Terrified, Tory backed away from Ash as those words went through her. He was insane . . . and she was in a soundproof room, naked with a lunatic.
Oh dear God!
"Okay," she said slowly, stretching the word out until she could think of some way to get to the door behind him and safely out of the room before he killed her. "Let's calm down. Can I get the normal, brooding Ash back?"
He looked as if her words hurt him. "Don't be afraid of me, Tory. I wanted to tell you that I was a god, but I didn't know how." Closing his eyes, he slid down the door to sit on the floor with his legs gathered tight to his chest. That gesture reminded her of a little boy who was upset that he'd been banished to his room for something he hadn't meant to do. "I knew you wouldn't like me if you found out the truth. No one ever likes me when they find out."
He looked up at her and his eyes returned to that swirling silver color. "He will be called Acheron for the river of woe. Like the river of the underworld, his journey shall be dark, long and enduring. He will be able to give life and to take it. He will walk through his life alone and abandoned-ever seeking kindness and ever finding cruelty. May the gods have mercy on you, little one. No one else ever will."
Tory frowned as he recited something that obviously caused him a great deal of pain. "What is that from?"
A tic worked in his jaw as his cheeks mottled with color. How could a lunatic be so handsome?
"It's what the priestess said over me when I was born into the mortal realm as a cursed god because my father wanted my mother to kill me to prevent our pantheon from falling." He looked away. "I wish she had . . . You don't know what it's like to walk through the world always alone in every crowd. Everyone sees me, but no one knows me." He hung his head in his hands. "I should never have touched you. What have I done? I will pay for this night for the rest of eternity." The anguish in his tone tore through her.
Tory approached him slowly. "If you're really an ancient god, prove it to me. Make me see clearly without my glasses."
He kept his face buried on top of his arms. "Okay."
The word had barely left his lips before her vision clouded. She sucked her breath in sharply at the pain. Removing her glasses, she blinked and then gasped as everything came into focus. Everything.
Her sheer babydoll then turned into a flowing silk gown that clung to her body and covered her completely.
Unable to believe it, she ran her hands over the cool, slick material and looked around the room at things that had always been shadows to her. It was all sharp and crisp now.
All of it.
Which meant she had a choice to make. Either he was telling her the truth or he was a very hot-looking faith-healer or they were both nuts.
She opted for the truth, which explained a lot more than just her sudden ability to see. It explained those strange eyes of his and his ability to read a language no one else could even identify.
Kneeling on the floor by his side, she approached him warily, ready to bolt if she needed to. "You kept me from dying, didn't you?"
He lifted his head and reached out to put one hand over the small scar on her forearm that she'd had there since a childhood accident from a broken bottle mishap. As he touched it, it glowed and then vanished. "I know better than to interfere with the natural order, but I couldn't let you die. I didn't want to watch you suffer."
"Why would you do that?"
He led her hand to his face so that she was touching his cheek as he stared at her. His eyes and the pain in them burned her soul deep. "Because I don't feel broken when you look at me."
Those words brought tears to her eyes. "How could you feel broken?"
He rubbed his face against her palm and when he spoke, his breath scorched her skin. But it was his words that branded her heart. "I was shattered as a child and thrown away, like a piece of trash no one wanted. But you don't treat me like that. You see in me the human bit and you touch that part of me. You make me feel whole and wanted."
Tory pulled him against her and held him close as her tears finally fell.
"I love when you hold me," he whispered against her shoulder.
Tory laid her cheek against the top of his head. "Why did you come to Nashville?"
He went rigid in her arms, then spoke in a language she couldn't understand.
"I don't know what you're saying, Ash."
He pulled back and cupped her face so that she could see the fury in his eyes as red tinged the outer line of them. "No one can know about Atlantis. They can't know about me, Soteria. No one can ever know what I was there or what I am now. I didn't mean to hurt you, but I can't let you expose me. Ever." He growled that word through clenched teeth.
A tremor of fear went through her along with a jolt of anger. "Are you the one who killed my parents when they got too close?"
He shook his head in denial. "I don't like taking human lives. They're too short. Daimons, demons, immortals and gods . . . they're fair game. But I don't tamper with humans if I can help it. I won't do to them what was done to me."
"What was done to you?"
He grimaced and pulled away. He tried to stand, then staggered and fell back to the floor. His expression baffled, he reminded her of a boy and not a powerful god. "What is wrong with me?"
"I think you're drunk." He sounded extremely intoxicated.
"I am drunk, but I don't know why." He started to lie down on the floor.
Tory caught him. "We need to get you into bed. C'mon, sweetie, help me get you there."
His hair turned black, then a very dark green laced with black streaks through it as they staggered toward the bed. The stud in his nose vanished, along with the scars of it ever having been pierced. She helped him lie down and covered him with a blanket. As he closed his eyes, she realized something.
For the first time, she was looking at the real him. He was completely naked and exposed to her. And she wasn't talking about his body. He had no defenses against her. No sunglasses or piercings to hide behind. He was completely vulnerable to her and something told her that he'd never been like this with anyone else.
She ran her hand over his chest as another thought tore through her mind. Acheron was Atlantean.
Atlantean . . . He knew every secret she'd spent her lifetime trying to learn. Dear Lord, I'm touching someone who's lived thousands and thousands of years. She could barely fathom it. He'd seen every culture that had ever fascinated her. "Ash?"
"Mmm?"
"What was Atlantis like?"
He let out a tired sigh. "It was ugly and beautiful."
"Can you show me?"
Ash came awake to the worst imaginable pain throbbing in his head. For the merest instant, he thought he was human again, waking up after a night of binge drinking and drugs.
But that was thousands of lifetimes ago.
Blinking open his eyes, he found himself naked in bed with Tory sitting on the floor, staring at him as if she were in shock while an odd noise kept an off beat rhythm in the background.
"Is something wrong?" he asked, his voice thick and scratchy.
She screwed her face up as she scowled at him. "Define something wrong."
Ash rubbed a hand over his face. "Did you beat me with a hammer while I was sleeping?"
"No."
"Then why do I feel like this?"
She still hadn't moved from her spot on the floor. "Apparently you can't hold your Sprite, buddy."
"Wha . . . ?"
She pointed at the two empty green plastic bottles on the night-stand. "Did you know that when you get drunk, she gets drunk too."
"She?"
Tory gestured toward the strange sound Ash had been hearing, but ignoring. He looked to see Simi lying on the floor, under the TV with her legs propped against the wall while she slept on her back and snored. That would have been bad enough, but the fact that she was in her demon form, complete with horns, tail and wings made his stomach shrink.
What had he done?
And then his gaze fell to the three-dimensional hologram on the floor that was a perfect replica of Atlantis. It even had tiny people moving around like some glowing white movie . . .
Oh shit.
Shit, shit, shit. It was all he could think to say as disbelief overwhelmed him.
Tory rose slowly and folded her arms over her chest. Narrowing her gaze on him, she approached the bed. "You don't remember anything about last night, do you?"
"I remember us . . ." He looked down to see the blood on the sheets that substantiated that part of his memory. They had slept together. The memory of her touch was branded in his mind and on his skin.
"But you don't remember the Sprite?"
He shook his head.
"Interesting."
He didn't know why that one word frightened him, but it did. "Interesting?"
She nodded. "You're a very cuddly drunk and quite the chatter-box too."
He felt the blood leave his face. "How chattery?"
"Very . . . Apostolos."
Ash sat up, mortified by what he might have said to her. Please gods, please . . . surely he hadn't told her what he was. Surely he wouldn't have been so stupid as to lose the only person he'd ever found who didn't see him as a whore. And it was then he realized she didn't have her glasses on. "Did I-"
"Fix my eyes? Yes. Then you summoned your demon and the two of you fought over taking me to Atlantis. Simi's the one who made the map on the floor so that we could all stay here because she said going there while you two were drunk might be bad since you'd probably destroy it before your mother had a chance. And then you shrank me down to toy size and took me through the city street by street, telling me about every piece of it, until you both passed out. Thankfully when you did so, I got bigger."
Still his stomach churned. "Did either of us physically take you to the real Atlantis?"
"I should tell you yes, to make you sweat. But Simi won the battle and we stayed here."
He let out a long relieved breath that he'd listened to his demon. Thank the gods for small favors there.
But it still didn't change the fact that he'd exposed himself to Tory. Completely. Utterly.
Damn.
He swallowed as he met her unflinching gaze. "Are you mad at me?"
"Furious. Truly. But I understand the lies. I mean, really, who's going to believe that this hot twenty-one-year-old buff stud Goth guy sporting a black backpack is an eleven-thousand-year-old omnipotent god who travels with a demon companion? Right? It's ludicrous."
Ash cringed as all of his secrets poured out of her mouth.
"By the way, you do know that you and I have met before."
He paused as he tried to recall the event and couldn't. "When?"
She sat down on the bed beside him. "1988. You were playing chess with my grandfather in the park when he had his heart attack. I was seven."
Now that Ash remembered vividly. Theo had just moved his bishop to take down Ash's queen when the old man grabbed at his chest and started groaning.
His tiny granddaughter with big brown eyes and a flurry of brown pigtails had come running. "Papou! Papou!"
Not wanting the child to see her grandfather die-if that was to be Theo's fate that day-Ash had summoned Simi to watch over the girl while he called an ambulance. "Watch her, Simi. Keep her happy and make sure she has everything she needs and wants."
Then he'd gone with Theo while Simi took Soteria back to Theo's condo to wait.
How had he forgotten that?
He shook his head as he looked at her and finally saw the little girl's sweet features in the face of the woman before him. "I remember."
"You know, I thought you were Billy Idol."
Now that he couldn't understand at all. "Billy Idol? I don't look anything like him and I've never had spiked hair."
She shrugged. "He was the only rock star I knew who wore leather and chains and sunglasses-like you had on that day. You also had long purple hair and an earring. Later, I kept telling everyone about this punk guy who saved my papou. My idolizing you is a big part of the reason Kim and Pam ended up Goth . . . ironic really."
She glanced over to where Simi was still sleeping against the wall. "It wasn't until I saw Simi again last night that it all clicked into place for me." When her gaze locked onto his, the intelligence and accusation in it actually made him cringe. "You're the one who dug my grandfather out of his burning house when he was seven years old and brought him over from Greece. The man who watched over him the whole way here and told him the stories about Atlantis that he told to my father and uncle."
Ash wanted to deny it, but how could he? She now knew everything. "Yes."
She nodded. "That alone is why I'm controlling my anger at you for lying to me and humiliating me in public after I was doing nothing more than telling the stories you, yourself, told my grandfather. How can I be mad at a man who braved a Nazi attack to pull a seven-year-old boy out of the wreckage of his house and save his life? My grandfather said that you bandaged his eyes and then carried him in your arms for days until you reached the docks where you had to bribe the snot out of everyone to get him out of the country. He was so scared and griefstricken from the loss of his family. The only thing that kept him sane was the deep voice of Acheron telling him that he'd be all right. That he wouldn't let anything else bad happen to him while the man held him and soothed his tears . . . that was you. You were the one who found the American family who adopted him, who helped him finance his first deli, and all his life you were the man he met in the park on Sunday afternoon to play chess with." She sniffed back tears that made his own eyes water. "How could I ever hate you?"
Ash looked away as his own emotions tangled. Everyone else had hated him. How could he expect her to be any different?
Tory swallowed and looked at Simi. "I've spoken to her so many times on the phone and through e-mails. My cousin Geary and I even named our expedition the Simi Project because Simi was the one who helped us find the location of Atlantis."
Ash's eyes widened at something he'd had no knowledge of. Anger snapped to the forefront of his emotions as he wanted to choke the demon. "Simi did what?"
"You told me to, akri," Simi said from her place on the floor before she yawned loudly. When she spoke again, her voice was a perfect duplication of his. "Watch her, Simi. Keep her happy and make sure she has everything she needs and wants." Her voice returned to normal. "So that's what the Simi did, akri. Just what you told me to do."
"That was for one afternoon."
"Akri didn't say that to the Simi. You say make her happy so the Simi did. If you wanted me to stop, akri, you should have said so."
Ash raked his hands through his hair as he realized how much pain he'd brought to Theo when all he'd ever wanted to do was help the boy-that he'd exposed himself and revealed the location of Atlantis without meaning to. Damn it. "I know better than to interact with humans. How could I have been so stupid?"
Tory leaned over him, her face so sweet and inviting even though to him, right now, she was the greatest threat. "You can't live alone all the time, Ash . . . or is it Asheron, Acheron or Apostolos? I don't even know what to call you."
Call me yours . . .
It was such a stupid thought. And he knew better than to ever let that one out. He was owned body and soul by Artemis. "I don't care which one you use. I answer to all of them."
"You must have a preference."
"Only his mama, Akra-Apollymi, call him Apostolos. Ooo and sometimes that Jaden demon man and Savitar who is always so nice to the Simi. He always brings the Simi good things to eat. But I think akri likes Ash best cause that's what he tells most people when he meets them nowadays."
Ash gave her a dry stare. "Thanks, Sim."
"You're welcome, akri," she said, oblivious to his sarcasm. "Now the Simi's head hurts. Can I sleep on you where it's comfortable until it stops aching so much? I don't like the floor anymore. It hurts the Simi's wings."
He held his arms out. "Of course you can, Simykey."
Smiling, she transformed and flew as a black mist onto his body to form a small dragon tattoo on his shoulder.
Tory narrowed her gaze on Simi's form. "Now I know the secret of the ever-changing tattoo. You got anymore surprises for me?"
"I suppose that depends on what else I said last night. Damn. At what point did I pass out?"
"From your point of view, not soon enough I would imagine."
If he were able to get the sick lump of dread out of his stomach, he would have laughed at that. As it was, the best he could muster was a grimace. "You are taking all of this remarkably well."
She crossed her legs under herself before she shrugged nonchalantly. "What am I supposed to do? I mean it's not like I have some precedent for dealing with this. I don't know anyone who's ever met a guy who turned out to be a god with his own personal demon. Inner demons, yes, but a tattoo that becomes a demon . . . no. Definitely off the grid."
"Actually that's not entirely true."
She blinked. "What do you mean?"
"You should talk to your cousin Geary. Her husband, Arik, used to be an Oneroi."
Tory sat perfectly still as if she couldn't believe what he'd just told her. Kind of funny to him given the way she seemed to be accepting everything else. After a brief pause, she asked a single question. "Arik was the Greek dream god?"
He nodded.
Tory covered her mouth with her hand. "So that's why Geary gave up the hunt for Atlantis. That weenie! It was right after she'd met Arik in Greece." Her expression angry, she slapped at his thigh.
"Ow!" Ash rubbed the spot, grateful she hadn't hit him any higher on his leg. "What's that for?"
"Why didn't one of you tell me?"
"It's not exactly something we're supposed to talk about with humans. Most of them aren't as reasonable as you're being."
"Yeah well, you do know this changes nothing." Her gaze showed every ounce of her determination. "I still intend to be the one who discovers Atlantis."
Ash froze as his own resolve set itself. In this battle, he was going to win no matter what. "Don't be stubborn, Tory. Let it go."
"That's easy for you to say. You don't know the mockery my family has lived with because you told my grandfather stories that enchanted the imagination of his sons. Both my father and uncle gave their lives to find Atlantis and prove it's there. I can do no less than to revive their reputations."
He cupped her face in his hand and tried to make her understand why she couldn't do this. "They're dead, Tory. Their reputations mean nothing to them."
Ash felt her clench her teeth as anger and grief flickered in her brown eyes. "They mean everything to me."
How could he make her see his point of view?
"You want to salvage your father's reputation and I want to preserve mine. You and I are at war with this. No one can know ever about the Atlantis that was destroyed."
"You're a god. Why would its location hurt your reputation?"
A twinge of hope went through him. "Did I tell you why I was in Atlantis as a human?"
"No."
Oh thank the gods that even drunk he'd had at least an ounce of self-preservation. Relief and joy poured through him. No wonder she was still giving him some respect.
And that was why he couldn't let anyone know about Atlantis. "Why can't you let this go?"
"Because I loved my father. I owe this to him."
Ash narrowed his gaze. "Would you destroy me in the process?"
Tory shook her head, trying to understand why he was so insistent. "You're not making any sense. How could this possibly hurt you?"
Tell her the truth, Apostolos. Ash flinched at the sound of his mother's voice in his head.
He looked up at the ceiling as he sensed her presence. You've been remarkably quiet throughout this, Matera. Why didn't you tell me about your priestesses?
Why should I? Besides you knew I had to have worshipers to maintain my god powers at their current strength. Did you think the Daimons were the only ones who paid homage to me?
Yeah, stupidly he had.
Show her the journal, m'gios.
And if she betrays me?
She's a human. I will kill her if she hurts you.
But he wouldn't allow that and he knew it. I can't, Matera. I don't want to see her look at me like that too.
What if she doesn't? What if she's being honest and to her you are nothing more than a friend? Your past doesn't matter to me. It doesn't matter to Savitar or Simi. You must learn to trust sometime, Apostolos. Don't you think that maybe she's the one person who won't judge you over something that was done to you against your will? Give her a reason to abandon Atlantis. Let her understand.
He looked back at Tory, terrified of the thought of seeing the same pity in her eyes that Ryssa had held in hers. He liked the fact that Tory saw him as a normal human.
Then again, she now knew him to be a god and her treatment hadn't changed. Maybe his mother was right. Maybe he could trust her.
"You can't live in darkness all the time, kid"-Savitar's words haunted him. "Sooner or later, everyone puts their ass in a sling. But you know what, most of the time you're still laughing about it, grateful you had the fun that caused the injury."
It was true. Yet the one thing Ash understood to the depth of his soul was that a physical pain healed a lot cleaner and sooner than a mental one.
"Please don't hurt me, Soteria," he whispered in Atlantean. Feeling sick with dread, he decided to trust in his mother. He held his hand out and used his powers to bring his backpack into his grasp.
Tory let out a nervous laugh. "You weren't joking about those evil Jedi tricks, were you?"
"Not really." He reached to the bottom and pulled out the last journal. His stomach knotted to the point he feared he'd actually be sick, he handed to her. "I grant you the ability to read this fluently. But know that I'm doing this against my better judgment and I'm trusting you with something about me that no one else has ever known. No one. This is the secret I'm willing to kill to protect. Do you understand?"
Tory swallowed at the ominous note in his voice. What could it contain that was so appalling to a god? "I understand."
He put the backpack down on the floor. "I'm going to shower while you read."
She didn't move until after he'd left the bed. Curious, she opened the book and gasped as she realized that she was able to read it as if it were English. She knew every letter, every definition. It was incredible and as she read, she saw the scenes as clearly in her mind as if she were watching a movie unfold.
At first it was just the intimate and innocuous details of a princess's life until it started talking about her brother . . .
The whore.
Ash let the water slide over his skin as he fought the pain and anger inside him. Tory would never look at him the same way again. Ever.
Why the hell had he listened to his mother? He should have destroyed every one of his sister's journals.
I'm such an asshole.
There was no denying the truth of him. He was forever tainted by a past he'd never wanted. In this moment he hated Estes more than he'd ever hated him before. That one foul bastard had deprived him of everything.
Even Tory's respect.
Turning the water off, he stepped outside the shower to find her standing in the doorway, staring at him. Shame and embarrassment filled him at her silence as he reached for a towel to dry himself. He braced himself for her insults and anger. "I'm sorry I tainted you, Soteria. I had no right."
A single tear slid down her face as she approached him.
Ash tensed in expectation of her slap or insults. He deserved no less and he expected nothing more. So when she pulled him into her arms and kissed him, he was stunned completely.
Tory pulled away from his lips and wrapped her arms around his neck to hold him close as the true horror of his human life tore through her. And to think she'd dared to accuse him of not understanding what it was like to be mocked or humiliated. Thank God she had no idea of the depth of his sorrow that made a mockery of hers.
She couldn't speak for the tangle of emotions that gathered in her throat to choke her. She was angry for him and heartbroken.
And in that moment, she realized how much she loved this man. Now Takeshi's words made complete sense to her.
"Take care of him, Soteria. And remember it takes great courage and heart for a man who knows no kindness to show it to another. Even the wildest of beasts can be tamed by a patient and gentle hand."
She ran her hand down his smooth, perfect back as she remembered the stories of his beatings. They hadn't even allowed his back to scar so that the thicker, scarred skin would help to shield him from the pain of new lashes. What had been done to him was so wrong . . . "I'm so sorry for what they did to you, Acheron. I'm so sorry."
Ash closed his eyes as he held her against him and breathed her in. "You don't condemn me for it?"
"For what?"
"I'm . . ." He couldn't bring himself to say the word whore to her.
Tory tightened her hold as she remembered his words about being broken the night before. This was what he'd meant by them. Pulling back, she cupped his face in her hands so that he could see her sincerity. "Nothing has changed between us. I don't care about your past, Ash. I don't. All that matters to me is the man in front of me right now."
"I'm not a man, Soteria."
No, he wasn't. He was a god. Powerful. Humble. Kind and deadly. For the first time, she understood all the glimpses of him that she'd seen. "I know. But if you think your godhood excuses you from putting the toilet seat down, think again."
Ash laughed, amazed by her strength and humor no matter the situation. "I'm not used to anyone standing with me."
"I know. I was always lucky. My family would fight back the devil himself to keep me safe. I can't imagine the strength it took for you to be alone in the world. To have no shelter from those out to hurt you. But I won't abandon you. If I'm nothing else in my life, I'm loyal to those I call friend. And I'll be more than honored to be your friend, Acheron, if you'll let me."
Pain ravaged his heart at her offer and at a single truth he couldn't deny. "I've never had a friend who knew all about me before." He didn't count Artemis as a friend and that lack of knowledge was how Nick had ended up dead. Had he trusted Nick enough, just once, to introduce him to Simi, Nick wouldn't have slept with her because he'd have known she belonged to Ash. It was a mistake that had cost them both everything.
"I know what you're thinking, Ash," she said, stepping back to look up at him. "You have trusted me and I will never forsake you."
Time would tell.
She looked down and smiled warmly. "By the way, you're very cute naked. Now get dressed. I have some questions for you."
He was instantly clothed.
Tory's eyes widened at his powers. "You know that could come in handy. I'll bet you're never late, huh?"
"I try. Now what questions do you have?"
She led him back into the room where the journal was lying on the bed. "You told me last night that you have a pregnant daughter. Now from the journal's date, I know how old you are. How old is she?"
"I was twenty-one when she was born." It was the easiest explanation for Kat's age.
Tory picked the journal up and opened to the scrap of paper where she'd left off reading. "Okay so she's a great-great-great-grandmother. Messes with my head, but I can deal with that." She made a note in the margin of the journal. "Who's her mother?"
"I'd rather not say."
"Artemis. Understood. We never talk about that."
He frowned at her ability to guess and to be so accommodating about his redheaded problem. "How-"
She put her hand to his lips to keep him from speaking. "I got it from the journal that you protect her even when she refuses to return the favor. But my next question to you is what is she going to do when she finds out about me?"
Satara stayed back in the shadows of Sanctuary, pretending to be a patron at a table sipping her longneck beer-a rather nasty concoction-as she waited for Acheron to leave the room where he was holed up with his newfound pet. The only real gift her father, Apollo, had ever given her was the ability to pass undetected by other gods. He'd done that so she could spy for him. Little did he know that she used her gift against him more than for him-for a god of prophecy, her father could be unbelievably dense. Then again, his ego was such that he couldn't conceive of anyone not absolutely adoring the very ground he stood upon.
And because of her gift, to Acheron, even with all the powers he possessed, she blended into the background. How nice to have an anti-Atlantean cloaking device.
Which had been very helpful last night while she'd been in the club trying to gather information for Stryker and instead had learned about Acheron's current female obsession. Or should she say, weakness.
The journal she sought was here-she could feel its pull but the Atlantean god protected it and as long as he did she couldn't touch it without risking his wrath.
So she was waiting for him to let down his guard and leave either the bag or the bimbo unguarded. And if her demons would do their job correctly, she'd have a shot at Ryssa's book and the secrets it contained.
Satara gasped as she felt the pain in her chest that signified Ash had left the building. Smiling, she got up and headed upstairs to steal his most guarded possession.
