Stryker paced the floor of the dimly lit banquet hall, wanting blood and not from one of their own. For three weeks now they hadn’t been able to find a single trace of the Dark-Hunter Wulf Tryggvason or the Apollite heiress Cassandra Peters, who was the final key to eliminating their curse for once and for all and getting Helios off their backs!

How could they go into hiding so effectively? It didn’t make any sense!

He had Urian working on it now, but it seemed useless. “How hard can it be to find where a Dark-Hunter lives?”

“They are crafty, kyrios,” Zolan said from his right.

Zolan was his third-in-command and one of Stryker’s most trusted soldiers, after Urian and Trates. He’d been promoted through the Spathi ranks for his ability to murder ruthlessly and to never show mercy to anyone.

Like Stryker, he chose to dye his hair black and wore the Spathi symbol of a yellow sun with a dragon in its center—the emblem of Apollymi the Destroyer.

“If they weren’t,” Zolan continued, “we’d be able to track and kill them through our servants while they slept.”

Stryker turned on Zolan with a glare so malevolent that the Daimon shrank away from him. Only his son held enough courage to not flinch from his anger. Urian’s bravery knew no equal.

Out of nowhere, Xedrix appeared before him in the hall. Unlike the Daimons, Xedrix didn’t bow or acknowledge Stryker’s elevated stature in their world. Most of the time, Xedrix treated him as more of a servant than a master, which pissed him off to no uncertain end.

No doubt the demon thought Apollymi would always protect him, but Stryker knew the truth. His mother loved him absolutely and no one else.

“Her Benevolent Grace wishes a word with you,” the demon said in a low, even tone.

Benevolent Grace. As if! Every time Stryker heard that title for Apollymi, he wanted to laugh but knew better. His mother didn’t really have a sense of humor.

Without delay, he willed himself to her palace and walked through the double door that led out to her private gardens where she was waiting for him.

As usual, Apollymi leaned over her pool where black water flowed backward up a glittering pipe from this world into the human realm. There was a fine, rainbow mist and vapors around the water. It was here the goddess could scry so that she knew what was happening on earth. Past. Present. Future.

“She is pregnant,” the goddess announced without turning around.

Stryker knew the she that the goddess referred to was Cassandra.

“How can that be?”

The goddess lifted her hands up and drew a circle in the air. Water from the mirror formed like a crystal ball. Even though nothing but air held it, it swirled about until it held an image of the woman they both wanted dead. There was nothing in the ball to give him any indication of how to find Cassandra.

Apollymi dragged one fingernail through the image, causing it to shake and distort. “Artemis is interfering with us.”

“There’s still time to kill both mother and child.”

She smiled at that. “Yes, there is.” She opened her hands and the water arced from the ball, back into her pool. “Now is the time to strike. The Elekti is being held by Artemis. He can’t stop you. He won’t even know that you attack.”

Stryker flinched at the mention of the Elekti. Like the Abadonna, Stryker was forbidden to attack him.

He hated restrictions.

“We don’t know where to attack,” he told his mother. “We’ve been searching—”

“Take one of the ceredons. My pets can find them.”

“I thought they were forbidden to leave this realm.”

A cruel half smile curved her lips. “Artemis broke the rules, so shall I. Now go, m’gios, and do me proud.”

Stryker nodded and turned about sharply. He took three steps before the Destroyer’s voice gave him pause.

“Remember, Strykerius, kill the heiress before the Elekti returns. You are not to engage him. Ever.”

He stopped but didn’t look back. “Why have I always been forbidden to touch him?”

“Ours is not to question why. Ours is but to live or to die.”

He ground his teeth as she gave him the human quote.

When she spoke again, the coldness in her tone only angered him more. “The answer to that is how much do you value your life, Strykerius. I have kept you close all these centuries and I have no desire to see you dead.”

“The Elekti can’t kill me. I’m a god.”

“And greater gods than you have fallen. Many of them to my wrath. Heed my words, boy. Heed them well.”

Irritated by that, Stryker continued on his way, pausing only long enough to unleash Kyklonas, whose name meant “tornado.” Once unleashed, the ceredon, like him and Urian, was a deadly menace.