7. Hell’s Mighty Beast
Chapter 7
Hell’s Mighty Beast
“ G ods,” I gasped as a giant paw the size of a small car came further through the Hellish fog. I could barely believe my eyes, it was such an insane sight. Especially as he stepped further through the archway, one that was only just wide enough to accommodate him. In fact, the whole doorway looked to have been made with him in mind because he barely needed to duck his head through… yikes, make that heads!
Yes…
There were three of them!
I wasn’t the only one now scrambling backward as quickly as they could move, because Anástasi also did the same. However, despite the distance we put between the beast and us, it still didn’t save us from having to arch our necks. This was just to see the three heads that were soon snarling above us.
“WHO DARES TO TRY AND ENTER THIS REALM WITHOUT JUDGEMENT?!”
The booming voice instantly had us covering our ears, and it shook the very mountain side the entrance was carved out of. It even made chunks of rock roll down from above. A deafening roar that would have been heard all down the valley as it echoed off the mountain pass like thunder. In fact, I was already wondering why it was we hadn’t yet both taken off running. Anástasi more so than I, if this was indeed a reenactment of past events.
I think it was also safe to say, at this point, that whatever had been communicating with Anástasi back in her safe haven, she hadn’t been expecting this size of beast. She looked utterly terrified and with good reason as well. Because I was now realizing this to be Jared’s true form when in this domain.
This was the fabled Cerberus in all his glory.
Was this why he looked so different to how I had seen his beast before? Was it being here that gave him the power to be as we saw him now? Of course, it wasn’t like I could go up to him, introduce myself by shaking a paw, and ask him. Fuck, just one of those heads was big enough to swallow me whole!
“It… it is… y… you,” Anástasi stuttered, making the beast lower its middle head and look down at her, seeing her for the first time.
She tried to hold herself so still, but the trembling in her frame was clear despite her tensed muscles. Especially when it started to sniff at her, its large muzzle coming so close, every time it expelled breath it blew back her hair like someone was holding a hairdryer out in front of her.
“YOU… YOU ARE THE ONE WHO HAUNTS MY DREAMS?” It asked in its bellowing voice, one that also made each word blow in her face like she was trying to face the storm head on. Thankfully, it wasn’t as loud as his furious roar but loud enough all the same. He was a giant, after all.
I was just still in shock, now witnessing what was our first meeting. The Beast and I. Because finally, he had a voice to be heard and it was equally as scary as it was incredible. This was Jared’s Beast and for the first time as my mortal self, I got to hear it for myself. It made me look back on my own past and every time I ever heard Jared talking about his Beast and how attracted it was to me. How it had been riding him hard from the beginning to claim me. How it had yearned for me from the start.
Was this why?
Did it all stem from this very first meeting?
Was this what Lerna wanted me to see? Not only how it all began but how we first connected, the beast and I? It was a connection that seemed to be growing for some time because they had obviously been communicating through their dreams. Yet despite this, he still seemed surprised to find her here now. As if all this time when asking her to come to him, he never really thought she would. A dream almost too good to believe it could ever come true.
Those large eyes of his were watching her every move and held a keen sense of intelligence behind them despite his beastly nature.
“I…” My past self was about to speak, but obviously thought better of it when suddenly everything started to go wrong. Something that started when the Beast began snarling furiously.
She instantly dropped her bag and started taking quick steps backward to get away, knowing now that something was wrong. I could see it in her face, the realization that she had somehow been tricked. Fooled into coming here by a Beast that was not what she had hoped to find. His large teeth and fiery breath building in his throat was finally enough to have her running. Now as for me, I backed away, yet didn’t follow her in her escape because I started to look at the picture differently. I chose to look directing into his eyes and what I saw in them was not a hatred aimed at Anástasi.
No, it was focused elsewhere.
And I was right, because suddenly he lowered his giant body before then leaping in the air. A powerful motion that was more than enough to cut the distance between them, and he came to land right in front of her. The sight enticed a scream from her, one that was soon drowned out by the mighty roar of Cerberus. However, once again, it wasn’t aimed at her, but instead at the seemingly empty mountain pass we had just travelled.
As for Anástasi, she had frozen under what I could now see was the protective stance of the Beast as he loomed above her, with her safely tucked in between his two front legs. She looked like she didn’t know what to do; chance running or staying where she was. I knew this from the panicked way she looked around, as if trying to weigh up her limited options.
This was until Cerberus roared again and, this time, it was enough to force the shadows I had seen following us to come out from their hiding places. I then watched as realization flowed through her when she finally understood what was going on…
He was protecting her.
“THE GIRL IS MINE! NOW GO OR TASTE MY WRATH!” he thundered once more, and it was enough of a threat that it had the humanoid bug-like creatures scurrying off on all fours. They were like crickets that had half mutated into people, holding an arch of interlocking triangular shaped shells on their back. Their limbs were long and made sickening grinding sounds as they ran, like the ball joints were rubbing against bare bone. It reminded me of the scraping of a fork on a plate or nails on a chalkboard.
As for their faces, I thanked the God that ruled this realm that I wasn’t close enough to make them out because I knew they would have been just as terrifying.
“YOU ARE SAFE, FOR THEY WILL NOT BOTHER YOU AGAIN NOW THAT I HAVE CLAIMED YOU AS BEING MINE,” Cerberus said, making her suck in a startled breath. She then started taking near stumbling steps to come out from underneath him.
“Y-y-y…yours?” she stammered, making him ask,
“YOU ARE THE GIRL THAT HAS CLAIMED MY DREAMS, ARE YOU NOT?”
She nodded precariously, causing him to take more action as he lowered his dominate middle head and told her,
“DO NOT FEAR TO SPEAK YOUR MIND, LITTLE ONE, FOR IF YOU ARE THE GIRL I THINK YOU ARE, THEN I HAVE WAITED A LONG TIME TO HEAR WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY IN PERSON.”
I watched as she swallowed hard before being brave enough to do as he asked, telling him,
“I am she, for you also haunt my dreams, although such intrusion has never been unwelcome.”
At this he let out a rumbled sound and it was so strange because it was one I had heard before. Although it had to be said it wasn’t half as loud.
“THIS PLEASES ME, FOR YOU HAVE BEEN THE ONLY REASON FOR THIS GUARDIAN TO WELCOME SLEEP, DESPITE DOING SUCH COMING WITH A PRICE.”
“A price?” she asked, making him grumble and shake two of his heads. The one in the middle was the only one who spoke.
“MY LIFE IS DUTY BORN, BUT FOR THE FIRST TIME I HAVE FOUND MYSELF SEEKING MORE OF THE MOMENTS OF TEMPTATION MY DREAMS PRESENTED ME WITH, FOR IN SLEEP I COULD ALWAYS FIND YOU.”
She blushed, and it prompted him to get closer, now sniffing at her once more before adding,
“THIS IMMORTAL LIFE HAS NEVER SEEN SUCH BEAUTY, NOR HAVE I SCENTED SUCH A PURE SOUL BEFORE… YOU SMELL DELICIOUS,” he said, however, this last part was enough to make her take pause as she quickly took a few steps back. In response he made a huffing sound of displeasure and told her in a harder tone,
“I DO NOT NEED TO FEAST UPON YOU TO KNOW THE TASTE OF YOUR SKIN, NOR THE PLEASURE THERE IS TO BE FOUND BETWEEN YOUR THIGHS, BEAUTIFUL GIRL.”
Now if what he said before had her blushing, then this comment was turning her cheeks crimson. As for myself, I couldn’t help but let my mouth drop, and knowing of Jared’s Beast, then I could only claim to being half surprised. After all, I remembered what it had been like having his attention that day after the motorbike accident.
“YOU ACT SURPRISED BY MY HONESTY, YET YOU TOO HAVE SHARED THE SAME DREAM AS I, AND ENOUGH TIMES TO KNOW THAT I AM A SLAVE TO YOUR TOUCH, JUST AS YOU ARE TO MINE.”
Okay so forget my mouth dropping, now I thought my eyes would pop right out of my head!
They’d had sexual dreams?!
I gaped up at the beast and tried to imagine it, making me only shake my head in utter disbelief. Although what she said next kind of helped, despite it still firmly being in the beasty weirdness category.
“You weren’t exactly in this form in my dreams,” she pointed out, making him rumble a laugh in return and say,
“I CAN TAKE MANY FORMS, MY RED HAIRED GODDESS, BUT AS GUARDIAN OF THE GATES, I FIND THIS ONE SUITS ME BEST.”
She gulped and looked up even further, taking him all in as she looked from head to the other before coming back to the one communicating with her.
“As you have just proven, you are sure to frighten off anyone foolish enough to get too close to these gates.”
One side of his lips lifted at this, showing his large jaw full of teeth, and I guess it could have been classed as the makings of a smug grin.
“BUT NOT YOU, IT SEEMS.”
“That is because in my dreams I see a different side of you that no one else does,” she replied, now seeming more confident to be herself.
“NOBODY BUT YOU, FOR THERE IS NO ONE AS IMPORTANT TO ME, WHICH IS WHY YOU KNOW IN YOUR HEART THAT DESPITE MY SIZE, I WOULD NEVER HURT YOU.”
I saw her nod as if this was all she had needed to confirm what she knew in her heart, and it finally made her act. With all the bravery in the world, I watched as she held out her hand to the beast, finally giving him what he wanted of her…
A show of trust.
She then waited for him to be the one to make the next move, and it didn’t take long. I watched the deep emotion flow over him as his eyes glazed before he closed them.
It was an incredible moment to watch, as the mighty three-headed beast submitted to her in the most gentle of ways that a giant could do. Now lowering his head so that it made it easier for him to gently nudge her outspread hand with the tip of his nose. The first physical contact between them didn’t simply pass them by without feeling. The moment was so special it made me well up.
I could almost feel it for myself, and it took me back to that moment when I first encountered him in his HellBeast form. How amazing it had been to reach out and touch him, just as my past self was doing now. It made me realize that we had always been connected in this way, his beast and me and this right here, was where it all began.
This was the start of that same love I had for the human part of Cerberus, for soon they would become one and that love would only grow, extending to both of them. Like it had all been written in Hell’s own Cosmos. The Fates that were highly regarded in Jared’s world, I now understood why, because the moment was so profound, I knew wherever my body was, tears were falling.
A flare of light emitted from when he dipped his head so she could throw her arms around the length of his muzzle. The length of her body fit snug against his lowered face, hugging onto him as if the relief of finding him finally washed over her.
Suddenly every other profound moment they shared started to flash before my eyes. Each flickering gave me a sense of how their love for one another bloomed into some epic love story from this moment onward.
I was transported through the times they had spent together, like stolen, forbidden moments presented as a scrap book in my mind, their lives were shown flicking through its pages. There were times where he would protect her against any enemy that may have presented itself. There were intimate moments shared, where he transformed himself to look more like the beast I knew. Intimate moments of her curled up asleep next to him, clutching onto his strange fur. But throughout all of this, never once did he take her through the gates.
Never once did she step foot into the Underworld.
Of course, I also saw when she would have to leave, each time seemingly more difficult than the last. I would see traces of their shared dreams, where he did indeed take different forms, sometimes as his beast and others as a man.
A man that looked surprisingly like Jared Weller.
It then forced me to question, was this how Lerna knew of Jared when she met him? Had her sister described him or even had the skill to paint him whenever she went back to her own place of safety? I didn’t know, but then again, it seemed as if there was still so much for me to learn. Especially as the next part of this seemingly happy tale was, of course, the tragedy to follow.
Because something became clear as their time went on, and that was when each became bolder in their actions. The beast would wander further from his gates in order to protect her, fearing the risks she may encounter on each journey she took to see him. A journey she wanted to take more and more frequently, thanks to the love that was growing each time they were together.
Until one day she vowed not to return to her sister.
Only this time, heartbreak was all she found because…
Her HellBeast was gone.