Styxx (Dark-Hunter 22)

Rahim laughed, knowing Styxx was joking.

One of the women squealed as she showed a photo on her phone to another woman who was with her. "Oh my God!" she said in English. "This goes to Facebook as soon as I have reception. Do they sell their men like their women? How many camels would we have to buy for him?"

"Forget buying, can we just rent him out for an hour?"

Those were the least raunchy of their comments. And never mind the lechery going on inside their heads. It was enough to make him want to grab his rifle to hold the she-wolves off in case they attacked.

Styxx paused beside them. "Ladies, I speak English. Fluently."

They couldn't have turned any redder had they been walking naked in the Sahara for a month.

Ignoring them, Styxx went over to the tents where the tribe had laid out the wares they had for sale. As he was helping Farid haggle over the price of a carpet with a rich banker, he felt a slight tugging on his sleeve.

"Oh, Beth, don't do that!"

His heart clenched at the name. He looked down into a pair of wide, bright hazel eyes of a five-year-old girl whose face was framed with black pigtails.

"Are you a giant?" she asked, ignoring her mother's warning. "Do you eat little kids like a troll?"

Squatting down, Styxx exposed his face for her to see that he wasn't really scary. "No, little one. But do you want to know how I grew to such height?"

She nodded eagerly.

"I ate all my vegetables and drank a lot of milk."

"Really?"

Styxx glanced up to see her mother smiling down at them. "It's very true." Pushing his sleeve back to expose the small ribbons he used to secure his arm sheaths in place, he pulled a red one loose. "Where I grew up, it's customary to give a gift to the prettiest girl we've ever seen." He held the ribbon out to her and then tied it around her tiny wrist. "Beths are always counted among the most beautiful of all women."

"Thank you." She curtsied to him.

Styxx covered his heart with his hand and bowed his head.

"Thank you," her mother repeated. "I'm sorry she bothered you."

"It's all right. She's no bother at all. Children are our most precious gifts and should always be cherished." Styxx covered his face and returned to helping Farid.

After a few minutes, his nose started bleeding from the pain of their thoughts screaming in his head. Since he spent so much time alone, he was out of practice with protecting himself.

Styxx reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He excused himself and went outside to the back of the tent to tend it.

"Are you all right?"

He turned slightly to find a young woman around the age of twenty. "Fine. I get them all the time."

"Yeah, me, too. Especially here with this really dry air." She reached into her bag and pulled out a cellophane-covered box of nasal saline spray then handed it to him. "It really helps prevent them. You can keep that one, I have three more. Yes, I'm that OCD."

Styxx smiled at her. "Thank you."

"No problem." She left him and rejoined her friends.

As soon as the nosebleed stopped, he returned to the tent to finish the transactions.

When the woman who'd given him the nose spray went to buy a bracelet, he told Farid in Egyptian to charge it to his account.

Farid smiled at the girl then responded in broken English. "For you ... nothing. Take. Take."

She thanked him then turned a suspicious eye to Styxx. "Did you just buy this for me?"

"One good deed deserves another."

She shook her head. "It's too much. The spray isn't expensive."

"In my culture, the price of the gift isn't what's important. It's the heart behind it, which makes the nose spray very valuable to me."

"That's beautiful. Is that a desert custom?"

"Didymosian."

She frowned at the unfamiliar name. "Where's that?"

Unfortunately, it was currently at the bottom of the Aegean, courtesy of his brother. "A province of Greece."

"You're Greek?" She beamed in happiness. "My great-grandmother was from there."

Styxx smiled in spite of himself. "What a coincidence. So was mine."

She laughed.

"Hey, Mindy? You think we could get a picture with your new friend?"

Styxx cringed at the question.

"Would you mind?" Mindy asked hopefully.

Like having my eyes gouged. "It's fine."

Squealing, her friends crowded around him to make photos.

"Can we take one with your face exposed? Please!"

Styxx had to force himself not to grimace. "Who needs a soul in this day and age?"

"Sweet!"

Rahim came up to laugh while the women took turns posing with Styxx. "You should be charging, my friend," he said in Egyptian.

Feigning laughter, Styxx folded his middle finger down and gestured back at him.

"Oh, very nice to teach the tourists. Very nice!"

"What are they saying?" Ana asked Mindy, who shrugged.

"He was correcting my behavior," Styxx explained, "and I gestured my displeasure of his censure."

"Ooo," one of the girls said, "he's like smart and stuff."

"I love your accent. Are you an Arab?"

"No."

"Are you a bandit?"