Hooked [Complete]

19. Fragile God

Author's Note:   Happy Reading on this American Holiday to celebrate hard-work, perseverance and the laborer's spirit. This is a fitting chapter...it's not easy being Hearne-- he's working hard for his come-back, but also to be a decent guy!

Hearne thinks and talks alot about sex in this chapter...skip if you don't like to think about sex stuff!

Song for this chapter: Fragile by Kygo & Labrinth

Carrie skipped down the trail to the lake beside Hearne, her arms behind her back, a knowing look on her face.

"So how was it?"

He knew exactly what she was talking about, and it had nothing to do with the girl who had been sleeping in his bed for a week. Hearne considered feigning nonchalance, but there was no other person on earth he could tell, that would understand.

He put his hands to the sides of his head and danced a little as he chinned a megawatt smile.

"Fucking incredible!"

He grabbed her around the waist, swung her around and she screeched with laughter, as he babbled:

"Carrie, do you know how long it's been, since I have been fast enough to run down a beast that swift, strong enough to capture it with my bare hands and hold onto it as I thank it for its surrender?" And bring the meat home to your hearth, cook it and coax you to eat it when you were exhausted, and sickly, struggling to grow a godling in your belly?

"Two thousand years," she replied neutrally, with a sad smile.

"Two thousand, two hundred, twenty-seven years," he set her down.He squinted at his watch, "And three hundred twenty two days."

She looked surprised. The witch actually looked surprised that he remembered the day she left him.

"I'm happy for you, Cernunnos," she got a strange look on her face, and she reached up tentatively to feel his head. There was no teasing, no meanness as she said, "Nothing yet. But soon, I imagine, if your speed and strength are returning."

He grabbed her hands. "Thanks to you, Goddess."

She looked very young—younger than Dru, even—as she shook her head. "No, thanks to Dru. She brings out the best in you, my Lord."

He stilled at the use of the title. She had said it in cruel jest at the overlook, but her voice rang now with a respect he had rarely heard from her in the last five thousand years or so. The language was different in these modern times, but it had been even longer than that since she used the title "my Lord" in earnest. Not since she was his priestess, twelve thousand years ago. He realized with a start, that's what she considered herself now that his power was returning. No longer his mate, but still his High Priestess, until Lana was ready to assume the role. She was faithful to her duty, if not in her affection.

"So," she continued, "you think it will really happen? Your power will return in full?"

He shrugged, "Maybe. Maybe it's not just about Dru." He looked around at the forest, dappled with the last rays of day's end. "Maybe it's just...time, Cerridwen. Time for the earth to return to balance."

"And the rest of the Pantheon?" Carrie continued. "Do you think they will return as well? Lugh and Rhiannon, Esus and Brigid, and the others? You may well have a full house, again." She looked over her shoulder toward the lodge. "I'm impressed, Cernunnos, with your planning, and preparation."

"I don't know if they will return, but I feel...it's time to prepare...for something." He took her hand in his. "Cerridwen, you are still the Triple Goddess, my Lady of the Moon, the light by which I have always hunted. If the Pantheon rises, there is still a place for you, as its mother."