Meanwhile, Apollymi just stood there completely stoic, appearing almost angelic and sweet, as she watched Stryker closely.
Davyn scratched the back of his neck nervously as he waited for a sign from Urian that they were clear. “I agree,kyrios.It doesn’t feel like the end of the world.”
Stryker turned a cold sneer to Apollymi. “No, it doesn’t, does it?”
Apollymi arched a taunting brow. “How does the song go, ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine’?”
In that moment, Stryker knew exactly what had happened. Launching himself from his throne, he ran to the room just as Urian, Tory, Nick, and what had to be Ash’s twin brother Styxx vanished.
His anger over the obvious trick mounted until he saw Satara lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Fear washed away his rage as he ran to her only to find her dead. Her eyes were glazed and her skin tinged with blue.
His heart shattered as he pulled her into his arms and held her close, fighting against the tears of grief and pain. “You stupid psychotic bitch,” he growled against Satara’s cold cheek. “What have you done now?”
Apollymi stood in the doorway, aching for Strykerius as he rocked his dead sister in his arms, reminding her of the day she’d found her precious Acheron’s cold and lifeless body dumped on the cliffs of Didymos after Apollo had gutted him.
Like he was garbage.
She had died that day, and every day since that she’d been forced to live without him.
Sympathy and a newfound respect for Stryker tore through her.
The fact that he could love someone as broken as Satara had been said much for him. Yes, he could be cold-blooded, but he wasn’t heartless. Closing her eyes, she remembered him the day they’d first met. Stryker had been young and bitter over his father’s curse.
“I gave up everything I ever cared about for him and this is how he repays my loyalty? I’m to die in agony in only six years? My young children are now banished from the sun and are cursed to drink blood from each other instead of eating food, and to die in pain at only twenty-seven? For what? For the death of a Greek whore killed by soldiers I’ve never even seen? Where’s the justice in that?”
Understanding his agony and wanting to exact her own revenge on Apollo, Apollymi had pulled Stryker into her ranks and taught him how to circumvent his father’s curse by absorbing human souls into his body to lengthen his life. She’d given him and his children shelter in a realm where the humans couldn’t harm them and where there was no danger of his children accidentally dying by sunlight. Then she’d allowed him to convert others and bring them here to live.
In the beginning, she’d pitied him and she’d even loved him as a son.
But he wasn’t her Apostolos, and the more he was around her, the more she wanted to have her own child with her no matter the cost. She admitted it was her own fault that she’d put a wall between her and Strykerius. And the two of them had used each other to get back at the people they hated.
Now it all had come to this.…
The death of his beloved sister.
“I’m so sorry, Strykerius.”
He looked up at her, his silver eyes swirling in pain. “Are you? Or are you gloating?”
“I never gloat over death. I may relish it, from time to time, when it’s justified. But I never gloat.”
“And I don’t let challenges like this go unanswered. There will be payback.”
“But you owe it to Styxx and Nick, not my Apostolos or his Soteria. Remember that.”
Urian sighed asthey made it back to the Sanctuary bar in New Orleans that was owned by the Peltier Were-Hunter bear clan.
Acheron launched himself at Soteria and gathered her into his arms. Urian remembered when Phoebe used to run to him like that in Elysia. How they’d savor every minute.
Gods, how he missed her …
“Are you all right?” Acheron asked Tory. “I’m fine. Really.”
“But we’re not,” Urian said drily from the other side of the room. “Nick killed Satara while they held Tory.”
“He did it to protect me,” Tory interjected.
Urian snorted. “We’ll put that on the headstone for you. In the meantime Stryker’s going to want blood for this. A lot of blood.”
