He stood in the center of his cabin, aching so much that he could barely breathe.

Alone now, he needed Astrid in a way that defied his ability to comprehend. He wanted something of hers.

No, heneeded something.

Sliding the stove aside, he went back to his tunnel where he could remember holding her. Down here in the darkness, he could pretend she was still with him.

If he closed his eyes, he could even pretend she was in his dreams.

But it wasn't her. Not really.

Zarek let out a ragged breath and picked his coat up from the ground. As he started to pull it on, he caught a whiff of roses.

Astrid.

He clutched the coat to his skin, burying his face deep in the fur so that he could capture her scent.

He held it in trembling hands as emotions and memories crashed through him, racking him.

He needed her.

Oh, gods, he loved her. He loved her more than he'd ever imagined possible. He remembered every touch she'd given him. Every laugh she'd had around him.

The way she'd made him human.

And he didn't want to live without her. Not for one moment. Not a single one.

Zarek fell to his knees, unable to deal with the thought of never seeing her again.

Holding his coat that smelled of her, he wept.

Ash pulled away from Zarek, giving him privacy to grieve.

Artemis was outside in the temple courtyard, having one of her screaming tantrums over the verdict while he was alone in her throne room with Simi safe on his chest.

"What fools these mortals be," he breathed.

But then he too had been a fool for love. Love made fools of everyone. Gods and man alike. Still, he couldn't believe Zarek had let Astrid go any more than he could believe Astrid had left.

Och mensch!

Artemis materialized before him. "How is this possible?" she railed. "Never in the entire history of her life has she judged a man innocent!"

He looked at her calmly. "Only because she's never before judged an innocent man."

"I hate you!"

He laughed bitterly at that. "Oh, please don't get my hopes up. You almost gave me a hard-on with that thought. At least tell me this time your hatred will last more than five minutes."

She tried to slap him, but he caught her hand. So instead she kissed him, then tore away from his lips shrieking.

Ash shook his head as she vanished again.

She would calm down in time. She always did.

But he had other things to worry about at the moment.

Closing his eyes, he breached the distance between Olympus and the human world.

There he found what he was looking for.

Zarek jerked his head up to find himself in the middle of a white and gold room.

It was huge, with a gold-domed ceiling embossed with wildlife scenes. The room was encircled with white marble columns and in the center sat a large ivory settee.

What surprised him most was to see Acheron standing in front of the settee, staring at him with those strange swirling silver eyes.

The Atlantean had long, golden-blond hair and looked strangely vulnerable- which for Acheron was an impossibility. He was dressed in a pair of tight black leather pants and wore a long-sleeved black silk shirt that had been left unbuttoned.

"Thank you for Simi," Acheron said, inclining his head toward him. "I appreciate what you did for her when she was wounded."

Zarek cleared his throat, rose to his feet, and aimed an angry glare at Acheron.

"Why did you fuck with my head?"

"I had to. There are some things people are better off not knowing." "You let me think I had killed my own people."

"Would the truth have been any easier on you? Instead of the old crone's face, you would have been haunted by the face of a young woman and her husband. Not to mention you would have had the knowledge to kill any Dark-Hunter who got in your way, including Valerius, and had you done that, I wouldn't have been able to save you. Ever."

Zarek flinched at the mention of his brother. As much as he hated to admit it, Ash was right. He might very well have used his knowledge to kill Valerius. "You have no right to play with people's minds."

Acheron's agreement stunned him. "No, I don't. And believe it or not, I seldom do. But that's not why you're really mad, now is it?"

Zarek tensed. "I don't know what you mean."

"Yes you do, Z." He closed his eyes and cocked his head as if listening to something. "I know every thought inside you. Just as I did that night you slaughtered the Apollites and Daimons after Taberleigh. I tried to give you peace of mind by eliminating your memories, but you wouldn't take it. I couldn't stop your dreams and M'Adoc wouldn't help. For that I apologize. But right now you have a much bigger problem than what I did to you when I tried to help."

"Yeah? What's that?"

Acheron held his hand up and projected an image from his palm.

Zarek's breath caught as he saw Astrid weeping. She sat in a small atrium with three other women who were holding her as she cried.

He walked toward the image, only to remember he couldn't really touch it.

"It hurts so much," she sobbed.

"Atty, do something!" a blond woman said, looking at the redheaded woman who appeared to be the eldest. "Go kill him for hurting her."

"No," Astrid wailed. "Don't you dare. I'll never forgive you if you hurt him."

"Who are those women with her?" Zarek asked.

"The three Fates. Atty, or Atropos, is the one with red hair. Clotho is the one with blond hair holding Astrid, and the dark-headed one is Lachesis, or Lacy."

Zarek stared at them, his heart breaking at the pain he'd caused Astrid. The last thing he had ever wanted was to hurt her. "Why are you showing me this?"

Acheron answered his question with one of his own. "Do you remember what I said to you in New Orleans?" Zarek looked at him wryly. "You said a lot of shit to me then."

So Acheron repeated it." ' The past is dead, Z. Tomorrow will become whatever decision you make.' "

Acheron's gaze burned into him. "With Dionysus's help you blew it that night in New Orleans when you attacked the cops, but you bought yourself another chance when you saved Sunshine." Ash indicated Astrid. "You have another crucial choice here, Z. What will you decide?"

Acheron closed his hand and the image of Astrid and her sisters vanished.

"Everyone deserves to be loved, Zarek. Even you."

"Shut up!" he snarled. "You don't know what you're talking about,Your Highness ." Zarek spat the title out. He was so sick of people lecturing him when they were ignorant of what he'd been through.

It was easy for someone like Acheron to tell him about love. What did a prince know about people hating him? Despising him?

When had anyone ever spat on the Atlantean?

But Acheron didn't speak.

At least not with words.

Instead, an image came into Zarek's mind. One of a blond teenager in chains in the middle of an ancient Greek home. The boy was bloody while being beaten.

He was begging those around him for mercy.

Zarek's breath caught as he recognized the youth...

"I understand you in a way no one else can," Acheron said quietly. "You have a rare chance, Z. Don't fuck it up."

For the first time ever, he listened to Acheron. And he looked on him with a newfound respect.

They were far more alike than he could have guessed and he wondered how Acheron had found the humanity that had abandoned Zarek so long ago.

"What if I hurt her?" Zarek asked.

"Do you plan on hurting her?"

"No, but I can't live here and she-"

"Why don't you ask her, Z?"

"What about her mother?" "What about her? You were willing to fight Artemis for Thanatos. Isn't Astrid worth just as much?"

"More." He met Ash's gaze with fired determination. "Where is she?"

Before Zarek could blink, he found himself in the atrium Acheron had shown him.

Atty looked up with a hiss. "No man is allowed here!"

The one Acheron had called Clotho started to attack him. But she pulled up sharply as Acheron appeared beside him.

Zarek ignored them as he concentrated on Astrid who sat there with tears in her eyes, staring at him as if he were an apparition.

His heart pounding, he walked over to her and knelt down before her chair.

"Stars aren't supposed to cry," he whispered so that only she could hear him.

"They're supposed to laugh."

"How can I laugh when I have no heart?"

He took her hand into his and kissed the tip of every finger. "You have a heart."

He placed her hand over his. "One that only beats for you, princess."

She offered him a trembling smile. "Why are you here, Zarek?"

He brushed the tears from her cheeks. "I'm here to collect my rose, if she'll come home with me."

"Don't even go there," Atty cried. "Astrid, please don't tell me you're going to listen to that drivel?"

"He's a man, baby sister," Lacy chimed in. "If his lips are moving, he's lying."

"Why don't the three of you stay out of this?" Acheron said.

Atty stiffened. "Excuse me? We're the Fates and-"

A sideways glare from Acheron cut her off midstream.

"Why don't we leave them alone?" Atty said to her sisters. The three of them hurried off while Acheron watched Zarek and Astrid with his arms folded over his chest.

Zarek still hadn't taken his gaze off Astrid. "You going to be a voyeur, Ash?"

"Depends. You going to give me something to look at?"

"If you keep standing there, I am." He looked over his shoulder then.

Acheron inclined his head to him and turned around to leave. As he did so, the breeze caught a portion of his shirt and blew it back, showing a flash of one shoulder.