He licked his lips anyway.
The soul wasn’t swimming back towards the gates, but upward. It wasn’t entirely unusual—any direction was better than the unknown.
He couldn’t place the source of this uncertainty, but he had done this job for millennia, and his instincts were well-honed. He sheathed his sword and his shield vanished as he moved to the water’s edge.
His canine companions barked and ran along the shores on either side.
The white creature thrashed above the surface for a second. “Help! Hel—”
They disappeared back under the black waters.
Cerberus stared, waiting for the dead mortal to give up its deceit and swim towards the gates that led back topside.
Thatwas it, the oddness. A soul couldn’t normally shift the waters of Styx. Regardless, this one was, but it was neither swimming with the current nor pushing against it. It struggled, flapping, crying out for help…Drowning?The waters of Styx splashed once more as a hand shot out, grasping to stay above the waterline.
He edged closer to the water’s edge. The prickling sense that something was trying to leave Tartarus began to fade.
His confusion fled as his curiosity piqued. Charon’s boat was nowhere in sight. Nothing was out of place. Where had this creature come from?
Cerberus cursed under his breath as the soul finally dropped below the water’s surface and did not return. The water’s surface rippled and calmed. He continued to stare at those ripples, ripples that shouldn’t be there at all. The dead didn’t have substance but this creature, whatever it was, did.
This isn’t right.
He swept out his arm and a small skiff appeared, he jumped into the vessel and took up an oar, plowing through the dark waters. The figure was beside him, below, its hair drifting around them, wide eyes pleading, and hand still grasping for the surface.
A woman?Even below the surface, her sex was unmistakable.
Without thinking, he dropped to his knees and reached his arm into Styx and grabbed her wrist.
He yanked her out of the water with one sure tug, gathered her in his arms, and laid her out on the skiff. The boat rocked as he flicked Styx’s water off his arm and peered down at the intruder.
He would have to cleanse himself later, but he wasn’t worried. Styx had been a constant companion to him for millennia, and he’d touched her waters before without repercussions.
The female lay before him, drenched, her body garbed in clothes he didn’t recognize. Her white shirt was plastered against her flesh, and her pants had been tailored short to reveal her thighs. They left little to his imagination. She was not dressed as he expected a female would be, and nor was she nude like newly dead mortals, who were stripped of their worldly possessions upon death.
Her hair rested in wet tangles across her shoulders and chest, framing a mortally beautiful, but unmoving face. The waters of Styx clung to her, gathering in droplets across her exposed skin. Cerberus reached out to lay his hand on the woman’s cheek, debating whether or not to throw her back into the water or even eat her essence right then and there, as his right.
She jerked up with a sputtering cough.
Spittle hit his face, startling him back, she shifted onto her palms, hacking out swallowed water. He pressed his hand upon her shoulder as her eyes opened wide to stare wildly at his.
A hush settled over them, and the female’s skin warmed under his hand. It wasn’t right. The dead were not warm. They didn’t have substance like this woman. Was she really dead? Or was she one of the undying guests playing a trick? An incredibly dangerous trick at that. The warmth under his fingers grew.
She pivoted from him and heaved over, coughing out more of the dark water.
He drew his hand from her shoulder, only for his fingers to get trapped in her hair. He pulled the strands away curiously and moved closer to sniff them. A rare smell flooded his nose.
Mortal. Alive?Intruder.
INTRUDER!
His lips twisted into a sneer. He leaned over her, preparing to eat her up, his jaw gaping large, hard, and heavy, stretching his man-suit painfully.
He was a man now, torn from his original form, given a new one, but free to devour all at his lord’s request. But when he was overcome with raw emotion, he could resume his original bestial self.
Cerberus seized upon her with darkening eyes.
Yes.
