Hooked [Complete]

65. Beltane Part 11: A God's Path To Vengeance

Author's note:  Cernunnos has a lot of difficult decisions to make from here on out. Can he summon the strength to keep moving forward?

Song for the chapter: When I'm Gone Joey + Rory  Very sad song, very fitting the moments after Cerridwen's final breath.

Cernunnos' POV

The ghosts keen even louder at Caer's passage, for she was their hope at peace. Their protests make this place a true hell.

Their despair is nothing to mine.

I close my eyes and lick my lips, which are wet with her final kiss and the blood she drowned in. I have never tasted her blood—not once have I ever bitten or bloodied her. I look down at her again. Her blood is everywhere—all over me. My being is filled with her scent and it's like...like a poison working its way through me, because she doesn't smell the same in death.

Something is missing.

The scent of our soul has left her.

The knowledge breaks the damn of shock with in me, and I roar in pain. The mortals fall to their knees.

This pain is so much worse than that meaningless separation we endured for two thousand years. That separation was only one of intimacy—emotional and physical. Every day, I missed her, but I still felt Cerridwen's existence. Now she is gone where I cannot feel her. For the first time since I gave her half my soul, we are truly severed.

I am broken.

This pain is a chasm as infinite as the universe. I will never clear it in this mortal existence. I cannot believe Cerridwen endured this ten thousand times. How did she begin her half-existence, each time I took my last breath?

I weep. Not for myself. For the pain I caused her ten thousand times.

Then the rage comes. My fists clench and unclench. The urge to break something is great, but I must not do what I did the last time she left me. I must not pull the horns from my head in a fit of fury. That will leave me without the power to fulfill her dying wish.

Diana and Apollo are advancing on me. Their imminent attack provides me with the motivation I need to rise. The rage clears.

I cannot succumb to despair, or pain, or rage. I must fulfill the last promise I made to my goddess.  I bring Caer's lifeless form into my arms and face Mercury, holding her like a plea. I am wordless, but he takes my meaning. I cannot profane her body by letting it lie alone on this field, while we battle.He stares at her lifeless form, but his lack of expression does not fool me.

He reeks of regret. In his miserable Roman capacities, he felt something for her. He thinks he is sorry for killing her.

He hasn't begun to be sorry.

Still, he grants my silent request. He nods at me solemnly and raises a hand to still Diana and Apollo.

"She was a goddess. Let him have a moment to remove her body from the field."

I take her to her witches. The grief I see on Sean's face is a dull reflection of my own.

"I loved her," he says softly. "Not like you, but I...I did love her."

Surprisingly, something wells up in me. I can still feel something beyond pain. I understand now, how Cerridwen endured this pain. She kept going, for the child she carried. There was life beyond my death.  There is life here, in this field, beyond Cerridwen. I must keep going, at least for a little while, to see them safely from this scene.

"You are her descendant...our descendant," I say to him and then I reach for Lana's head, smoothing her hair, pulling her to me. "Alanna, my precious child. She lives in both of you."  Lana flings herself into my arms sobbing. I whisper comforts in her ear, as I acknowledge Maeve over head.  "Go to your mother, Alanna." I push my priestess gently into the Coven Leader's arms, and Lana head bends close to Maeve's as she sobs quietly against her shoulder.