Acheron (Dark-Hunter #15)(48)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

Wanting to comfort him and knowing it was too late, she futilely rubbed his cold arms to warm them.

If only he could look at her. Hear her voice. But he never would.

And she would never hear him call her matera.

It was more than she could stand. "Please," she breathed. "Please come back to me, Apostolos. I swear I’ll keep you safe this time. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Please, baby, I can’t live knowing I killed you. I can’t. Look at me, please!"

But he couldn’t and she knew it.

If only she had the power to restore his life. But unlike his father, she was born of destruction. Death. Pestilence. War. Those were her gifts to the world. There was nothing she could do to bring back the one she loved most.

"Why!" she screamed at the sky. Where were the Chthonians now to demand blood over the death of her precious child? Why weren’t they here on Apostolos’s behalf?

They didn’t care. No one cared, but her.

And Xiamara who’d tried so hard to save him. Xiamara, her closest friend. The only one she’d ever been able to confide in. Closer than sisters, closer than mother and daughter. Now she, too, was gone.

Apollymi was alone. Bitterly alone.

She cradled her son’s head to her br**sts and screamed out so loud that the sound was carried on the wind all the way to the halls of Atlantis. "Damn you, Archon! Damn you!"

How could he have ever claimed he loved her? How could he have allowed Apostolos to die like this? To suffer so much pain?

Her heart broken, she buried her face in her son’s wet blond hair and cried until her sobs were spent.

Then her fury mounted and took a vicious root into her heart. They’d both been betrayed by the very ones who were supposed to love and honor them.

Now there would be Kalosis to pay.

It was time to take her son home where he belonged. Time to make her so called family bleed for their betrayal.

Her course set, Apollymi clothed her son in the black formesta robes of his station. This was his birthright. As the son of the Destroyer, his symbol was that of the sun that represented her, pierced by the three lightning bolts of his power.

He wasn’t garbage. He was an Atlantean god.

And he was the son of the Destroyer.

Picking him up from the surf and cradling him in her arms, she took them both home to Katoteros.

It was an island surrounded by islands. Breathtakingly beautiful, there was no place in the human realm that could compare with it. Standing at the highest point, where her mother the North Wind shrieked on her behalf, Apollymi looked out over the landscape that should have been owned by Apostolos.

The islands sparkled in the perfect light under the sun that attempted to warm her cold skin. It was futile.

The island to her right housed the paradise lands where the souls of their Atlantean people went to rest until reincarnation. The one on her left had been held by the Charontes before her banishment-unlike her family, her demons had been loyal to her. They had all followed her into Kalosis.

And the island before her had been intended as the home of her son.

But it was the one that possessed the second highest point in Katoteros that held her attention now. The one that ruled and united all the islands. It was the one where the hall of the gods had been built.

Archon’s.

Her vision darkening, she took them there, outside the grand marble hall that stood so tall and proud as it looked down upon their world. Music and laughter drifted out to her.

Music and laughter.

Oblivious to what had come to pass and to what they faced, the gods were having a party. A f**king party. She could feel the presence of every god inside. All of them. Celebrating. Laughing. Cheering. Having fun.

And her beloved son was dead . . .

Dead!

Her world was shattered. And still they laughed.

Holding Apostolos close, she ascended the stairs with a deceptive calm and flung the doors wide with her powers. The white marble foyer was circular with statues of the gods taking up station every four feet against the pristine walls.

Her heart hammering with vindictive fury, she walked through the center of the foyer where her emblem of the sun had been etched into the floor. As she crossed over it, she changed it to that of Apostolos. One by one, his bolts of power pierced her symbol.

The colors now red and black to represent her grief and his spilled blood.

Without hesitating, she walked straight for the set of gold doors that led to Archon’s throne room. To the room where the gods made merry while her son lay dead from their treachery.

By all the dark powers of the universe, they wouldn’t be laughing for much longer.

She opened those doors with the full force of her fury. The clattering sound rang out as the doors slammed against the marble walls and broke from their hinges to fall to the shiny, perfect floor.

The music stopped instantly.

Every god in the hall turned to look at her and one by one, their faces blanched white.

Chapter 22

Without a word, Apollymi held her son in her arms and walked with a calmness she didn’t feel toward the dais where her black throne sat beside her husband’s gold one. Archon stood up at her approach and moved to the side as if to speak to her.

She ignored him as she placed Apostolos on Archon’s throne, where he belonged. Her hands shaking, she sat him up and carefully placed each of his hands on the arms. She lifted his head and brushed the blond hair back from his bluish face until he looked as if he would blink and move at any moment.

Only he would never blink again.

He was dead.

And so were they . . .

Apollymi’s heart beat with fury as her powers mounted. A feral wind exploded through the hall, sweeping her hair up as her eyes glowed red. She turned on the gods then and leveled a malevolent glare at each of them as they held a united breath in expectation of her wrath.

Until she came to Archon.

Only then did she speak in a voice that was laced with her hatred. "Look at my son."

He refused.

"Look, damn you!" she snarled. "I want you to see what you’ve done."

Archon winced before he complied and the relief in his eyes notched her wrath to an even higher level. How could she have ever allowed something so callous and putrid into her bed?

Into her body?

Apollymi growled. "Your bastard daughters deprived my son of his life. Those little whores damned him. And you," she sneered the word, "dared to protect them instead of my child!"

"Apollymi-"

"Don’t you ever speak my name again." She sealed his mouth shut with her powers. "You had every right to be afraid. But your bastard bitches were wrong. It won’t be my son who destroys this pantheon. It is I. Apollymia Katastrafia Megola. Pantokrataria. Thanatia Atlantia deia oly!"

Apollymi the Great Destroyer. All powerful. Death to the gods of Atlantis.

It was then they scrambled for the doors or to teleport out, but Apollymi would have none of it. Drawing from the darkest part of her soul, she sealed the hall closed. No one was going to leave here until she was appeased.

No one.

If the Chthonians killed her for this, so be it. She felt dead inside anyway. She didn’t care about anything except making them all pay for their part in her son’s suffering.

Archon fell to his knees, trying to plead for her mercy. But there was nothing left inside her except a hatred so potent and bitter that she could actually taste it.

She kicked him back and blasted him until he was nothing more than a statue remnant of a god.

Basi screamed out as Apollymi turned toward her. "I helped you. I did! I put him where you told me to."

"You didn’t do shit, except whine and piss me off." Apollymi blasted her into oblivion.

One by one, she faced the gods she’d once considered family and turned them into stone as her relentless fury demanded appeasement. They tried in vain to subdue her, but once her wrath was unleashed, there was no power in the universe to stop her.

Except for the child they’d stupidly killed. Only Apostolos could have saved them.

The only one she hesitated at was her beloved step-grandson, Dikastis-the god of justice. Unlike the others, he didn’t cower or beg. Nor did he fight her. He stood with one hand braced on the back of a chair, calmly meeting her gaze as an equal.

But then he understood justice. He understood her wrath.

Inclining his head respectfully, he didn’t move as she blasted him.

And then there was Epithymia. Her half-sister. The goddess of wealth and desire. She was the bitch Apollymi had so foolishly trusted more than the others.

With tears of crystal ice in her eyes, Apollymi confronted her. "How could you?"

Tiny and frail in her angelic appearance, Epithymia stared up at her from where she cowered on the floor. "I did what you asked. I delivered him into the world of man and made sure he was born into a royal family. I even tried to hand him to the queen to suckle him. Why would you destroy me?"

Apollymi wanted to claw her eyes out for what she’d done. "You touched him, you slut! You knew what that would do to him. To be touched by the hand of desire and to have no god powers to countermand it . . . You made it so that every human who saw him was driven mad with their lust to have him. How could you be so careless?"

It was then she saw the truth in her sister’s eyes.

"You did it on purpose!"

Epithymia swallowed. "What was I supposed to do? You heard the Fates when they spoke. They proclaimed him to be the death of us all. He would have destroyed us."

"You thought the humans would kill him in their efforts to possess him?"

A tear slid down Epithymia’s cheek. "I was only trying to protect us."

"He was your nephew," Apollymi spat.

"I know and I’m sorry."

Not as sorry as she was going to be.

Apollymi curled her lip. "So am I. I’m sorry I ever trusted you with the one thing you knew I loved above all others. You ungrateful bitch. I hope your actions haunt you into eternity." Apollymi blasted her sister.

And yet she was unappeased. Even with all of them dead and gone . . .

The hole inside her was still there and it hurt so much that all she could do was scream. She screamed until her throat was raw. Throwing her arms out, she splintered the hall until there was nothing left but rubble. Nothing left but her memories of her hope for a son now dead.

Still it hurt.

Apollymi wiped the tears from her face as she stood, looking at what she’d done. There was no satisfaction to be felt.

There was only justice to be done.

"One down . . ."

She turned then and headed to the island kingdom Archon had created for her.

Atlantis.

Those poor fools had thought to strike out at Apollo by killing his son and mistress. Today they were cowering in fear of being discovered by him and punished for their actions. But it wasn’t the Greek god who wanted them dead.

It was she. Their patroness.

It would be by her hand and for the acts they’d committed against her son that they would suffer and die.

No mercy. It was what they’d given Apostolos and it was what she’d return to them.

With one swipe of her arm, she sank the entire island into the sea and listened to the beauty of their terrified screams and pleas for clemency and deliverance as the elements struck and ended their putrid lives. It was the sweetest music she’d ever heard. Let them beg . . .

If only Apostolos and Xiamara could be here.

Wincing in pain, she pushed her grief aside as she struck out on their behalf.

The last of the island kingdom faded into the sea just as the sun was setting. Apollymi turned then and looked to the land of Greece.

They were the last to suffer. Not just the humans who’d hurt her child, but those f**king gods who thought they were so smart and smug.

Most of all, Archon’s bastard daughters would pay. They thought themselves safe on Olympus under the care of their mother. But the three Fates were nothing in comparison to the daughter of Chaos.

To the mother of absolute destruction.

Their dying screams would be the ones she’d relish most.

June 25, 9527 BC

Mount Olympus

Small and thin in stature with dark hair and eyes, Hermes flew through the hall of Zeus until he stood before his father who only looked a few years older than he. Hermes wasn’t sure what was going on, but most of the gods were gathered here and lounging about.

They ignored Hermes until he spoke. "You know the saying, don’t kill the messenger? Hold that thought, really, really close to your hearts."

Zeus scowled at him as he stood up from the chair where he’d been playing chess with Poseidon. Dressed in a flowing white robe, Zeus had short blond hair and vividly blue eyes. "What’s going on?"

Hermes gestured toward the wall of windows that looked down onto the human realm. "Have any of you taken a look out at Greece in the last, say, hour or so?"

Artemis held her breath as a bad feeling went through her while she sat at a banquet table across from Aphrodite, Athena and Apollo.

Apollo rolled his eyes and waved his hand in arrogant dismissal. "What? Are they reacting to the fact I cursed the Apollites?"

Hermes shook his head in a gesture of sarcastic denial. "I don’t think that bothers them nearly as much as the fact that the island of Atlantis is now gone and the Atlantean goddess Apollymi is cutting a swathe through our country, laying waste to everyone and everything she comes into contact with." Hermes gave Apollo a smug look. "And in case you’re curious, she’s headed straight for us. I could be really wrong here, but I’m guessing the woman’s extremely pissed."