Six Months with Cerberus

by Lucas, Naomi

  Six Months with Cerberus

  Naomi Lucas

  Contents

  Blurb

  1. The Arrival

  2. Cerberus finds a Mortal

  3. Judgement

  4. Hades

  5. The Days of Melinoe

  6. Metamorphosis

  7. Godly Revelations

  8. The Beginning of the End

  9. The Day of Dancing

  10. An Oath to Styx

  11. The Day of Gifts

  12. The Greatest Gift, Stolen

  13. Power

  14. The Day of Battles

  15. A Soul, a Drink, a Fire

  16. The Worship of a Mortal

  17. Goddess of Nightmares

  18. The Day of Deals

  19. The God of Crossings

  20. The Day of Deviance

  21. The Note

  22. The Question Best Left Unanswered

  23. The Hours Before

  24. Persephone, Demeter, and Hecate

  25. The Final Descent

  26. Persephone’s Abduction

  27. Home

  28. A Deep Sigh

  29. The Final Dance

  30. Six Months with Cerberus

  Epilogue

  Cerberus and Cyane

  Author’s Note

  Also by Naomi Lucas

  Copyright © 2020 of Naomi Lucas

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission in writing from the author.

  * * *

  Any references to names, places, locales, and events are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover art by Naomi Lucas

  Editing and book formatting by Tiffany Freund

  Editing by Mandi B

  Created with Vellum

  To Scott Goodsell for inspiring me to write a book about Cerberus.

  Cyane was delivered as a newborn to an orphanage with nothing but a cryptic note from her parents to come to Sicily for an obscure celebration on her twenty-fourth birthday.

  Years later, desperate to get to the festival on time to finally confront her parents, she’s tricked and dragged under the Ionian sea. Confused, fighting for her life, and near death she’s pulled from the water by a man. An ancient Greek warrior with frighteningly animalistic eyes.

  Cerberus, son of the dragon Typhon, hundred-headed hound to Hades, Gatekeeper to the Underworld, watcher of all the souls in Styx, and first shifter, senses an unauthorized mortal in Hades’s domain. And when that mortal tries to escape, he does what he’s always done best—stops them.

  What he doesn’t expect is a beautiful human woman cowering beneath his blade. When she begs for his help to leave Hades’s realm, his loyalties are tested unlike never before.

  —

  Six Months with Cerberus is a dark mythos romance rife with intrigue, gods, power play, manipulation, and schemes. Mature readers only.

  The Arrival

  ‘Dear Cyane, come to Thesmophoria on your twenty-fourth year. We await you in Syracuse, Sicily. Your father.’

  She’d read it a million times. Don’t. Don’t take it out. Her fingers twitched. The note never changed, no matter how desperate she was for more information.

  Cyane pulled her backpack towards her, found the zipper along the side, and tugged it up. She dipped her hand into the opening and rummaged around for her phone.

  The midnight darkness of the hostel room fled as the phone screen turned on.

  She shut her eyes against the light and resisted the urge to pull the damned note from her pocket and hold it between her fingers.

  Tomorrow.

  Tomorrow she’d make her way to Sicily to attend the ancient celebration of Thesmophoria, a festival honoring the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. Why her father wanted her to attend was beyond her, but it was the only lead she had to her parents.

  They’d left her as a newborn and then vanished. The note was her only evidence that they even existed. If she went to meet them in Syracuse, and they weren’t there…

  Cyane pushed the thoughts away.

  She opened her eyes, hid the lit phone under her blanket, and scrolled through her photos. Brussels and her first day of the adventure, Berlin, Prague, Budapest where she’d started her trek southward to Skopje, and then, finally, Greece.

  It was the adventure of her life, and she’d finally reached the Port of Piraeus that afternoon, where she’d booked a hostel in southern Athens.

  Tomorrow. Her ride would leave the port at six in the morning.

  Cyane’s eyes hooded as she stared at her pictures.

  The phone dropped from her hand to lie softly next to her cheek as she drifted to sleep.

  The next morning, trekking hurriedly through the industrial slums of the city, the cranes and machinery flanking her sides—a testament to how times had changed since she studied this place in history class—she made it to the port right as the sun’s hidden-behind-clouds first light streaked across the sea. Gray wisps and distant haze filled her eyes, blanketing the ships in weak, morning shadows.

  Another cloudy day, another cloudy morning. Cyane sighed.

  She paused to read the sign, slowly translating the Greek letters, and raced to the passenger terminal, trying to reach the docks before the yacht set sail. The smell of sea brine and ship exhaust filled her nose.

  I’ll only be twenty-four once.

  Which was incredibly worrisome if she couldn’t make it to Sicily in time.

  She tried not to think about it as she turned the corner of the final building. Her jaw dropped. The waters were lit up in a perfect, Midas glow, with ships all around, and in the backdrop, the hills of Athens were haloed in it.

  Piraeus was one of the largest ports along the Mediterranean, with a history fueled by Ottoman occupation and naval history. It was once a military harbor for Athens and had housed their incredible fleet. She could almost imagine the hundreds of millions of people who’d walked, worked, sailed, and gaped at the sight right where she was standing. Like ghosts in her head.

  Her skin prickled.

  A short time later, with a flyer and a map in her hand, she found the yacht group. Luxurious boats and yachts lined the private dock as she strode down it. The Hermes’s Mirth rocked gently toward the end to the wave of other boats passing by.

  Made it! Cyane grinned. The tension in her back eased.

  She found a spot to rest her backpack nearby and shucked it off, stretching her back and arms. A cool breeze drifted across her bare arms and legs. The heat of summer lingered against the force of fall, and she wore shorts and a simple, loose tank top.

  The New York tag large across her chest was more a beacon than even her accent. If she’d worn the same clothes as the locals, she would’ve blended right in. But she didn’t want to fully blend in, she didn’t want people to assume she knew more than she should.

  Most had been kind enough, and—in broken English—helped orient her with her map. Some had even warned her of being a lone, female backpacker. Cyane knew her predicament more than anyone else. She kept a small horn and a knuckle keychain in her pocket at all times to startle any attackers; she never took unnecessary risks.

  So, as she finally relaxed and returned her attention to the private yacht swaying in the early dawn, she knew something was wrong.

  Why was it so quiet?

  It wasn’t supposed to be quiet. There were supposed to be people here working, preparing for the trip and their next set of wealthy guests. There was supposed to be life. There weren’t even fishermen preparing their gear.

  “H
ello?” she called out, eyeing the abandoned boat. “Kalimera?”

  No one answered her.

  “Good morning?” she yelled a little louder this time, her stomach sinking when there was still no reply.

  She was far enough down the dock that there were only a few people about, some looked her way as she glanced about. When she caught their eyes in question, they snapped their gazes away from hers.

  “Dammit,” she muttered under her breath.

  Cyane returned to her backpack and sat down, digging her phone back out. She didn’t have the number for Hermes’s Mirth’s captain, but she had the information he’d given her scribbled out on one of his flyers. She double-checked the name, the yacht with the picture, and glowered, looking around again. The other captains, and crew workers nearby, had gone back to what they were doing.

  Signal was shoddy, but she was able to load the booking site of the ship. She tried the number which went straight to voicemail. The nerves in her belly grew with each passing minute.

  Of course, this would happen. Cyane tilted her head towards the sky, sighing.

  If no one arrived soon to prepare and board the yacht, she didn’t know what she was going to do…let alone how she was going to get to Syracuse in time for Thesmophoria.

  Cyane’s heart pounded. She didn’t want to miss the festival or the chance to meet her family. The thought alone made her want to scream, as if all of her careful planning, frugal spending, and furious discipline was being stomped into the dirt. It hadn’t been easy saving up the money for this trip—or finding work along the way. And even with what she had saved, she was forced to backpack and stay at the cheapest hostels.

  Be prepared, be diligent, keep your expectations high...but not too high.

  I have to be there.

  She didn’t know why, but her life depended on it.

  A thread had woven around her heart, constricting it more every year. The festival honored the Greek goddesses Demeter and Persephone. It made no sense to her why the note wanted her to be at the celebration. But it’d become more than a note, it’d become her compulsion.

  Maybe it was because she’d never had a mother growing up, and once she’d discovered her first mythology book, the idea that she might have had a godly matriarch such as Demeter made Cyane’s childlike fancies magical. In her young imagination, she’d had a mother like the great Demeter waiting to meet her, and Cyane was just waiting to be found, embraced in loving arms. A hold that was unending and unbreakable.

  Those sad musings returned hot and harrowing, tightening the invisible band around her heart.

  Cyane inhaled deeply, calming her nerves. She glanced at the other people nearby and licked her drying lips. Rising to her feet, she approached the person closest to her, a middle-aged man checking a knot.

  “Excuse me? Signomi?” she asked as he turned his head. She turned to point to the Hermes’s Mirth. “Do you know where I can find its captain? I’m supposed to meet him.”

  The man looked at the yacht then back at her, crinkling his eyes. He shook his head, made a dismissive noise with his throat, and went back to his work. Cyane stood there, biting her lower lip, before approaching the next closest person. Another man, younger by a few years, scanned her from head-to-toe, waved his hand once, and shooed her away like an unwanted cat before she could say anything more than a hello.

  Dejected, she returned to her backpack and pulled it on. There was no help for her here. The only ounce of happiness on the dock was the blatant name of the yacht she was supposed to board. Mirth was the last emotion she felt. After trepidation, excitement, nervousness…Fuuuck.

  Cyane pulled her phone from her pocket again. She was smart, she was capable. It was time to figure out a backup plan. If she only—

  “Are you okay, miss?”

  She peeked up to see a fit, elderly man walking towards her from the end of the dock. The golden-dawn glow haloed his already sun-bleached clothing. Even so, his jacket was black, albeit faded, and his skin was olive-toned, lined, and taut.

  She lowered her phone. “Not quite. I was supposed to meet with the captain of Hermes’s Mirth for a job.”

  He stopped a short distance from her. “A job? On Hermes’s Mirth? That would be something.”

  She cocked a brow. “Oh? Why?”

  “Haven’t seen new flesh on the ship in ages, not unless it was a booking. Hermes’s boat is a family business,” he said.

  Cyane’s stomach twisted. But I’d talked to the captain himself...

  “Oh, don’t look so put-out,” the man said. “Perhaps I can help you.”

  Put-out wasn’t quite what she was feeling, but it was damn-near close enough.

  “I’m not sure you can.” Cyane slid her phone back into her pocket. “The job was supposed to be my fee for transport to Port Messina in Sicily. I need to get there for a festival.”

  The man scratched his chin. “Thesmophoria?”

  “Yes! How’d you know?”

  “The women’s festival is celebrated here as well. Why not celebrate in Athens?”

  She’d thought that herself many times. Why Sicily? Cyane shrugged. “Truthfully? I don’t want to stay in Greece that long.” She laughed. “Don’t get me wrong, I love it here, I feel at home here, but there’s something about Syracuse that has always intrigued me. I don’t know why, exactly, but I’m hoping that I’ll figure it out when I’m there.” She wasn’t going to mention the note. She never had before, finding it far too personal to share with anyone.

  It was like a gateway to the past, and every time she thought to bring it up, something stopped her. It wasn’t meant for anyone but her.

  The man smiled and nodded. “I think I understand. Well, come this way.” He turned his back on her and walked to the end of the dock, heading towards a sailboat.

  Her brow furrowed. The pack on her back grew heavy, and an unusually chilly breeze blew across her skin. Her mind fumbled. Did he want her to follow him so they could continue talking? Or was he trying to help her?

  What if—a burst of hope, of wariness, seized her—he was offering her transit?

  Cyane pushed back the strands of hair that blew across her face and glanced around one final time at the others on the dock, the ships, the quiet Hermes’s Mirth swaying, and finally to the water itself. It reflected the gray of the clouds again now that the sun had gone to hide behind the clouds, uninterested in the people who sought eagerly to enjoy it.

  “Well? We don’t have all day!” he called over his shoulder.

  He waved at her with one hand while he threw the rope anchoring his boat with his other. She approached him, reminding herself that she could walk away at any time.

  By the time she reached his side, the boat was drifting away from the dock. He held the final tie in his hand.

  “I’m confused. What are we doing?” she asked.

  “Sailing to Port Messina, what else? Unless you’ve decided to stay?”

  Cyane sized up the sailboat and the old man. The boat was in good, clean condition, and the man was lean but nearly-gaunt despite the defined muscles that his skin clung to. If she went with him, there would only be the two of them, which wasn’t ideal.

  But his eyes flashed something bright, blue, and intelligent. There were no weapons, so signs of entrapment, and as she hesitated to consider his gracious offer, he pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to her.

  Haros C.

  Private sailboat captain.

  Charter boat.

  Sail the Mediterranean in style.

  She flipped the card over to find the other side blank. “You sail all the way to Sicily?” she asked.

  “Water is the same as it is around the islands, as it is in the rivers, lakes, and even oceans. Sailed them all at one time or another. Once you know the ways of the wind and the water it’s all the same.”

  Cyane handed him back the card. “Is it safe?”

  The wrinkles lining his face seemed to deepen as she waited for his answ
er. “Yes.”

  She mentally checked the small horn resting in her pocket, even though instinct told her she wouldn’t need to protect herself against this Haros.

  He continued as she mulled over the decision. “Make up your mind! It takes time to sail across the Ionian Sea, and I’m an impatient man.”

  “How much does it cost?”

  “Do you have some of those American coins on you?”

  “Coins?” Cyane reached behind her to pull out her wallet. “I guess my accent gives me away?”

  “It does.”

  She fished out some nickels and pennies. “I have some cash but credit works bet—”

  He snatched the coins from her palm and pocketed them before she could finish. “I’m an avid collector. Come now, lest you’ve changed your mind. The clouds are gathering.”

  Stunned, and yet filled with growing excitement, she stood with her hand still cupped in front of her, devoid of her money. She lowered it slowly as she watched Haros toss the last rope into the boat. He jumped over after it.

  It was now or never.

  Her palms dampened with sweat.

  Now or never.

  He reached out his hand to help her over the threshold. The step across was growing wider by the second. Cyane swallowed and leaped.

  Haros pulled her in with a healthy jerk. The momentum pushed the sailboat away from the dock several feet. She released his leathery hand and turned back to see her decision finalized—the gap was too far to jump back across.