“My damned, you have become so amusing!” Hades threw his hands up in the air.
Cerberus’s eyes darkened. “It is true, is it not?”
Hades settled his palms on his knees. “Perhaps it is true, perhaps it’s not. You would know the value of Cyane, wouldn’t you? Better than anyone. But you forget one thing, if I do not receive the gift I seek, I can still hurt you, take out my wrath upon you. You may be right about Cyane, and I cannot fault you on that matter, because the love between her and my queen is what I hoped for, but you...your flesh is punishable.”
“There is nothing you could do to me,” Cerberus said, staring at the fire, “that hasn’t already been done.”
“Cyane has sworn fealty to you, has she not?”
A delicious shiver shot through Cerberus. “Yes.”
He pictured her kneeling at his feet, either in vestal white or naked and vulnerable, waiting for his command. The delicious vision couldn’t linger as Hades filled Cerberus’ eyes with a darker image of himself.
“I suppose she loves you? As much as a mortal could love another?” Hades asked.
Cerberus looked Hades in the eye. “I wouldn’t assume.”
“But she cares?” Hades smiled. “She sought you out relentlessly during the Day of Deviance, only to find you gone. Her eyes roved the guests when she should have been paying attention to me, minding her own mortality.”
A thread of regret spiked through Cerberus. He’d left her to face Hades alone, even if his intentions were for her protection. His hounds or not, Cerberus should’ve been by her side. Even if it angered Hades and brought Melinoe closer.
Hades must’ve seen the regret on Cerberus’s face because he continued. “The loyalty of mortals is fickle, and the value of her fealty has yet to be seen. For now, she has the love and affection of a long-lost friend to keep her attention. But I may be lenient on your punishment, if you ensure I get all I yet want.”
“A godly child,” Cerberus gritted. Hades’s opinions in regards to Cyane’s affections mattered less than dirt to Cerberus.
“My wife’s acceptance into her bed.”
“One in the same.”
Hades shrugged. “You are still loyal to me, are you not?”
Was he? He knew the answer before he finished asking himself. He sat back and trailed his eyes over Hades’s dark, familiar body. Hades’s scent was better known to Cerberus than that of his father, better than even his own scent. Hades would always be more than a lord to Cerberus, more than a friend.
“Yes, I am eternally loyal,” Cerberus said, feeling the terrible truth of that statement settle over him.
An almost imperceptible softness fell over Hades's features; something only Cerberus would ever see, something he knew Hades had no idea he gave away.
Hades loved his hound as much as Cerberus loved his lord.
“Then you will attend me tonight, my brother.” Hades closed his eyes and settled in his chair. “You and Cyane.”
Cyane layin the grass next to Persephone, the goddess’s laughter a sweet song in her ears. Persephone had taken them to a garden somewhere deep within the castle. A secret place that shouldn’t exist in the Underworld. Flowers grew here that Cyane had never seen or heard of before, they had been created for this place and this place alone. They stole away the smell of Tartarus and replaced it with floral musk and a little bit of spice. It suited the ever-present gloom.
Cyane adored the flowers because they showed her Persephone as she was now but still as herself back before her abduction, mixed together to give a little life in the one place where there shouldn’t be.
Sorrow had all but vanished from Cyane’s veins, and the result was almost too much for her to bear. She’d never experienced more jubilance and mirth. Knowing Persephone was alive and well, and just as happy, if not a little more bitter, a little more grown up, was the greatest gift of all.
They both were now, having grown up since they were last together.
But there was something missing in Cyane’s heart, something that made her rise up on her elbows, again and again, to peer around the garden and its high walls. There was no roof here, and she figured this was a courtyard of some sorts because along the sides, the needle-like points of the castle’s design could be seen reaching the faraway cavern ceiling.
Her eyes scanned the garden. Again. She was searching for Cerberus. She was desperate to be with him again but also...nervous. He hadn’t stopped her from walking away, and now she had unexpectedly returned. She had no idea where they stood. Doubt and paranoia filled her the longer she dwelled on it, the longer he stayed away.
Persephone pressed a flower to Cyane’s nose. Cyane smiled as she breathed in the new scent her goddess was proud of.
Persephone gave Cyane meaning, she fulfilled everything she thought she had been searching for. A friend, family, a way to contribute to something larger than herself. But Cerberus… He gave her love, darkness, and obsession.
Persephone was Cyane’s goddess.
