Stryker would curse and rail, but honestly, it was what he deserved. She was right. He'd walked out and never looked back.
No, that wasn't true. He had looked back. Often. He'd remembered their time together. Remembered the way she looked first thing in the morning when she'd been snuggled up beside him. The way she'd shyly glance at him as if she could eat him alive.
He'd hated himself for giving that up. For giving her up.
Sighing, he moved toward the door. "I have duties to attend. Should you need anything, call for Davyn." Without another word, he was gone.
Zephyra watched as he left her alone in his room. The look of hurt in his silver eyes had made her ache, and she hated herself for that weakness. Why did she still want to hold him after what he'd done to her?
Yes, she wanted to claw out his eyes and stab him until he was dead.
But underneath that anger and hurt was the part of her that still loved him. The part of her that she tried so hard to bury and ignore. He was a beast and a coward.
He's the father of your daughter.
So what? A biological donor who'd left them. That didn't make him a father. It made him an asshole. Her fury renewed, she glanced about the room that he slept in. It was rather plain. Burgundy coverings on the bed. No windows. A small chest of drawers and nothing hanging on the walls.
"You live like a bear in a cave."
There wasn't even a book on the nightstand. Which begged the question of why he had one. Then again, the top drawer was slightly cracked open. Perhaps there was one inside. Curious, she walked over to it and opened it.
Her breath caught in her throat.
In the bottom of that drawer was the last thing she had ever expected to see again. It was the hand-painted tile that he'd commissioned of her as a wedding present. Memories slammed into her as she stared at the faded image of her in ancient Greek clothing, her blond hair bound up as curls fell around her face. Large green eyes were set in the countenance of utter innocence. She'd forgotten all about this tile's existence.
But Stryker hadn't. In spite of everything, he'd kept it. And underneath it was another tile and pictures of men who bore a striking resemblance to him. One picture in par tic u lar caught her attention. It was three men, similar in face and form, dressed in clothes from the 1930s. They had their arms slung over each other's shoulders as they smiled happily.
His sons.
Over and over, she found pictures of them.
The only other tile in the drawer was that of a girl who looked almost identical to Medea. A chill went down her spine as she ran her finger over the faded writing in the lower right hand corner. Tannis. She must have been his daughter, too.
She flipped it aside to find the most recent photo in the drawer. From the looks of the quality of the picture and the black clothing, she would guess it was no more than ten years old. It was of a young man with white-blond hair that was pulled back into a ponytail-the middle of the same three brothers from the 1930s. Even though his features were masculine, they were so close to Medea's as to be eerie. And as Zephyra tilted the photo in the light she realized something.
The stains on it were from tears.
"No," she breathed, unable to imagine Stryker crying over anything. He'd always been rigidly unsentimental. She'd seen him brutally wounded in sword practice and his eyes hadn't even misted.
The only time she'd known them to cloud was . . .
The night he'd left her.
And yet as she ran her hand over the stains, she knew nothing else would have caused them. Who, other than him, would have held this photograph in his room and cried? No one. They were his and he'd kept all of this in a place where he thought no one would find it.
"Dear gods." The bastard had a heart. Who knew?
"I will love you forever, Phyra. Never doubt that or me."
Her throat tightened as she looked down at the tile of herself that she'd put on the tabletop. Had he really missed her? Pined for her?
Don't be ridiculous. He probably planned this for you to find.
Planned it? He'd thought her dead. Why would he hang on to her image all these centuries unless she meant something to him? She certainly had kept nothing of his.
"Don't you dare weaken," she snarled at herself. "He's nothing." Determined to stay hard, she put the pictures back, then froze as she saw something she'd missed earlier. It was a small green frayed ribbon.
The same ribbon she'd worn twined through her hair on the tile. And there, tied in the middle of it, was the wedding ring she'd thrown in his face when he'd told her he was leaving.