Chapter 6 – Cerberus #2
I’m definitely going to have to figure out sex in this world, because I think he could satisfy me just fine. But not if I don’t learn to show him the right signs that that’s what I want.
“What are your concerns?” Kayla asks, distracted as she fills up the puppies’ water bowl.
“I heard about some kind of dangerous, wild dog running around this town.”
Everything inside of me tenses.
Kayla laughs. “Don’t worry; we don’t have any dangerous dogs here.”
“You sure?” he presses, crossing those big, muscular arms in front of his chest again.
“Absolutely,” she says, rising to her feet. “All our dogs spend enough time with us before we adopt them out that we learn about any of their… quirks.”
“Quirks?” I ask, unable to stop myself.
She shrugs. “Dogs are like people. They have a history. If their owner punishes them with water, they might fear it. If they’ve been starved, they might be possessive of their food.
If they’ve been taught to protect their pack, they might be more aggressive.
And then, of course, these things can feed into their natural instincts, so we get to know them. ”
I’ve never heard Kayla speak like this before, and for some reason, it makes me like her even more.
My gaze goes to my arms, to the scars from the clawed hands of the Soulless, the marks from the teeth of the Rotters.
I don’t like knives anymore or the feel of teeth on my flesh.
And then I think of my back, and the larger scars seem to grow heavier. The reason I don’t like whips.
Yes, humans or dogs… we carry our history. Our fears.
Kayla continues, breaking into my thoughts. “So, we try to match the right dogs with the right owners. With puppies, it’s more about getting the right breed and temperament. That’s important with older dogs too, but their history is another factor.”
“But I imagine not every dog is adoptable? Like the one I’ve been hearing about,” I ask.
For some reason Kayla’s answer is very important to me. Me—my hellhound—we’re the same. Dangerous. If we were here, I’d assume we’d meet the unadoptable category.
“Yes, some dogs are too dangerous to adopt out,” Kayla says, very slowly. “But just so you know, the one people are talking about, I doubt it’s just some crazed dog.”
“Why do you say that?” Soren presses.
She leans against the fence and grins. “Because the men who were supposedly attacked—they’re all assholes who like to party.
I’m thinking they probably just got a little messed up on drugs, ran around the woods and got hurt, and then came up with a bullshit story to explain it all.
That makes more sense than the alternative. ”
“And what’s the alternative?” he asked.
Her grin widens. “That some crazed dog is just attacking the town assholes… oh yeah, with its fur on fire.” She laughs. “You do the math.”
His brows draw together, and I can actually see his thoughts turning over in his mind. “So, the—dog—only hurts bad men?”
Kayla nods. “Yup. If there was a dog.”
I rise, gently shifting the puppies so they won’t be hurt. This conversation is setting me on edge. Has everyone in this town noticed that my targets fit a certain profile?
That might make it even harder to go unnoticed.
Hades might be sending his Soulless after me sooner than I thought. And yet, I’m not ready to pack up and leave. Not yet.
“You wanted to look at the dogs?” I remind Soren.
He stiffens. “Oh yeah.”
Kayla takes him around, answering questions, and introducing him to our dogs. I listen while I feed all our animals, clean their areas, and fill their water dishes. When I’m done, I’m sweaty, but I feel good. Work like this always leaving me feeling renewed.
My mind flashes to another time—to my teeth sunk deeply into the ankle of a dead human trying to escape. I remember the taste of their blood and their screams as I dragged them back to the other side of the massive gate the dead had to stay within.
That woman had begged me to stop. They all begged me to stop.
But usually the people who had gone to the Underworld and found their own paradise didn’t try to escape. It was the bastards who would spend eternity being punished for their sins that tried to run from it, not caring how it could impact their loved ones to suddenly have them return.
“Cerce?”
I come back to the present. I’m shaking.
She puts a gentle hand on my arm and smiles at me.
Kayla says I have PTSD. She even explained what it is, even though I won’t tell her the cause of it.
The first time I got dragged into a memory, I came back shaking and vomiting.
She’d looked at my scars and explained PTSD like it was the most normal thing in this world.
I love Kayla.
“I’m okay,” I tell her, even though the words come out breathless.
Soren is behind her, frowning. His gaze locks onto mine and for the briefest moment I think he looks concerned, and then his face goes blank again.
“Kayla!” someone shouts.
We whirl around. A young man is standing in the doorway. His face is pale. A dog lies in his arms, covered in blood, a wounded mass of flesh.
“He was hit by a truck,” the young man says.
We snap into action, forgetting everything except this suffering creature.
Kayla leads us to a surgery room. She shouts to lay the dog down.
We wash our hands and put on our white coats.
But the instant Kayla tries to approach him with a shot, something to help with the pain, something to put him to sleep, so we can save his life, the dog goes wild, snapping at us and growling.
He’s lost. Lost to his pain.
The young man tries to help. The dog snaps at him. Things are becoming dangerous. His time is ticking away.
I growl loudly, low in the back of my throat. I could make sounds that every person within earshot would know don’t belong to a human, but I won’t. That would give me away. But I make a sound I know will draw the dog’s attention, which it does.
Approaching it like an alpha, I hold his gaze. The dog loses his fight, leaning down, whimpering as I approach. I grab him by the scruff at the back of his neck. Kayla gives him the shot. He makes one final whimper before he goes to sleep.
And then, then it’s time for us to get to work. To save his life.
Briefly I glance up to the doorway, and my gaze connects with Soren’s. He’s watching me again in a way that doesn’t make sense to me, but then he turns and he’s gone.
I want to think about him. To question what he thinks of me and what I think of him.
But I can’t. Not now. I have a life to save.