Acheron

Jaden crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. 'She's angry and indignant-not that I blame her in the least-but she hasn't been hurt.'

Thank the gods for that. But it was only an extremely temporary relief. 'I don't have the journal they want.'

Jaden let out a low whistle. 'That is going to be a problem. Can you get it?'

The answer would have made him laugh if it wasn't so sickening. 'If I swear myself to eternal slavery to Artemis. Yes.'

Jaden snorted. 'I'd rather trade places with Prometheus and have my innards ripped out every day.'

'So would I.'

'Then what are you going to do?'

That seemed to be the question of the day. If only he had some solution. 'Can you buy me some time?'

Jaden hedged. 'Demons aren't exactly patient as a rule and particularly in this case. They seem to think that the journal will somehow free them.'

'Free them from what?'

'Being servants. Living underground. Having to suffer the presence of Daimons and their stench-can't really blame them there. Escaping death matches with you and Sin every time they pop out of the ground-again can't blame them for that. But still…' Jaden shook his head in bitter amusement. 'You have to remember that what we're dealing with here are Sumerian gallu demons. The next to the lowest form of demon on the demon food chain. They're simple demons really. Lowly. You know… morons.'

Ash snorted. 'They were bright enough to take her out of a Were sanctuary without getting caught.'

Jaden arched a single brow over that. 'That could probably bring Savitar over.'

He wished. But their laws didn't work that way. 'Humans aren't a protected class.'

'Really?'

'Yeah. Savitar shares your 'all humans are vermin' mind set.'

One corner of Jaden's mouth twisted into an evil smirk. 'I wouldn't say all humans are vermin. They do have their uses-especially the females for brief periods of time. They're just so… pathetically human.'

'Which is why you deal with demons.'

'Who are even more pathetic than humans when you think about it. Personally, I'd rather play video games. Wouldn't it be great if we could suck the souls of the people we hated into the box, shoot them down and then dance in their entrails?'

Acheron rolled his eyes at the glee in Jaden's voice. 'You woke up on the wrong side of the oak tree, didn't you?'

'Yeah. I have my own issues to deal with and, right now, the primary issue appears to be fucking over one of my only friends. I'll do my damnedest to buy you some time with the demons, but you need to come up with a miracle quickly.' He started to fade out.

'Hey, Jaden?' Ash waited until he'd rematerialized before he spoke again. 'Thank you. I know you don't have to do what you're doing for me and I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate it.'

'It's okay. I'm sure one day I'm going to need help bending some rules backwards. And when I ask for your help I don't want to hear any shit from you.'

'Anytime, agriato.'

Jaden inclined his head respectfully to him as Ash spoke in Jaden's native tongue and called him brother. It wasn't a language the demon broker heard often. He gave Ash a slight imperial bow before he vanished.

Ash stood alone in the room that seemed so empty without Tory here to fill it. Though she was tall, she was very slight of frame, almost frail in appearance and yet her spirit was so enormous that it filled the emptiness inside him in a way nothing had before.

Just trade yourself to Artemis for her and be done with it.

'You are not a whore to be bartered and sold!' He swore he could hear Tory's indignant voice in his head. And for the first time in his existence, he didn't feel like one.

Ash lifted his chin as a surge of pride and power swept away the pain of his beating. The pain that had lived inside him for so long that he'd almost forgotten anything else.

Taking a deep breath, he let his true voice out and spoke the words that now burned inside him. 'I am the god Apostolos. The Harbinger of Telikos. The Final Fate of all. Beloved son of Apollymi the Great Destroyer. My will makes the will of the universe. I am not your whore, Artemis, and I will never be your slave.'

He was through bartering and playing. Tory had done something no one else ever had. She'd given him self worth and a resolve he'd never known before. A woman like Soteria Kafieri wouldn't love a piece of shit. She wouldn't love a whore who crawled at the command of a goddess he despised.

No, Tory deserved more than that. And the love he felt for her made him better than his past. He loved her not only for who and what she was, but for the way she made him feel every time she looked at him.

No one was ever going to hurt her so long as there was breath in his body.

If Satara wanted a fight for Soteria, the bitch was going to get one.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Tory ground her teeth at the indignity of her stance. Her hands were chained over her head to a board. Her legs had a degree more freedom, but they too were chained into a wide stance and she hated it. It was so degrading to be held like this and to not be able to get free. She couldn't even scratch the itch on her nose and it was making her crazy.

More than that, this gave her an understanding of Acheron that made her want to kill over the way he'd been treated. How many times had he been tied like this? Savagely beaten while those around him cheered and jeered? Or worse, took sexual pleasure from his degradation?

Today they finally carried out Acheron's castration for a crime I know he'd never commit. I can still hear his screams of unbearable pain. His cries for mercy and for death. The way he sobbed like I'd never heard him cry before. I don't think he knows how the sound of his misery echoed through the halls. How those screams scarred my soul. And I doubt if I will ever be able to silence them from my heart.

Ryssa's words spoke to her. Now she fully understood what Ash had endured as a human being. A pawn to his enemies. A pawn to the brutal machinations of people who had no regard for his life or feelings. Assaulted, betrayed and abused. It was a wonder the man was even sane. That he wasn't as merciless and callous toward the world that had been that way to him. The fact that he could find even a modicum of compassion astounded her. And she wasn't going to let these assholes use her to hurt him.

Growling in rage and determination, she pulled at the chains on her hands as hard as she could.

Laughter rang out. 'You might as well stop that. All you're going to do is hurt yourself. Even if you get free, you'll never survive the Daimons and demons who'll eat you the minute you leave this room.'

Tory paused to see Satara standing a few feet from her dressed in a black pantsuit, her hair a deep burgundy color this time-what was it with these god people that they constantly played with their hair?

She narrowed her gaze on Satara. 'You know, my whole life I've taken pride in the fact that I'm Greek. But I have to say that after you and Artemis, I'm seriously beginning to hate some of my heritage. Is it congenital or is there something else that has made you such a bitch?'

Satara hissed at her like a cat who'd just had its tail crushed. 'Don't insult me, human. I'm not supposed to harm you. At least in theory. Though now that I think about it, a little ruffling of your feathers might not be such a bad thing.'

Maybe that should scare her, but for some reason she couldn't fathom, it didn't. 'Seriously, why do you want to kill your aunt so badly?'

Satara scoffed. 'You serve her spoiled rotten ass for eleven thousand years and let's see to what extremes you'd go to free yourself. I offered a deal to Acheron centuries ago to free us both and the bastard refused. He deserves the hell she gives him and then some. But I don't. Unlike him, I didn't bind myself willingly to her. I was forced into this and one way or another, I'm going to get free.'