Read Dark Hunter 25 - Acheron.html for Free Online

table and knelt on the floor to my right, just behind me.

    I scowled at him over my shoulder. "What are you doing?"

    "Forgive me, my lady. I meant no offense to you." He scooted back on his knees several more inches.

    Completely flabbergasted, I turned around to stare at him. "Why are you on the floor?"

    He looked immediately disappointed. "I shall wait for you in the room."

    He moved to leave.

    "Wait," I said, taking his arm. "Aren't you hungry? I was told you hadn't eaten."

    "I am hungry," he said simply from between his clenched teeth.

    "Then sit."

    Again he knelt on the floor.

    What was he doing? "Acheron, why are you on the floor and not sitting at the table with me?"

    His look was empty, unassuming. "Whores don't sit at tables with decent people."

    His voice was steady as if he were merely repeating something that had been said so often it no longer had any meaning to him.

    But the words cut through me.

    "You're not a whore, Acheron."

    He didn't argue verbally, but I could see the denial in his pale, swirling eyes.

    I reached out to touch his face. He stiffened ever so slightly.

    I dropped my hand. "Come," I said softly. "Sit at the table with me."

    He did as I told him, but looked terribly uncomfortable, as if he feared someone would wrench him up by his hair at any moment. Over and over, he pulled at the cowl as if to protect himself.

    It was then I realized the second way to punish someone when you didn't want any visible marks. The head. How many times had they wrenched his hair?

    A servant came to take our orders.

    "What would you like, Acheron?"

    "My will is your will, Idika."

    Idika. An Atlantean word that a slave used for his owner.

    "Have you no preference?"

    He shook his head.

    I ordered our food and watched him. He kept his gaze on the floor, his arms locked around his body.

    When he moved to cough, I caught sight of something strange in his mouth.

    "What is that?" I asked.

    He glanced up at me, then looked down. "What is what, Idika?" he asked, again with his jaw clenched.

    "I'm your sister, Acheron, you may call me Ryssa."

    He didn't respond.

    Sighing, I returned to my original question. "What is in your mouth? Let me see your tongue."

    He obligingly parted his lips. The entire line down the center of his tongue was pierced and studded with small gold balls that shimmered in the light. I'd never seen anything like it in my life.

    "What is that?" I asked, frowning.

    Acheron closed his mouth and by the way he moved his lips and jaw, I could tell he was rubbing the balls against the roof of his mouth. "Erotiki sfairi."

    "I don't understand that term."

    "Sex balls, Idika. It makes my licks more stimulating to those I service."

    I couldn't have been more surprised had he slapped me. He was nonchalant about something that was taboo in the world I knew.

    "Do they hurt?" I couldn't believe I was asking this question.

    He shook his head. "I just have to be careful not to let them strike my teeth lest they break them."

    So that was why he kept his jaw clenched when he spoke.

    "It's a wonder you can speak at all."

    "No one pays a whore to use his tongue to speak, Idika."

    "You are not a whore!" Several heads turned, making me realize I had spoken louder than I meant to.

    My cheeks burned, but there was no embarrassment on Acheron's face. He merely accepted it as if he were nothing more and deserved nothing better.

    "You are a prince, Acheron. A prince."

    "Then why did you throw me out?"

    His question startled me. Not just the words themselves, but the heartfelt pain in his voice as he spoke them.

    "What do you mean?"

    "Idikos told me what was said by all of you."

    Idikos. The masculine form of the word a slave used for his owner.

    "Do you mean Estes?"

    He nodded.

    "He is your uncle, not your idikos."

    "One doesn't argue with a whip or scold, my lady. At least not for long."

    I swallowed at his words. No, I guess they didn't. "What did he tell you?"

    "The king