Page 47 of Leashed

He watched her scamper to the sofa in her bare feet, looking weirdly hot in her threadbare sweatpants and a plain tee that had definitely seen better years. When she reached across the coffee table to pick up a textbook, he yanked it away from her and sat. “One hour. No studying.”

Pointing at the clock on the old VCR, she lunged for her book. “Twelve hours, two exams. I win.”

“Then pass me the test outline and let me help,” he bargained, briefly debating keeping the text out of her reach enough to get her closer to him. But when his body responded immediately to the thought, he handed the book over. “What part are you freaking out over?”

She took a bite of her burger, her shoulders dropping as she seemed to relax a bit. “I’m good on all the technical stuff. Procedures and methodology. But I’m still having problems with meaning dissection and cultural significance. Most of it makes sense, but there are a few pieces we’ve studied that I just can’t wrap my head around.” She flipped through her text and slid it across the sofa. “The artistic representations on these pottery samples are all dated for the same time period, the same region, and the same religious beliefs, but their depictions of mythological figures differ from one to another. Like that amphora you gave me. I dropped it off to my professor and he’s been examining it. But the work on that one portrays a very different version of Cerberus than we’ve seen in all other pieces from the period it appears to originate from.”

He looked over the photos in her text, recognizing the human touch on all the pieces. “Family lines played a role in representation,” he stated, pointing to two of the pictures. “Since oral lore was the basis of most knowledge, all it took was one misspoken word and Cerberus went from one head to three. The same thing happened with the serpent tail. It got added somewhere down the line and eventually there were sects that changed him into a snake.”

She nodded as she chewed on her fries. “That doesn’t account for the detail and quality difference in your amphora. My professor was blown away at the pristine condition, but although he was able to date it, he couldn’t establish a region because it didn’t match any other known art styles within a thousand-year spread.”

“Yeah, well, none of you brainiacs ever consider that the ancient stories were based in any truth, so you’ve essentially closed off the idea some things may have originated from a separate existence,” he countered, tapping her lightly on the forehead and smirking when she swatted his hand away. “What was it about the Cerberus representation that threw you and your professor?”

“The layering,” she stated, abandoning her textbook in favor of her meal. “The three-headed dog in the forefront, three human figures behind him, and the light gray figures in the background. Though how dark those were originally painted is unknown, I suppose.”

He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “What do you make of it? Not your professor. You.”

They sat in silence while she ate, her brows knotted in concentration. “The gray figures are shades,” she finally said slowly, squinting at the coffee table as though trying to picture the amphora. “Like your tattoo. It fits with the accepted mythology. The three heads indicate the artist didn’t follow the multiheaded dog stories, especially given how detailed the eyes and faces were. So much more definitive than other works.” She lifted a fry from the bag and pointed it at him. “But there are no verifiable variations of the myth that places Cerberus in human form during the Athenian period. So why portray three men? Are they guardians of the dog? I guess Hades could be one, but that still leaves two…so I don’t know.”

He leaned back and crossed his arms, his curiosity piqued as she attempted to justify the artwork’s origins. “Okay, Little Miss Paranormal Romance, suspend rationalizations for a moment and tell me your ideal theory. And forget the whole should-shouldn’t theoretic stuff you’ve been reading.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “This isn’t helping me study.”

“But it’s helping you relax, and I have nine more minutes before you can kick me out as per our agreement.”

“Fine,” she huffed. “The wine content in the amphora held traces of grapes no longer found but was mixed with a more modern strain of yeast. So the wine was obviously made within the past few centuries. Given the condition of the piece, it was kept somewhere without the damaging effects of erosion or sun. It dates back to the Athenian period, but held a higher iron content than is typically found in the region with similar pieces.” She paused to eat another fry. “So if I was to throw out the wildest guess I could, I would say its origin is deep underground, and Hades is still partying it up in the underworld with his wine and his dogs.”

He snorted. “Partying it up, hey? Explain the dog and the humans.”

“Easy. Cerberus is keeping them hostage in the same place he holds the shades. As his caretakers. Because Hades went on vacation, and no one else was filling the dog food bowl.”

“Wrong.”

She smiled. “I can’t be. It’s a wild guess, not a theory. So it’s not wrong, it’s merely a straw-grasping option.”

“A wrong straw-grasping option,” he countered, drawn in by the excitement in her eyes as she talked through her idea. “Hades feeds Cerberus table scraps. Not dog food.”

“I amend my original postulation.” She laughed. “So what are your theories about it, since you’re obviously a big mythology fan?”

“Who said I was a fan?”

Her eyes flicked to his shoulders. “Your tattoos don’t exactly look like drunken mistakes.” She licked her lips and turned back to the final few fries in her bag. “Were they taken from something? I mean, if I remember correctly, the one on your back is so detailed it almost looks like maybe it was replicated from a painting.”

He watched her pointedly focus on rearranging her notes on the coffee table, carefully setting the empty food containers into the bag and placing it on the floor.

No harm in indulging the storytelling.

And nothing he could say could top her assumption that Hades fed him kibble.

Like he’d stoop to that level of degradation.

Turning his back to her, he tugged his shirt off over his head. “Of the thousands and thousands of shades in the underworld, there are a handful brought over by Cerberus. The Pirithous bloodline, cursed by Hades for kidnapping Persephone, is hunted, dragged into hell until every drop is wiped from the earth. This tattoo represents the hellhounds displaying their trophies for their master.” He knelt down on the floor to give her a better look at it. “It’s an exact replica of a piece done by an underground artist.”

He could see her eyes traveling across his back, her hands tucking tight under her thighs.

“I don’t bite.” He grinned over his shoulder. “Go ahead and get a better look it you want.”

“It’s a phenomenal story,” she breathed as she sunk to her knees behind him. “It’s incredible how little facial detail there is in the shades, but you can still tell they’re distinctly different from each other. Like the artist made sure to create identifiable shadows.”

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