Time froze solid and came crashing down around him until he couldn’t breathe or think. His heart hammered hard in the center of his chest. How could this be?
Part of him wanted to storm into that cottage and tear them apart like an angry child. To gut the man who dared to defile her so. To demand she return and apologize to his father for humiliating him when he was the one who provided for her and cared for her welfare.
But the man in him understood her loneliness that had to be debilitating at times. The fact that while his father did provide for her material well-being, he’d never once cared for her emotionally. Stryker hadn’t even ventured here a single time since her exile to speak to her or ask if she needed anything. The way he’d left her had been cold and callous.
That part of her life their father left entirely up to them to see after. So no, he couldn’t blame her for wanting this.
Needing companionship.
Still …
Heartsick that she’d moved on with her life away from them, Urian knew what he needed to do. He set the basket down that he’d brought for her and removed the necklace she’d given him.
His mother deserved to be happy without the threat or taint of her Apollite family hanging over her head. She was human and this was her world.
It wasn’t theirs. It couldneverbe theirs.
“S’agapo,Mata,”he whispered.I love you.
With tears in his eyes, he touched the door of her cottage, knowing that this would be their final good-bye.
It was for the best. She was human.
He was an Apollite.
Forever cursed. Forever damned. His mother would have to be darkness from this day forward. Better now than later.
As Apollymi had told him, love was a weakness that no one needed. He wasn’t a child any longer. He was a man. A warrior. Time to throw his toys away and embrace the soldier his father had raised him to be.
I am the light who will lead my people.
He couldn’t change what he was. Nor could he deny his destiny. Nay, the time had come for him to embrace his fate.
Alone.
June 10, 9511 BC
“I can’t believe I let you morons talk me into this.”
“Zeus almighty, Archie … enough! No one invited you!” Paris paused to glare at him before he passed an irritated glare at Urian. “One more gripe and you have my permission to knife him where he stands.”
Theo put his hand over Archie’s mouth. “How ’bout I strangle him?”
“That’ll work.” Paris draped his arm around Davyn. “Now show some respect and shut it already.”
Archie continued to make sounds of discontent as they moved in relative silence through the forest toward the village where Davyn’s sister and brother-in-law lived.
Urian didn’t say anything as they trudged along. While it annoyed him that Archie was here, it was actually very typical of his brother’s behavior. Davyn had wanted to come out and be with his family in their village for a couple of days, and as a matter of course, Paris had insisted on being with him to make sure Davyn didn’t do this alone.
No one should be left alone to watch a family member die.
Needless to say, while they might attempt to kill each other most of the time they were together, they weren’t about to let anyone else have that honor. And it was too dangerous for Paris and Davyn to run solo in the human realm without them. While Davyn might claim his family could take care of themselves, they didn’t believe it.
In it for one. In it for all.
So here they were, en masse. Pissed off and sniping at each other.
As Xyn would say,the ushe.
