Page 28 of One Silent Night (Dark-Hunter 15)
"When Urian went behind my back to marry one of them and I found out about it, my temper exploded. I didn't see the repercussions past my need to strike out and hurt the very person I should have protected." He shook his head. "I'm such a bastard."
She didn't comment on that. Instead, she took his hand into hers and gave him a gimlet stare. "Why didn't you tell me this when we were married?"
He glanced down at their entwined hands and felt a surge of strength over the fact that she wasn't shoving him away in disgust. He'd never been this open with another soul and he wondered why he was so open now.
But then he knew. She was his heart and he'd missed having that vital organ. "I was ashamed. You were so impressed with my lineage that I didn't want you to know the truth of what my father thought of me. I didn't want anyone to ever learn it. I wanted to pretend that I was his beloved son who was destined to carry out his exalted plans."
He looked away, unable to bear her scrutiny as he laid bare the sorest part of his soul-it was a weapon he'd never laid into the hands of another being. "You know what the world was like then. I was the only Apollite son and my father used to tell me that my eldest sister was more of a man than I was." His gaze burned as he stared at the floor and he remembered his father putting him into a dress once. He'd barely stepped foot into his father's temple when Apollo had changed his clothes in the blink of an eye. "Now you look the part of your true nature. Perhaps I should geld you, too . . . if only I didn't need you to breed. I can only hope your sons have more testosterone than you do." Those words and the humiliation he'd felt were still branded inside his soul. His father's derision had hardened him to the point he had nothing left for anyone else. "Have you any idea how painful that is to admit even now?"
Her gaze softened as she took his hand and held it against her heart. "Is that why you loved me? Because you didn't think you could do better?"
His anger snapped at such a question. "I loved you because of the way you made me feel whenever we were together. Like I mattered to you. In your eyes, I was the man I'd hoped to be even while my father told me the only thing I'd ever be was a disappointment to him. And I haven't felt that way since the night I walked out the door and left you. You say you died that night. I've died every night since then. Every one."
Her nails dug into the flesh of his hand. "I hate you, Stryker."
Honestly, he didn't expect anything more from her. It was all he seemed to elicit out of everyone. His heart aching, he started away from her side.
She caught him and pulled him back until he was lying in her arms.
Startled, he locked gazes with her.
"You're still as stupid now as you were then."
His temper flared at her angry words, but before he could tell her to fuck off, she pulled his head to hers and kissed him with a passion so furious it made his senses swirl.
Cupping her head in his hand, he breathed her in and let the feel of her lips chase away all the bad memories that haunted him. It was amazing the lies a person could hide. The shame that they never wanted exposed. It was so much easier to pretend that his father had loved him, that it had been an oversight that caused Apollo to curse him along with the rest of the Apollite race.
But the harsh, bare truth . . . it was something Stryker had never wanted to face. His father hadn't cared. And that was hurtful. Angry. Debilitating.
He closed his eyes as Zephyra nipped his chin and took away the pain of his reality. Dissolving their clothes, he rolled until she was on top of him. She was the only one he'd ever given power over him to. He belonged to her and he knew it. She'd branded herself into his soul eleven thousand years ago that day on the dock when she'd run from him. And if he had to die, he wanted it to be by her hand. By the hand of someone who had at least loved him for a little while.
Reaching up, he cupped her face in his hands while he savored the sight of her naked body on top of his. He trailed his hands from her face down to her breasts. Lush and full, they, too, had haunted his nights and left him aching for the loss of her and for moments like this one.
"When are you ever going to learn me, Stryker?" she asked.
"How so?"
She traced the lines of his lips with one long fingernail. "I say things in anger that I never mean. When I told you to leave, all I wanted was for you to stay. I wanted to hurt you the way you'd crushed me."
"You told me I was worthless."
"That I did mean. But only because you were packing your things to obey your father and to leave me. That made me feel worthless too and so I struck out at you."
And those words had ruined him. His anger surged anew. "And you'd made me feel like my father did. Like I was less than a man. His criticisms had always hurt, but yours cut me all the way to the bone. They left scars on me that still haven't healed."
She slapped at his chest. Not painfully, but forcefully enough to get her point across that she was still angry at him. "What do you think you did to me? Have you any idea how many times in my life I was called a whore? Before I went to Artemis, I went back to my father. He took the money you'd left with me and then threw me out to the streets. He told me that if I couldn't hold on to my husband I should go spread my legs for another who might find some use for me."
He winced and then glared, wishing he'd known about it. "I would have killed your father had I known."
"But you didn't and that's why I hated you even more. You knew what kind of hell I'd lived in before you married me. That my father was abusive and harsh. What did you think I was going to do on my own in a world where a woman couldn't even shop unless a man was with her?"
He pulled her down, over him. So close that he could feel her breath fall against his face. "All I could think of was my father killing you because of me and then making me live, knowing what I'd done to you, what I'd forced him to do. He would never have given me the peace of death. And I knew that was the one thing I wasn't strong enough to bear . . . living on after your death that I caused."
Zephyra wanted to forgive him. She did. But she'd been hurt so badly. Those early years with Medea had been so difficult, and while Artemis had given them shelter, she'd never been kind to either of them.
She'd changed so much since the night he'd left.
But then he'd changed, too. He wasn't the same little boy who was afraid of angering his father. The fact that he'd stalked and killed his father's lineage proved that.
Kill him.
It was what War wanted her to do. What Artemis wanted.
But what of her desires?
His silver eyes burned into her as the tormented pain in them reached far into her heart. "Forgive me, Zephyra, and I swear not to the gods but on my honor and soul that I won't ever disappoint you again. Let me do what I should have done all those centuries ago."
"And that is?"
"Give you my heart, my loyalty, and my service. No one will ever divide us again. I swear it on all that I am."
Zephyra raked her nails lightly over his chest. "The only one who ever divided us was you."
"And your angry stubbornness. I left, but you wounded me deep on my way out the door. You brutalized my dignity and my manhood. Had you not gone on the attack, I might have stood up to my father. But it was hard to rationalize staying with you when you said the very things to me that he did."
She frowned as she tried to remember their fight. His words still rang in her mind, but hers . . . those were hazy or missing. "What did I say?"
His features were shocked. "Don't you remember?"
"Not really."
Stryker reached up and placed his fingers against her temples. With his god's powers, he replayed that night for her. It was something he'd never done. He preferred to remember her holding him in her arms. But it was time she remembered exactly what she'd done to him.
He and his father were alone in the cottage that Stryker had called home with Zephyra.
Almost fifteen years old, he was gangly and lean. Not quite at home in his body, he'd been clumsy. Apollo had grabbed him by the hair, his face contorted by rage. "Do you really think I would tolerate you and that whore to breed? You will do as you're told, boy, or I'll rain down the wrath of the gods in a way that will make all past punishments look like paradise."
He'd tried to fight, but his powers were nothing in comparison to his father's. "She's all I've ever wanted, Father. Please don't ask me to do this."
Apollo had yanked harshly on his hair before he released him. "I'm not asking you anything. I'm telling you. If you're not gone from here by dawn, I will have her raped and beaten until you can't even recognize her."
Stryker had been horrified by the threat. "She carries your grandchild."
Apollo had seized him by the throat and shoved him back against the wall. "You test me again, boy, and I'll have you womanized and serving in Artemis's temple alongside Satara and the rest of her pasty maids." He'd flung Stryker into the opposite wall. "Come dawn if you're still here, you will watch her brutalized until she dies."
Tears had filled his eyes as he looked up at his father, his heart breaking. "Why would you do this to me?"
"You are my legacy. Through you, I will overthrow Zeus and rule this putrid world. It's time you grew up and were the man you were supposed to be. Disappoint me in this and, so help me, I really will turn you into a woman, and you can share in your little wife's fate if you disobey me again."
Apollo vanished.
Stryker slid to the floor as he looked around the room where, for the briefest of times, he'd been truly happy. It was the only time in his life that he'd felt loved or wanted. Not as someone else's destiny, but for himself.
He sobbed like he'd never done before. He knew he had no choice but to obey. How could anyone run from a god? Apollo wouldn't be denied, and he would take plea sure in making them suffer for defying him.
"I won't let them hurt you, Phyra," Stryker whispered as he forced himself to stand. His heart breaking, he gathered a few items. The green hair ribbon she'd worn at their wedding. The tile of her in her wedding dress and a small vial of her perfume. He paused at her vanity table where she sat every night and morning, preparing herself for bed and for the day.
All he'd wanted was to put his head in her lap and have her brush her fingers through his hair and tell him everything would be all right. That she would be safe.
But it wasn't meant to be.
Tonight he was going to ruin her and he knew it.
Wanting to die over it, he placed his items in a small purse that he secured to his belt. I should leave before she returns.
No, he couldn't do that to her. In spite of what his father thought, he wasn't a coward. He couldn't leave her without some explanation. Leave her to wonder why he hadn't come home or where he'd gone. To think him dead or worse, to watch for his return while he knew she'd never see him again. She deserved to hear the truth from him.
