Stygian

  Urian laid his head against her shoulder as he watched her body giving pleasure to his. Her sleek wetness was a haven to him as tenderness for her exploded through him.

  For the first time ever, he regretted being sterile. He would love nothing more than to have children with Xyn. To be normal for her.

  That was his one true regret.

  If he could have one wish in life, it would be to have met her as another dragon or even a simple human. Anything other than the monster he was. To be whatever hero she would accept and to be whole for her.

  All he wanted was to possess her with a ferocity that wouldn’t be denied.

  Their bodies still entwined, he lifted her up until he could lay her back against the mattress so that he could take control of their union. Dear gods, he needed this woman more than he needed breath to live. He was no longer in the mood to be easy and playful.

  The demon inside him was in control now and it wanted only to possess her. To bury himself in her over and over again until he was at last sated and content.

  Xyn bit her lip as Urian rode her fast and hard. His strokes echoed through her, sending pleasurable tremors the length and breadth of her body.

  Her head spun as she came in his arms.

  He bared his fangs as he smiled and gently cupped her face before he kissed her in satisfaction. Then Urian nibbled her mouth as he drove her climax on. She dug her nails into his shoulder as his name was torn from her lips.

  Two heartbeats later, he joined her there in that moment of perfect bliss.

  When his body was finally drained and sated, he collapsed on top of her, panting hard in her ear. He laid his head against her breast so that he could hear her heartbeat pounding beneath his cheek.

  She played lightly with his damp, long, white-blond hair while she cradled his body with hers.

  Neither of them spoke in the still quietness of her secluded home. Urian merely let her touch soothe him until he fell asleep, skin to skin, his body still resting inside hers.

  Xyn kissed his brow as she felt him relax fully against her as he fell asleep in her arms. Never before had he done such a thing. It was the most blissful moment of her life as she realized the trust it’d taken for her Daimon to do such a thing.

  And Urian trusted no one like that. It just wasn’t in him. Cradling his body, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine what it would be like to have a normal life with her Daimon. One where they could live together as husband and wife.

  Perhaps it was a stupid dream. But it was the only one she had.

  Her brothers would laugh at her if they knew she had it. Dragons weren’t supposed to think of such things. They were born to be solitary. They weren’t supposed to have lovers or to crave spouses. This was a most unnatural thing.

  Yet she couldn’t help what she felt.

  Urian was her heart.

  And they could never be together.

  Urian came awake to the scent of his precious dragon on his skin. Even before he opened his eyes, he felt her hand in his hair, her thigh resting between his. Her buttocks pressed against his loins.

  It fired his lust immediately. Still groggy from his sleep, his only thought was to feel even more of her warm, supple body.

  Xyn awoke to the sensation of Urian deep and hard inside her. Gasping, she realized that he had one of her legs bent up as he entered her from behind and thrust against her hips.

  “Good morning,” he whispered against her ear before he tenderly kissed her cheek.

  She drew her breath in sharply as he went particularly deep inside her. “Morning, Daimon. It appears you’ve made yourself at home.”

  “You want me to leave?”

  Hissing sharply, she pulled his hand down to the center of her body. “Hardly,” she said breathlessly as she met his deep strokes. “But I do expect you to please me.”

  His laughter warmed her as he took care to tenderly stroke her in time to his thrusts. He dipped his head so that he could run his tongue around her ear. Xyn shook from the force of the chills that went through her.

  Urian inhaled the scent of his dragon as he reached up to smooth her vibrant red hair. In that moment, he never wanted to leave her body or her side.

  He wrapped his arms around her and let her feminine scent wash over him as he thrust himself in and out of her body until he felt her spasm. She cried out and dug her nails into his glowing arm.

  His breathing ragged, Urian quickened his strokes until he happily joined her. He ground his teeth as his own orgasm swept through him and he growled deep in his throat. The force of it left him weak and sated, and at the same time he was invigorated.

  Closing his eyes, he lay entwined with her, never wanting to leave. This was his Katateros. His heaven.

  If only he could he stay.

  Urian!

  He jumped as he heard his father’s summons.

  Xyn turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  “My father’s calling for me.”

  The disappointment in her eyes stung him.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. I know I can’t keep you.”

  Rolling her over, he laid himself over her and held her close. “You know I don’t want to leave.”

  “I know.”

  Urian! Where are you!

  He winced.

  “Still calling?”

  Urian nodded.

  “You’d best go, then.”

  “Take care, my love.”

  She kissed him. “And you.”

  His stomach tight, Urian nodded as he got up and dressed. He returned for one last, lingering kiss before he teleported back to Kalosis.

  The moment he landed in the great hall, he found his father on his throne, surrounded by Daimons. The dire look on his face would have chilled anyone, but something sinister had happened.

  “Where have you been!”

  “I went out for a psuché.” The psuché or psuché-sullambano was what they called the act of seeking a human soul. It was very different from the ichoraima, which was the act of feeding on Apollite blood. “Why? What’s happened?”

  “Jason, Abiron, and Melissa were all killed last night.”

  That news hit him like a crippling blow. Archie and Hagne must be reeling. That was three of their four children. “How?”

  “A Dark-Hunter.”

  Urian couldn’t breathe. The pain was so great and so overwhelming it was if his body and mind couldn’t react, so it shut down. He just stood there, stunned. Trying to process the fact that in one fell swoop, Archie had lost the majority of his children.

  I have to go to him.

  Urian teleported to his brother’s home. Without knocking, he opened the door to find the house strangely empty. He used his powers to sense where they might be. As he neared the bedroom, he found his brothers and sisters-in-law comforting Hagne, who was in bed, curled in a ball, unable to cope with her loss. She was completely catatonic.

  Archie was nowhere to be seen.

  Terrified of what that meant, Urian went to find him. For a few minutes, there was no sign of his brother anywhere.

  Not until he had a peculiar thought. Acting on instinct, Urian went to the small garden where the kids used to play.

  Sure enough, he found Archie sitting alone, underneath the tree where Abiron had carved his name. As he drew closer, he realized that his brother held one of Melissa’s dolls in his trembling hands.

  “Archie?”

  He didn’t speak.

  Urian knelt by his side and placed his arm around his shoulders.

  Then his huge brute of a brother looked up at him and burst into tears. Clinging to him, he sobbed in a way Urian had never heard him do before. Not when they’d lost their mother. Or their sister or brother. Never once had anything broken the mighty Archimedes.

  Until today.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Archie tightened his hold on Urian. “I should have been with them. Why wasn’t I t
here? How could I have let them go alone? I was their father, Uri. It was my job to protect them.”

  “Shh, Archie, you didn’t know.”

  “I left them alone …”

  “You did nothing wrong.”

  “Nay, but I did. I left them to fend for themselves when I shouldn’t have. I should have been there!”

  Suddenly, Urian felt a powerful grip in his hair. Looking up, he saw his father. Without a word, he pulled Urian back and then cradled Archie in his arms to rock him. Then with his other arm, he pulled Urian against his chest to hold him like he’d done when they were boys.

  His hold was brutal and crushing, and yet it was strangely comforting.

  “We won’t be broken. Not by this. The gods can try, but we are stronger than they know. And we are mighty. Do you hear me, my sons?”

  He wiped at the tears on Urian’s face and then Archie’s. “Look at me, both of you.” He waited until they complied. “We will rise up and strike back. We are not the only ones to lose in this and we will not allow them to take it all from us. Not without a fight. Blood for blood. Life for life. We all have a choice. You either cave to the blows of your enemies …”

  “Or you mount their heads to the wall,” Urian finished for him.

  His father nodded. “Thánatago.” Deathbringer.

  And after this, he would forge his own Thánati. A team of Spathi to hunt and prey on their predators. If the gods and Dark-Hunters wanted a war, Urian was willing to bring it to them.

  July 18, 2945 BC

  Urian was getting ready to leave with a strike team when a bright light flashed in the main hall of Kalosis. Grimacing, he stepped back, expecting another Apollite or Daimon. That was what normally came through their bolt-hole.

  Although over the last few thousand years, they’d had the occasional Dark-Hunter or demon be stupid enough to try, and that had been highly entertaining.

  But this … this was something else.

  Everyone in the room froze.

  His father came off his throne. Tall and muscular, the man held the aura and smell of an Apollite or Daimon, yet his dark hair said he was definitely not one of them.

  Not that a Daimon couldn’t have dark hair. Their father and Archie dyed theirs. But this man’s skin tone suggested that his hair might actually be naturally that shade. That, and the fact that he smelled of an animal scent.

  Like Xyn.

  As if he were a hybrid being of some sort.

  “Who are you?” his father demanded.

  Screw that. Urian wanted to know what he was.

  “Nicander, son of Simonides.” He glanced around at them with a scowl as they circled him, trying to determine if they should welcome him, restrain him, or kill him. “What is this place?”

  His father didn’t miss a beat. “It depends on your intent and species. What exactly are you?”

  “I’m a Katagari Tsakali.”

  Urian was the first to snort. “You say that as if we should have a clue as to what it means.”

  He cast a disdainful smirk toward him. “Means I’m a shapeshifter. You don’t get out much, do you?”

  “Enough to kill what annoys me.” Urian raked him with a sneer. “And to skin enough animals to make a new pair of boots whenever I need them.”

  When Nicander started for him, the Daimons between them grabbed him and held him back.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Trates warned him. “He might look young, but Urian’s one of our strongest warriors. Trust me, you don’t want to tangle with him.”

  Curling his lip, Nicander backed down, then turned toward his father. “King Lycaon—”

  “Who?”

  “Lycantes of Arcadia. He was crowned Lycaon VI of Arcadia. Stupid bastard had the unfortunate luck of falling in love and marrying an Apollite bride without knowing it. Somehow, she kept it a secret from her husband until her twenty-seventh birthday. When Queen Mysene died, Lycaon realized that their sons would fall prey to the same fate.”

  Crossing his arms over his chest, Urian cringed at the sad reality of their mixed marriages. The gods had given them no reprieve even with that.

  “Lucky him, his sister was the goddess Shala.”

  Urian let out a low whistle. As the daughter of Erebus and Nyx, Shala was literally born of Night and Darkness. But more than that, her husband was the god Dagon, and his mother, Hekate, was the daughter of the Titan sun god, Helios. That was quite a family tree. No wonder Mysene had wanted to marry into it. As an Apollite, that was a wise decision if one wanted to save her children.

  “I take it the king decided to invoke some family intercession?” Urian asked.

  Nicander nodded. “Dagon came to their aid and used his magick to splice animal DNA to Apollite biology.”

  Now he had Urian’s full attention. “How’d that work out for you?”

  Spreading his arms wide, Nicander turned a small circle for all of them to see. “Better than anyone could ever imagine. There are two breeds of our species now. Arcadians, who have human hearts, and thus that is their primary form.”

  The hairs on the back of Urian’s neck stood up. “Meaning what?”

  “They’re born human and live their lives primarily as human beings. At puberty, they are able to shift into whatever their alternate animal form is.”

  His father narrowed his gaze on him. “And the Katagari?”

  “Katagaria is the plural form. Katagari is singular. We are born as animals and have an animal heart. Therefore our base form is that of whatever animal we were born as. In my case, I’m a jackal. Which means I sleep in that form, and if I’m injured or I die, I revert to it. It’s my strongest form.”

  “That’s so fucked up,” Archie said.

  Urian concurred.

  And apparently so did Nicander. “I didn’t choose this anymore than you chose to be Apollite. We were rounded up and experimented on against our wills. This was forced on us. But the upside is that we don’t die at twenty-seven and we don’t have to feed on blood anymore to live.”

  Now that got everyone’s attention.

  “Beg pardon?” His father stood up.

  Nicander nodded. “You heard me. We live hundreds of years. With our magick intact.”

  “Sign me up!”

  Urian cast a droll look at his son. “Don’t be so quick, Geras. The gods are never so bountiful. There’s always a drawback.”

  “He’s right.” Nicander sighed. “As soon as Zeus found out, he demanded that we be put down. When the king refused, we were cursed.”

  Urian gave his son an I-told-you-so stare.

  “What’s the curse entail?” his father asked.

  “The Arcadians and Katagaria are to war against each other and never know peace until the last of us are dead. We cannot choose our mates. They’re chosen for us by the Fates. If we don’t accept who they choose, our males are rendered impotent for the rest of our lives.”

  Geras’s eyes bulged in horror as he cupped himself.

  Urian smirked. “Take it you changed your mind, m’gios?”

  He nodded vigorously.

  Nicander sighed again. “Like the animals we are, we’re hunted continuously. Our mates even more so. And when they’re pregnant, they can’t shift forms or use their magick. That’s how I ended up here. I was leading a tessera—a team of four of them—away from my pregnant mate. I’d gotten them clear of her, but couldn’t shake them from my trail. When the portal opened, I didn’t care where it took me, so long as it was away from my enemies.”

  Nephele scowled at him. “How do you know when your mates are chosen?”

  He held up his hand to show her an intricate pattern that appeared to be branded into his palm. “A matching mark appears on each of our palms to let us know. Once it’s there, we have three weeks to cement the union or we’re screwed. A woman will never be able to have children, and as I said, a man is left impotent.”

  “So glad I’m an Apollite,” Geras whispered in Urian’s ear.

  Ur
ian elbowed him. “So do the Dark-Hunters hunt you, too?”

  He shook his head. “They’re not allowed. Not even if we’re trelos, slayers, or marked.”

  His father arched a brow at that. “You still go trelos?”

  “Not for the same reasons a Daimon does, but aye. Something about our hormones at puberty causes a similar madness in our species. A slayer is the same thing, only that’s the term they use when it affects a Katagari Were-Hunter … the term given to cover both our branches.”

  “And marked?” Urian asked.

  “When our council has gotten together and, with Savitar’s approval, determines that someone needs to be put down because he or she is a danger to us all. Once the Omegrion decides, we’re marked for termination and hunted.”

  “And they call us cold.” Paris shook his head. “So glad I live here.”

  Urian didn’t comment on that. “Who’s Savitar?”

  Apollymi answered that one. “A rank, arrogant Chthonian bastard. Surly as hell. Pray to the gods you never have to deal with him.”

  Urian was shocked by the venom in her tone. That was the type of hatred usually only reserved for Apollo or Artemis and in the back of his mind, he seemed to recall her speaking of him before, now that he thought it. But it’d been years ago.

  They all bowed to their goddess.

  The Were-Hunter hesitated, then realized it was probably a good idea to follow suit.

  Apollymi walked over to Nicander to examine him a little closer. “So you’re Savitar’s current pet project. Why?”

  “No idea, my lady.”

  She narrowed her gaze speculatively. “He doesn’t come off that island lightly. Nor does he meddle in the affairs of the gods without a damn good reason. Did the Dark-Hunter Acheron ask him to?”

  “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

  But Urian did. He immediately remembered the creature he’d met whose eyes matched hers. Were they related?

  “Who leads the Were-Hunters?”