Damn it!
Not that it mattered. He couldn’t go home until nightfall. So he might as well attempt this. Not like he had anything else to lose, other than six more years of misery.
Praying for a miracle he doubted would ever come, Stryker headed for the broken altar that stood at the foot of the broken statue where the goddess sat upon an ebony throne made of skulls and roses. With eyes of chipped silver, she stared down at him as if she could see straight through his very soul.
Maybe she could.
Since Stryker was born of a god and had visited them many times over the years, he’d never been nervous in the presence of divinity before. Yet something about this one made him extremely uneasy. Perhaps it was her ruthless reputation.
Or something more. A sense of foreboding that said her reputation wasn’t one of boasting, like his father’s. That hers was actually understated.
Either way, he swallowed hard as he lifted his arms to invoke her.
“Apollymi Magosa Fonia Kataastreifa …” He cut open his forearm and made a blood offering on her altar to let her know that he was most serious in this matter. “If you can hear me, my goddess. I have come in answer to your summons, and I implore your divine aid. Please, akra … I need you and I offer you my life, my soul, and my sword. For all eternity.”
Nothing happened.
Why should it?
He was half Greek and her enemy. For centuries, his people had warred against hers. Why should an Atlantean goddess care what happened to him and his children when his own father didn’t?
You knew this was bullshit. You shouldn’t have bothered.
Disgusted that he’d ever believed for a moment that someone, anyone, would help, he started for the doors, intending to try to find a way home again.
“Why did you wait to come here, son of Apollo?”
Stryker froze at the sound of a fierce, yet melodic voice. One that sent shivers over him.
As he began to turn back toward the statue, the temple doors flew open. A fierce wind plastered his clothes against his body and forced him to grab the column at his side to keep from being blown outside into the deadly rays of the sun. Out of the dark shadows appeared the outline of a tall, graceful woman.
One with glowing eyes made of swirling silver. They were filled with a fury that matched the rage in his own heart.
Ribbons of white-blond hair twisted around her body as if they had a life of their own. She appeared wild and fierce in a ghost, wraith form, the very epitome of the ruthless goddess she was purported to be.
“Goddess Apollymi?”
She curled her lips. “You think another would dare step her foot inside my temple and dare my wrath?”
Given her temperament? Only if they were profoundly stupid.
“Now answer my question, Greek dog!”
Stryker met her gaze levelly, knowing that this particular goddess couldn’t abide cowardice in any form. “I delayed because I thought you were asking me here to kill me. And I apologize profusely, akra, if that was an incorrect assumption. Now, I’ve come to ask your guidance and benediction. I throw myself on your mercy.”
She laughed. It rolled through her temple like thunder and caused part of the ceiling to crash down around him, threatening his life with more daylight as it streaked ever closer to his body.
But he was desperate enough to pay it no heed. “Please, akra. I come here to beg vengeance against my father.”
Her laughter died instantly. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because I’m also the son of the Atlantean queen he slaughtered.”
“You never knew Xura. Your father took you from her womb before you were born, and you were raised in Greece among his priestesses. Why should you have loyalty to your mother or to me?”
Stryker flinched at the truth. But there was a lot more to it than that. His childhood had never been happy. In truth, it’d been bitter and miserable. One he held against his father and hated him for. “Among women who lived in terror of my father and his capricious moods, and who had no love of me because of him. Only fear that I might prove no better a man than what sired me. I assure you, akra, I hold no loyalty to any of them. They never brought me anything other than heartbreak and misery.”
The wind settled down as she raked a suspicious glare over his body. She swept him from head to toe as if trying to gain insight to his character. “You come to me with an offer of loyalty while telling me that you’re loyal to none?”
