Chapter 55

Apolo wanted to go back to the imperial apartments and demand to be given access to the emperor, but he knew that Trey would not thank him for interrupting his private time with Arora. He would just have to wait. Trey would hear from the guard that he wanted to speak to him and would send for him when he was ready even if it was in the morning.

Instead, he decided to confront Duo over what he was doing in the city, so he went back to Dilan's former suite where he waited several hours. But late in the night, he had enough of being in the suite that had so many bad memories for him. He kept expecting to see Dilan exit from the bedchamber with the males of house Caron after having used some hapless serving female. That Dilan suffered from bonding with Arora amused Apolo even though he knew the pain of being separated from her must have been unbearable. As he sat anxiously waiting for Duo on the luxurious sofa, Apolo remembered the contempt with which Dilan treated him, encouraging it in his cronies, especially Raemon and Raenald. He grew angry as he recounted the mocking comments, knowing now that Dilan was fully aware that he was his brother, and that thought more than anything disgusted him.

When Duo did not return even though both moons were high in the night sky, Apolo decided to wait no longer. He would have to speak to him in the morning because he was in no mood to argue with the terran now, and since he didn't want to any more time in the suite, he left to find another room to sleep in. He headed first to the rooms Trey had occupied as crown prince where Apolo had spent nearly all his life resting on a mat near the balcony, but he remembered that Arora had given Chasek the room to use during his stay at the palace. His commanders occupied the other rooms for visitors, and he was about to find a quiet corner to sleep when he remembered that Lady Xuxa's former apartments were vacant.

Apolo told himself that he just needed a place to lie down and that her rooms had the finest beds. Although he had never been there when Trey was crown prince having never warrranted Lady Xuxa's interest enough to send any of her females to tempt him, he sensed immediately the changes Falia had made in the brief time she had lived there. He didn't want to sleep in Xuxa's bed, the bed that Falia and Amyr had shared, so he continued on to find several other small chambers where her servants had slept, but he stopped when he came to one bedchamber that was large and luxurious.

Knowing whose chamber it must have been, he could not leave, and for several moments, he stood in the dark staring at the moonlit bed that was even finer than that of the crown prince. He was not surprised by the extravagance of the furnishings because Xuxa had invited powerful men to spend the night with her pampered whore. Apolo did not want to think of Larya doing what she had with him with other men, and yet he could not shake the memory of her seducing him. He had failed Trey by letting down his guard, and because of him, Arora had been captured and taken back to Imperia. Only the gods knew how he had avoided losing both because of Larya. Trey was right to order him to forget her, and yet his heart could not do what his mind knew that he must.

Going further into the room, he noted that no one had touched anything in all the months since Larya had gone. Falia must have been too busy to bother with any but the areas of the suite that she and Amyr needed to use and probably intended to do something about this room later, maybe redecorating it to be used for their child. Arora had told him about her happiness, had wept as she recounted how Caron had tortured her when Amyr refused to surrender. No honorable warrior would draw females into their battle, but then Caron had no honor, never had.

Apolo went to the wardrobe near the passage to the bathing chamber that all the females of the palace shared. Opening the door, he breathed in the subtle seductive scent that Larya used, a perfume made from a flower found in the Sacred Hills. He reached in to run his hands over the silk fabrics of her clothing, or what passed for clothing when there was barely enough cloth to cover her. When he was at the palace, Apolo had only seen Larya once when she had been sent into the corridors to seduce Trey. Xuxa must have been hoping that Trey's bond with Arora was still dormant and that she might interfere with it by tempting him with Larya. But Larya had failed, and having read what memories he could when he healed her even though he knew it was wrong, he had learned that Xuxa had blamed Larya for her failure. The beating and abuse she received at the hands of two brutal warriors rewarded by Xuxa for some odious task had incapacitated her for weeks. His heart ached as he thought of her suffering alone.

Seeing a pale tunic lying in a heap towards the back, he reached down to take it before going to the bed to lay down among the pillows where he closed his eyes as he brought the garment to his face to breathe in her heady scent. Apolo knew he was a fool to have these tender feelings for her when all she had done was use him to get to Arora, but he couldn't change how he felt. He had coupled with many other females, but he felt no emotional attachment to them, not like the one that had formed with the lavender eyed beauty. The punishment she had received after raising a blade against the crown prince was completely justified, yet Apolo resented that Trey did not relent and show her some leniency, especially when he knew how Apolo felt about her.

Wanting to be closer to her, he concentrated now and used her scent to guide him in searching for her in time and space. His ability to initiate a trance was far from perfect, but he reached out anyway for Larya, and soon found himself standing in this room in the light of day. Hearing movement near the door to the communal bathing chamber, Apolo turned to it with excited anticipation of seeing Larya, but when she came through the door he was disappointed. No longer a child, but not quite a woman, she was far too young for him to consider any erotic adventure even though she had just bathed and was combing her fingers through her long, pale hair, a drying cloth wrapped around her maturing body.

Suddenly she froze as her gaze fell on him, and Apolo gave her an apologetic smile that only made her frown. He was about to tell her that he meant her no harm, but she said, "What are you doing here?"

He did not have a chance to answer because a voice behind him stopped him, a voice he had grown to despise. Dilan had come into the room and was standing behind Apolo, so he realized that Larya could not see him. He wanted to leave, especially when he saw that Raemon and Raenald had come into the room with him. Apolo had come to this time and place as an observer and he dreaded what he was going to see.

"I came for more of what you gave me a few days ago," said Raemon as he grabbed his crotch.

Larya pursed her lips in disgust, but she was not nearly as revolted as Apolo felt knowing that despite her youth, she had been forced to pleasure Lord Caron's heir. He was a man and she was but a child.

"You want me to get my father?" asked Raemon after licking his lips. "I wouldn't mind watching what he did to you again."

"Get out!" snapped Larya boldly. "Or I will inform Lady Xuxa of your intrusion."

She turned and started for the door, but Dilan crossed the room in a couple of strides and seized her arm to drag her to him. "My mother is not here. Dax took her to the hills to visit her brother, at least that is what he told Zeno. I think we all know what they are really doing, and I'd like a little of that myself."

"Let me go, you pile of canyon beast shit!" Larya struggled against his hold, but he was bigger and stronger, so he had no trouble keeping her firmly in his grasp.

"You have a nasty mouth, whore. I have a better way of putting it to use." He forced her to her knees before him even though she fought him. Apolo went to them and tried to pull Dilan away from her, but his hands went through Dilan who was having difficulty subduing her.

"I know how to settle the bitch down," panted Raemon who was rubbing his knuckles with his other hand as he licked the drool from his lips.

"I'll tell your mother," hissed Larya as she raked her nails across Dilan's hand, leaving bloody trails behind.

Dilan seized a handful of her hair and raised his bloody hand to look at it for a moment before he slung Larya away so roughly that when she came up against the wall, she banged her head and slid to the floor moaning. He seized the drying cloth and yanked it from her, leaving her sprawled naked on the floor, and Dilan paused only long enough to push his own clothing aside before he fell upon her.

There was nothing Apolo could do to help her, not when it was her past and she had already lived through what Dilan and his friends had done to her that day. By the time they finally left, she was lying unconscious, having been beaten severely by Raemon as Dilan stood by and laughed. Raenald did not even care that she was unconscious when he climbed on her, and as he watched him, Apolo was enraged that the only man still alive who could pay for what had happened to her was off limits to him because of the oath he had given Trey.

When they had gone, Apolo knelt beside her wishing he could wipe the blood from her face or put his hand on her swelling cheek to heal her, but all he could do is watch over her until she finally came to with a moan. She crawled to the drying cloth which she used to wipe the filth and blood from her body before she went to a basin of water that she used to wash.

"What are you doing here?"

Apolo spun to see his father standing nearby, his face grim with disapproval. "I … I don't know."

Dax turned to look at Larya, and Apolo saw her walking slowly to the bed. "You cannot do anything to help her, not in this past place, not in your present. You need to put her from your heart, my son."

"You sound like Trey!" snapped Apolo irritably. "What makes you all think that I can? Did you put my mother from your heart when she was gone?"

"Valerya was never gone from my heart," said Dax softly.

"Where is she now?" demanded Apolo. "I doubt she would tell me to forget about Larya."

"She is weak from the power we poured into Arora to heal her."

Apolo took a step closer to him. "Why has Arora put distance between us? What did you do to her? I...I do not feel whole with this barrier."

"You created the barrier when you chose to step aside for that Calabrian mongrel," Dax told him with disgust. "She was born to be your mate, not his."

"You bonded Trey to her," argued Apolo.

Dax shook his head, and he seemed to want to say something, but he did not speak.

"I could not take her away from him," Apolo told him angrily. "It would have destroyed him." He didn't tell his father that he didn't want Arora, that he had never wanted her as a mate. After they believed that Trey was dead and they were alone, he had considered taking her away to the Sacred Hills where they could live together raising their children among the ancestors. But the thought of doing what he must to create those children with Arora was too repugnant.

"I can't feel that way for her," he simply said aloud, shaking his head.

"You have never tried."

"I never want to try," Apolo argued, glaring at his father. "You never listen to me on this subject, and I am telling you now that you and the ancestors must accept the Trey is going to sire a new generation of Guerani."

His father stared back at him for a moment and then he said, "We could not give the infant our powers because we chose to help Arora instead, and it has given us time to reconsider endowing them on the child when we do not know that he will be worthy."

"Worthy?" Apolo was both surprised and infuriated. "You have the ability to withhold powers from us?"

"From those that begin their lives."

"What about Shamara?" demanded Apolo. "I felt the strength of her powers when I breathed life into her."

For a moment he did not answer and then he said, "Arora was out of our reach when she conceived."

"So you have decided to punish Arora's children because they are not also mine."

"One day we may find them worthy," said Dax.

"You mean that some day you may forgive us," retorted Apolo. "Will you do the same to my children one day?"

Dax glanced towards the bed where Larya was curled into a ball shivering, muffling her moans of pain in a pillow. "You think you will have children when that female has rooted in your heart?"

Apolo wanted to argue, to say something that would wipe the smug look from his father's face, but he knew him too well.

"I thought not." Dax reached out to grasp Apolo's hand and before he could react, the room spun around them.

He was glad that his father was extracting him from the trance until the vortex stopped and he saw Larya sitting on her bed. There were faded bruises on her face and he realized they were the same ones that Raemon had given her. She sat cross-legged, handling something in her lap, and when Apolo strained as far as his father would let him go to see what she was doing, his heart twisted when he realized she was concentrating on a cloth doll with a porcelain painted face. She took a brightly colored square of fabric and wrapped it around the doll, tying it with a ribbon before she held it up to inspect her work.

"She's just a child," murmured Apolo.

"She hadn't been a child for many months," his father said grimly, and then he nodded to the door which suddenly slammed open.

Larya quickly shoved the doll beneath her pillows before jumping to her feet as Lady Xuxa strode into the room, her face a mask of pure rage. Her repulsive offspring followed a step behind, his lips twisted in a malicious smile.

"Get over here, you ungrateful wretch!" shouted the older woman shrilly. Apolo had often thought Lady Xuxa beautiful, but now he was seeing her as the repulsive shrew that had manipulated the men of Zeno's court.

Larya hurried to Xuxa and dropped to her knees before her, bowing her head. "What can I do to please my lady?"

Her subservient tone that held a hint of the terror she must be feeling did nothing to appease Xuxa. The woman raised her hand and struck Larya across the face, then seized her by the hair and dragged her to her feet, turning her to face Dilan. "Did you mark my son?"

When Larya did not immediately respond, Dilan raised his hand where she had scored it with her fingernails in a feeble attempt to protect herself. There was barely any evidence of the scratches she had given him.

"My lady, I knew that you did not send him to me. I tried to stop him from ..."

"You stupid whore!" Xuxa shoved her forward and kicked her viciously in the side when she stumbbled and fell to the floor. Dilan chuckled when Larya moaned in pain. "You will never deny my son." She grabbed a handful of her hair and dragged her up to face her so that they were nose to nose. "Do you understand? If he wants to mount you, you will thank him for doing so."

Apolo spun to look at his father. "Why did you bring me here? Do you think I don't know what Larya was?"

"Why would you want what that bastard left behind?" sneered Dax. "He and his friends had her many, many times."

The thought of her suffering what she had with Dilan and the males of house Caron made him sick to his stomach, but that did not change how he felt for Larya. He turned back to see her prostrating herself to beg for forgiveness from Dilan for those inconsequential marks she had put on his hand.

"I want her now, mother," said Dilan as he looked down at her, his face betraying his lust.

"Not now," she hissed before shoving at Larya with her foot. "Get up and ready yourself. Lord Caron will be here soon."

Larya was trembling as she stood. "Yes, my lady."

"Wear the violet gown and take down your hair," ordered Xuxa. "Wait by the window where the fading sunlight will fall upon you."

"Mother," whined Dilan as he watched Larya cross the room to the wardrobe Apolo had visited earlier. "Tell Lord Caron that Larya is not well. I want her now."

"Get out!" she snapped at her son. "We will have a need for Lord Caron's loyalty in the future, and if he has a great desire for this pitiful female, I will let him have her whenever he wants. You may watch them if you wish from my chamber."

Dilan stormed from the room, and Lady Xuxa said nothing as she watched Larya dress. When she finished arranging the loose garment that barely covered her young body, she went to the window where Lady Xuxa was waiting to position her where she wanted her to stand. When she was satisfied, the breath caught in Apolo's throat to see her beauty and innocence glowing in the last rays of the first sunset.

Knowing what was about to happen to her, revulsion pulsed through Apolo as he realized that his father wanted him to witness the worst degradation that Larya suffered. He didn't need to because Apolo had already gleaned the horror from her memories. "I want to go back," he said through gritted teeth.

But Dax did not react and Apolo watched as Xuxa grasped Larya's chin and forced her to look at her. "Lord Caron wants to breed you."

Apolo started in shock and disbelief that not only was the bastard violating a child, he wanted to impregnate her. He could not even believe that Larya could understand what she was talking about.

"I don't care what Caron wants," continued Xuxa. "You will not allow him to plant his child in you. You will remain here, with me, until I no longer have a need for you. I will see you dead before I allow that man to take you away."

"I understand, my lady," Larya said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I will be watching, so do not disappoint him, and maybe I will let you rest before I give you to my son." Xuxa crossed the room to another door which she opened to reveal Lord Caron, his huge body filling the frame. "Welcome, my lord. Do come in. Larya awaits you with eagerness."

Lord Caron's gaze was fixed on Larya, and Apolo could see that he was just as moved by her beauty as Apolo had been. "I thank you, Xuxa." He did not even notice when Xuxa left, but Apolo saw the satisfied smile on her lips before she shut the door.

Apolo knew that Larya must have been terrified of the enormous brute, but she stood calmly by the window as he crossed the room to her, and when he was before her, she sank to her knees with her head bowed. "How might I please you, my lord?" she asked, her voice unnaturally seductive for the girl that had been playing with a doll on her bed only moments before.

Lord Caron slipped his fingers into her hair. "You are in just the right place to please me now, my dear Larya. You know what to do."

As Larya slid her hands up his thighs, the room spun around Apolo until he found himself back in the room, lying on the bed, sun streaming from the window. He sensed another presence and believing it to be his father, he sat up and was about to demand how he could be so cruel, but he fell silent when he realized Trey was standing at the foot of the bed, his arms crossed over his chest. The look of disapproval on his face both angered and embarrassed Apolo when he had been caught wallowing in Larya's bed, the bed on which she had allowed many men to use her body.

"The guard at my door informed me this morning that you wanted to see me," said Trey after a moment of staring at Apolo with silent condemnation. "Since there are no servants, I had to look for you myself, and after checking at the rooms you should have slept in, I came here praying to the gods that you were not indulging yourself among that female's pillows."

"I was not indulging myself," snapped Apolo irritably, reluctantly leaving the bed. Noticing Trey looking at his hand, he realized he was still holding the gown, and he saw it was the very gown Larya had worn that day for Lord Caron.

"You need a mate," Trey said.

Apolo tossed aside the garment and went to stand before Trey. Clenching his fists at his side, he met his angry gaze. "You will not order me to take a mate, because if you do, I will refuse and where will that leave us?"

For a moment they stared at each other and Apolo was afraid that Trey would press the issue, that he would test Apolo's resolve. Apolo would rather go to the Sacred Hills to stay than to take a female he did not want just to appease Trey.

But Trey's features softened and he reached out to put his hands on his shoulders. "You are the brother of my heart, Apolo. I know you would leave me, probably forever, if I did that and I could not imagine life without you."

Tears came to Apolo's eyes. "I would not want to leave you. I will try harder to forget her," he told Trey knowing that he would fail.

"You must, Apolo. She is dead." Trey put an arm around his shoulders. "Do not close your heart to the possibility that another female is destined to spend her life with you and bear your children, else you will not know the happiness I feel."

Sensing that part of the reason for Trey's annoyance that morning was that he had spent a sleepless night with a newborn that would not stop crying, Apolo frowned at him. "Did you seek me so that I could calm your son?"

"Arora can calm him with her milk. He is like a fat, suckling Wasteland piglet that does not stop squealing unless he is at his mother's teat. I thought Guerani babies were more amenable to their parents. Shamara was a delightful infant, never demanding, always giving us peace when we needed it."

"Amyr does not have the same powers that Shamara does," Apolo told him, leaving out what he had learned from Dax, that the ancestors might never allow any of his children aside from Shamara to use their magic.

Trey sighed deeply. "Duo might have been able to soothe him."

"He does have a way with babies. If he had not made the choice he did, he would be caring for his own two infants by now."

"Then I suppose I should not be so bothered that he was with Arora when she needed a male to bring her child into the world," said Trey with a huff. "For better or worse, Duo is part of my family." He looked at Apolo. "Where is he?"

Apolo told him what he had seen in the city, and he finished by recounting his conversation with Lord Chasek. Trey did not seem surprised and Apolo was afraid he already knew that Duo had joined them men terrorizing Caron sympathizers in Imperia.

But then Trey said, "That will explain why the city leaders arrived at the palace this morning demanding that I meet with them."

Apolo was surprised. "Since when do they demand anything of the emperor?"

Trey smiled grimly. "Wash up and get your sword. I want you at my side wearing a threatening frown that will remind them you are Dax's son. I will meet with them, but I will make it clear to them that I am not as weak as they believe."

"What will you do if their demands are justified?" asked Apolo, remembering the violence he had witnessed at the hands of palace guards probably on Duo Maxwell's orders.

"I will decide when I have heard what they are complaining about. When you are ready, we will meet them together." He looked away from Apolo to surveyed the room shaking his head before he said, "Don't sleep in here again."

Apolo followed him to the door, and when Trey left, he turned to head to the bathing chamber, but he paused when he heard Trey's voice outside the door. He strained to hear him order the guard that had accompanied him to send men to the room to have it cleared out, its contents burned and the room whitewashed. Trey couldn't make him forget about Larya, but he would make it more difficult for him to remember.

After bathing and redressing, Apolo was headed out to meet Trey when checked his step and stopped to look around the room. Once he left, any trace that she had existed would be wiped out, but Apolo could not let her disappear, not when she felt alive to him. He stared at the bed, remembering how she had looked playing with her doll, and he crossed the room to it. Although he was sure he would not find it, he reached under the pillows and felt far beneath. He was rewarded when his fingers brushed a cloth object. Pulling it out, he felt a bittersweet pain in his heart to be holding the doll wrapped in the colorful cloth she had to dressed it in. He stared down at its porcelain face painted with wide violet eyes and an innocent smile. Larya was gone, but she would always live in his heart.