His father stiffened at the servant's insolence. "I've come to collect Acheron. Show me to him."
Lenas opened the door wider to admit them. He raked a heated stare over Styxx's body.
They do look alike ... amazing. I wonder if he's as good in bed.
Styxx cringed. Estes hadn't just shared Acheron with his friends and patrons, but also his staff. As they headed down the hallway, strange images flashed in his mind.
Were they memories?
They came and went so fast that he couldn't be sure what his mind wanted him to see or know.
Trying to push those thoughts aside, Styxx slowed as they neared a room where the sounds were all too familiar. Lenas gave him a knowing stare before he opened the door of the bedroom where Acheron was working with two patrons.
"What in the name of Hades is this?" his father roared.
Eyes wide with horror, Ryssa covered her mouth and turned away.
Styxx couldn't breathe at the sight that greeted them. Completely naked, Acheron was buried between a woman's legs while a man took full advantage of Acheron's squatting position for his own pleasure.
The man pulled back from Acheron with a feral curse. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded with an equally imperious air. "How dare you interrupt us!"
There was a tone his father wasn't going to appreciate, and Styxx was extremely glad he wasn't the fool who'd used it.
Acheron gave one last playful lick to the woman's body before he rolled over onto his back. He lay unabashedly naked on the bed, smirking.
"Prince Ydorus," Acheron said to the angry man addressing their father. "Meet King Xerxes of Didymos."
That took some of the bluster out of the prince, but not much.
"Leave us," their father demanded.
Offended, the prince gathered his clothes and companion and did as the king commanded.
Wise move, buddy.
With a sickly gray cast to his skin that Styxx was all too familiar with, Acheron wiped his mouth on the sheet. His features gaunt, he wore those damned gold bands on his neck, arms, wrists, and ankles.
Licking his lips suggestively, Acheron intentionally flashed the erotiki sfairi that lined his tongue. Styxx gave his brother credit for that stupidity. Especially when Acheron lay back on his bent elbows and spread his legs wide to their father to ram home what he was.
"So what brings you here, Majesty?" Acheron asked, his tone mocking and cold. "Do you wish to spend time with me, too?"
Styxx flinched at an angry, defiant offer he knew went through his father like a sword. Acheron had no idea what he was setting into motion, but Styxx did. He just didn't know how to stop it.
Worse, were the memories of the times he'd been where Acheron was. All too well he understood that hatred and rage that wanted to lash out and throw into his father's face what Estes had made them do. To make the king deal with the reality that had been forced onto them against their wills. Acheron's volatile emotions set his own on edge and left him raw and emotionally bleeding.
"Get up," their father snarled. "Cover yourself."
One corner of Acheron's mouth quirked into a mocking expression. He bent his knees and assumed a sexually inviting position Styxx was glad Ryssa couldn't see. "Why? People pay five hundred gold pieces an hour to see me naked. You should be honored you get to look for free."
Brother, stop!
But Styxx couldn't get the words out as forgotten details slammed into him. Suddenly, he remembered being in this room.
With Acheron and without.
"Four thousand solas for the first crack at them! Who wants to taste Greek divinity and royalty?"
"How do you like that, Highness? Tell me how much you crave my cock.... Beg me for it like the little bitch you are."
Styxx flinched as he tried to force it all away and focus. But it was impossible. He wanted to do something other than stand here and relive a horror that never should have happened to either of them.
Their father grabbed Acheron roughly by his arm and pulled him from the bed.
Acheron covered his hand with his own and tsked at him. "It's a thousand gold pieces an hour if you want to bruise me."
Fifteen hundred to make him bleed ... Styxx flinched as he called Estes's price list.
The king backhanded Acheron so hard, he fell to the floor and sprawled naked onto his back.
Styxx gasped as pain exploded in his own skull. It was so harsh a blow that for a few seconds, he couldn't see straight.
Laughing, Acheron licked the blood from his lips before he wiped it away on the back of his branded hand. "It's fifteen hundred to make me bleed."
Styxx backed away as Acheron validated his earlier memory.
His father curled his lips. "You're disgusting."
Styxx's stomach heaved. That was what his father would think of him, too, if he ever learned that he'd worn the same bracelets as Acheron. He saw himself bleeding on the floor, not his brother. This was exactly what would happen to him if his father ever found out he'd been sold.
If he ever saw the brand Styxx carried next to his cock.
And if he ever learned Styxx had murdered his uncle ...
His father would gut him himself. Just as his mother had done him.
With a wry grin, Acheron rolled to his side and pushed himself up from the floor. "Careful, Father, you might actually hurt my feelings." He walked around their father like a proud, stalking lion, looking him up and down. "Oh wait, I forgot. Whores don't have feelings. We have no dignity for you to offend."
"I am not your father."
Styxx winced at the severity of his father's condemnation against his twin brother and he remembered how tortured and conflicted his father had been when he cut Styxx's arm open.
"Yes, I know the story well. It was beaten into me years ago. You're not my father and Estes isn't my uncle. It saves his reputation if everyone thinks I'm some poor waif he found on the streets and gave shelter to. It's fine to sell a homeless beggar, a worthless bastard. But the aristocracy frowns on those who sell their blood relatives."
How Styxx wished that was true.
Their father backhanded him again.
Styxx wiped away the blood on his face before anyone saw it. But his father and Ryssa were too intent on Acheron to pay his condition any heed. Thank the gods for that one small mercy.
Acheron laughed, unfazed by the fact that his nose was now bleeding, along with his lips. "If you really want to hurt me, I'll ring for the whips. But if you continue to strike my face, you'll make Estes unbelievably angry. He doesn't like for anyone to mar my beauty."
"Estes is dead!" their father roared.
Styxx cringed at the unadulterated rage in those words.