Chapter 16

16

Nemea

W e’re greeted by all the guards I’ve bonded when we arrive inside my sanctuary. Even Alcides stands among the others, earning him a sharp look from Campe.

“You should be guarding the door,” she says.

He lifts an eyebrow. “It is her we guard, not the cottage. I go where she goes.”

Campe doesn’t disagree, but looks miffed that he’d point out the obvious. At least Alcides has the grace not to look smug about it.

“We miss you,” Pan says, a desperation in his voice that sends a pang of guilt into my gut. I look at each of their faces and the feeling deepens, growing into a need to be engulfed by all of them.

“I’m sorry. I miss you too, but I’m not ready to come back. Maybe after this is over and I have a better handle on how to come and go.”

Campe clears her throat. “About that… You should know that the bauble Vesh gave you is redundant. You had the power to enter or leave the prison all along, something he would have known the second he stepped foot here, but chose not to reveal to you. This is your doorway, Nemea.”

She gestures broadly around the courtyard we stand in, my sanctuary courtyard. Flowerbeds explode with colors even more brilliant than when I visited with Alcides only hours ago. The sky above is even bluer, and the temple itself rendered in more exquisite detail, if that’s possible.

To illustrate further, Campe strides down the path to the temple and a door that wasn’t there before appears between two columns. This one has a vivid green, eye-like jewel embedded in the upper half, and iridescent black scales covering its surface. She opens the door to reveal a room with lush furnishings in brilliant colors.

She beckons me close and I go, peering in. The decor fits her, with its decadence mixed with utilitarian organization. In between shelves of shining baubles and treasures are racks of weapons and armor just as rich. It looks well lived-in.

I start to step through, but she grabs my arm. “No. He’ll know, and I don’t think you’re ready for that yet.”

That’s when it hits me that beneath all the trappings, the room is crafted of the same shining black glass as the rest of the tower in Tartarus.

“This is your room at the prison, isn’t it? What are you telling me?”

“That each and every one of us is a door, Nemea. You can go anywhere in the world from this sanctuary, much the way Vesh can travel. You can also go back to the prison if you choose, and you can come and go through these doors. We’re all linked to both him and to you. You can use us to travel freely to and from the prison.”

My heart leaps into my throat, and it’s all I can do not to step through just to test her promise.

“Can you all enter through each other’s doors?” I ask.

She cocks her head. “That I don’t know.”

“We can,” Asterius says. “Pan and I were in my library when we felt her return. We both left the prison through my door.”

I stare back through Campe’s door, biting my lip.

“What is it?” she asks.

“We are incomplete,” Typhon offers from behind me. He is in his human form, the shape of the beautiful, young golden god he seems to prefer when inside me. He rests a hand on my shoulder and I lean back against him, his contact filling a void I didn’t realize I had until now. “Cerberus still has not bonded with her yet.”

“I’ll go get him,” Chrysaor says, stretching his wings to hover off the ground before swooping toward the side of the temple and disappearing through his door.

Campe frowns. “You really want Cerberus too?”

I give her an incredulous look. “He’s one of you.”

“I know, but he’s…” She lifts her upper lip in a sneer of disgust.

“What’s wrong with him?” I ask, uncertain now. I only interacted with him the first night through Vesh, but he’s in my sketchbook.

“Nothing is wrong with the hound,” Asterius says, moving to my side. “He just prefers his beastly shape, which Campe finds disturbing.”

“At least they have a choice,” Typhon mutters.

“It’s not his beastly shape I find disturbing,” she says. “It’s that he flaunts his assets whenever he’s not a hound.”

Pan chuckles. “You’ve seen all our assets for eons. Why are his any different? Why not be disgusted by Erebus’ monstrous junk with all its spiny protrusions?” He waggles his fingers in the air to mimic the spines on his friend’s cock.

As if in response, the large shadow that had only hovered silently nearby solidifies behind Pan, whose shoulders twitch. “He’s behind me, isn’t he?”

The magnificent creature with shining black skin and spikes erupting from his forearms and shoulders grins through Pan’s horns. He reaches a hand between them at hip height and makes a motion I can’t see from where I stand. Pan yelps and launches forward several feet, spinning on his hooves and rubbing his backside.

“Not cool, dude!”

Erebus vibrates with silent laughter that reverberates inside my head, and I can’t help but stare in wonder at the so-called monstrous junk he’s holding in one hand. His cock seems to have even more spikes than it did the last time we fucked, but the spine that he evidently jabbed Pan with recedes back into his cock. His entire body morphs into the human man he showed me the first time he set foot here, complete with brilliant, intricate armor covering his entire body.

“You all disgust me, if I’m being honest,” Campe says. “He’s just the worst because he never covers up.”

“He’d look pretty strange wearing pants as a hound,” Pan says.

I study Campe’s obstinate expression and get the impression that she’s protesting a little much for such a benign thing. Hell, I’m naked right now, and so is Campe, and no one seems to give a shit. Pan doesn’t bother with clothing since his lower half is covered in fur. And Erebus in his true form has no use for clothes since he’s mostly shadows.

Besides, I’ve been around shifters enough to get used to seeing a lot of naked flesh. Seeing dicks on the regular kind of desensitizes you to them. Unless they’re big shining oil-slick black dicks with spines all over them. I cast another glance at Erebus, though his cock is covered with a shining obsidian codpiece now, and catch his suggestive smirk at me.

“I’m ready whenever you need me, Nemea.” His promise is a velvet caress inside my mind that makes my cheeks heat and my core pulse with fresh need. I’m yet again astounded by the way my desire creeps up on me when I’m around them.

I’ve gotten used to the ache that betrays the power within me, signifying its level as clearly as if I wore a fuel gauge on my wrist. I’m not low, but neither am I full, and now that Campe’s part of me, I can sense my capacity has increased.

Campe narrows her eyes at Pan and starts to respond to his retort about pants, but is stalled when Chrysaor reappears. He’s frowning and shaking his head.

“He can’t pass through. We tried several times, but he just steps out onto the bridge outside my room, not into the sanctuary. He can’t even see what I can see past the threshold.”

“He has not properly bonded with Nemea yet,” Asterius says. “But if the rest of us are any indication, an exchange of bodily fluids should be enough. Perhaps one of us can be a go-between.”

“I volunteer!” Pan says, raising a hand before any of the others can speak up. But even as Pan takes a step toward the door, I find myself lifted upon a shadow and flown to the threshold.

“Hey! I called dibs!” Pan yells at my back as Erebus solidifies from shadows into the shape of the armored man again. He raises a middle finger at Pan and grins down at me.

“He’ll live. Let’s get the hound bonded with you. I can do it faster.”

I’ve barely steadied myself on my feet when he drops to his knees in front of me, clasps both hands on my ass cheeks, and presses his mouth to my pussy.

“Oh fuck!” I grab hold of his head, tangling my fingers in his hair as his devilish tongue slips inside me. Unlike Campe, he doesn’t draw it out. My flesh is still sensitive from making love to both Alcides and Campe back-to-back, yet somehow Erebus manages to take me to my peak as swiftly as if I’d been at the end of a long dry spell. I come in a rush so strong my knees go weak, but Pan has finally made it to us and catches me, cradling me in his arms.

Erebus is already gone, slipping through the doorway where I can now see the huge three-headed hound waiting on the other side. He rises on his hind legs, transforming into a beefy, naked man with a shaggy mop of curly, dark hair and scruffy five o’clock shadow on his face.

Erebus instantly solidifies in front of him and clasps his hands on either side of Cerberus’ jaw, kissing him deeply. It’s the first time I’ve seen any of them being intimate with each other, and while I know from conversations that they occasionally engaged in sex play together, according to Asterius, it hasn’t happened in quite a while.

But watching the pair kiss, it’s clear they’re no strangers to fooling around. Erebus lingers only a moment, as if savoring it, then falls to his knees in front of Cerberus.

I remember from our first conversation that he has three cocks, but I’m not exactly prepared to see them. All three are stiff and thick, jutting up from his pelvis like a trio of strange mushrooms clustered on the side of a tree trunk. Two rise side-by-side at the top while the third curves up from underneath, like an inverted triangle. His fat balls hang down beneath the lower one, heavy and dark.

When Pan chuckles, I realize I must’ve made a noise.

“He’s pretty humble about them, despite Campe’s gripes. But now you’ve seen all our cocks, which do you like best?”

I’m still speechless, unable to tear my gaze away as Erebus transforms back into his monstrous shape, opens his mouth so wide it’s as if he’s unhinged his jaw, and engulfs all three of the massive hard shafts, coiling his long tongue around them like a dark, shining snake.

It’s both obscene and one of the biggest fucking turn-ons I’ve experienced since I met these guys.

“He can’t see us,” Pan murmurs in my ear. “Do you want to fuck while you watch?”

I shake my head, urging him to set me down, then move as close to the open doorway as I can without passing through.

Cerberus is more than just his three impressive dicks; he’s an intensely attractive man, with a physique as cut as the others, light brown skin and full lips. His amber eyes practically glow as he stares down at Erebus for a beat before tilting his head back on a moan and resting a hand on Erebus’ head. His neck glistens with a sheen of sweat and his Adam’s apple bobs with the groans of pleasure he emits between dirty words.

“Fuck, I’ve missed your tongue. I’m so sick of sucking my own dick to get off. Tell me, is she worth all this fucking hassle?”

Erebus doesn’t slow his pace, but Cerberus gives a throaty laugh, baring straight white teeth and sharp canines.

“She’s watching through the door right now?” He lowers his head to face the doorway again, gaze scanning right across where I stand, unseeing yet aware.

“Nemea, if you can hear me, get ready, because the second I come through that door, I’m fucking you blind.”

The air leaves my lungs, and I’m only half-aware of the others moving close. Wetness slips down my thighs as a pair of lips press to my shoulder. Pan is at my side, silently caressing, then dips his head to one breast to flick his tongue teasingly over my nipple.

Chrysaor moves to my other side and traces fingers down my spine before dropping his head to my other breast. He grips my ass cheek, teasing his fingers between, then down deeper from behind until I feel him probing at my opening. But he doesn’t linger there; he merely gathers wetness and moves back up my crease to tease slick fingertips around my rear hole.

“He’s going to fill you up everywhere. You need to be ready,” Chrysaor says in a low voice close to my ear.

I can only nod my understanding as I let out a soft moan and spread my legs wider, reaching out to either side to hold onto both men as they torment me with more teasing touches. Pan slides a large hand up my inner thigh, then parts my wet folds with his fingertips, squeezes my clit gently between, and then releases it to leave me throbbing.

When Chrysaor pushes a finger into my ass, I dig my nails into his shoulder and drop my head. But I can’t look away from the image on the other side of the door. Erebus bobs on Cerberus’ cocks like a machine. Sweat beads across Cerberus’ chest and forehead, making him look gilded. Even his black curls are shot through with strands of gold.

I can’t see any of what Campe seemed to find distasteful about him. If I could open my mouth that wide, I’d want to devour him too. In fact, my mouth waters at the thought of the gift Erebus is about to give me.

I’m already on fire when I see Cerberus start to lose it. He throws his head back again, panting and gnashing his teeth.

Erebus grabs both of his hips and practically swallows him whole, holding all three cocks deep, then slowly pulling back before sucking them deep once again. His cheeks hollow out, and Cerberus lets out a piercing howl that reverberates all the way to my clit at a frequency that nearly makes me come.

He grabs hold of Erebus’ head then and holds him tight while his body spasms with release. Then Erebus is up, and swift as the shadow he is, he’s facing me again, terrifyingly beautiful with his obsidian eyes and shining black skin, though his lips now glisten with a coating of creamy fluid. He grabs hold of my head with both taloned hands and presses his mouth to mine.

I open eagerly, but I’m not quite prepared for the flood of salty fluid that Erebus releases from his mouth into mine. Most of it makes it into my mouth and I gulp it down, but some trickles down at the corners of my lips. Erebus slides his tongue into my mouth, teasing gently before retreating.

“Swallow everything,” he says, looking deep into my eyes. I obey, and then he nods and discorporates into a cloud, revealing a very ready Cerberus already inches away on this side of the door.

“Hold her for me, brothers. I need a taste of this sweet cunt before I lose my fucking mind.”