"I don't know. I think I should like forever . . . If I could live it on my own terms."
She smiled at him. "I could see you as you are now a thousand years in the future." Her eyes lit up. "Oh wait, there's something I have to share with you."
Acheron cocked his head in consternation as she snapped her fingers and a peculiar brown package appeared in her palm. She held it out to him.
"What is it?"
"Chocolate," she said breathlessly. "Hershey's. You must try it."
He took it from her and held it to his nose. It smelled sweet, but he wasn't sure about the taste. As he started to take a bite, Artemis jerked it out of his hand.
"You have to unwrap it first, silly." Laughing, she tore the brown paper and an odd silver material from it before she broke a piece off and gave it to him.
Gingerly, Acheron took a bite. The minute it melted on his tongue, he was in heaven. "This is delicious."
She handed him the bar again. "I know. It comes from the future-we're not supposed to go there, but I can't help it. There are just some things I can't wait for and chocolate is one of them."
He licked the brown smear from his fingertips. "Could you take me to the future?"
She shook her head quickly. "My father would kill me if I took a mortal there."
"One god can't kill another."
"Yes, they can. Believe me. They're not supposed to, but it doesn't always stop them."
Acheron took another bite as he considered her words. He would love to travel away from this time. To a place where no one knew him or his brother. Where he was free of his past and able to make a life without everyone trying to possess him.
That would be perfection. But he'd learned the hard way that such a place didn't exist.
Artemis took the bar from him and bit off a piece. A bit of it melted on her chin.
Acheron reached out to wipe it away.
"How do you do that?" she asked him.
"Do what?"
"Touch me without fear? All humans tremble before the gods, but not you. Why is that?"
He shrugged. "Probably because I'm not afraid of dying."
"You're not?"
"No. I'm afraid of reliving my past. At least with death, I'd know that it's all behind me. It would be a relief, I think."
She shook her head. "You're a strange man, Acheron. Unlike any I've ever known." Walking backwards, she took his hand and pulled him into her bedroom.
Acheron went willingly.
Artemis didn't speak as she knelt on the bed, then turned to face him. She gathered him into her arms for an incredibly hot kiss.
Closing his eyes, Acheron breathed her in as her tongue danced with his. How odd . . . when he held her, he didn't feel like a whore. Maybe because she wasn't asking for anything more than his company. No one was being paid. Neither of them wanted anything except a respite from their solitude.
Was this what it felt like to be normal? He'd always wondered.
Artemis pulled back to stare up at him. "Promise me you'll never betray me, Acheron."
"I would never do anything to hurt you."
Her smile blinded him before she pulled him onto the bed and rolled him over onto his back. She straddled his hips before she brushed the hair away from his neck.
"You are so handsome," she whispered.
Acheron didn't comment. She hypnotized him with those flashing green eyes and skin so smooth and soft it haunted him. At least until he saw a flash of fang.
An instant later a blinding pain tore through his neck. He tried to move, but he couldn't. Not a single muscle.
His heart pounded until the pain gave way to an unimaginable pleasure. Only when the pleasure replaced the pain could he move. He cupped her head to his neck as she continued to suck and lick until his body exploded into the most intense orgasm he'd ever known.
No sooner had he felt it than his eyelids sank down as if lead weights were pulling them. He tried to fight the darkness, but he couldn't.
Artemis moved back and licked the blood from her lips as she felt Acheron pass out. She'd never tasted human blood before . . . it was incredible. No wonder her brother sought it out so often. There was a vitality to it that immortals lacked. It was so intoxicating that it took all her strength not to drink more. But that might kill him.
It was the last thing she wanted. Acheron fascinated her. He didn't flinch or fawn. Even though he was a mortal, he met her as an equal.
Delighted with her newest pet, she lay down by his side and snuggled up against him.
This was definitely the beginning of a great friendship . . .
December 14, 9529 BC
Acheron woke up to a pounding ache in his head. Opening his eyes, he found himself naked in his bed. It wasn't until he moved and felt no pain that he remembered everything that had happened the day before.
Everything.
His breath catching, he reached to his neck to find a small trace of dried blood where Artemis had bitten him. But that was the only mark on his body. All signs of his beatings were gone.
What was a little bite when compared to that?
He glanced around his room. "How did I get here?" He couldn't remember that part. The last thing in his memory was Artemis biting him in her bed and a sense of exhaustion overtaking him.
Someone knocked on his door before pushing it open. He knew before he saw the small blond woman coming inside that it was Ryssa. No one else knocked on his doors.
He quickly brushed the blood away and covered his neck with his hair before she drew close enough to see it.
Her cheeks were flushed and her body was obscured by thick purple robes. It was the first time he'd seen her since Apollo had claimed her.
Before he could speak, she threw herself into his arms and wept.
Acheron held her close as he rocked her. "What happened? Did he hurt you?"
"He was gentle," she said between sobs. "But he scared me and it hurt occasionally." Her grip on him tightened. "How do you stand it?"
There had been many times when he'd wondered the same thing himself. "It'll be all right, Ryssa."
"Will it?" She pulled back to stare at him as if she was trying to see whether or not she should believe him. "What if he wants me back?"
Acheron cupped her face in his hands. "You'll endure it and you'll survive."
Ryssa ground her teeth at words she knew Acheron understood all too well. "I don't want to go back to him. I feel so naked and exposed even though he wasn't particularly mean or unkind. But you were right. He didn't care what I thought or felt. All that mattered was his pleasure." She shook her head as she held a new understanding of her brother that she'd never had before.
Her shame was but one instance. Acheron's was many. It was awful to be at someone else's mercy. To have no say in what was done to your body. She felt so used . . .
"I want to run away from this."
He took her hand into his. "I know. But you'll be all right. Really. You will get used to it."
It didn't feel that way. She was terribly sore and still bleeding from Apollo's intrusion into her body. He'd taken care of her and yet he'd been callous, too. The last thing she wanted was to be at his mercy again.
"Ryssa!"
She jumped at her father's shout.
Acheron tensed. "You should go."
She didn't want to but she was afraid of getting Acheron into trouble. Sniffing back her tears, she pulled away and saw the raw sympathy in his swirling silver eyes. "I love you, Acheron."