The moment their leader met his gaze, he felt an instant jolt of electricity go straight to his groin, which also remembered those countless hours of his misspent imaginings.
At least until she scowled angrily, then turned back toward his father. “He’s an Apollite?”
Seated on the smaller version of his bone throne that he kept in their main hall, his father shrugged nonchalantly. “Indeed. I would have warned you, but I didn’t think you’d believe me unless you saw it for yourself.”
Aghast, she closed the distance between them until she stood in front of Urian so that she could study him, nose to nose. “You’re the one who led the raid on the human village?”
“I am.”
“You?”Could there be any more disdain in that tone? “You killed them all with only a handful of men?”
Crossing his arms over his chest, he nodded. “My brothers.”
Her jaw dropped again. “Also Apollites?”
“Of course.”
There was a raw, unfettered heat in her dark eyes that sizzled in the air between them as she stared up at him with a tangible hunger. “We came to pay tribute to the Deathbringer. I assumed one of such courage and skill would have to be Daimon.”
His father chuckled. “To answer your question, Urian, they’re an Amazon tribe of Daimons from the north.”
Even more confused by that, Urian glanced past her shoulder, to his father. “Amazons?” He’d never heard of a group of Daimons with that kind of loyalty before.
It defied all logic.
The woman answered for his father. “We were Atlanteans in service to Artemis when the curse came down from the sun god. When the goddess refused to go against her brother to help us, we turned our services and bows to whatever god answered our plea for mercy. Since then, my sisters and I have been on a quest to find others of our kind to help them and to put our war skills to any who get in our way.”
Urian related to that. He knew the stories of his own father’s panic in his quest to spare them Apollo’s wrath. No god had wanted to get involved for fear of what Apollo or Zeus would do to them.
“Who answered your call?” To Urian’s knowledge, only Apollymi had shown mercy to their race and dared to defy Apollo.
“The goddess Marzanna.”
He glanced to his father. “I’ve never heard of her.”
“She’s a northern goddess.” His father’s lips twisted with wry humor. “An interesting one, I’m told. Sort of a combination of Persephone and Hades, all in one. With the psychosis you would expect from such a mash-up. She’s the wife of Koshchei the Deathless.”
His father’s tone held a strange note that Urian couldn’t quite make out. “Have you met them, Solren?”
“Just once. As a boy. They were a peculiar couple who left quite an impression on my young mind.”
Urian’s scowl deepened. He’d never known his father to be so diplomatic before.
The woman smiled. “We’ve traveled a long way to meet the Daimon who dared strike back at the human vermin. Your courage impressed us before, but now that we know you’re not even a Daimon …”
Urian flashed her a taunting grin. “You’re overwhelmed? Impressed? Would you like to sample the fruit of Apollo?”
She laughed. “You are a cheeky one, aren’t you?”
His father let out an exasperated sigh. “Ever my bane. Never could curb or controlthatone. I blame his mother, completely.”
She smirked. “Yet I hear the pride in your voice as you say those words, Strykerius. You’d have it no other way.” With her hand on her sword hilt, she turned back toward his throne. “So do you accept our bargain?”
His father arched a brow. “To sell you my son?” He met Urian’s shocked gaze. “Let me think. Um, no. Never. Cheeky though they all are, I am attached to my sons.Especiallythat one.”
Good, because he didn’t like the place this conversation was headed.
At all.
