Hooked [Complete]

Prologue

"Oh, it's you," she said.  All nonchalance, she added, "Do you still feel naked, without them?"

He patted the sides of his head, neat rows of braids where his horns should be.

"What I lack in horns, I make up for in hair these days."

The ancient Celtic goddess looked up from her phone, deposited her triple shot espresso on the café table and regarded the incredibly handsome "man" who barred her view of the Empire State building.  

It was true, the goddess noted. The ropes of braids that hung to his waist were magnificent.

But not nearly as impressive as his horns had been.

Without asking, he lowered his six-foot-four frame into the chair opposite her. Angling his back, and stretching out powerful legs in painted-on jeans, he threw his head toward the weak winter sun and laid a hand on his stomach, a mere suggestion of the tone beneath his slim-fitting shirt. A practiced move, she was sure—designed to let her take in his modern measure. The braids, the dark, glowing skin, the armful of Rasta bracelets, the tribal tattoos snaking just above his collar... he had the look of a musician, not a hunter. A reggae artist, maybe, not the Horned God.

He tilted his head to her. There was less arrogance in his gaze than she remembered.

Unfortunately, there was more hunger.

"What do you think you are doing, Cernunnos?" the goddess challenged. She pronounced every syllable with emphasis...Care-Noo-Nos.

"I'm here for our date, Cerridwen." He returned the precision of her name—Carrie-Dwen.

Not for the first time, she winced at the similarity of their names. They were fated to be a godpair, matched for all eternity.

But sometimes fate didn't work out, even for gods and goddesses.

"Your Tinder picture doesn't look like you. I would have swiped left, if I had known it was you."

Actually, he looked exactly like his Tinder picture, except he sported sunglasses in the app. Damn those sunglasses. Not seeing his eyes, she had thought him no more than a human who was lucky enough to echo her ancient lover's beauty. But no human had the Horned God's eyes—pools of green dappled with mystery. Like the forest he loved.

He ignored her comment about swiping left. "You don't look much like I remember, either.  Your aspect used to be quite different. Softer. More natural."

She snorted. That's because she'd spent a good part of their life together  as round as a small elephant. "I don't do the maiden-mother-crone thing anymore,"" she scoffed. "I'm very disciplined about keeping my maiden form, these days. It's a youth-obsessed world, now." She tilted her head of waving copper toward the busy street, toward a patch of skinny-panted, messenger bag-carrying hipsters.

"And what are you obsessed with?" He looked thoughtfully at her, then at the display in the bookstore next to the Starbucks. A garish, lifesize cutout of fleet-footed Mercury stood next to a table laden with Roman god adventure books. Cernunnos snorted and ran his gaze up the Empire State Building. "The new gods aren't really residing at the top of a skyscraper, you know. And people don't believe in them anymore, either. They had a short run, compared to us."

"They are...around, and they are more powerful than you now. They get their power from...all this." She gestured to the bustling chaos that was modern civilization.

"For the moment." His eyes narrowed, and there was a calculating tone in his voice. "But perhaps not...forever."

The quiet resolve in his voice was new. When she knew him, he was an act-first, think-never kind of god. The goddess pressed her lips together and dismissed his new attitude as some kind of game. She doubted this modern world, nor being hornless, could move him from the reckless god he had always been. He would never change.

But unlike him, she was built for change...meant to move from the maiden, to the mother, to the crone, and then start again. Cernunnous had changed her so many times—loved the girl into a woman, and robbed the women of her vitality.

Never again. She watched him coldly. Never again, she repeated to herself.

"Look, let's not argue," he said. "The truth is, I miss you and you are as beautiful as ever, Carrie." She winced at the nickname. It was the name she used in this world, but she didn't like hearing it on his tongue. He used to whisper it to her every year, at the spring equinox when they...

She jerked her head to remove the thoughts of past Springs. She took a sip of coffee, to steel her voice.

"And you are the same as ever, Horny," she turned the tables, using her old pet nickname for him. "Minus your horns of course."

She let the taunt sink in.

Completely unruffled by her cruelty, he nudged her foot with his. "Come on. You knew it was me on Tinder. We both know what this was about," he wagged the phone at her. "It''s okay to admit you want a hook-up. It has been two-thousand years since you last had me in your bed, goddess."

"More like, two thousand years since the last time you left me pregnant and alone. To give birth alone. To grow old alone. I told you, I'm not doing that anymore. Ten thousand years of the same dysfunctional cycle was enough."

He sighed and tossed his phone on the table, pulling himself up and pointing a finger at her. "We've been through this time and time again. I never wanted to leave you. Do you think I enjoyed dying under the scythe every year at the harvest? It was my job. I had to sacrifice myself, so the humans' fields would be fruitful."

"And yet it's funny how you didn't have to. When you lost your horns, and you stopped leading their hunts and watering their fields with your lifeblood, they started taking care of themselves. They made their own gods"—she pointed to the book store "and they built all this," she lifted her graceful hands to the sky, indicating the towering civilization that was New York City.

Cernunnos tracked a few humans as they swept past, expressionless, barely aware of one another or their surroundings, their heads bent to phones. "Yes, they built all this," he agreed sadly.

He leaned forward, and quick as lightening, he enfolded the goddess' hand in his. "Cerridwen, please...I need my horns back."

She tried to pull her hand away, but he held it fast. "We've been through this, too. I didn't take your horns. I can't give them back."

"You did," he said softly, "and you can."

"I can't," she repeated. "I don't want you anymore, Cernunnos."

His green eyes darkened, and he let her hand go. "You really didn't know it was me you were meeting?"

"No. You really only came to seduce me again and get your damn horns back?" She rose, knocking her coffee over. Liquid black as blood ran the length of the table and dripped on Cernunnos' suede shoes. He didn't move. He looked at her calmly, almost resigned.

"No, I suppose not. Truthfully, I came...I came to ask you to bless a new Hunt."

"What? You can't hunt without your horns."

"I have to."

"No, you don't have to. The humans don't need you to lead a hunt—they don't even hunt anymore. Except for sport," she said distastefully.

"It's not that kind of hunt," Cernunnos said. "Not for food, nor sport."

Cerwidden watched the coffee spilling onto Cernunnos' shoes, each drop inexplicably adding to a pool of dread forming in her stomach.

"What kind, then?" she asked, but she already knew.

"A Love Hunt," the de-Horned God said, turning his phone off and putting it in his back-pocket. The melancholy of their argument faded as he flashed her a brilliantly wicked smile, and his eyes glittered like emeralds. "It's time I got my horns back. It's time for humans remember the natural balance. It's time for me to hunt a new goddess. "