Yes, he did. He had to bite back a smile at the memory Bethany's scent awoke. If he could, he'd carry the smell of her on him forever.
Styxx started past his father only to have him grab his arm in a tight grip. He narrowed his gaze as he gave Styxx a hard, fierce stare.
"I know you keep secrets from me, boy. You always have."
Because whenever I tried to tell them to you when I was a child, you slapped me for them.
Now those secrets would only give his father a real reason to hate and resent him.
"And I don't believe you about today. I think there's more to where you were."
Styxx kept his features blank, his eyes hooded. "As you can plainly see, Father, I fell and was badly injured." The only thing he'd lied about was his intention to return home.
"Get out of my sight." He pushed him away.
Gladly. Styxx headed upstairs as best he could.
As he turned toward his room, he slowed down at the approach of his sister and mother in the upper hallway. Their laughter died the moment they saw him.
He inclined his head to them respectfully. "Mother. Ryssa."
A deep frown creased his mother's brow. "What happened to you?"
For a moment, he thought he might detect a note of maternal concern. But the additional curling of her lip that derided him said it was either nonexistent or fleeting.
"I was thrown."
"From what?" His mother laughed bitterly. "A whore's bed? You reek of her stench. You must have been wallowing in her for hours."
"She's not a whore," he snarled before he could stop himself.
"Men," his mother sneered to Ryssa. "They are ever fickle with their affections. Pray, daughter, that you never give your heart over to one. They couldn't care less about it so long as you welcome them to your body." She turned her hate-filled eyes back at him. "In the future, I suggest you put yourself in order before you return home. You are a prince of this realm. I don't think it's too much to expect a modicum of decorum and dress from you when you leave your whores behind."
Styxx felt his jaw tic. "I know, Mother. I offend my entire family. If not my manner or speech then my dress, and above all, it's my penis that offends you and Ryssa most."
They sucked their breaths in sharply.
"Xerxes!" his mother shouted.
"Have me whipped. It won't change anything. You speak to Ryssa about men when you know nothing of us. You've never bothered to learn. We're simple creatures, really. You just have to be nice to us." He cocked his head at the sound of his father's approach.
"You called?" his father asked.
Styxx answered for her. "She's going to tell you how I've offended her and Ryssa with the truth, Father. How I've used inappropriate language before ladies. Do you wish me to bathe before or after I'm beaten?"
His father scowled. "You're not the same as before. What has changed you?"
Styxx swallowed the pain that choked him. He'd been raped, whored, beaten, and threatened for it, seen his father turn his twin out into the cold. He'd had his brother curse him for trying to help him, and then had discovered he couldn't die. How could all that not change him?
"Life has changed me, Majesty. I live only to serve you and my people. I have no other purpose."
His father stiffened. "Are you being smart with me?"
"No, Sire. Tell me how to please you and I will do so."
"His insolence should be punished, Father. He mocks you and insults us."
"Look me in the eye, boy. Are you mocking me?"