“You toss and turn when you sleep.”
“And you don’t?”
“I don’t sleep.”
“You have a bed.”
“It’s for you.”
Her heart skipped a beat. She narrowed her eyes and drew her blanket tighter around her. Cerberus lifted his elbows off his knees and crossed one leg over the other, leaning back in his chair. It was such a human thing to do…But humans slept.
“It’s not for me if it was already here,” she said.
“It wasn’t. You fell asleep on my chair on the terrace over Styx the first day. I put it there so you may sleep as the others do.”
“In beds?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t remember whether she saw a bed or not when Cerberus first brought her here. But that seemed no stranger than anything else that had happened. She recalled the terrible headache, and how she’d first been transfixed by the art on his walls and then the overlook. It was possible. It hurt to recall the memories, and she guessed it was her mind protecting itself by denying that any of this was real.
“Okay,” she said. Truthfully, what other response could she have? Maybe she couldokayher way out of everything else. “Wait, I’m meeting Hades?” She questioned if she couldokayher way through a meeting with the Lord of the Dead.
“Yes.”
She tried not to let panic overcome her.
She was going to meet Hades. The god.
The same Hades who supposedly orchestrated her fall. The very being she should be demanding to meet so that she could go home.
But who in all the worlds, realms, or other such places that might yet exist, wouldwillinglygo before the devil?
Not fucking Cyane.
The thought alone alarmed her, even if the notion of ‘devil’ was skewed in her head.
Hades hadn’t been a blue man with fire for hair like he’d been depicted in the Disney movie. Nor was he the devil from her religious studies, not a pitchfork was in sight. No, from what she glimpsed of the God of Death he was entirely different.
Black, curled hair fell down over his ears, tumbling wisps of shadow that danced around his body, making him appear as a mirage. The life in the room, for as much as it could be described that way, appeared muted, as if the raw power Hades exuded crushed everything around him into subservience. The air itself seemed to bend the knee. A dark smirk painted his lips as he lazily scanned the crowd, perched like a tiger surveying his domain. A note of fear coursed through her as if someone had thrummed a primal chord on her heartstrings. Dark eyes found her and paused before resuming their lazy perusal.
Cyane’s mouth fell open.
Cerberus glanced around the room as if he had realized something, completely unaware of her growing panic. “What other things do mortals need?”
Cyane pursed her lips to blurt outSpace! Being as far away from the God of Death as possible!But instead, she remained quiet, shaking the image of Hades from her head.
Cerberus spent more time with Hades than anyone else, even Persephone if the myths were to be believed.
He’s not all bad.
He was disparity incarnate, which made it hard for her to pin down an opinion on him. Grave and intense, but calm and passive, frightening and strong but level-headed and controlled. He emanated boundless power.
In the short time they’d spent together, he hadn’t molested her, hadn’t offered her drugs, hadn’t leered or mocked her. He hadn’t threatened her just because she was a woman (at least maliciously) nor tried to bribe her. He’d been the exact opposite of the majority of men she’d encountered.
But how could such a man serve the evilest god in existence?
Despite her confusion, there was one truth she could illicit; she felt a little less crazy around him.
