by Lucas, Naomi
Cyane shivered and rubbed her arms and met Cerberus’s eyes where he towered over Melinoe.
“Sweet Cerberus,” Melinoe cooed softly. “Our delightful guest wishes to leave.”
“Is that so?” he said. “It appears we seek each other then.”
“Yes.” Cyane swallowed.
Melinoe smiled. “Do you think you can help her? She needs to get to some place called Sicily.”
“Leave us, Melinoe,” he snapped.
“What? Why?”
“Our conversation will be private.”
“You left her alone, so she is with me now. Me!”
Cerberus stiffened and slowly turned toward Melinoe.
The air caught in Cyane’s lungs.
“With you?” he said, his tone darkening.
Cyane didn’t know why, but his shining eyes made her skin heat. I can’t even see his face… Maybe that’s for the best. Melinoe was almost too sickeningly beautiful to look at, Hades to torturously dark, and Hermes…
What would Cerberus look like without his helmet? She already feared him the most. Would her fear turn to horror? Terror? Inescapable dread?
“Yes,” Melinoe said, breaking Cyane’s thoughts.
“You claim her?”
“Yes.”
“She is a guest of Lord Hades.”
A wave of relief rushed through Cyane. Guest. She was a guest. Guests could leave.
“Do you still wish to publicly claim her, Melinoe?” he asked again, slower this time.
Melinoe winced and glanced at the dark figure sitting atop his throne.
Cyane sensed the tension between them rise. Claim? No one was going to claim her, not until she made it to Sicily damnit. It wasn’t like she ever sold her soul to the devil or played with a ouija board or...or...
She butted in despite the trepidation closing in on her every breath. “I want to talk to you too, Cerberus.” Her voice held relatively strong. Stronger than she felt.
He faced her, spotlighting her with all his strained anger. If he happened to glance down at her hands, he’d find them shaking uncontrollably.
“I want to leave,” she said.
He didn’t immediately respond, but instead looked across the room to where that dark figure sat on his throne. She didn’t need to ask who had the most power here. Melinoe and Cerberus had done it for her.
But if she had to make a choice, to implore the supposed God of the Underworld or his supposed monstrous hound for help…well...
Her heart raced at the thought.
When she was at the Orphanage of Claudette Skies, the headmistress was much like Hades. A figure to fear, to never approach. Claudette didn’t like children even though her profession served to help them. If this place was anything like the orphanage, she was better off not getting herself involved—or noticed. Being noticed really wasn’t that fun. It was easier being an onlooker rather than a participant.
Cerberus turned back to her. His eyes in the slit of his helmet gave her a narrow view of him. There was pale skin and the hint of dark brows. The longer he stared without saying something, the smaller she became, the more her hands trembled. One could suffocate under the weight of his stare.
“Please,” she whispered.
His brow furrowed, his irises sparked, and she wondered why she caused such a reaction in him.
“Follow me,” he said, startling her.
Was it that easy?
Cerberus didn’t wait for her as he strode towards the foyer outside the ballroom. Melinoe mewed sadly at her side. Cyane stepped forward to follow him.
Hermes flew down in front of her. “So you wish to leave so soon? After only one misplaced dance? What a shame.” He smiled wide, and giggles erupted within the room. “If you’d but stay and celebrate, I would show you what it’s like to twirl in the air.” He stepped closer, filling her vision.
“No, thank you.”
His smile grew, if that were at all possible. He also wore a helmet, but it didn’t cover his face like Cerberus’s, and Hermes’s helmet had wings sprouting from the sides, like his sandals. They flapped softly as if they were alive.
Cyane frowned. Some creature’s wings were plucked to make those. Something in her told her that that creature still lived. Wingless. Broken. Eternally.
She tore her eyes from his winged adornments to the man himself.
Hermes was as beautiful as Melinoe. His hair was short and curly, his eyes were a pale blue, and he didn’t have a shirt on. A lean, softly golden, and shallowly sculpted chest nearly blinded her.
She tried to move around him, but he stopped her, stepping in front of her.
“No, thank you?” He mimicked her words. “Well, I don’t believe I’ve ever been rebuffed with such etiquette.” Hermes laughed.
Melinoe wrapped her arms around Cyane. “She is a sweet and interesting creature, isn’t she?”
Hermes glanced from her to Melinoe, his charming face twisting with disgust, but when he looked back at Cyane, his beauty returned.
Cyane pulled away, but the goddess tightened her grip.
Hermes leaned in far too close to Cyane’s face. “She is quite sweet.”
She leaned back as far as she could. The sickly smell of a thousand different flowers, pungent and overwhelming, filled her nose.
“Sweet enough for me to steal a kiss. If I can’t have a dance.”
Cyane swallowed, unsure how to talk her way out of this.
Suddenly, Hermes was torn back, and Melinoe’s grip vanished. Cerberus appeared in front of Cyane, grasping her wrist and tugging her away from the god and goddess. She staggered behind him, tripping on her skirts until they reached a corridor much less lively than the one she’d traversed earlier.
The music died in the distance, and it was like being released from a terrible, heady bubble.
Shaking hard now, Cyane jerked her hand free from Cerberus’s hold. She drew her arms to her chest and fell upon the nearest wall, shaking. “What’s happening to me? Who are you really, and what do you want from me? I can’t...I can’t take this anymore!”
She slid down the wall and pressed her hands to her face, squeezing her eyes shut to stem the tears threatening to spill. Everything that had happened in the last day rushed through her, forcing a whimper from her throat.
Cerberus glared at the girl who was damn-near hyperventilating against the wall, pounding her palms against her forehead.
His lips twisted.
What does Hades see in this woman?
Looking at her now, his lord’s motivations eluded him. More so than before, if that were at all possible.
And if she was anything like the wretched mortals that no longer believed in them… Disgust filled him. The mortal obviously didn’t believe in them. Which made her less than nothing, only worthy of the blood sea beyond Hades’s castle. But as Cerberus watched her, waiting for her antics to cease, his curiosity piqued. A little. This Cyane... She was a mortal who had infiltrated the Underworld, who was a blight to his duties, who represented his first true failure.
She took in a slow, deep breath.
Her breathing is evening out. She’s calming.
It was an improvement over last time but not enough to assure Cerberus he was any good with mortal females or any females at that. Even Minos had noticed his inexperience, calling him out when he had carried her over his shoulder, upside down, and then under his arm. Minos had scowled and instructed Cerberus to cradle her. But even now, Cerberus contemplated throwing her over his shoulder and tossing her at Hades’s feet.
Her breathing relaxed even more, and she lifted her face from her hands.
He knelt before her.
“To answer your questions, nothing is happening to you. Nothing that you haven’t brought upon yourself. You may not want to believe it—I have seen enough dead float through Styx to understand that being here can be a shock—but you are in the Underworld. The sooner you accept this, like all who’ve come before you, the better it will be
for you.”
She sniffed but remained silent, and he took it as permission to continue.
“As to what I want.” He stood. “I want you to get off the floor and tell me why Hades has brought you here.”
He offered his hand, and as he took in Cyane’s wide, brown eyes, he watched as she surprisingly raised her hand to take his.
Cerberus pulled her to her feet as warmth flooded his limb. He released her and curled his hand into a fist.
He didn’t turn to see if she followed him as he continued down the hall. There was no need, the ever-watchful eyes of his dogs told him she was. Besides that, there was only silence between them.
Cyane’s gaze was on his back, his armor, his xiphos sword. He, like most of the undying ones, had a great sense of when they were being watched. Prayers, sacrifices, and celebrations honoring them often had so much pull to one of his kind, even if many of the mortals had forgotten that.
So he knew without looking that Cyane’s attention was on him. Like a soft touch or a tickle along the spine.
“Are you really Cerberus?” she asked suddenly, ending the silence he enjoyed. “The three-headed dog that guards the river Styx and is a companion to Hades?”
“I’m a three-headed dog now?” He hummed. “Yes.”
Her footsteps scurried up to his side. Cerberus slowed his gait to let her catch up.
The closer she was to him, the easier it would be to tear her secrets out.
“I hate to point this out,” she hesitated as if she was afraid of offending him, “but you don’t look like a three-headed dog.”
“No. My lord gifted me the form of a man. I’ve been told it would be rude to ignore his generosity.”
“The thing I saw earlier…”
He glanced down at her.
The female stood a foot shorter than him, with golden skin not unlike the gods that lived above. Now that he had the time to really look at her, he took in his fill.
She’s staring at the floor anyway.
Her hair was a light brown, much like the sacred dirt on Olympus that he would never get the chance to stand upon. It was tied up by a ribbon with curls bunched around her neck, falling down a little and more like the way of maidens who’d just lost their innocence styled their hair. A new emotion bloomed within him, compelling him to thread his fingers into her hair and undo it, let her hair fall free around her shoulders, to return her stolen maidenhood. A scowl threatened to return to his lips.
“...every time I picture it in my mind, there are more teeth, more fiery eyes, and tongues lashing out at me than I can count,” Cyane said, her words breaking through the fog in his mind. “I don’t even think there were tongues before…”
His eyes snapped away from her when she looked up at him.
They turned down a dark path that led to a stairway, leading her deeper into the castle.
“Perhaps your mind is playing tricks on you. I heard your kind imagine all sorts of things in the dark,” he said.
“It wasn’t a three-headed dog. It was something...something else. Where are you taking me?”
“You wanted to leave, correct?”
“You’re letting me leave?” she asked with a hopeful tone.
Cerberus came upon a large red door with his symbol carved into it—not the three-headed beast Cyane had questioned him about, but a hundred-headed one. He opened it to reveal a wide, open space with a large terrace that overlooked Hades’s Castle and the river Styx before it.
Cyane fell silent beside him, staring across the way at the castle. Cerberus ushered her into the room and stood quietly in front of the door as he watched her slowly make her way towards the terrace to look out at Tartarus.
She gasped. “I thought… I thought we were inside Hades’s castle.”
“We were. Until you crossed through the door.”
“How? How is any of this possible?”
“This realm, like every realm of the gods, is free from mortal reality. The shadows obscured the entirety of this place. All parts of Hades’s castle are connected by the darkness, regardless of where they sit or lie here. This room is no different.”
She turned to face him, and he couldn’t help but pause to acknowledge the absurdity of the situation.
He’d had limited interaction with mortals who were still alive, and those previous exchanges had gone poorly. Each mortal who’d come before had tried to steal from Hades, at least the ones who dared enter his lord’s domain while still alive.
The fact that he had one now, a female at that, standing in his haven, wasn’t lost on him. No other being had ever infiltrated his private space before. The place where he watched over all the souls of Styx making their final journey.
Confused innocence faced him, and he narrowed his eyes.
“I suppose that makes as much sense as anything else.” She glanced around the room. “And now?”
“Now you tell me what Hades sees in you.”
Cyane shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You deny it?” he asked harshly, making her eyes widen.
“I’m just trying to get to Sicily.”
“You’re a long way from Sicily, human.”
She shuddered. “I’ve figured that part out.”
He had taken a step towards her when a prickle coursed down his back.
Hades.
Damn him.
His lord sought him. Leaving the party, in the way that Cerberus had, could have repercussions. And since the scene had played out in front of all the gods in Tartarus to see…
Cyane’s arms moved up to band around her middle. The motion pushed up her breasts and made her dress rise. His gaze flickered, fighting the urge to examine the shift in her clothes.
She was curvy like a naiad, a nymph—a creature of temptation. Of course, they no longer existed in the mortal realm, their mystical touch having diminished after centuries of breeding only with humans.
His mind wandered further, to the erotic nature of such alluring creatures, when the mortal before him cast her eyes downward, flooring him.
Subservience.
Something he understood well.
His groin twitched.
It was a rare trait in a god or goddess, one he hadn’t seen since Queen Persephone was under the throes of Hades's desires. Even Zeus’s closest followers weren’t subservient to him, not truly. But this human mortal gave Cerberus a taste of it, of what it would be like if he were a lord, and she the worshiper.
His hand was halfway to her with the intention to lift her chin when the prickle of Hades’s call slid across his back again. Cerberus snatched his hand away with a low growl.
He couldn’t stay.
Nor could he get attached.
“Look at me,” he ordered.
Cyane met his eyes, and a tiny thrill coursed through him. He didn’t understand it. I intimidate her. Then her gaze hardened, and the spell of her subservience was broken.
“Stay here,” he ordered, turning away from her before he got sucked in again. “We’ll speak when I get back.”
“What? Get back from where?”
He ignored her as he made his way towards the door and opened it.
“Cerberus,” she called his name, and the damnable, confusing thrill returned. “You’re going to let me leave though, right?”
Cyane grabbed his arm. The warmth of her hand seemed to bleed through his armor even though he knew that was impossible. The chill of the Underworld had long ago settled in his bones for good.
But where she touched him, he warmed up, just a little.
“Leave? No, Cyane, I’m not going to let you leave. Not yet.”
He removed himself from her presence and firmly shut the door to his room.
Godly Revelations
Why does he think Hades brought me here?
Cyane frowned. She didn’t know how long she stayed in place, staring at the door after Cerberus left. One moment he’d been right in front of her, s
omething growing between them, and in the next, he was gone.
She’d have another chance to persuade him. She was sure of it.
The headache returned behind her eyes, and she turned away from the door.
She believed. She freaking believed her circumstances. If the huge open window framing the castle and the waters from before wasn’t enough, her recent experiences were.
I’m not dealing with men and women…
Dread and excitement gut-punched her.
Were the gods omniscient? Were they watching her now? Had one of them brought her here?
Why?
Maybe Hades really did bring me here. It’s the only answer she’d received.
Part of her wanted to slam her fists against the door and scream at the top of her lungs, for help, for anyone, for fucking Cerberus to come back and give her more answers. She resisted the urge. Fatigue, frustration, and anger pulsed through her, all longing for an escape, but she’d never been a violent person. She never had the luxury, always fearing punishment should she speak out.
The nuns at the school made sure of that. Once, she’d snuck out of her room at night to see her friend only to be caught and punished for her transgression. Mistress Loraine had sheared off her hair, forcing her to go bald for a year by roughly shaving her scalp weekly. The other girls had avoided her after that, and she ended up alone behind stone and plaster walls. Even now, when Cyane stroked her fingers over her head, she felt the scars hidden beneath.
All her scars were hidden away.
Even if she screamed for help, it might not be Cerberus who answered her call… It never was who she wanted when she screamed for help at the school.
Cyane searched for a place to sit and wait—to hope that she wouldn’t be left alone long—when it occurred to her how bizarre the room actually was.
Paintings decorated every wall, all in reds, blacks, and grays with the occasional startlement of white. They depicted battles, meetings, monsters, and conquests.
