Styxx knelt beside his twin and took the wineskin away. "Acheron ... listen to me. I know you haven't eaten in at least two days." Their shared hunger pangs attested to it. He took the bread that Hestia had left earlier for his brother and held it out to Acheron. "You have to take some. Do you understand?"
"Fuck you ... you worthless whore!"
Flinching at the insult that cut to his bones, Styxx tried to put a piece of bread in Acheron's mouth, but he bit him so hard, he bled.
Styxx cursed and snatched his hand away. He glared at his twin, wanting to kill him. "Father is going to have you beaten or restrained and force-fed again. Is that what you want?"
Tears welled in Acheron's swirling silver eyes. "No. My want has abandoned me. Slapped me." He glared at Styxx. "Beat me. Because I'm not you! If I were a prince and not a whore ... But you're both. You are. I know you are. You aren't that, but you are. I saw it. They saw ... you. It..."
Acheron was so drunk, he was incoherent. Even his thoughts made no sense whatsoever.
Styxx pressed the heel of his hand to his eye as he tried to sort through Acheron's mad ramblings. They were so fast and nonsensical, they set his brain to aching.
Sobbing hard, Acheron curled into a ball on the floor.
Styxx's throat tightened at the sight of his brother's agony, and at his own need to join him there. Like him, his brother was in absolute misery over something that had happened. But what?
He knew he was the last person Acheron wanted to confide in. He'd go get Ryssa for him, but she was with Apollo.
I'm all he has.
Gods help us both.
"Adelphos," he whispered, placing his hand on Acheron's arm. "Please, I'm trying to help you."
Acheron punched at him. "Get off me!"
Break the whore in for the rest of us....
Pass him this way....
Styxx cringed as those phrases shouted at him from Acheron's scrambled mind. No wonder his brother was so upset. He had the same flashbacks and nightmares that haunted him, too. Worse, Acheron's memories were similar to what Xan had said to Estes after they'd raped Styxx the first time. No matter what he did, the jeers of those who'd violated him and then laughed and gloated about it would return to torture him.
He laid his head down on Acheron's shoulder and tried to comfort him. "Shh, brother. I know your pain."
"You know nothing of my pain! When has anyone ever spurned you, Highness?"
You and Ryssa both have. Constantly.
As had their father and mother.
And now his precious Bethany.
But this wasn't about his pain. He could drink himself stupid later, as he'd been doing for days. Right now, his brother needed him.
"Acheron-"
Faster than even Styxx could react, his brother spun on him and caught his throat in a fist so tight it was crushing. Acheron rolled with him and pinned him to the ground with a strength that was startling and unimaginable.
"Acheron," he coughed and wheezed, trying to dislodge his brother's iron grip from his throat that reminded him of how Apollo often did him.
And as he stared up at his brother, Acheron's eyes turned to a bright, burning bloodred. His hair darkened as his skin became a marbled blue. His lips turned black.
"You say you know my pain," Acheron snarled, showing a set of fangs that caused Styxx's anger to mount as he involuntarily felt Apollo biting him in places that made his stomach heave. "You know nothing of my pain. No one has ever defiled you, prince. Never held you down and made you beg for a cock you'd rather be dead than taste or feel."
Rage and pain darkened Styxx's sight at those words. Worse, he heard what Acheron had said to him in Atlantis.
"Tell me how it feels to have your royal hole stuffed tight, Highness. Just wait till they flip you over, it gets even better.