"It will be as dear and costly as my sweet niece is."
"I knew it would be. You'll do it?"
"I'll make it so."
Styxx tried to fight as those words slammed into him, but there was nothing he could do as his head and the room began to spin. Closing his eyes, he expelled a breath and let the drug take him far away from their cruelty.
* * *
Styxx came to as someone cut his hands loose from the table. Groaning, he winced as the bridle was rudely yanked from his mouth and he saw his uncle in front of him.
Estes freed his legs. "Get up."
Styxx tried, but his arms and legs were numb from having been tied for so long. His entire body was stiff and aching. He wasn't sure how many hours or days had passed. With Estes and his herbs, there was never any telling.
His uncle pulled an Atlantean formesta around him. "Your sister and mother have returned early." He backhanded Styxx. "I need you lucid enough to greet them."
Styxx licked the blood away from the corner of his lips as he tried to focus.
Growling, Estes seized him and dragged him into the bathing room. He threw him down beside the pool then dunked Styxx's head into the water to revive him.
Styxx sputtered and coughed as his thoughts finally cleared enough for him to think for himself again.
"Your mother and sister just docked a few minutes ago. They're on their way home. Wash and dress, and meet me downstairs. Hurry." Estes dunked his head one more time then got up and left.
His breathing labored, Styxx coughed the water out of his lungs then crawled into the pool to bathe the stench of Estes and the others off him. And as he did so, he remembered Xan's proposal for Ryssa.
Estes's acceptance.
Dear gods, they were going to do this to Ryssa. That sobered him instantly. While Ryssa hated his guts, he couldn't allow them to rape his sister. The shame alone would kill her. She wasn't strong enough to survive something so foul.
Or worse, she'd tell their father and he would throw her out for it. A ravaged princess would be worthless to the king, and she was just stupid enough to think her father wouldn't do that to her.
Styxx pulled himself out of the pool and quickly dressed. When he reached for his razor, he froze at the sight of his reflection. His eyes were sunken and swollen. Red and bloodshot from the drugs. He barely recognized himself. He'd lost weight and was extremely pallid. His wrists were bruised and cut from where he'd fought to free himself and there were small cuts around his mouth from the bridle. Even his lips were chapped and bleeding.
Gripping his razor, he quickly groomed himself so that neither his mother nor Ryssa would berate his disrespectfulness in meeting them unkempt. As soon as he could, he went downstairs to find Estes and the staff waiting to greet the royal envoy.
Estes smiled at the sight of him. "I forget how handsome you are when you're fresh and upright."
Styxx seized him and shoved him back into the wall. "You touch my sister, you bastard, and I will bathe in your entrails."
His uncle laughed. "Ryssa holds no interest for me. She never has. It's only beautiful men I covet."
"You sell her and-"
Estes grabbed his throat in a grip that instantly immobilized him. "Keep your impotent threats to yourself. I'm not one of your servants to be cowed by a royal frown, boy. I'm a veteran of more battles than you'll ever see. And I've made meals off bigger and tougher men than you. So don't think for one moment you can sober up and intimidate me. You ever threaten me again and you will pray to the gods to return you to these days where I actually care what happens to you. Do you understand?" He tightened his grip to the point that Styxx almost lost consciousness.
Then he shoved him back and released him.
Panting as the blood returned to his head and pierced his skull with a pain so foul Styxx saw stars, he glared at the bastard. I have to stop this. It was bad enough that Estes abused him and Acheron.
"She's your sister, boy. You protect her, no matter what." His father's words rang in his head.
It was the only thing he'd never failed to do. And it was the one thing his father would find unforgivable.
The musicians began playing outside. Estes nodded to have the doors opened and went out to greet them. His throat still burning from Estes's hold, Styxx followed then descended the steps so that he could help his mother and sister down from their chariot.
The moment she saw him, his mother curled her lip. "You look appalling. I don't know what whore you withdrew from on my arrival, but you could have at least washed before you approached your mother." She refused to take his hand. Instead, she brushed rudely past him, letting everyone know that the queen had no use for her son.
But then he was used to that.
He held his hand out to Ryssa.
Like her mother, she refused to touch him. She stepped down and raked him with her disdain. "What have you done? Drank and whored every day Father's been gone? Your condition is execrable."