Hooked [Complete]

50. Cerridwen's Confession

Author's Note: This might sound a little weird, but I cried writing this chapter. It's the full 180 from the Prologue. If you are team Cernunnidwen, this is a pretty grim, but emotional scene. Don't give up on a happy ending, though...stick with me!

Song for the Chapter: The Night We Met by Lord Huron.

Meanwhile, things were not as they seemed with the gods below.

"Keep smiling," Carrie said tersely. "Everyone is watching. You wouldn't want your new team to think we are in discord."

"Since when do you care what people think?" Hearne scoffed. "And pray tell, why are we in discord? What have I done now?"

His words were just the old familiar posturing. He had been expecting this for some time. She was probably angry about the ward he had placed on her bed.

"Why do you treat Dru with more deference than you treated me? You teach her to hunt. You allow her to roam about with Sean. You would never have allowed me such...freedom."

He blinked. "Are you serious, woman? That's why you are angry? You ran around in Ireland and did what you damn well pleased, and I never stopped you. And I told Dru she could not hunt at Beltane. She will not, if I have to ward her in the house. She is not free from "lack of freedom" when I deem it necessary, any more than you were. You see what you want to see."

"I see that you have more respect for Dru than you ever had for me."

"Cerridwen, I worshiped you. I never met a stronger witch, a braver woman. You had my ultimate respect. But, it's a different time. Do you not think it would be different now, between us, if we had been able to reconcile?"

She looked startled. "Would it?"

"Of course," he laughed bitterly. "I'm a different guy. Do you think you taught me nothing, by leaving me?"

She bit her lip. "The mortals are watching us." She nodded at Tyler, with a falsely bright smile.

He touched her back in a friendly way, and waved to Martin. "By all means. Let us put on happy faces for the mortals."

"I'm also displeased that you think you can order Sean about. He's mine, not yours."

"Oh, I'm sorry for asking you to relinquish your sexwitch for the day. He's already got you that tied up, has he?"

"You deserve all the dark wonderings in your mind about my wicked sex life, Cernunnos," she said with a pleasant smile as she pretended to watch the shooting. "After all, you made such acts possible, warding my own bed to thwart my goddess nature there."

Hearne swallowed. Now they had come to it. It had seemed like a good joke the night he had done it, his blood swimming with moonshine and Sucellus goading him to it. In his mind, he'd imagined the fun row he and Carrie would have the next day. But she hadn't uttered one syllable about the ward, not in two weeks.

Wicked, she said. Suddenly, the idea of her powerless, at the whim of another man—a sexwitch, no less...

"I shouldn't have done that. It was an error in judgment. I'll remove the ward right now," he said, raising his hand.

She stilled him. "Don't. It's...fine."

"It's not fine. It's not right. You're a Goddess, not some sexwitch's sub," he raised his hand again. She grabbed it.

"I mean it, Cernunnos. Leave the ward. Every man needs a measure of power. The ward brings Sean and I...the proper balance."

Cernunnos fought down an urge to be sick. She liked whatever dark acts Faraday was conjuring in her bed. Stag, he couldn't stand the thought of her befouled like that. He had worshiped her every time he made love to her, and that fucker was demeaning her and she liked it.