Her eyes fell on the man as he raised the sword in his right hand and pointed it toward her chest.
This time, she didn’t squirm away from his blade.
He wore dark pants with plated metal armor over his shins and knees. The pants disappeared behind a muscled cuirass decorated with the glint of sculpted abs, sculpted pecs. Thick, leather strips hung from the bottom of the cuirass, shielding his groin and thighs. The leather strips were covered in clean but dull ornamentation of howling canines.
Her eyes squinted upon the well-crafted ancient Greek warrior armor. It was in excellent condition compared to anything she’d seen in a museum, and she found it as misplaced and unwelcome as everything else was. Armor covered every inch of him, including a dark, leather-like material down his arms. For a split-second, she wanted to laugh.
An equally unpolished black and silver helmet rested on his head, its points as sharp as the terrifying castle at her back. Only the glow of his pupils deep within the helmet’s inner shadows indicated he looked at her.
“I’m facing you,” she choked out to break the silence.
Cerberus tightenedhis grip upon his sword. He studied the female before him. Her lips quivered, and her chest rose and fell with each shuddering breath. Even her shallow words gave her away.
She’s not one of Charon’s dead.
Questions beat at his mind. Not even Hercules himself had spent that much time in the water of Styx.
“Do you have any last words?” he asked. Though he didn’t care for any answers she might give him. He had surprised himself already by helping her cough the last of the water out. He would follow through by giving her the dignity of words.
Her eyes widened. “L-last words?”
He raised his sword from her chest to poise at her neck. “All those who trespass or defy the laws of the Underworld are punished. Your soul will never return to the mortal realm, nor will it reach Elysium or Asphodel Meadows. Your crime will be judged by me. Here. Now.”
She stared at him wordlessly. He swallowed and continued.
“I do not know how you came to be before the entrance to Hades’s castle without loss of life or help, but it matters not. The crime has been committed. The law has been broken. I will devour your soul, but first, your flesh will be rent open by my sword’s edge.” The boat rocked beneath his feet. Styx’s current was slowly pulling them towards the castle.
The woman trembled, and her eyes flicked from his face to the weapon in his hand. To his abrupt shock, she pivoted back around to look at the castle.
His hold on his xiphos wavered.
She was not reacting as any mortal—or even immortal—should be in the face of imminent annihilation.
With each passing moment, her breaths steadied further when they should be quickening.If she has nothing to say, so be it.Cerberus raised his weapon to lob off her head.
She turned back around. “I don’t understand... Where are we? Is this some sort of horrible joke?”
Sudden fury filled Cerberus, hot and hard. The mortal’s audacity drew molten rage through his veins. Had she listened to anything he’d said? Didn’t she have respect for where she was?
He growled, his sword vanishing, as he snatched her neck in his grip. He dug his fingers into her flesh.
His body grew cold as the shadows coalesced within him, making him larger, and returning awareness of his prior monstrous form. Cerberus drew on it. He wanted to see her fear before he killed her.
Fear was powerful. It was delicious. And a mortal’s fear… his tongue lashed the roof of his mouth.
Finally, as his mouth grew and malformed into a canine snarl behind his helmet, she released a scream of terror. Her hands came up to beat at his chest and clawed at his wrist in the effort to tear his hand off of her. The skies rang with the cackles of harpies as they watched from above.
Warmth surged into him where he touched the woman, where she fought him in defense. A warmth unlike he’d ever known in all his years in Tartarus. At first, he assumed this human must be an agent of Helios, or worse, Apollo, to bring such heat here, but then he tossed the thought away. The sun gods had never been known to scheme against Hades. They wanted nothing to do with the dark places of the world.
Cerberus’s grip loosened when her nails dug deep into the cloth covering his forearms, ripping it.
“Let go of me!” she shrieked.
Blood welled beneath, startling him long enough for the woman to kick hard at his chest, pushing him backward. The momentum forced him down, and he barely caught the side of the boat, stopping himself from falling overboard.
He heard a splash, and his fury returned. He rose to see his devious intruder swimming madly away.
He surged to the side of the boat to catch her limb. He touched her flesh but missed her ankle by a hairsbreadth. The currents swept her up as she tried for the shoreline. But it carried her towards the castle instead.
