He glanced about the room, unsure if he’d heard what he thought he had. “I … I thought you said something.”
“I’m only debating a punishment that might actually work on you, as I have yet to find anything that curbs your stubborn will.” His father grabbed a handful of his hair and jerked him into his arms. He crushed him against his chest in an excruciating embrace. “Don’t make me have to mourn you, you worthless son of a bitch.” He growled those harsh words in a whisper in Urian’s ear so that no one else could hear them. But it wasn’t the words Urian heard. It was the emotion beneath them that he felt.
His father loved him. Just as he loved all his sons.
But Stryker was a warrior first and foremost. One raised beneath the iron fist of a cold, uncaring progenitor who’d given him nothing save cruelty and the back of his hand. Unlike them, Stryker had never known the loving embrace of a mother’s arms. Never had her sing to him whenever he’d been ill or had her rock him to sleep at night. She’d never laughed with him or tickled him to bed.
While the others here might curse them for their human mother, Urian knew the truth. They were blessed to have been wrapped in her loving ways. There was nothing about his childhood he would have changed except for the curse their grandfather had placed on them.
Or the hatred that Apollo had put in his father’s heart long before any of them had been born. He would give anything to spare his father that misery that tainted his smile.
“S’agapo para poli, Baba.”Urian whispered the words he knew his father seldom heard from any of his boys …I love you very much, Daddy.
His father kissed his cheek. “Love you, too. Now off with you.” Roughly, he shoved him away in a gesture that would seem rude to any onlooker who hadn’t overheard their exchange or been privy to the way his father’s hands had trembled with fear while he held him.
Yet for all his father’s gruffness, Urian knew the truth. He was cherished and loved.
It wasn’t just their blood that bound them as family. It was their loyalty and devotion.
Urian …
He glanced over his shoulder as he felt his summons.
Careful as always, he teleported to the doors of Apollymi’s garden. No one was allowed to flash themselves inside her garden. For that act of blasphemy, the goddess would react violently and blast him into pieces.
So he gently opened the double doors and walked into her garden with a humble gait. Neither of her Charonte moved or acknowledged his presence in any way as they flanked her where she sat on the edge of her marbled pool. The magical black waters were especially bright tonight.
Urian bowed low before her.
Only then did she move. “You fed.”
Not a question. A statement that said she knew somehow what he’d done with Xanthia. Though why he was surprised, he didn’t know. She was a goddess, after all.
“I did, akra.”
Apollymi swirled her hand through the black water. “Have you any idea how much it pains me that I cannot see the future, Urian? It was such a bone of contention with me, that my love made sure that my harbinger … my son, would have that gift and be my sight for me.”
“Apostolos?” he asked.
She didn’t speak often of her second-born son, who’d been cursed by the Atlantean gods and murdered by Apollo.
Much like her firstborn, Monakribos, who’d been betrayed by her siblings and murdered years after they’d killed her lover, the pain of Apostolos’s death was too raw. So she seldom picked at that wound lest it begin to bleed anew.
“Aye. And it pains me that I don’t know how this woman you’ve been with will impact your life. Does it scare you?”
“Nothing frightens me, akra.”
A smile toyed at the edges of her lips. “You know, Urian, in my pantheon bravery—Akeon—and stupidity—Koalemos—were twin gods who walked hand-in-hand everywhere they went. For it was oft said that in order to be brave one must first hold a degree of reckless stupidity.” Her gaze and tone darkened. “Be careful where it leads you.”
“I will be vigilant, akra.”
“Good boy, Urian Kleopas.”
He frowned. “Pardon, akra?”
“Haven’t you heard? It’s what many have begun calling you. At least behind your back. Does it bother you?”
“To be called my father’s glory?” Urian paused to consider it. On the one hand, it was a bit irritating. Bad enough his brothers mocked him for being his father’s pet.
