“Your paranoia is so much fun, but no. He’s never been one to spy. In fact, he’s been helpful in my plans for this event. But I wonder...if others have come to the same assumptions as our dear traveler.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“You do hear a great many things as my guardian, do you not?”
Many things, and then some.Cerberus sat down in the empty high-backed chair across from Hades. “Hecate wants fresh flesh, Melinoe schemes for companionship.” Hades laughed at that. “The Erinyes still have not stopped arguing, and Hermes, well, I have nothing more than failed seductions to report on his part, not assumptions.”
Hades glowered. “You do know what I speak of, do you not? That my bed is empty and has been as such for countless millennia. That Persephone refuses me even to this day?”
Cerberus knew. He knew much of what happened in the Underworld, but Hades was lord, and Cerberus’s choice to not bring up such personal, quaint matters was his alone. What care did he have that Hades slept alone, when the gates of the Underworld were always open, needing Cerberus’s watchful eye?
But he settled into his seat anyway. Then, unsettled, poured himself a cup of nectar he would only think about drinking. He resettled and sighed. “What would you have me do about it?”
“Do about it? You could stop being such a servant and implore me for one.”
Cerberus swirled his cup and dully said, “Let me help you, my lord.”
“Bah!”
“We’ve had an intruder, a mortal—”
Hades tempered his outburst. “Ah yes, the reason you vanished from my side? A mortal you say?”
“She arrived suddenly—”
“A woman?”
“Yes,” Cerberus gritted.
“Very good!” Hades clapped his hands. “Where is she now?”
Cerberus considered taking off his helmet and shooting back his nectar. “Asleep, recovering in the Lethe wing. The mortal arrived here by no normal means—”
A sly smile twisted Hades's lips, stopping him from finishing the story.
“What?” Cerberus asked.
“My plan is coming to fruition. A god has the right to enjoy the success of his endeavors. I assume the woman is in good health, that you did not devour her soul? I wouldnotlike that.”
Cerberus narrowed his eyes. He was loyal to Hades, above all else in this realm and all others. Not even his father, the great dragon Typhon who remained trapped far below in the bowels of Tartarus, could claim such loyalty from him.
“This plan…” Cerberus hesitated, he was not trained to ask questions. At least not ones that questioned Hades’s motivations.
“Is the woman in good health or not?”
“She glimpsed my true form.”
Hades burst out in laughter again. “No wonder she sleeps in Lethe’s wing. Forgetfulness is a wonderful gift we give humans. I see, I see. Perhaps my bed will not remain empty for much longer.”
Cerberus’s eyes flared. “You’re not concerned about how she got here?”
“I know how she got here. Hermes and Charon brought her here.”
Hermes.Cerberus’s demeanor shriveled as his lips briefly pulled back into a snarl. “And dumped her in the middle of Styx? To die an agonizing death from either me or the ancient Titaness?” No mortal or undying deserved such a fate. He recalled his own fierce fury at seeing the mortal break the laws of gods, but that fury was nothing compared to knowing that he’d been tricked.
“They did what?” Hades’s anger materialized—the stone under their seats cracked. “They will answer to me. Styx is not to be disrupted, she serves us well and cannot be replaced. But she will not harm our mortal. I’ll make sure Styx is compensated for the trespass.”
“And me?”
