Chapter 14 – Cerberus
CERBERUS
Dumping the last bit of dog food into a bowl, I step back from the fence as the dogs inside gather around the bowl.
Usually seeing all the creatures in the animal hospital happy and cared for cheers me up.
But for some reason, I still don’t feel like myself.
The scene this morning with Soren and Kage has me completely confused.
I just… I don’t understand human men.
And what’s worse, my body still aches from my battle just a short time ago. Had I slept well last night, I’d be feeling more like my old self. But I didn’t. And I don’t like feeling weak when Hades could send more enemies here at any moment.
“Yo!”
I spin around and see Kayla hurrying out the door of the animal hospital to join me in the back. She looks so happy that I try to smile, but I’m not sure I manage it.
She gives her familiar bright smile, and I see she’s changed the highlights in her hair to a pretty green. “How’s the morning?”
I set down the empty bag of dog food and wipe sweat off my brow. “All the kennels are cleaned. Everyone has been fed. All new water. And I’ve checked on all our patients.”
“You’re amazing!” she says, then her gaze goes to my wrapped wrist. “What happened?”
“Just a little dog bite from last night.” Then I add, “Found a scared stray, but couldn’t quite catch it.”
Her smile vanishes. “Come inside, I’ll get it cleaned and looked at.”
I shake my head. “It’s fine.”
But she ignores me, grabbing my good wrist and hauling me inside.
In her little office, she sets me down, opens her medical bag, and unwraps my wrist. Looking at it, she frowns. “That’s the weirdest dog bite I’ve ever seen.”
“See, it’s fine,” I say, trying to stand.
She shakes her head. “Sit, I’ll clean it out and rewrap it… even though it’s mostly healed.”
Slowly, I sit back down.
She hums softly as she begins to clean the small wound biting my wrist left early this morning.
I stare, feeling uncertain, but finally decide to go for it. “I don’t understand hu—men. I don’t understand men.”
Kayla raises a brow. “Does this have anything to do with that hunk you brought in yesterday?”
I look away from her. “Kind of.”
“Come on then, girl, out with it.”
It takes me a minute to find my words. “I don’t have a lot of experience with men. With sex, yes, but not men.”
“Okay,” she says, moving slower as she continues to clean my wound.
“I don’t understand them.”
“How so?” she asks.
“I met a man last night. He spent the night, although we didn’t fuck.” I take a deep breath. “This morning when he was leaving, we ran into Soren, the man from yesterday.”
She whistles softly under her breath. “I bet he wasn’t happy.”
I frown. “He wasn’t. But I don’t understand why.”
She laughs, then seems to realize I’m serious. “Girl, Soren was so into you it was ridiculous!”
“Into me?” What the hell does that mean?
She rolls her eyes. “He likes you!”
I stiffen. “He doesn’t. He made that perfectly clear.”
She arches a brow as she reaches for a new wrap. “He couldn’t keep his eyes off of you, and he was constantly checking out your ass.”
Everything she says takes me by surprise. “If he liked me, wouldn’t he have suggested we have sex in some way?”
Kayla finishes wrapping my wrist and sighs, sitting down in the chair beside me. “Cerce, I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve been through.”
I start to stand, feeling panicked, but she tugs me back down.
“It’s okay, I know you don’t want to talk about it, and you don’t have to.
I’m just saying, it doesn’t take a genius to see that you’ve been through a lot of awful things, so I want to thank you for feeling safe enough to talk to me.
” She pats my hand and leans back. “Most decent men want more than sex.”
Deep breaths. She’s not asking you about your life before. About the darkness. And the pain.
Deep breaths. What did she say? Men want more than sex?
“Like what?” What else could a man want from me?
She hesitates. “They want love. A relationship. Maybe even marriage and kids.”
Panic uncurls inside of me. “What if I can’t give them any of those things? I don’t know anything about love and relationships. I don’t plan to marry, and,” it takes me a second to swallow around the lump in my throat, “I’m pretty sure I can’t have kids.”
“Take a deep breath,” she tells me, then gives a small smile. “I think I’ve gone too quickly. Look, Cerce, nice men just… they want to be around you. They want to spend time with you and get to know you.”
“But what do they want from me?” I emphasize, because she still doesn’t seem to understand my problem.
“Just you,” she says.
“Just me?” I repeat. That can’t be right.
“Which is why Soren seemed upset this morning,” she says, her tone gentle.
I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”
“He likes you. He doesn’t want to see you with another man.”
I frown. “Men don’t like to share their women?”
Is this a human thing? Gods and semi-immortals have few rules when it comes to things like sex and love. They enjoy who they want, when they want. Unless they’re old fashion.
But those are the immortals who smite and curse every time their hearts get broken.
No one wants to be like them.
Choosing just man… it would never be something I’d consider. Before, I simply slept with whoever wanted me when they came to visit the Underworld. And now, knowing that I’ll never remain in any place too long, well, it just makes sense to not grow too attached to any single man.
But do human men require this?
Kayla studies me, as if waiting for another question, then sighs and continues.
“Men are like dogs who need to be fed separately. They get possessive of their… food… sometimes. They want to know that their food likes them and only them.” She laughs.
“I mean, they kind of ‘feel a woman out’ a lot before they ask them out. They try to see if she likes them. They ask you out for dinner and drinks. They ask questions about you. Basically, they get to know you. And while they’re going through this whole process, they want to know there aren’t any other men sniffing around you. ”
A lot of what she says makes a strange kind of sense. Even though the men who visited me in the Underworld never cared if other men had visited me. Humans are, after all, still just animals. And animals can be possessive of a lot of things, including their females.
“So, if I want things to continue with these men… I need to pick just one of them?”
“Exactly!” she says, clasping her hands together.
“So how do I decide which one to pick?”
She grins. “Go with your gut.”
“My gut?”
“That little instinct in the back of your mind that leads you down a certain path.”
Ah, instincts I understand.
But then I think of Soren. I imagine him covering his cock. I imagine his little scowls.
For some reason, I find him… interesting. And I think of Kage so happy between my thighs, both my hellhound and I like his confidence.
And then, against my will, I think of the man from the club.
All the air rushes out of my chest. I’ve never been touched that tenderly before. I’ve never felt on the verge of something so powerful and significant like that.
It scares the hell out of me.
“What if I can’t choose?”
Kayla shrugs. “You’ll know what to do when the time comes. Until then, enjoy getting to know both guys.”
“Three,” I say. “There’s three guys.”
Kayla leans forward. “You and I are going to go get coffee this second, and you’re going to tell me about all three of these guys.”
I actually laugh. “I’m not sure there’s much to tell. But—” I hesitate. “Can you tell me more about sex?”
One of her brows rise. “Uh, are you working tonight?”
“No,” I say.
She grins. “This conversation would be best over some margaritas. How about we finish up everything and plan for an awesome Saturday night, with lots of sex talk?”
I nod. “Okay.”
“Tonight, then.”
As she gets up, I stay in my seat. Part of me is shocked that I actually opened up to Kayla, but the other part of me feels relieved. I’m just so… torn about my experience with Draven and the others.
I don’t want to feel things that are stupid. Maybe human men are always that tender with women. Maybe I’m reading things into our experience together that doesn’t actually exist.
And I have a feeling the only way I’ll understand him is to ask an actual human woman.
This world is so different from the Underworld. So much about it is frightening and confusing, but having a friend? That is one thing about my new life that isn’t confusing.
It’s just wonderful.