Styxx (DH #33) (24 page)

His father waited for the guards to open the door before he entered to find the palace as empty inside as it appeared outside. But as they searched through it, it was obvious that someone was in residence. The furniture was uncovered in several of the smaller rooms, and Ryssa’s bedchambers were fresh with flowers.

The king shook his head as he glanced around. “She must be out back.”

Styxx followed his father through the doors and into the garden.

“She’s always favored the orchard,” he reminded his father. Though she’d had a fit any time Styxx had tried to join her there. The last time they’d stayed here, she’d even hit him in the head with an apple when he’d gone down to tell her she had a letter from their aunt. Then she’d had the nerve to tell their father that he’d spied on her.

He’d been given a dozen lashes for that.
A woman needs her privacy, boy. You don’t ever spy on your sister.

And he’d never told his father about the apple he’d taken to his head. Because
that
his father would have viewed as being a crybaby on
his
part, which would have resulted in another beating.

As they entered the orchard, Styxx slowed at the sound of two voices.

Ryssa’s and Acheron’s.

He wanted to grab his father and pull him away from here, but it was too late. His father had already seen them and he was furious over it.

Ryssa pushed herself up from where she’d been sitting on the ground beside Acheron. “Father. Why are you here?”

“Where have you been?” he demanded as he moved forward. “It’s already the middle of the year and no one has seen you.”

“I told you, I wanted time—”

“Father?” Acheron’s excited voice interrupted Ryssa and it turned their father’s attention toward him.

Damn it, Acheron. Why can’t you learn when to run?

Then again, Acheron did run. Just not in the right direction. His face alight with joy, he rushed to embrace their father.

Styxx winced as his father shoved Acheron away ruthlessly and raked his twin brother with a repugnant grimace that cut through him like a dagger.
How can you be like that with him and claim to love me?

They were absolutely identical.

Except for the whore brand on Styxx’s groin …

Acheron frowned in confusion as he looked to Ryssa for an explanation.

I’m sorry, Acheron. I didn’t want you to know.
Ryssa’s thoughts were loud and clear. She’d been lying to Acheron all this time. Telling him that their father loved him and would welcome him home.

Stupid bitch.
Why would she be so cruel?

But that answer he knew …
No woman can ever be trusted. They are all treacherous beasts.
His mother had schooled him well on that knowledge.

“What is
he
doing here?” their father demanded.

Styxx wasn’t paying much attention to them as Acheron locked gazes with him. His brother looked so happy to see him.… It definitely wasn’t the same reception Acheron had given him in Atlantis when Styxx had tried to set him free.

In many ways, this wasn’t the same Acheron at all. The man in front of him was much more akin to the brother he’d once known. The brother Styxx had risked his life for.

And the thought that their father would send Acheron back to Atlantis horrified him.

Why didn’t you run farther than this, brother?

Why hadn’t his stupid sister taken Acheron someplace really safe?

“Guards!” his father shouted.

Styxx winced, wishing he could grab his brother and run. But they would catch them and there was no telling what their father might do to them.

What Estes would do or say over it.

Ryssa gaped. “What are you doing?” she shrieked at her king and father.

There was no mercy in their father’s eyes. “I’m sending him back where he belongs.”

Acheron’s jaw went slack as he turned toward Ryssa with terrified eyes.

She shook her head. “You can’t do that.”

Their father turned on her with a glare so hateful it made her take a step back in fear. “Have you lost your mind, woman? Why would you coddle such a monster?”

“Father, please,” Acheron begged, falling down on his knees before him. He wrapped his arms around the king’s leg. “Please don’t send me back. I’ll do anything you ask. I swear it. I’ll be good. I won’t look at anyone. I won’t hurt anyone.” Acheron kissed the king’s feet reverently.

Styxx thought he’d vomit at the sight that reminded him of when he’d been tortured in the Dionysion. He’d made the same pleas, and his father had walked out on him with no compassion or regard.

Just as he did Acheron.

“I am not your father, maggot.” He kicked Acheron away then glared at his most beloved Ryssa with venom. “I told you, he doesn’t belong with this family. Why would you defy me so?”

“He’s your son,” she sobbed. “How can you deny him? It’s your face he has. Styxx’s face. How can you love one and not the other?”

Because he doesn’t love me, bitch. Not really.

Their father reached down and gripped Acheron’s jaw tightly in his hand. He pulled him roughly to his feet so that Acheron faced Ryssa. “Those are not my eyes. Those are not the eyes of a human!”

Ryssa turned to him then, weeping. “Styxx … He’s your brother. Look at him.”

He glanced to his father in panic, unsure of what his father would do if he stood up for Acheron right now. In the mood his father was in, he was as likely to turn on Styxx as he was Acheron.

Better to let the old man calm down than to anger him further.

Sorry, brother. Last time I put my ass on the line for you, you handed me over without a second thought or ounce of remorse.

No … worse, you helped whore me and branded me as one.

His gut knotting, Styxx shook his head and repeated Acheron’s vicious words that he’d said to Estes in a very similar situation. “I have no brother.”

His father shoved Acheron back.

Acheron stood there quietly, his eyes dazed by the harsh reality of how their father felt about him. It was something Styxx coped with every single day of his life.

But what hurt was that he knew the exact thoughts in his brother’s mind. They were the same ones that haunted him constantly. Acheron was reliving every perversion of Estes’s. Every disgusting, humiliating touch …

His brother dropped his head and wrapped his arms around himself.

“Take him back to Atlantis!” the king ordered the guards.

Styxx cringed at his father’s harsh sentence. A sentence the stupid bastard didn’t even comprehend. But Styxx knew.

And so did Acheron.

Without a word of protest or fight, Acheron followed them to the front of the palace.

He was again the petrified slave who’d caused Styxx to be captured.…

Ryssa glared at their father with hatred burning deep in her eyes. “Estes abuses him, Father. Constantly. He sells Acheron to—”

Their father slapped her.

“That is my brother you speak of. How dare you!”

Stunned, Styxx went bug-eyed.
Never
had his father laid a hand to her. That alone testified to what Estes had told him. His father would defend Estes to the bitter end.

Even against his own children.

“And that is my brother you cast off. How dare
you
!” Ryssa snarled before she stormed after Acheron.

“Lying whore! Just like her drunken mother!”

Styxx couldn’t breathe as those harsh words slammed into him. His father had
never
spoken of his beloved kitten like that. If he would turn on his treasured daughter, Styxx didn’t have a single hope. “What if she isn’t lying, Father?”

The expression on his father’s face made him take a step back. “Are you to defame my brother, too?”

Not with that look on your face, old man. I’m not
that
stupid or drunk.
“Forgive me, Father.”

Wanting to put distance between them, Styxx hurried after Ryssa.

He found her in the front entranceway of the palace. Acheron held his head even lower than before. His grip on his arms was so tight that his knuckles were white.

“Acheron?” Ryssa breathed.

He refused to look at her while Styxx hovered in the doorway behind them.

She brushed the hair back from Acheron’s face with a tenderness she’d never shown Styxx. “Acheron, please. I didn’t know they’d come today. I thought we were safe.”

“You lied to me,” he said simply as he stared blankly at the floor. “You told me my father loved me. That no one was ever going to make me leave here. You swore that to me.”

Styxx shook his head as his own anger and pain ripped through him. How could she lie to Acheron like that? Surely she’d asked for Acheron’s return as much as he had and had been given the same hate-filled
no
from their father, who would never acknowledge his other son.

“I know, Acheron,” she sobbed.

Acheron turned to her then to glare at her with a hatred that was searing. “You made me trust you.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Styxx had to bite back bitter laughter.
Sorry, Ryssa?
Really? The pathetic moron had no idea what Estes was going to do to Acheron on his return. But Styxx knew. His uncle had already shown him.

Acheron was going to wish himself as dead as Styxx did.

His brother shook his head. “I was never to step foot out of my chambers without escort. Never was I to leave the household.
Idikos
will punish me for leaving. He’ll…” Horror filled his eyes as he tightened his grip on himself even more.

Styxx’s stomach heaved. He took a step forward then caught himself. If he tried to help Acheron now, they would both pay. Dearly.

The horses were brought forward.

His brother looked at Ryssa. “I wish you’d left me as I was.”

She should have. Because this was going to be so much worse on him. The Acheron who’d fought him months ago in Atlantis had been relegated to his fate. The one in front of him now had tasted life without Estes and his perversions.

To send him back to that now …

His sister was the worst of all. Estes would tighten his grip on Acheron even more. His brother would never know another moment of peace or freedom. Not so long as Estes and their father lived.

Styxx forced himself to stay and say nothing as the guards hauled Acheron into a chariot. His brother never looked back as they drove him away.

“Acheron!” Maia, the cook’s young daughter, screamed as she came tearing out of the doorway.

Only then did Acheron look back. His face stoic, tears glistened in his swirling silver eyes.

Styxx panted, knowing better than to let his father see his emotions. The king was too volatile. And the last thing Styxx needed was a beating. Not if he was to do what he planned.

Ryssa fell to her knees and pulled the little girl into her arms. The two of them wailed until his ears rang with it.

“Get up!” his father snarled as he finally joined them. “I will not have you cry for something like him.”

“I hate you!” she screamed.

Styxx snatched her back before their father slapped her again or did something worse to her. “Go to your room, Ryssa. Now.”

She raked Styxx with the ugliest sneer imaginable. “I wish it was
you
I’d found tied to that bed!
You
I would have left there to be used like the worthless whore you are. It’s what
you
deserve the way you use people and discard them!”

For a full minute, Styxx couldn’t catch his breath as those brutal words slapped him harder than any blow. In his mind, he saw himself on that bed again being used like he was nothing.

Knowing if he stayed, he’d beat her himself, Styxx left her to their father.

Breathe. Calm down. She doesn’t know
.

Still, it didn’t take the pain away. She truly meant what she’d said. He heard it in her thoughts. She held no love or regard for him whatsoever, and she would gladly condemn him to Estes’s custody to be a whore in Acheron’s stead.

Her hatred of him was as unreasoning and unfounded as his father’s for Acheron.

Styxx pressed his hand to his stomach as grief, shame, and horror racked him. But beneath all that was the bitter agony of Ryssa’s rejection of him. Why did she hate him so much? Never in his life had he done anything to her.

“Styxx?”

He flinched at his father’s call. Blinking, he took a deep breath and forced his emotions into restraint. Gods help him if his father saw him like this.

Styxx couldn’t stand being hurt anymore. He just wanted a modicum of peace for a few minutes.

“Majesty?” he said as he returned to his father’s side.

“We’ll stay the night and leave at dawn.”

“Yes, Sire.” Styxx hesitated. “Father? Would you mind if I took a few hours to myself tonight?”

A slow smile curled his lips. “There’s a brothel in town that’s one of the best in all Greece. Have fun.”

Disgusted with what his father’s mind had defaulted to, Styxx waited until his father was gone before he made his way to the stable. As quickly as he could, he saddled two fresh horses and took off after his brother.

For the love of the gods, Acheron. Don’t get me caught again.

*   *   *

S
tyxx hung back
until he was sure the guards were asleep. Taking care to make no sound whatsoever, he made his way over to Acheron, who’d been tied to a stake in the ground.

“Acheron?” he whispered, touching his brother on the shoulder.

Acheron came awake with a start. He grimaced as he saw Styxx in the fading firelight. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m freeing you.” When Styxx went to cut the rope, Acheron stopped him. “What are you doing?” he asked Acheron in a shocked whisper.

“You already told me I was no brother of yours. Why are you really here?”

Styxx glared at him. “You denied
me
first.”

With a fierce scowl, Acheron scoffed. “I have
never
once in my life denied you! You and your father are the ones who threw
me
out.”