“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.
