Devil May Cry (Dark-Hunter 11)

CHAPTER NINE

Acheron staggered away from Artemis as his rage ripped through him with razor-sharp talons. He put his arm against the wall and watched as his skin turned blue. His breathing was ragged as his teeth grew to large fangs and his vision became cloudy.

He wanted Artemis's blood so badly, he could taste it. More than that, he wanted to rip her throat out.

"Damn you!" he snarled.

"I tried to tell you. I gave her to you and you rejected her."

He spun around to glare at her. "You said, 'I have a baby for you.' Not 'I had your baby,' Artemis. There's a big fucking difference. I thought the baby was nothing more than an offering to you from one of your worshipers that you were trying to pawn off on me to make amends for my dead nephew, and you knew that." All of her handmaidens had come into her service in such a manner. Back then, it was nothing for people to leave infants as offerings to the gods.

He raked his hands through his hair as more hated memories surged and tore through him.

He could see himself again as a young man on the cold stone slab, chained down and held in place by servants as the surgeon came forward with a scalpel.

Acheron hissed and flinched at the remembered pain.

His breathing ragged, he approached Artemis with his hands clenched into fists so that he didn't begin choking her. "They sterilized me. There's no way I could father a child. It's not possible."

Her face hardened. "As a human you were sterile. But on your twenty-first birthday..." His godhood had been unlocked.

He wiped his hands over his face as he remembered that. All the scars on his body had been removed. Physically, he'd been restored.

Obviously it hadn't all been on the surface. That night must have undone their surgery, too. Dammit, how could he have been so stupid?

"Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?"

She glared at him. "I tried. You wouldn't listen to me or speak to me 'I hate you, Artemis. Go die.' That's all I heard from you for two thousand years."

Ash laughed as bitter grief assailed him. For once, she was right. He'd been the one who ignored her. Dear gods, who would have thought this was what she'd been trying to tell him?

Worse, she had held his daughter out to him and he'd cursed her for it. Now he cursed himself for being so damn blind and stupid. How could he not have known? How could he have allowed his anger at her to blind him to something so important?

He could kill himself for his own stupidity. He had denied his own child. Gods only knew what she must think of him and his rejection.

"It's been eleven thousand years, Artemis. You know, you could have mentioned this to me before now."

Her eyes were filled with tears. "I wanted to hurt you then I held her out to you and you insulted me and refused what I loved more than anything else in this universe. You have no idea what I went through trying to prevent anyone from knowing I was pregnant. I suffered through her birth alone, with no attendants. No one to help me in any way. I didn't have to have her, you know."

Artemis was still trying to hurt him with that last remark, but he wasn't willing to let her get away with it. "Then why did you?"

"She was a part of you and she was mine. The only thing in my life that has ever been purely mine. There was no way I wouldn't have had her. By the time you started talking to me again, she was grown. I didn't see the point of losing you over something I couldn't help when I'd already done everything I knew to do to make you love me."

Ash gave a bitter laugh. "I'm happy for you, Artie. You got to love my daughter and I'm nothing but a stranger to her. Thank you."

"Don't be so surly. I didn't have her long to myself before she went behind my back to find your mother. She's just like her father-ever out to punish me when all I want to do is hold her."

He went cold at her words. You've got to be kidding me...

"My mother knows about her?"

"Of course the bitch does. I had to give up my protection of my daughter to your mother to save you that night in New Orleans when Stryker was about to kill you."

Ash seethed in anger even though he didn't know why. He'd been screwed over by his mother and Artemis more times than he could count. There had never been a woman in his life who hadn't lied and betrayed him.

Not a one.

Simi had been the only pure thing he'd ever known. And even she had gone behind his back to seduce his best friend. She'd lost her innocence and he'd gained an enemy who now had no intention of stopping until Ash was dead.

Or until Ash killed him.

Yeah, women were the very bane of Ash's entire existence. He wished he'd been born gay so that he would have spared himself centuries of pain at their hands.

But there was nothing he could do to change the past. Letting out a long, angry breath, he glared at Artemis. "And where is my daughter now?"

"That's why I'm here. I sent her to kill Sin."

"You what!"

Artemis squeaked and put more distance between them. "Don't worry. She's too much like you and wouldn't do it. So I had to call out Deimos to do it."

Oh, this was going to be good. "Let me guess. Deimos is on the loose now after both of them?"

She nodded. "I told him not to hurt Katra, but he doesn't listen. And somehow he knows she's my daughter."

Now it all made sense. "You want me to stop Deimos."

"I want you to kill him."

He laughed in disbelief.

"Don't shake your head at me," she snapped. "I know you can do it. You're a god-killer. His powers are nothing compared to yours."

He cut a lethal glare at her. "Oh, you have no idea, Artie. Not really. In fact, you're lucky I don't cut you down right now where you stand."

"You can't. You swore you wouldn't."