Yes, but his father would never understand. "I'm fine, Father."
"You look shameful."
Styxx didn't even react. He didn't care. The only thing he loved was gone and he had no way of finding her.
Tears pricked the back of his eyes as he pushed open his bedroom door and saw Apollo in his receiving room. Ah, beautiful. Could his day be any better?
Apollo raked him with a sneer. "Where have you been?"
Styxx sighed. "I didn't know you were looking for me."
The god materialized at his back and grabbed his jaw in one powerful fist. He snatched Styxx's head back until he could see Apollo's angry glare. "Are you breaching our agreement?"
Hopeless despair filled him. What difference did anything make now? He felt as if his entire life force had been ripped out of his body. He was nothing more than an empty shell. "No."
Apollo nuzzled his neck, scraping his skin with his fangs. Then he punched Styxx in the back with his fist, knocking him forward. "Bathe yourself and return to me. I've had my fill of your mewling sister and her whiny voice. And don't be long. If I have to come get you, you won't be happy about it."
As if any of this made him happy?
Styxx resisted the urge to pass an obscene gesture at the god. The last thing he wanted to do was have the bastard think it was an invitation.
Without a word, he went to bathe and tried his best not to think about what would happen once he finished.
Styxx paused in his bathing pool as he heard Acheron and Ryssa laughing together in her room. The two of them had always done that. When he'd been a boy, he used to try and join them, but Ryssa had never allowed it.
You have other people to play with. Leave us alone, you little brat.
But his tutors had never allowed him to play and other children had been too afraid. So he'd wander off to make up friends.
He dunked his head under the water and tried his best to ignore his siblings. Yet their laughter and conversation continued to stab his heart. He understood his father doubting his blood relationship, but Ryssa knew he was as related to her as Acheron was.
And with Acheron ...
They were full-blooded brothers.
And still they ignored him at best, rebuffed him at worst. All he'd ever wanted in his life was to feel like he belonged somewhere.
That he belonged to someone.
No one would have him. Except for the brief time when he'd found happiness with Bethany. Tears filled his eyes as he looked down at her necklace on his wrist. Please don't leave me here alone, Beth. I can't survive this without you.
What if she really was gone from him?
Forever?
"Styxx!" Apollo's snarl cut through his thoughts as he made the mark on Styxx's back burn.
With a ragged breath, Styxx wiped away the tears with the heels of his hands and left the water to do what he did best.
Endure hell.
January 27, 9528 BC
"What is wrong with you?" Styxx snarled as he found Acheron drunk and naked on the floor of Acheron's room.
Sneering at him, Acheron grabbed the wineskin he'd been cradling under his body and drank from it. "Go away, you quim! I hate you! I wish we were dead...." His voice broke off into sobs.
Acheron's pain reached out to him, making him feel bad that he'd yelled at him.