Something dark and ominous filled him at his lord’s words. It circulated through him like curdled blood and sharpened his thoughts. Cyane shrunk away from the centaur, Chiron, and sought Cerberus’s gaze from across the room.
So sweet, so easy to pluck and possess.
Yes.Yes. That’s what she was.
This is what it’s like to be a god.
He realized he wanted her gift too. Whatever she intended to give to Hades, he wanted it. Cerberus’s mood darkened further. He wanted her gift for himself alone.
The mortal hugged herself and skirted around the men and women engaging her.
“Lord Hades, Ruler of the Underworld, I humbly offer you my life,” a lesser Arae, naked from the waist up, said as she bowed.
“Great Dark King of Tartarus, I bring with me the endless blood waters of my husband, Acheron, for another millennium of servitude,” Gorgyra tilted her head and said as she placed a ceramic pot at Hades’s feet. Acheron’s serpentine nymph smiled and slipped away.
One after the other, those who celebrated with Lord Hades continued to offer him precious, pricey items and endowments. Menoetes offered him the best cattle stolen from above. Hermes offered a burned-out bolt from Zeus’s own arsenal. Even Zeus himself had a gift sent from above of godly garments crafted by Hepheastus. Time passed far too slowly for Cerberus.
At one point a rain of dead flowers fell from the ceiling to bury them, brought on by Demeter’s pain.
Cyane caught them in her hands in wonderment. Cerberus couldn’t tear his eyes away from her, at least not for long. She was unlike any of the other creatures that resided in this place. His eyes dipped to her body, and his jaw twitched. Why had he picked that dress out for her? Everyone could see her through it.
Hades swept the flowers away with a hearty laugh.
Hecate enchanted Hades’s two-pronged bident with the power to command moonlight into his realm for a time. The lower undying offered up more of the same—enchanted jewels, stolen art from above, a rare relic of power—and on occasion, someone would offend Hades with their gift and vanish with a flick of his lord’s wrist.
Cerberus watched and detested them all. They came one-by-one to appease his lord with everything but loyalty. Muses and their ballads and poems, Furies and their prophecies and dreams; it made his ears ache. When Cerberus was nothing more than a monster, he never had to attend these festivities, he’d been free to do his job like Charon. But times had changed, and so had Hades’s requirements of Cerberus.
This gift of manhood was not something he could turn his back on. His brothers, Chimera and Hydra, had perished like all the ancient beasts of old.
Cerberus was the only one left.
The only one except for his father, Typhon, who was imprisoned far below.
The last of the supplicants approached to offer their gifts, but Cyane hadn’t stepped forward. He instructed one of his canines to prod her into action.
The music swelled, and those who had survived Hades’s displeasure had become drunk on nectar and ambrosia and were enjoying the festivities freely. Cyane, who had been hidden behind the white curtains, shakily stepped forward.
Cerberus’s hands tensed.
She held a cup in her hand, one he hadn’t realized she’d picked up, and he watched her polish it off and set it on a table. His eyes narrowed, wondering what a gods drink would do to her.
She slowly made her way toward the dais, dodging drunken nymphs and daemons, flitting along like a lost maiden. Her chestnut hair fell in wavy curls down her back and arms, nearly bleeding into her white dress. Cerberus’s jaw twitched, and he had stepped forward when another guest rammed into her but stopped when Cyane caught herself, straightened with an inhalation that captivated him and weaved forward.
Tipsy or not, she made it to her destination.
Cyane stopped a short distance away and looked straight at Cerberus, making his body grow rigid with want. Her eyes were dewy and lightly glazed. Her hands gripped the sides of her dress, and her mouth opened like she wanted to say something, but then she glanced at Hades before looking back at Cerberus in question.
She’s asking me permission to come forward.Cerberus nodded stiffly. The thrill of her obeying him flushed through him, tightening his loins in a shocking, damning way. They pressed against his trousers painfully.
Damned!He didn’t understand it. Not even goddesses and naked, wanton nymphs made him react like this.
She shifted on her feet. Her tipsy courage urged him to take advantage, to assert his control over the situation and send her away, but it also made him wary, curious. He could smell her fear, her slick. When she appeared as though she might run, Cerberus left his place by Hades and went to her.
If she ran, he’d have no choice but to chase her. He didn’t know what he would do if that happened. Though something hard and shallowly buried inside him was increasingly delighted by the idea.
“Cerberus,” she breathed when he approached, “I’m scared.”
“You are a guest, there is no reason to be scared.” He fisted his hands tighter to keep himself from reaching for her. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
