Although she didn’t want to lay her eyes on a large, slobbering, slack-jawed beast as well. Her nightmares were already full.
But… Cyane chewed on her lip—now that she was doomed to meet Hades, part of her seized on the idea that she could familiarize herself with his appearance.
Something nudged her side. Cerberus’s hounds were still with her. She ran her fingers across the nearest one’s back. Petting it calmed her nerves.
Unlike Hades, Cerberus was cold and watchful. Just as frightening but in an unattainable, detached way. Even his armor looked cold.
Melinoe stopped in front of Hades and bowed deeply before him. Neither he nor Cerberus looked at the goddess.
Cyane tried to glimpse Hades’s face, but guests kept weaving in front of her, obscuring her view. Some of the guests had gifts in their hands while others did not. Some danced like the day before, while others feasted vigorously, noisily along the sides of the hall where food was laid out, their hands and mouths covered in slop.
She discovered that no one else was dressed like her.
She gripped her skirt and turned away from the ballroom.
The lutes, now accompanied by steady pounding drums, grew louder in her ears. The beat of it settled hungrily in her gut, making her sex ache unwillingly. The dress Cerberus laid out for her hadn’t come with underwear. And she sensed wetness between her legs build.
I’m not turned on, she fumed angrily. She didn’t feel turned on, but the slick was there regardless, as if forced out of her for the celebration.
If it didn’t stop, anyone would be able to see it.
Cyane’s stomach sank further. A loud creaking noise filled her ears. She shifted warily as she glanced behind her to see two, impossibly large black doors closing on her.
Forced to make a choice, Cyane fell back into the ballroom with a whimper.
The doors shut with a final groan.
Trapped.
Cerberus’s gazezeroed in on Cyane. That delicious thrill the mortal had sparked in him when she bowed before him had refused to diminish, offering him not even a desperately needed moment of reprieve. It plagued him even now.
The mortal obeys me like I’m a god.A godhood he had a right to claim but had never desired. It made him want more, and that was a dangerous desire to harbor in Hades’s court.
The undying bowed before Hades and Cerberus. Cerberus felt nothing for their subservience like he had with Cyane’s. They offered his lord gifts of blood, gifts of jewels, the finest clothes, the ripest fruit, and Cerberus found he wanted none of that.
But with Cyane...
“Father,” Melinoe breathed longingly.
Hades waved his hand, and the goddess vanished with a frightened cry.
Snickers rose from the guests around them. Cerberus was barely aware of it all as he breathed in Cyane’s wet scent through his hounds that stayed poised at her sides. She smelled of lilies and purity. The dress he’d chosen emphasized her newness, not only to this realm, but as a young human. She bloomed life.
Like Persephone…
His thoughts darkened. He noticed the eyes of all the males who gazed upon her feverishly. Cyane was a tasty lamb amongst them. The only thing that kept them away was her status as a guest and his hounds’ diligence. He didn’t like the undyings’ eyes on her.
Few knew that he breathed down the necks of all the undying in the room, held them tight within his hundred jaws, and could rend them into oblivion.
The dress he’d chosen for Cyane was for Hades and Hades alone.
Or was it? A streak of tension gripped Cerberus.
“You’ve outdone yourself,” Hades said, his lord leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “The mortal reminds me of the first time I saw Persephone. So sweet; so easy to pluck and possess.”
Cerberus nodded stiffly.
Hades rubbed his lips with his finger. “I look forward to her gift most of all.”
