Styxx (Dark-Hunter 22)

Chapter Forty-One

Screams surrounded him, piercing the blackness. He tried his best to see something. Anything. But all he saw were the strange pinpoint ghost-lights made by eyes that were desperate to be of use.

This place was cold. Icy. He felt his way along a craggy rock wall only to learn he was encased in a small, six-feet-by-six-feet cell. There wasn't even enough room for him to lie down completely.

All of a sudden, a light appeared beside him. It faded to form a young, beautiful woman with dark red hair, fair skin, and the green, swirling eyes of a goddess. He knew her instantly.

She was Mnemosyne, or Mnimi for short, the goddess of memory. He'd seen her likeness countless times in temples and on scrolls. She held an old-fashioned oil lamp in her hand as she studied him closely.

"Where am I?" he asked her.

Her voice was faint and gentle, like a breeze whispering through crystal eaves. "You are in Tartarus."

Of course he was.

What the hell? He'd lived here his entire life.

Styxx swallowed his outrage and hurt. When he'd died aeons ago in ancient Greece, he should have been placed in the paradise realm of the Elysian Fields with Galen and his men ... and not alone on a deserted island that vanished if anyone happened to look in its direction.

Tartarus was where Hades banished the evil souls he wished to torture. But hey, in theory it was a step up from where he'd been these last eleven thousand years. At least in hell he had company in his misery.

"I don't belong here."

"Where do you belong?" she asked.

He touched the names on his arm and thought about his wife and son. "I belong with my family."

Her eyes were tinged by sadness as she regarded him. "They have all been reborn. The only family you have left now is the brother you hate."

Reborn? Pain tore him apart. He'd never see his precious Bethany again. Never hear her or hold her ...

Why can't I just die already?

But no. The one person he was left with was one who'd done nothing but hurt and humiliate him all his life. A man who would never even acknowledge him. The injustice of it made him want to slice open his own throat.

"He is not my brother. He was never my brother."

She cocked her head as if listening to something far away from them. "Strange. Acheron never felt that way about you. No matter the times you were cruel to him, he never hated you."

Bullshit! How could a goddess be so blind?

Or worse ... if she was right and Acheron had done all he had without hating him then Acheron was exactly the monster their father had said he was.

But at the end of the day, it didn't matter. "I don't care what he feels."

"True," she said as if she knew his innermost thoughts, as if she knew him better than he knew himself.

"Honestly, I don't understand you, Styxx. For centuries, you were given the Vanishing Isle as your home. You had friends and every luxury known. It was as peaceful and beautiful there as the Elysian Fields, and yet all you did was plot more vengeance against Acheron. I gave you memories of your beautiful home and family, of your peaceful and happy childhood to comfort you, and instead of gaining pleasure from them, you used them to fuel your hatred."

He gaped. Friends? What friends? The stupid dolphins he talked to out of desperation? His brother's wooden horse? And it wasn't like she'd put him on the Vanishing Isle with the Dream-Hunters. No ... his had been completely deserted.

Oh gee, bitch, thanks.

As for his memories, they had been the worst sort of hell, because they'd reminded him of the brother he'd lost. Of Bethany and Galen, and the life they'd planned and never had.

Those had been a dagger in his heart.

But most of all, those memories had shown him the father who despised him, the mother who tried to kill him, his sister whose heart had only been big enough to love Acheron, and all the people who had mocked and debased him because of his brother.

No, not his brother.

Apollymi's bastard seed!

"Do you blame me? Acheron stole everything from me. Everything I ever hoped for or loved. Because of him, my family is dead, my kingdom gone. Even my life ended because of him."

But for Acheron keeping him that day, he would have been in Egypt to protect Bethany when Apollymi came for her.

"No," she said softly. "You can lie to yourself, Styxx, but not to me. It was you who betrayed your brother. You and your father. You let your fear of him blind you. It was your own actions that condemned not only him, but yourself as well."

What fear? Never, ever once in his life had he feared Acheron!

Memories of Atlantis tore through him. He saw Acheron smirking as he secured Styxx's limbs to the bed so that Estes could violate him instead of Acheron.

"How can you do this to me? I came here to save you!"

"You are saving me, Styxx. Tonight I'm not the one getting fucked in my ass. You are. Just remember not to clench. It hurts a lot less when you stop fighting them."

He could still see the mocking gleam in his brother's eye as Acheron oiled and "prepared" Styxx's naked body for Estes and the others.

Yes, his brother had been beaten down and drugged to the point he'd possessed no mind of his own. Even so, Styxx couldn't understand how Acheron could have done such a thing to him.

The betrayal burned deep in his heart.

"What do you know of it? Acheron is evil. Unclean. He defiles everything he touches."

She danced her fingers through the lamp's flame, making it flicker eerily in the darkness of the small cell. All the while her eyes burned him with their intensity. "That is the beauty of memory, isn't it? Our reality is always clouded by our perceptions of truth. You remember events one way and so you judge your brother without knowledge of how things were to him."

Mnimi placed a hand on his shoulder. The heat of it seared his skin and when she spoke, her low tone sounded evil, insidious. "I am about to give you the most precious of gifts, Styxx. At long last, you will have understanding."

Styxx tried to run, but couldn't.

Mnimi's fiery touch held him immobile.

His head spun as he rushed back in time to the last place he wanted to go. He saw his beautiful mother lying on her gilded bed, her body covered in sweat, her face ashen as an attendant brushed her damp, blond hair from her pale blue eyes. He'd never known his mother to appear more joy-filled than she did that day.

Dear gods, she was even sober.

The room was crowded with court officials and his father, who stood to the side of the bed with his head of state. The long windows were open, letting the fresh sea air offer relief from the heat of the summer day.

"It is another beautiful boy," the midwife happily proclaimed, wrapping the newborn infant in a blanket.

"By sweet Artemis's hand, Aara, you've done me proud!" his father said as a loud jubilant shout ran through the room's occupants. "Twin boys to rule over our twin isles!"

Laughing, his mother watched as the midwife cleaned the firstborn.

It was then Styxx learned the true horror of Acheron's birth, learned the dark secret his father had hidden from him the whole of his life.

Acheron was the firstborn son.