Hooked [Complete]

2. Wager

Author's Note:

Song for this Chapter: Bonfire Heart by James Blunt

https://open.spotify.com/track/6H2NtlZr110yO3uwphiTKk?si=qaHty_iSS0CL9tV-iPVNrQ

"Which one?" Cerridwen called down to Cernunnos with disdain. "The witch or the virgin?"

Cernunnos leapt up onto the shallow brick wall beside the goddess. The humans had just completed their ritual with the small rodent, and the god and goddess were at the back of the crowd, standing on a wall that flanked an antebellum style dorm. White paint flaked off the wall, and off the columns of the dorm's porch, Carrie noted, but Cernunnos paid no attention to details like that. His eyes lit greedily as he followed Cerridwen's gaze to Dru.

"You think she's a virgin—really?" His eyes narrowed at the girl's form. Her warm brown hair pooled loosely around her shoulders, and he could see her vertebrae through the thin material of her top— and the way she bounced on her toes in those slips of shoes. She was lean and lithe and very young. But virginal, in this day and age?

Cerridwen snorted. Well, that answered her question. Truthfully, she had no idea if the girl was a virgin or not. She used nearly all of her remaining god power to maintain her own youth—there was little left over for invading the minds of humans. But the other girl—the raven-haired one—she had a restless energy coiling around her like the tentacles and the ink of an octopus that clearly identified her as a potential witch. Even from this distance, she smelled of magic, and other dark things.

"Are you sure the witch isn't more to your taste?" Cerridwen said slyly.

Cernunnos replied, "If you'll recall, I had a witch once."

"More than once," Cerridwen noted dryly.

"Yes," Cernunnos agreed, "an intoxicating witch that braved the darkness of my forest by the light of the blood mood to worship me. She became a fierce and faithful priestess. I raised her from the pain and death of a mortal life, made her a goddess. Made her my equal. Then, the bitch got uppity and left me."

The god pinched the goddess on the bottom, and she shoved him off the wall. He was much too graceful to fall, however. He landed lightly on his feet behind the wall, and stacked his arms and chin atop it. With a flick of his finger, the humans that blocked his line of sight to the two girls shifted, so that he could see them again.

Cerridwen noted the subtle display of returned power. When she'd left him, with his horns and his pride shattered, he couldn't have shifted a feather with what remained of his power. Apparently, time healed even gods' wounds, to a certain extent. But he would never be as powerful as he once was, without his horns.

These last two thousand years, she'd held his power just out of his reach—refusing to live with him, refusing to mate with him.  In return, he refused to release her from their formal bond. A trial separation—that was the term these modern humans used for what they had. Cernunnos had other words for their status—Torture, Damnation, Carrie's Evil Witch's Game...she sighed, and stopped her rumination.

She'd only get pissed if she relived all the fights they had. Things had been so peaceful in the last thousand years since they had seen each other.

It had also been terribly boring.

She sat down on the wall beside him, and placed a hand on his head, smoothing the tail of braids. His look of shock at her touch made her roll her eyes.

Was he really so surprised that she had a measure of feeling for him still? She had loved him wildly, sacrificially, without boundaries, once, and even though he had proven incapable of loving her the way she had loved him—they had had their moments.