“She was not yours to love!”
“Neither was Persephone.”
They scowled at each other. Twins, in nearly every way.
Hades spoke after a pause. “I would never have thought you could love someone more than me.”
“Nor I you.”
Stalactites fell continuously now. They stared at each other, neither one willing to back down. Somewhere, far below, something enormous and destructive moved beneath their feet, awakening, just a little, disturbed by what was happening above.
Typhon.
“You will not like what love will do to you,” Hades said as the floor trembled.
“It has already done more than you know.”
Hade's face softened, throwing Cerberus off guard. It wasn’t a look he’d seen before, especially one he’d never imagine being directed at him. Within the next instant, Hades’s face went stony and cold again even if the hate was gone. The change was enough to fill Cerberus with unease. There was comfort in knowing what to expect.
Cerberus wondered if his concerns were the same for Hades when it came to him. Expectations, on both their ends, had died like out-of-season flowers this last week.
The tension left Hades, and his shoulders fell. “I’m beginning to feel I’ve cursed you with this new body rather than give you a gift. I cursed both of us.”
Cerberus had thought the same thing before the celebration began. But now, with Cyane and all that had happened between them, even the bad parts...it was an experience they had shared with this body. It was something he wouldn’t trade for the world.
“No, my lord. This body hasn’t been direct, nor easy, but I wouldn’t go back to the creature I was before. I cherish all that you’ve done for me. Despite the confusion, despite the pain, despite thehunger.”
Hades scoffed. “And you show your thankfulness with betrayal.”
“Cyane was afraid of what you planned for her,” he gritted. “She swore fealty to me—to me! I could not let you destroy her, so I gave her my protection, as a god should. As all gods have to their mortal servants. I may not have been a god before her, but I am one now. Because of her.”
What softness between them evaporated as quickly as it had emerged. Hades’s face darkened. “And what about your oath of loyalty to me?”
“I wouldn’t let her be used as a vessel for your children!” He settled his hand on the hilt of his xiphos sword.
“A vessel?” Hades cackled, his eyes growing bright with amusement. “You think I would lower myself to lay with a lowly mortal when I could have any female in my realm? No, she was supposed to be a gift! A gift of mercy!”
Part of the ceiling crashed down beside them, but neither looked towards the crumbling destruction ensuing around them.
Cerberus took a step towards Hades, burning with rage. “Lowly mortal? I’m done with these secrets. And what gift of mercy? You’ve slaughtered more in the last week than you have in millenia. What mercy do you have? Mercy of death? Mercy of servitude? Mercy of secrets and half-truths? Tell me!”
As Cerberus drew his sword, his hounds closed in on all sides, and raw power pumped through his veins. Tartarus, feeling the build of Cerberus’s power grow, shook the realm in anger.
Hades turned pensive for a moment before he lowered to a crouch like an animal. “A mercy of love.”
A flood of silently screaming, tormented ghosts appeared around them.
Melinoe’s stench filled the space between Cerberus and Hades, and their scowls snapped to the goddess who dared to invade a private conversation.
Melinoe’s eyes widened at the scene they presented, but she quickly fell to the dusty, stone-ridden ground to genuflect before Hades.
“What do you want?” Hades roared as he stood back up.
Cerberus dropped his sword back into its sheath but kept his hand tight around the handle.
“Speak before I banish you for a thousand years at Typhon’s side!” Hades snarled.
If Hades did not kill her, Cerberus surely would.
