Realms and Rebels: A Paranormal and Fantasy Reverse Harem Collection

by C. M. Stunich

  "Well, that was exciting," Plutus says drily. "Do you do that a lot?"

  "Drowning in mud?" I ask, my voice hoarse. I could do with some water now.

  "Needing rescuing. I could get used to helping a damsel in distress."

  I narrow my eyes on him. "I'm not a damsel, and I'm not in distress. If Maro hadn't thrown me up on Ceb without warning, I wouldn't even have landed in the mud."

  I glare at Maro to prove my point. He almost looks as if he's about to apologise, but then he shrugs.

  "How was I to know that you've never ridden a hellhound?"

  "Are you..."

  He starts to laugh, his entire body shaking as he throws back his head. I frown, watching him in confusion. He's not been this emotional in all the hours I've known him. Plutus begins to laugh as well, making me even more confused. It wasn't that good a joke. Hell, it was a terrible joke.

  "Hell humour," Ceb roars from above us. He might be speaking normally, but his voice is nothing but a loud roar.

  I almost forgot about him.

  "Do you trust me?" he asks - no, roars - and I'd love to say yes, but really, I'm not sure I do.

  "Maybe?" I shrug and he sighs loudly.

  "Don't move."

  He takes a deep breath and shifts until one of his heads is straight above me. He rips open his massive jaws and... is he going to eat me?

  Heat pours from his maw, hot but not burning. It feels like a giant hairdryer. It takes me a moment to realise what he's doing. By then, the first bits of dried mud start to fall off my clothes, landing on the ground in a smelly heap. Plutus hands me my shoes, now dried as well, although they’re still quite muddy. He must have fished them out of the swamp.

  "Now get on my back so we can get you out of here. Even I don't like this place and it's my home."

  "I'm going to ride with her," Maro announces and before I can protest, we're jumping onto Ceb. It's almost like flying, and indeed, Maro's got his wings outstretched. We land on Ceb's broad back with an elegance that is nothing like my terrible landing earlier. This time, I don't slip - mainly because Maro is steadying me and helping me sit on the hellhound.

  "Get off my back, angel!" Ceb shouts. "I'm not a mule!"

  "Do you want her to fall again?"

  Ceb is quiet for a moment, then he huffs and begins to walk. I don't have anything to hold on to, his skin is too smooth, but Maro has his arms around my waist, holding me tight.

  The three heads in front of me bob up and down with every step. It looks so comical that I’m having a hard time not laughing.

  I distract myself by looking at the sullen landscape. It's not getting any prettier, but at least the stench seems to lessen.

  Slowly, the ground turns harder and we finally seem to leave the muddy swamp behind. After a few minutes, I take a tentative breath through my nose. The air is clear. I breathe in deep, enjoying the feeling of not having to constantly fight my gag reflex.

  "It doesn't stink any more," I say to no one in particular, but Maro's chest vibrates with laughter.

  "Welcome to the fourth circle," Plutus announces. "Welcome to the circle of greed."

  13

  Plutus moves to stand in front of us all. He nudges one of Ceb’s heads out of the way. That head snarls, whilst the other two just glare at him, baring their teeth.

  “Pipe down, Berus. You’re in my circle now, and given I’m closer to the centre, you know I have more power, right? Or do I need to remind you of that fact?”

  A deep rumble comes out of Ceb’s throat. It’s so loud and menacing that I feel it vibrate up my parted legs. I have to clamp my mouth shut over the involuntary moan it rouses in me. Behind me, Maro stifles a laugh.

  “Cerberus, I’m warning you. Stop showing off and move out of the damn way, you big, fat, oaf.” Plutus gives Ceb a shove, and to my utter surprise, Ceb stumbles sideways, throwing me off kilter. Maro grabs my hips to steady me. His touch and Ceb’s responding rumble has me feeling all kinds of hot and bothered.

  “Seeing as this is my circle, I figure I should be the one to give you the grand tour.” Plutus looks up at me, and with a dramatic swerve of his hand, bows.

  What’s he doing? Why is he bowing to me?

  Ceb growls again. This time a strangled moan releases from my mouth.

  “You alright there, Ciera?” Maro asks, his hot lips brushing against my ear. It takes huge amounts of effort not to lean into his hold. The intolerable man knows exactly what buttons to push.

  “I’d be better if we got a bloody move on,” I respond tartly, ignoring the interested look Plutus is now giving me, not to mention Ceb’s three dog heads. Yes, they are all looking at me, tongues lolling, like they’ve just had a good old rollick in the park.

  Maro chuckles. “Patience isn’t one of your virtues, I see.”

  He has the audacity to circle his fingertips over the tops of my thighs as he laughs some more. On the inside, my stomach coils with heat, but on the outside, I hold my back rigid trying not to imagine what it would feel like if Maro were to touch me like that all over, or if Ceb was to rumble like that in his human form, me straddling him. STOP IT, CIERA.

  “Perhaps I should have left you in circle two, eh?” he muses, somehow sensing I am coiled up tight.

  “Oh, sod off,” I respond, bringing my leg over Ceb’s shoulders and sliding to the ground.

  I don’t have to look at Maro to know he’s grinning. A moment later he is standing beside me and Ceb has turned back into his human form once more.

  “How do you do that?” I ask, noticing that Ceb’s now wearing a brand new outfit. I mean, why isn’t he naked?

  “Do what? Shift?” he asks.

  “Well, yes, but also, shift into clothes. Do you have like a wardrobe tucked up your armpits or something?”

  “No, but he’s got a couple of large sacks,” Maro says with a wink.

  Ceb laughs uproariously and they high five one another.

  I see Plutus roll his eyes. He is watching us with barely tempered impatience, one dark eyebrow perfectly arched with his arms folded across his chest.

  “Do you want to pass through my circle or not?” he asks, directing his question solely at me. “I mean, as much as it is entertaining to see your cheeks colour pink, and your lips part in desire, I do have work to be getting on with.”

  “My lips weren’t parting in desire,” I protest.

  Plutus rolls his eyes. “You keep telling yourself that.”

  “Well it’s just as well I didn’t shift without any clothes on… I’m pretty sure your jaw would drop then,” Ceb says, making a show of twirling his hips, which only serves to annoy me more, especially when my damn cheeks flame red. Maro and Ceb fall about laughing.

  “Urgh, you two are worse than a pair of teenage boys,” I say, giving them both my most pissed-off glare before twisting on my heel and running to catch up with Plutus who has already left us all behind.

  “Wait. Those two are driving me nuts.”

  “They’ll do more than that given half the chance,” he says, as I fall into step behind him.

  “You don’t like them very much do you?”

  “Like? Berus I tolerate. Maro… Let’s just say he and I have a coloured history.”

  “Oh, yes. Ceb mentioned that.”

  Plutus glances at me. “He did, did he? I suppose he told you how I stole Maro’s only love? I suppose he painted me as the bad guy, because of course an angel can do no wrong? Berus is blinded by Maro just like everyone else.”

  “Well, actually, that’s not…” my voice trails off as my attention is drawn to the sound of thunder rolling in the air. I look up, expecting to see flashes of lightning only to see cavernous darkness.

  “What is that noise?” I ask, having to place my hands over my ears. The more we walk towards the sound, the louder it gets.

  “You’ll see soon enough,” Plutus shouts over the increasing din.

  A few more paces on, we get to the edge of a large pit in the ground, a
nd by pit I mean a hole large enough to fit thousands upon thousands of people. People who appear to be pushing around boulders as large as small cars. Both men and women alike are wearing nothing but rags. They are skin and bone, hollow eyes and cheeks.

  “What are they doing?” I ask, my mouth dropping open in shock.

  “They are pushing boulders,” Plutus responds with a shrug.

  “I can see that, but why?”

  “Because these people in life either hoarded their possessions or lavishly spent all their wealth, and never considered anyone but themselves in the process. Their punishment is to roll these rocks around in perpetuity, never getting anywhere. They misused their wealth and privilege in life and now this is their eternal Hell. Their wealth in life cannot buy them a moment’s peace in death. Pretty neat, huh?” Plutus says.

  “Neat?” I fold my arms across my chest. “I think it’s horrid. There are worse things in life than hoarding money, or spending it, for that matter. I mean, why does the Devil even care, it’s not like it was his bloody money.”

  “It isn’t the Devil who cares. It’s the other fella,” Ceb says with a shrug of his shoulders. “The Devil, he just gives them a place to put them up.”

  “The other fella? Surely you don’t mean...?”

  “The one and only. The great Alm-”

  Maro slams a hand over Ceb’s mouth. “Are you fucking insane, Cerberus? Don’t mention His name here.”

  Plutus laughs. “You two will never learn. You think the Devil cares? You think He does? We were all lost a long time ago. We have our own punishment to suffer, do we not? The Devil has far more important matters to deal with, your sister seemingly one of them.”

  “Well I think this is wrong. I don’t even care if He hears me. No one deserves such torture.”

  “Oh, believe me, Ciera, the worst things are yet to come. There are many levels to Hell. We’ve still got a ways to go,” Maro says as he stands next to me. His face has lost all amusement from earlier. I catch the look he gives Ceb.

  “Worse how?” I ask, not really wanting to know the answer but asking anyway. Tris was down there somewhere. My sweet, innocent Tris.

  “Every circle we pass through is worse than the one before. At the moment we are in Upper Hell, where the sins of the weak reside, beyond the Gates of Dis is Lower Hell…” Maro’s voice trails off. If I am not mistaken there is fear just beneath the bravado.

  Ceb coughs loudly. “You need not fear, fair maiden, that is why we travel with you. All will be well.”

  Plutus laughs at this. “Berus, do not give her false hope. You know as well as I do that once we enter the City of Dis, there’s no going back.” Plutus looks at me, his coal black eyes glistening from within. “You’ll have only one more chance to turn back. If you wish to return to the land from which you came, then you must say so before we pass through the gates. Understand?” He rests a surprisingly gentle hand on my arm and I try to ignore the electricity his touch sends across my skin.

  “I am here to set Tris free. My soul for hers. I will not leave until I have fulfilled my promise to her and paid my debt to him.”

  Plutus sighs, nods his head then turns to the people below and howls into the night. One by one they make a pathway between the centre of the pit. Far over the other side I can just about make out a dark broiling blackness, not unlike the River Acheron Maro flew us over. There is something ominous about it, something that makes my skin crawl.

  “Well, this is all good and well, but how do we get down there?” I say, pointing at the hundred foot drop below.

  “That’s easy. We jump,” Ceb says, swooping me up in his arms.

  “Great, more jumping,” I mutter.

  Half a second later we are all standing on the rough stone below. Inside my mouth, my cheek is bleeding where I accidentally bit it, the rough landing jolting my body in Ceb’s arms. I spit out the blood onto the stony floor and watch as it is absorbed by the ground. Swallowed instantly. Something about that makes me shiver.

  “Let’s go, I can only keep them like this for a few minutes,” Plutus says, urging us forward.

  We walk single file through the stone boulders and trembling wraiths. Up front is Plutus leading the way, then me followed by Maro then Ceb.

  The faces of the greedy all look at me with a desperate kind of hunger. Now that I see them up close, they appear less pitiless and more frightening. I have no doubt that every single one of them wants nothing more than to smash me to pieces between the boulders they are leaning against.

  Perhaps He was right after all, and they deserve this torture? Or perhaps they have become this way through millennia of pain and suffering. Either way, I want out of this circle and quick.

  Not less than five minutes later, I release a huge sigh of relief as we all step out beyond the pit. The moment Ceb passes through the last man and his boulder on the edge of the pit, the sounds of thundering cracks resound through the bleakness as the inhabitants of the fourth circle of Hell take up their punishment once more.

  14

  With every step we move away from the strange pit, the ground becomes softer. Soon, we have to make sure we don’t step into any of the tiny streams crisscrossing the marshy landscape. It reminds me a little of Ceb’s circle, and I’m not the only one.

  “This must feel like home to you,” Plutus remarks, gaining a growl from Ceb.

  “At least this place doesn’t stink,” Maro whispers to me and I snicker. He’s right though. The air is laden with moisture, but it smells earthy rather than the pungent odour of the third circle.

  This part of Hell is damp and dark, but it doesn’t feel as threatening and depressing as the others. This could be Scotland on a winter’s day, if the sky high above wasn’t glowing a doomy red.

  “When we get to Styx, try not to get involved,” Plutus warns us, but he seems to single me out when he stares at me.

  I frown. “What’s Styx?”

  He stares at Maro, anger clouding his expression. “Did you prepare her at all for this journey?”

  “It was her idea,” the angel defends himself. “I never had the time to tell her more about Hell. If you forgot, we’re here to rescue her sister, not to do a sightseeing trip.”

  Plutus sighs and falls back until he’s walking beside me. “Styx is the river we need to cross.”

  “And what’s the problem with it?”

  Plutus runs a hand through his hair, as if he’s not quite sure how to approach the subject. Then he sighs again and explains, “The river is full of people drowning. You can’t help them though, so you need to stay away and not touch any of them. If you do, they’ll draw you under the surface to become one of them.”

  “Drowning?” I gasp, imagining that terrible fate. “Why? What did they do to deserve that?”

  “They’re the sullen,” Ceb explains from behind me. “They couldn’t see the beauty of life when they were living under the sun, so now they’re trapped forever in the murky waters of the Styx, gurgling and drowning but never dying.”

  I shudder. “That’s terrible.”

  “It gets worse,” Maro mutters darkly. “You’ll see in a minute.”

  We walk on in silence, my mind spinning with images of what could be worse than eternally drowning. The marshland becomes ever wetter and soon, my shoes are filled with water and my trousers are glued to my skin, uncomfortably sticky.

  Noise drifts to us like wisps of fog, the sound of people fighting and shouting. Weren’t they supposed to be drowning?

  “What...” I begin to ask but then the sky lightens and I see what’s happening. There’s a massive river in front of us, at least as broad as Acheron, and on it are hordes of naked people. Yes, on it, standing on the water like bloody Jesus. They’re fighting, clawing at each other, biting, ripping out flesh. They’re feral, attacking their fellow sinners without thought.

  “What the h...”

  “Don’t,” Maro interrupts me. “Really, you need to stop using that word. But to
answer your question, these are the angry. Even though they may not have resorted to violence in life and kept their anger within themselves, here they become unstoppable, tearing each other apart.”

  I stare at the people, their blood-stained bodies, their deep wounds and broken limbs. “How aren’t they all dead yet?”

  “They heal,” Plutus explains darkly. “Don’t get close. I’m keeping them at bay right now, but if they touch you, I won’t be able to stop them. Same with the ones drowning.”

  I look at the fighting people’s feet and only now notice how the water beneath them is boiling with limbs and gasping mouths. These must be the sullen.

  I shudder again at the violence of this punishment. Maro was right, every circle of Hell really is worse than the previous one. I don’t even want to imagine what the final ones will be like.

  I cautiously approach the edge of the river and peer into the murky depths. The water is too dark to see the drowning figures clearly, but then, suddenly, an arm breaks the surface, grasping for an unseen hold that would help it get out of the river. There’s a tattoo around the wrist, a snake biting its own tail. It looks familiar, too familiar.

  “I think I know that man,” I whisper, and immediately, the three men are surrounding me, staring at the drowning person in front of us.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Plutus make a weird movement with his hands, like he’s pulling on an invisible rope. A moment later, the man is thrown out of the water and lands in front of us, sinking deep into the mud.

  He coughs and splutters, and I almost bend down to touch him, but when he lifts his head and looks at me, I forget all about that. I won’t have pity for that man. Not after what he did.

  “Filippo,” I snarl and step forward, but an arm slings around my waist, preventing me from moving.

  “Don’t touch him,” Maro whispers in my ear.

  I stare at the man who took my mother away from me. I’ve not seen him for years; I didn’t even know he’d died. But I’m fucking glad he did. He deserved to die, and as the anger bubbles up in me, I understand why the sinners get punished in this way. Death alone isn’t good enough for him. He made other people suffer in life, so now he has to suffer in death. Good.