?”
“I swear,” he repeated. “I know you want to see it.” He manifested a pair of sunglasses for Urian and held them out to him. “You’ll need these.”
Urian put them on and then slowly, carefully made his way to the door and then to the deck outside. It was a chilly morning. Biting, in fact. But he didn’t care.
His gaze was held captive by the amber rays breaking through the darkness, setting the landscape aglow.
In all honesty, he had no idea how long he stood there. A million thoughts spun through his head. A billion memories. But the one that kept playing loudest was the one of him and Paris. Tears choked him as he looked over to Acheron. “I wish my brother could have seen it.”
“I know.”
He shook his head. “You don’t know what it’s like to be born with a twin, Acheron. To come into the world with someone.”
“Actually, I do.”
He gaped at that. “Pardon?”
“Not something I share. With anyone. Unlike you and Paris, my brother and I were enemies. He was a selfish bastard who conspired against me. But life takes us to places we don’t always want to go, and in directions we never think it will.”
Urian laughed bitterly as he considered the understatement of that, given that he was a Daimon currently living in the guesthouse of a Dark-Hunter.
“But,” Acheron continued, “we all have a choice. Toss the oar and let the current take us wherever. Or grab the oar with both hands and fight the current with everything we have. In the end, we all determine what fate we embrace. For we are either pawns or players. The final decision is always ours.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve no intention of being a pawn. There’s too much piss and vinegar in me for that. You may have taken my fangs from me, Acheron, but at my core, I remain a demon. Forever. Venom was the milk I drank from my mother’s breast, and I won’t rest until I bathe in the blood of my father.”
His father hadn’t quelled him with his actions.
He’d fueled him.
October 1, 2008
Urian was aghast at what he found in the temple housed next to Acheron’s in Katateros. When he’d heard a noise, he’d expected one of the souls to have escaped out of one of the other areas. But this was no Shade.
This was a man.
Swimming in the wrong place. At the wrong time.
“Who are you?”
Yet as he turned around in the pool, Urian felt as if someone had slapped him. Hard. For there was no doubt who he had to be.
Acheron’s despised twin brother. Holy shit … They were identical. Same height. Same build. Sculpted features. Virtually indistinguishable, except where Acheron had those freaky swirling silver eyes, Styxx had a pair of vibrant blue ones. Eyes that were the closest shade to Urian’s he’d ever seen on another person.
Weird.
And while Ash preferred to keep his hair long and dyed black, the evil anti-Ash held to their natural blond shade and wore his cut short. He was also scarred abysmally.
And still the defiant bastard had yet to speak.
“I asked you a question,” Urian snarled. “Do you not understand me?”
“I heard you.”
“And?”
With a slowness Urian was sure was just to piss him off, he climbed out of the pool and reached for a towel. He dried himself off, then wrapped it around his hips before he closed the distance between them. “Ask me when you find a new tone. One with respect in it.”
Oh yeah, this guy was a douche on steroids. Now all the stories he’d heard about the infamous brother made total sense. “You must be Styxx.”
“So you’re not as stupid as you look.”
Urian would have made an equally nasty comeback, but he couldn’t get over how many scars Styxx had on his body. While Urian had more than his fair share, they paled in comparison to the number this man carried.
Apparently, Styxx pissed off everyone he’d ever come into contact with.
Urian grimaced at that road map of pain. “Damn, you’re scarred up.”
“Aren’t we all?”
He didn’t comment on that, especially not with his past. “I was told you’d been put on one of the other islands.”
“I was.”
“Then why are you here?”
Styxx picked up another towel to dry his hair. “I liked this one better.”
Wow, his arrogance was quite a special thing. “Are you always this big an asshole?”
“Are you?”
That was a loaded question and then some. Urian flashed a grin. “Basically, yes. However, I thought I’d tempered it for you. Guess I’m an even bigger ass than I knew.”