Styxx (DH #33) (11 page)

The other god began stroking his undamaged nipple. Licking his lips, he smiled down at Styxx. “For every favor you’re granted, young prince, you have to give us something. But you don’t appear to have anything to offer … other than yourself.” The god covered Styxx’s lips with his own and kissed him passionately.

Crying out, Styxx turned his head away and did his best to get free.

The other god tsked at him. “Would you really rather be tortured than to have us free you?” It was his turn to kiss him.

Styxx gagged.

Offended, the god pulled back to glare at him. “Now that was just rude.” He jerked the linen off Styxx’s hips, leaving him completely naked.

Terror consumed him at what they intended. “Please don’t,” he breathed.

The one who’d exposed him slid his gaze to the other. “Rape is your thing, not mine. Although, at the moment, I can see the appeal. Still…” He returned his attention to Styxx. “Your last chance, dearest. Who would you rather have play with this luscious body of yours? Me or the priests?”

Styxx glared at him and answered without hesitation. “The priests.”

“Very well. You have chosen.” He handed the cloth to the other god.
“Troo to peridromo.” Eat a bellyful.…

Then he vanished.

Apollo bit his lip again as he ran his gaze down the length of the prince’s bare body. He let it linger at the hipbone … one of his favorite things to nibble. “You would really rather be tortured than spend a day in my bed?”

The prince nodded vigorously.

Offended, Apollo sighed. “I should warn you. Bad things happen to those who deny me.” He pressed his body against the full length of the prince then buried his lips against his neck.

Styxx fought him like a lion.

Too bad. “Fine then, human. If I can’t toy with you one way, I’ll have you another.”

Styxx’s eyes widened as he saw the god’s canine teeth elongate into a set of sharp fangs. The god lowered his head so that he could bite Styxx’s jugular. Pain tore through him like fire. He would have cried out, but no sound came as the god drank from his blood. The room spun as wave after wave of dizziness consumed him.

Time hung still as Styxx felt his willpower drain out.

After a few minutes, he was so weak from blood loss that he could barely hold his head up. The bite left him panting and in excruciating pain. Smiling down at him, the god cupped his cheek and angled his head until their gazes locked. The god licked Styxx’s blood from his lips then leaned in to lick the remnants from Styxx’s neck.

He nipped Styxx’s chin. “I own you now, little human. You are forever bound to me.” He brushed his hand over Styxx’s chest. “I could make you beg me to take you. But I think as punishment for your rejection, I’ll let the priests do it for me. I shall leave you to their tender care, and when you tire of it, call to me for rescue and I’ll grant it.” He kissed him again, only this time it was rough and extremely painful. “Just remember what the payment is for your release. You will willingly come to my bed for a week. And you will gladly take my cock wherever it is I wish to put it.”

Sucking his breath in sharply between his fangs, he gave Styxx’s body one last once-over. “I’ll be waiting, little prince. But don’t make me wait too long. Otherwise, you will regret it. I promise you.” Then he was gone.

Even more horrified than he’d been before, Styxx hung by his arms, hating everyone, and everything about his life. So, the Olympian gods had answered him with something far worse than what he was facing.

I can’t believe it
.

Either way, he was going to have a rod shoved up his ass.…

If he was smart, he’d accept the god’s offer and be done with this place. Surely being a god’s concubine would be better than the torture they’d been putting him through.

Then again, given his father’s careless disregard for
his
lovers.…

Styxx definitely didn’t want to be one of those. While the priests would scar his body, they did have fear of his father’s wrath should they deform him too much.

The god would fear nothing. And while the Olympian wouldn’t leave physical scars, he’d leave them on Styxx’s heart and in his soul. Something he knew would never heal.

So be it.

Like everything else in my life, I can suffer this in silence
.

He had no choice.

August 26, 9535 BC

Mentally numb and cold, Styxx stared at the wall before him while he lay on his side, aching all over. It even hurt to blink his eyes. He had no idea how long he’d been undergoing his “treatments” for madness. The torture sessions had long ago blurred together as the priests sought to drive the demons from him.

In the end, it had done nothing except scar his body and make his headaches even more severe than they’d been before. Most of all, it made him hate every single member of his family. And every god who lived on Olympus.

The door behind him opened.

Tears filled his eyes as he waited for them to drag him back to the room he’d learned to despise with every part of his being. “Come, Highness. You have a visitor.”

Visitor? Could his father have finally come to get him?

Styxx tried to stand, but his legs were too weak to support his weight. The priest moved forward and covered his naked body with a rough cloak then pulled him up by his arm. Styxx let out a groan as his blistered side contacted with the priest’s scratchy stola. Ignoring it, the priest helped him walk down the hall to the last room on the left. The priest opened the door then pushed him through it.

His legs buckled as the door was shut behind him.

“Styxx?”

He lifted his head to find his uncle moving closer.

“Dear Zeus, what have they done to you?”

Styxx couldn’t answer. His throat was too raw from the screams his treatments had wrung from him.

Estes cradled him in his arms like an infant. “Can you speak?”

Styxx shook his head, wincing as more pain went through him.

“Here.” Estes pulled a small skin of wine from his belt and held it for him to sip.

It burned, but tasted wonderful. He hadn’t had anything but spoiled milk, fouled water, and other disgusting things that were designed to drive the demons from his body. Swallowing hard, he licked his dry, cracked lips. “P-p-please, Uncle,” he whispered. “Take me home.”

Estes ground his teeth as his eyes flared with anger. “I can’t, little squirrel. Xerxes said that you have to stay here until you’re healed. He would be furious if I took you home without his consent.”

A tear slid down Styxx’s cheek at those words, burning the wounds that were left from blows he no longer felt when they were given. So much for Estes’s boasts of bravery in battle. In the end, he, who lived in a foreign country, was as scared of his father as everyone else.

Fucking coward.

“I’ll speak to your father on your behalf. Has he been here to see you?”

Styxx shook his head.

“I will get you out of here, I promise. Gods, I can’t believe Xerxes has condoned this.” Estes laid him back on the floor. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Don’t leave me. Please, Uncle. I can’t take any more. I can’t.

I’m just a boy.…

But his uncle was gone before he could get one word out.

His breathing labored and pain-filled, Styxx realized that for the first time in months he wasn’t locked up. If he could get to the door Estes had used, he might be able to escape. Seizing that hope, he forced himself to ignore the agony of his bleeding burns and wounds to crawl across the ragged cobblestone floor. It took several minutes, but he finally reached the door.

Joy spread through him as he rose to his knees and touched the latch.

Almost there …

Styxx was so close to freedom now that he could taste it on his parched tongue.

He’d just freed the latch when the door behind him opened. Terrified, he shoved against the wood and forced himself to stand. As he tried to run, someone slammed into him, knocking him to the ground.

No!

Roughly, a priest rolled him over and crashed Styxx’s bruised body against the stone. “Where do you think you’re going, Highness?”

Back to Tartarus.

Styxx turned his head so that he saw rays of sunlight through an open window in the temple hall. He hadn’t seen the sun since his father had dumped him here. Without a word, he reached for it, wanting to feel it just one more time. But the priest seized him and dragged him back to his dark cell where he left him alone.

Closing his eyes, Styxx did his best to remember what the sun had felt like on his skin as he heard the door lock him in his misery. He hadn’t been crazy when they’d put him here, but with every passing day, he felt his sanity slipping. He did his best to hold on to it, yet what was the use?

“Why? Why can’t you kill me or take my mind?”
Styxx silently asked the god who came so often to torment him.

“All you have to do is say the magic word, little prince. You know my price.”

Tears filled Styxx’s eyes.
“I will
not
be your whore. My freedom’s not worth it.”

“No?”
the god mocked.
“Well then have fun with your priests.”

August 30, 9535 BC

“We’ve had progress. But the evil daemons are attracted by his great beauty and wealth. They are fighting us hard.”

Styxx opened his eyes as he heard the priest entering his torture chamber. For a full minute, he couldn’t breathe as he saw his uncle and father with the old man.

His lips quivered as hope went through him. Was it finally over? Surely his father couldn’t leave him like this.… Not if he loved him.

Estes rushed to his side and placed a tender hand on his bald head. “Styxx? Can you hear me?”

He gave a weak nod.

A tic started in his jaw as Estes looked back at his father. “See what I was telling you? They’ve ruined him.”

Styxx met his father’s gaze, but the lack of feeling there hit him harder than the priests’ blows. How could his father not be indignant or horrified?

Something …

But the king stood there, stoically. Unsympathetic to his pain. “It’s for his own good, brother.”

For his own good …

Styxx would laugh if those words didn’t bite so deeply.

“How can you say that? Look at him. They’ve scarred him abysmally. He’ll never be the same.”

“The scars are necessary, Highness and Majesty. They keep the daemons from coveting his young body.”

But they didn’t keep the gods from coveting it. The irony of that sickened him even more.

Estes cursed. “This is insane, Xerxes. The boy needs to go home.”

I don’t want him home again until he’s normal. Burn it all out of him
.

Styxx winced as he heard his father’s cold, brutal thoughts.

“Do you still suffer from headaches?” his father asked him.

He knew better than to say anything other than what his father wanted to hear. “No, Majesty.”

“You’re lying.”

Styxx panted in desperate panic. “Please, Father. I’ll do anything you ask. Please don’t leave me here.”

“That’s the daemon in him talking. Hear how his voice has changed, Majesty? How hoarse and deep?”

Daemon? Was the old man as crazy as he accused him of being? He was hoarse from months of screaming.

His father was pitiless.
Now you understand what it means to be king. You can’t allow your emotions to cloud your actions or judgments
.
You do what you have to.
His father’s thoughts made him ill. “You need to stay until the priests clear you of your daemons.”

Styxx sobbed aloud at the horror his father was relegating him to. He couldn’t help himself. The agony was too brutal for him to bear anymore.

The king turned toward the priests with a curled lip. “And for the sake of all the gods, can you stop him from bawling like a woman? I’m sick of it and he’s too old to weep like that.”
How could I sire something so weak and pathetic?

Styxx glared at him, hating everything about his father.
Let me chain you to a stone and burn you to the marrow of your bones, you skatophage. See then if you cry or not.…

Furious at Styxx for crying, his father stormed out with the priests trailing behind him.

Estes touched his bruised cheek. “I’m so sorry, Styxx. I’ll keep trying to convince him to release you. I will do my best for you, I promise.”

And then Estes, too, was gone.

Styxx’s gaze fell to the old scar on his forearm where his father had cut him years ago. The king still didn’t really believe he was his son. How could he leave him here to suffer if he thought it?

I am alone in this world.

Except for Acheron. That lucky bastard was with Estes, who had some love for them. Surely his uncle was taking better care of his brother than
this
.

But the phantom pains he felt at times in horrifying places on his body made him wonder. Something caused injury to Acheron.…

And it, too, was highly unpleasant.

The door opened again. “Time to be bled again, Highness.”

Styxx slammed his eyes shut so that he wouldn’t see the leeches they were about to cover him with. His stomach heaved in revulsion as all reason abandoned him.

I’m never going home.
Unless he agreed to be a god’s whore, this was his lot. He might as well learn to accept it. Hope was nothing more than a fickle bitch who mocked him daily.

Grinding his teeth, he tried to block out the pain and the priests. To dream of a place where someone might learn to love him.

But he knew such a place didn’t exist. He had been damned from birth and there was no comfort for those the gods had damned. No peace.

No haven.

Bitter, and filled with hatred, he laughed out loud. “Go on and bleed me, you
suagroi
. Take all my blood.” If he was bloodless then maybe the god who kept coming to him would leave him alone.

“Don’t look at him. It’s the demon taunting us. We’re finally making progress.”