Swimming in the wrong place. At the wrong time.
“Who are you?”
Yet as he turned around in the pool, Urian felt as if someone had slapped him. Hard. For there was no doubt who he had to be.
Acheron’s despised twin brother. Holy shit … Theywereidentical. Same height. Same build. Sculpted features. Virtually indistinguishable, except where Acheron had those freaky swirling silver eyes, Styxx had a pair of vibrant blue ones. Eyes that were the closest shade to Urian’s he’d ever seen on another person.
Weird.
And while Ash preferred to keep his hair long and dyed black, the evil anti-Ash held to their natural blond shade and wore his cut short. He was also scarred abysmally.
And still the defiant bastard had yet to speak.
“I asked you a question,” Urian snarled. “Do you not understand me?”
“I heard you.”
“And?”
With a slowness Urian was sure was just to piss him off, he climbed out of the pool and reached for a towel. He dried himself off, then wrapped it around his hips before he closed the distance between them. “Ask me when you find a new tone. One with respect in it.”
Oh yeah, this guy was a douche on steroids. Now all the stories he’d heard about the infamous brother madetotalsense. “You must be Styxx.”
“So you’re not as stupid as you look.”
Urian would have made an equally nasty comeback, but he couldn’t get over how many scars Styxx had on his body. While Urian had more than his fair share, they paled in comparison to the number this man carried.
Apparently, Styxx pissed off everyone he’d ever come into contact with.
Urian grimaced at that road map of pain. “Damn, you’re scarred up.”
“Aren’t we all?”
He didn’t comment on that, especially not withhispast. “I was told you’d been put on one of the other islands.”
“I was.”
“Then why are you here?”
Styxx picked up another towel to dry his hair. “I liked this one better.”
Wow, his arrogance was quite a special thing. “Are you always this big an asshole?”
“Are you?”
That was a loaded question and then some. Urian flashed a grin. “Basically, yes. However, I thought I’d tempered it for you. Guess I’m an even bigger ass than I knew.”
Styxx laughed. “Then I’d hate to see you on a bad day if this is a good one.”
“Yeah, well, according to Ash I pretty much get on his nerves every ten minutes.”
“It takes you an entire ten minutes? I’m impressed. All I have to do is enter his line of sight to wreck his whole year.”
Urian smiled. It wasn’t often he met someone who could match his sarcasm. He’d love to put this guy in a match with Shadow.
He indicated Styxx’s scars with a tilt of his head. “You must have been a soldier who saw a lot of combat for those.”
“I was … and I did.”
