Stygian Read online

  Damn him! For Styxx was the prince she’d chosen to bond with her own son to protect him from the gods who’d been hell-bent on killing her precious Apostolos. The human twin brother who was supposed to have protected her child and his birthright!

  Instead, Styxx had stood by and allowed her son to be slaughtered and betrayed. Of all men, he was the very human whose throat she wanted most to personally rip out!

  She felt her eyes turning from silver to red as her Destroyer form took over.

  Bet’anya stumbled away and wrapped her arms around her belly to protect her baby. “Please, Apollymi … my baby’s innocent.”

  “So. Was. Mine!”

  Both of them. And yet her sons had been given death sentences by the gods.

  All of them.

  Before she could stop herself, Apollymi reacted on instinct.

  And she returned to the goddess what her pantheon had done to her.

  In the blink of an eye, she ripped Bet’anya’s son from her belly with a furious scream.

  Bet’anya staggered back and fell to her knees. Gasping, she stared at her unmoving son in Apollymi’s hands, and she reached out to touch him.

  But Apollymi wouldn’t have it. No one had shown her an ounce of mercy. Not once.

  Therefore, she delivered it back, full force. She blasted Bet’anya away and turned the bitch into a statue like all the others. Let her sit out eternity in a fathomless void where she could hear and see, but never again move or be part of any world. It was what they all deserved for what they’d done to her.

  What they’d done to her children.

  Then Apollymi looked down at the tiny infant in her hands and started to discard it as they’d done her son.

  To toss him into the sea like he was garbage. Without a second thought so that he could die.

  But because he was the son of Styxx, it was as if she held her own son in her arms. He looked like her Apostolos.

  Identical, in fact. Every last part of him was the same. His tiny little fingers and toes.

  His lips that had never had a chance to call her mother …

  Tears filled her eyes as she remembered that day, twenty-one years ago, when Apostolos had been ripped from her womb and taken from her. So small and fragile.

  Just an innocent babe in need of love …

  And she remembered when Monakribos had been so tiny and sweet. When all he’d done was beg for his father’s love after they’d stolen his father from both of them and left them lost in their grief. Powerless to keep the world from crushing them with its unkindness.

  “Just like you,” she whispered to the baby. “They were helpless, too.”

  No one had taken pity on them.

  For her sons, alone, she’d allowed her powers to be bound. Had allowed the gods to lock her into a dark, hollow prison until she’d lost what little sanity she’d had.

  Her tears formed crystals on her cheeks as they fell silently and her grief shredded a heart she’d never wanted to begin with.

  Damn you, Kissare, for making me feel love.

  Because of him, the goddess of destruction was not without feelings. Her heart was shattered and she was devastated. And no matter how much she hated Styxx of Didymos, she couldn’t bring herself to kill this baby who looked so much like the creature that had fathered him.

  A baby who looked so much like her precious Apostolos who wasn’t supposed to die so very young.

  So very brutally.

  More tears blinded her as she struggled to breathe past the pain that lacerated her heart.

  I will protect you, little one. You will grow to be a strong, fine man.

  “Out of darkness comes the light. From the loins of this Stygian hell, you are born and you will be called Urian—the flame of our new people. And one day, you will be my blade. My vengeance upon them all. They took my son from me, and I will take theirs from them. Together, my precious Flame, we will destroy the human race, and all the gods of this earth.”

  But first, he would have to be reborn in the land of the mortals and from the belly of a mother who would have no idea of who or what she carried …

  What this child’s destiny would become.

  And Apollymi knew just who his new temporary mother would be. What father would be the best to mentor him to manhood.

  Aye, the world of man would tremble before them all.

  June 26, 9527 BC

  Dawn

  Strykerius Apoulos cringed in horror as he heard the screams of a thousand Apollites dying in utter agony. Why hadn’t they listened to him when he’d told them to take cover, and heed the warnings of the priests and priestesses?

  Because no one wanted to believe their creator had turned against them over something they’d taken no part in. Something they’d been innocent of.

  They continued to believe in a god who hated them. One who had not only turned his back on them but cursed them in his callousness.

  Throwing his head back, Stryker roared with the injustice of it all. How could the entire Apollite race be damned over the actions committed by a mere handful?

  Yet that was what they were facing.

  Total extinction.

  By the hand of his own father. Brutal annihilation over a slaughtered whore his father had barely tolerated. One who would grate the nerves of a saint. It was so unfair.

  “Stryker?”

  He winced at the sound of his wife calling to him. Though she was beauty incarnate, with blond hair, perfect blue eyes and features and curves that were the envy of every woman born, including his aunt Aphrodite, he cringed every time Hellen came near. Not because she wasn’t desirable but because he’d never wanted to marry her. Yet to please his Olympian father who’d cursed his race, he’d abandoned the real woman he’d loved. Left her cursing his very name so that he could appease his father by taking Hellen for his bride and leaving Phyra forever.

  So much for wedded bliss. And familial obligations.

  “Stryker, come quickly! Please! Something’s wrong with the children!”

  Terror seized him at the panic in her voice.

  Nay! Surely his father had spared his own grandchildren …

  Are you an idiot? Since when does Apollo give two shits about you, never mind your children?

  Granted, that was true—still, Stryker didn’t want to believe that his father would be this reckless.

  Or stupid.

  While his father might not care about him or his children, surely Apollo wasn’t suicidal …

  If he and all his children died, so would the god who’d tied them to his life.

  That was his thought until he ran into the nursery to find his children writhing and throwing up. Their little bodies were shaking as they sobbed and moaned in absolute agony. It was a pain he knew well, as he’d gone through it himself only hours before as he’d transitioned into the very monster his father had made him.

  Tears welled in his eyes as he saw a cruel truth he couldn’t deny.

  His father hated them all, without mercy or compassion.

  “Seal the windows! Now,” Stryker growled at his pregnant wife and the two female servants who were assisting her.

  They rushed to obey his orders.

  If the rays of the dawning sun touched their children, it would kill them instantly. For that was the curse of his father, Apollo. Henceforth, no Apollite was allowed in the Greek god’s domain. If Apollo caught any who possessed one drop of their blood out in the light of day, he would singe them to the bone and kill them instantly.

  Why? Because the Apollite queen, Stryker’s birth mother, in a fit of jealousy had ordered the death of Apollo’s Greek mistress and the bastard son she’d birthed for the Greek god. As further punishment for the queen’s atrocious crimes, Apollo had cursed all of her people to feed from each other’s blood—they were damned to know no other sustenance.

  But the worst of all … no Apollite would ever again live past their twenty-seventh birthday. While they would now age faster than humans from the moment of birth, on the morn of their twenty-seventh year, their aging cycle would speed up even more and by the end of that day, they would painfully die of old age and decay into dust.

  No exceptions. No alternatives.

  Anyone who held a single drop of Apollite blood.

  That was his father’s mandate. And it applied to all of them.

  Including Stryker and his children—Apollo’s own grandchildren.

  Horrified, he gathered his four young sons into his arms to comfort them, even though there was no solace to be had. “Shh,” he breathed.

  Like him and their mother, they were all golden-haired and fair, with tawny skin and bright cheeks. Said to be the pride of their grandfather who’d turned his back on them.

  Hellen held their daughter, Dyana, against her shoulder. And to think, they’d actually named her for Stryker’s aunt, Artemis—Apollo’s twin sister. The thought turned his stomach now. How could he have ever honored any of his paternal family?

  I won’t go against my brother, Strykerius. Not even for you. Do not ask me for help again.

  How he hated that Olympian bitch for her selfishness. His only prayer now was that Artemis would one day lose something she held as dear to her as he held his children.

  “Baba!” Archimedes whined as he held his stomach and dry heaved. “It hurts so much!”

  “I know, m’gios.” He kissed his son’s brow and rocked him in an effort to soothe his pain. “Just breathe.”

  Theodorus didn’t say a word as he buried his little face in the folds of Stryker’s cloak and cried harder. Likewise, his twins, Alkimos and Telamon, whimpered and moaned. Their matching curls were damp and tangled with sweat as they held on to him for dear life.

  Hellen’s features turned as pale as her hair. “They’re cursed, too, aren’t they?”

  Stryker’s gaze fell to his toddler daughter, who was an exact copy of her beautiful mother. Sick to his own stomach, he nodded as he watched Dyana’s pale eyes turn dark, and his sons’ teeth elongated into pairs of fangs like the ones he’d grown just hours before.

  Since the children had gone the whole day without mutating, and because his wife was Greek and didn’t share his Atlantean blood, Stryker had assumed his father had spared his grandchildren from the curse. How stupid of him to think for one minute that his father would actually care.

  Hellen let out a soul-deep wail as she realized that their children would never again be allowed to see the light of day without it killing them.

  Or eat a bite of real food.

  That Stryker would leave her a widow in only six years, and that she would be reduced to begging in the street for a mercy no one would give. Because he was cursed by the gods, and she was the mother of his half-bred spawn, everyone would hate her. The Apollites because she was Greek, and the Greeks because she’d married an Apollite and bred with him. People were ever cruel. They both knew that well.

  For the first time ever, Hellen glared at him with fury in her pale blue eyes. “Why did your mother have to send out her soldiers to slaughter Ryssa and her son?”

  “Because my father’s an unfaithful, horny idiot!” And Apollo couldn’t take five seconds to tell Queen Xura that Stryker was alive and well, and being raised in Greece by his priestesses. Rather Apollo had left Xura to believe that Stryker had been slaughtered by the gods because they feared he might be the prophesied infant of the goddess Apollymi, who was destined to overthrow their pantheon. Hence the reason Xura was so jealous that Ryssa’s son had been allowed to live after hers had been “killed.”

  Leave it to Stryker to have two such unreasonable parents. His mother’s answer to jealousy hadn’t been to simply kill Ryssa and be done with her. On no, it’d been to tear her and her son into pieces. And his father hadn’t been content to just kill Xura and her soldiers in retaliation.

  Nay, never something so simple as that.

  The god of moderation had lost his mind and struck out at the entire Apollite race as if they’d all been guilty of the slaughter. And once such a curse was spoken, there was no way to undo it.

  Ever. As Stryker had quickly learned, as every god and priest had concurred.

  Apollo’s word was final.

  “We’re damned,” Stryker whispered under his breath. No one would help him. While he’d never deluded himself into thinking for a moment that he was surrounded by anyone other than a bunch of selfish assholes, this more than confirmed it.

  Everyone was out for themselves. They were only his friends until he turned the other way. They took what they could grab and left, and quickly forgot what they owed him. What he’d done for them.

  His head swam from the horror of it all as he glanced to Hellen’s swollen belly. She would birth him another son any minute now. With his own Apollite powers he could feel the strength of the boy’s soul stirring.

  A cursed child.

  And that made his anger ignite to a dangerous level.

  Fuck this! His indignant rage renewed its venom. “I won’t let this happen!”

  Whatever it took, he would save his children.

  Hellen looked up at him. “What are you saying?”

  Stryker handed his sons over to their mother. “I’ll be back.”

  Her jaw went slack. “The sun’s dawning. Where are you going?”

  “To find a way out of this nightmare.”

  She shook her head as her skin paled even more. “But—”

  Stryker ignored the hysteria in her voice and kept walking. Contrary to what she thought, he wasn’t headed for suicide.

  Earlier, he’d tried all the Greek gods he knew. Even though he was family, they’d all turned him away by saying there was nothing to be done.

  Yet through it all, one other had called out to him. Assuming hers was a vengeance cry, he’d ignored her call out of fear. It had to be a retaliatory trap. After all, why would she help him when his own family refused to?

  Her lust for his head was reasonable. His father’s pantheon had destroyed hers and cursed her people to die. It only made sense that she’d want to destroy Apollo’s son to get back at the god. She had no way of knowing that Stryker was hated and despised by his father.

  But now everything was different. And he was desperate enough to take the gamble that she might be willing to do something while the others ignored his fate.

  This was the best hope he had.

  The only hope, really.

  And he had nowhere else to go.

  No one wanted him. No one cared.

  I’m alone in this world.

  Then again, aren’t we all?

  Making sure to stay to the shadows and out of the daylight, he picked his way through the lush island home he’d once loved. Now he hated it for its alliance to his father. But he was grateful that at one time, it’d belonged to the Atlanteans before the Greeks had conquered this paradise and taken it from them. Because today, he needed that connection to the prior gods.

  Not that there was much left. Most of their old buildings and temples had been destroyed—burned to the ground during battle and afterward as a show of Greek might.

  All except for one village that not even Apollo had dared to touch.

  Apollymia.

  Said to have been under the protection of the great Apollymi. The goddess of destruction was so revered and terrifying that the fearful Greeks had allowed nature to reclaim her beloved village. Because everyone, god and human alike, feared the goddess so. Even after she’d been defeated, not one piece of the village had been pillaged or plundered. Left completely untouched, it lay like a time capsule, completely empty as it’d been the day the Greeks had arrived and the Atlanteans had abandoned it.

  Sadly, time had been unkind to the structures that had caved in or that were overgrown with weeds and brush.

  As a boy, Stryker used to run and play through the ruins here, seeking some connection to his mother and her people, aching to know something of that side of his blood.

  One day while exploring, he’d discovered a forgotten temple of the goddess who’d once protected this place. For reasons he still didn’t know, he’d come here to sit and talk to the goddess who ignored him as much as his father. Yet even as a boy, he couldn’t help wondering what the island people had done to cause Apollymi to abandon them so. Had it been hubris? Neglect?

  Or simple divine capriciousness that caused her to turn her back on her people?

  When it came to Apollo, it took nothing to make him abandon those who worshiped him.

  Stryker hoped that wasn’t the case with Apollymi. Please be better than my father …

  Terrified she wasn’t, Stryker prayed even harder that her summons wasn’t a trap. That maybe, against all odds, she would come to his aid in spite of how the others had treated him. Surely, the Atlantean goddess of destruction hated his father as much as he did …

  Her hatred of the Greeks was legendary.

  Stryker had barely reached the ornate gold-covered doors of the old temple before the sun began scorching him.

  His legs burning, he shoved at the doors that protested his entrance with stubborn defiance that seemed determined to have him combust on the doorstep. Their rusted hinges creaked mightily from all the decades of disuse, neglect, and decay. But he wasn’t about to let them win this. Even more stubborn than the doors, he pushed harder until they gave way, then rushed into the soothing darkness that succored his ravaged eyes and blistering flesh.

  Breathless, he used his cloak to put out his smoldering skin that bubbled and boiled. He hissed at the bleeding, festering wounds on his legs that would no doubt leave vicious scars. So be it. He’d heal.

  Grimacing in pain, he cursed his father again and wished the bastard dead a thousand times over.

  “May you roast in Tartarus, you rat turd!” His voice echoed, sending several birds into flight and other animals he didn’t want to think about scurrying for cover.

  Disgusted, Stryker glanced about the decaying mess. It was even worse than it’d been the last time he’d ventured here years ago. The cobwebs were so thick now, they hung like hollowed-out curtains from one column to the next. No vessel or burner remained intact. Nor statue. The once pristine marble lay like crumbs on the earthen floor. Even the main statue in the center of the temple where Apollymi’s worshipers had gathered to pay homage to her had been cracked to such a state that Apollymi held no arms, or crown.

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