Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 137871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 689(@200wpm)___ 551(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 689(@200wpm)___ 551(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
“I meant we should stop, preferably somewhere with animals. Anything larger than a raccoon will suffice.”
“Right. I’ll, uh, just pull over at the first petting zoo we pass.”
CHAPTER 7
Cerberus awoke with a jerk, every muscle contracting tightly as he braced for pain that did not come. Reflexively, a frantic panic pulsed through his veins as his body prepared for suffering. When no capillaries burst in his skull, the haunting memories of endless trauma eased, and a sense of safety settled in.
No explosion of chaos ripped through his chest.
His limbs were intact.
His clothing was clean, and not a speck of dirt covered his skin.
He could breathe.
He was not trapped underground.
Those telling moments upon waking always gave away how deeply his centuries entombed still disturbed him. He lived and died a million times, buried alive through that infinite loop of suffocation and agony. Trauma like that didn’t fade upon escape, so his mind didn’t easily differentiate those insufferable moments of waking up in a living tomb from waking up in a fucking tree.
Breathing a deep breath of fresh air, he savored how easily oxygen filled his lungs. Nothing like the stale, shallow gasps that killed him countless times before.
Glancing over the busy freeway, he monitored the traffic, calculating the time of day by the placement of the sun in the sky. It looked to be just after four.
Withdrawing his phone, he checked the clock and grinned at his impressive accuracy. Four o’ six. Not long ago, he’d only had the rotting stench of his decaying limbs to track the passing time.
A tingle of excitement invigorated him as he stretched and refocused on his purpose.
I’m coming for you, girl…
He fanned out his senses but, once again, to his infinite fury, found no trace of her. He would eventually have her in his grip, and he couldn’t wait to watch the life seep from her eyes as she begged for mercy—over and over and over again. He would show her the same mercy the cold earth showed him as he lay trapped in a deafened tomb of endless suffering.
During those centuries underground, his fractured mind became the only escape he had. Some days, he could not bear the gradual passing of time, so he distracted himself with thoughts of the past, forgetting the girl and thinking back to a time long before she ever existed.
He shamelessly found comfort in the hidden corners of his mind where his deepest secrets lived. Those tender emotions of his youth had been siphoned away by time and battle, but in his darkest moments of despair, he found great relief in the presence of such memories.
In the presence of her.
Lilias.
Beautiful, majestic, enchanting Lilias…
He had loved her selflessly and completely. To think, she saw the purest side of him, and it still wasn’t enough to sway her. She ultimately left him for someone else.
During those wretched moments of his darkest despair, he did not think of her betrayal, only her beauty. He sometimes preferred the lie and found sanctuary in the memory of her artificial kindness. Those lies were the only comfort he could find in the cold, dark, silent earth.
Now, those delicate recollections crumbled under the heavy weight of his deep-seated resentment. Despite his ever-present, unrequited desire to have her, he sincerely wished he’d killed her. Stealing her first born and murdering her children was not nearly enough to punish her. Lilias was the catalyst behind his centuries of suffering.
No matter how many times he died or how many years passed, the pain of her abandonment remained the greatest injury of his life. He’d fought in hundreds of battles and died repetitively underground as he wasted away in his own dismembered despair, but nothing compared to the excruciating misery he’d discovered through love.
His foolish affection was his highest regret. Lilias was his first and his last. His only. And she paid dearly for her deceitful choices.
Today, he reveled not in the tender recollections of a love-sick boy but in the memory of the inescapable pain. The agony he’d suffered shaped him into a hardened male. When he was underground, he welcomed the madness. His mind became his only escape and he found hidden corners that were so dark a lesser immortal would have flinched and shied away.
But Cerberus welcomed the darkness inside of him.
Behind the mask of a modern businessman lived a monster. His duality served him well, and he’d adapted quickly to the ease of modern living, finding great comfort in wealth and luxury but never forgetting his purpose.
The polite grins and tiresome nods were all lies. Years of suffering had shredded any remnants of his moral fiber. He plainly saw what he was and accepted his true self without shame.
Human entanglements only confused the simplicity of his nature. Mortals were food. Unlike before, they served him now.
His lack of empathy and his innate hunger for living flesh and carnal pleasures lived at the base of his needs. He was a predator. He did not lower himself to consider the pitiful feelings of his prey the way he once had.