Within the ominous electrical hum of the bolt, she heard echoes, the din of voices chanting a tune she somehow already knew.
On the day of Brighid’s birth
From her head the fire rose
A column of flame from sky to Earth
Goddess whom the world hallows
She fell to the ground then, but it mattered not. She was far away in a world that had been shielded from her thoughts until lightning had shocked that life back into her. Brighid the metal smith. Brigantia the healer. Bride the weaver. Brigitta the midwife. And Brighid the poetess. Reborn life after life into varying circumstances, giving rise to her renown for possessing many skills. A goddess called upon in battle as well as in childbirth, for inspiration and for protection. Many Brighids, but the same being. And through all of time, one constant remained—she awakened to the love that had endured for endless scores of generations. Her entire being flooded with the light, not from the electrical charge, but the knowledge of love. One year, one miraculous turn of the wheel, every nineteenth season was hardly enough time, and some would say a cruel fate she was doomed to suffer because of the god who had been inexplicably angered by her happiness with his son. And yet she would have endured far more for the sake of the earth, as well as the singular joy of her lover’s warm, strong arms around her.
The world went dark again, and then he was on the ground beside her, cradling her to him and stroking her face. His voice broke through the rush of whispers that had been busy filling the gaps in her knowledge, his deep tenor calling her name in its various forms. And with his voice came that pronunciation of Brighid again, with the long e that made her stomach flip.
“You prefer to say my name as Bri-jeed because that is who I was when first we met,” she whispered. The storm had gone silent around them, or perhaps her hearing had been altered from the lightning strike.
His smiled warmed her through. “You remember.”
“The Brighid who fell in love with a god who showed himself as I stood alone, awaiting my end in the flood. Eradimus, son of Herne.”
He closed his eyes. “Thank the gods.” When he reopened them, those brilliant golden eyes took her breath. “I showed myself because I was entranced by your beauty.”
The laugh she gave held a lighthearted twinkle she had not heard for a long time. “You pitied the poor creature standing on the mountaintop, helplessly watching the waters rise. You came to me out of kindness, so I wouldn’t die alone.”
The rain battering her skin now brought back a clear image of the day she make a reckless decision to have one last moment of wonder, her first and last lover, before she was washed away with the rest of her mankind.
“You were so gentle when you claimed me,” she said, stroking her fingers along his arm.
“And you so innocent,” he replied thickly. “As you are again today.”
“I’m so sorry I didn’t return.”
“You are here now. The rest is forgotten.” Lightning crackled and flashed down behind the barn. “Let us go inside,” he said.
“No,” Brighid said, pushing aside her blanket and the clothes she’d been holding. “I want this the way I first remember you, outside where our passion was as wild and free as the raging storm.”
Part of her was shivering with cold, but also with anticipation while she watched him take in all of her. She expected him to grab her the way he had that very first time, oh so long ago, when storms overtook the earth and there were only minutes left before her life was forfeit to the swelling flood waters. Her heart fluttered with the memory of his need and her desperation. Though his male yearning had been clear enough in the way he’d kissed her breathless, when he had breached her—that time and many since—he had been kind. Caring.
“Now, Eradimus. I’ve waited a lifetime for you. So many of them.”
He stroked her cheek with a tender reserve, and in a slow, tentative lowering of his head, he allowed their lips to meet. Not with the brutal possession of untamed lust, but with reverence. The faint brush of his lips stoked Brighid’s fire, and every nerve ending tingled with heat and desire. She pulled his head closer, seeking his tongue with hers, and the taste of him restored layer after layer of memory. Nights spent under a blanket of stars. Days lying naked, thrusting together beside clear running streams. The power of their passion fed the earth with magic, and the world in turn nurtured all of creation. One year of endless erotic delights, rejoicing in the arms of his love, before that bittersweet final day when she was returned to the womb to begin her journey back to him again.
Fueled by the teasing promise of Eradimus’ soft lips, she pulled one of his hands to her breasts, urging him to stroke and tease the nipples that in turn sent lovely stabs of pleasure to her clit. He gave a sexy laugh against her mouth. “I am trying to extend our reunion, but it seems you are in quite a hurry.”
“I am already late for our awakening of spring,” she said, pushing his hand lower. “I don’t want to wait another minute.”
She pressed his fingers down inside her panties, into her red curls. The heat of his hand turning the pulse of her clit into a throbbing urgency. She arched and held him there, thrusting her pelvis against his palm with shameless greed. With a growl, he lowered his head to her breast, sucking her hard buds until she cried out. Her pussy grew wet for him, so wet she needed him to feel it. Still guiding his hand, Brighid pushed one of his larger fingers down into her slit, and he pressed the length of his body to hers. His cock was hard as it rubbed against her hip, and she reached for it. The shaft was so long, so hot in the cool rain as it throbbed in tune to her own lust for his sex.
Brighid pushed Eradimus onto his back and shimmied out of her damp panties. She straddled his thighs, working his erection hard and fast with her hand. Now it was his turn to arch his back, his face pure seduction when his mouth opened in a moan. Nothing in her actions would support the notion that her body was, in fact, a virgin, but then, she’d made love to this god more times than she could count. Every union held the same power, the same excitement, as that first time on the mountain.
She slid her body forward, unable to control herself any longer.
“We have not ended your purity in this manner before,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I know,” she said, slipping the head of his dick right against her entrance. “This time, I want to claim you.”
She held her breath for a moment, and then dropped straight down to spear herself on his cock. The pain seared her, sharp enough to send a gasp out of her, but the sensation was brief. She shut her eyes, her face lifted to the darkened sky while rain streamed over her, feeling his body alive and throbbing inside of hers. Thunder boomed just overhead, shaking the earth and sending shock waves through her body.
She waited, adjusting to his size and the pounding pulse of his shaft. Then she began to move, rising and lowering, pumping her hips, and her body ignited with the flame that would bring the spring. Eradimus reached up to knead her breasts, which were bouncing now with the force of her thrusts, and she rode her god like the spring goddess she was, free and untamed and unconcerned with the storm raging around them. The thunder rumbling through her only drove her harder, and no lightning strike could electrify her more than the erotic male lying beneath her, groaning and chanting an ancient chant of her name in the old tongue. Keeper of the flame, bring me your light. Bride of my love, heating the night.
She pumped faster, fucked harder, seeking the release that would end her madness and another generation of solitude.
“Eradimus!” she cried out. Their palms found one another’s, and their fingers intertwined at the moment she seized up in exquisite passion and soared into climax. They came together, his semen spurting in sync to the spasms of her own orgasm, while their animal grunts grew louder until theirs was the only sound echoing through the meadow.
Brighid collapsed on top of Eradimus, panting and smiling while he kissed her and crooned sensual words in her ear. “My Brighid,�
� he said. “My love.”
She listened to their sharp breaths, to the desperate pounding of his heart. A heart that had stayed steadfast through all the years when she was ignorant of their destiny together. Of the two of them, he had endured the far greater punishment for their love.
“At last, you have returned,” a voice boomed, but it was not her lover’s.
Brighid’s head whipped around to see the tanned and powerful form of a man she’d never thought she would see again. Herne, the forest god, stood staring down at the pair. A burled staff was clutched in one hand. Antlers rose wide and strong from the sides of his head, jutting out from the long brown hair that trailed across powerful shoulders. His chiseled face and burning eyes reminder her very much of his son.
Her heart pounded while she covered herself with the blanket that had been thrown nearby. Herne did not often appear to his sons, she knew, and far less often to those on the mortal plain. He had only shown himself to Brighid one other time. The day he had given her the “gift” of immortality and, along with her new lover, appointed them the task of bringing the spring.
Herne looked no more pleased to see her now than he had been back then. But she had Eradimus with her, and her heart brimmed with emotion in his presence. It was a feeling she knew so well, so deep in her gut, that it seemed impossible to fathom how she could forget any of it upon each rebirth.
Whatever the reason for Herne’s appearance, Brighid had a few things of her own to say to the god who had altered the course of a human life forever. As she looked at Eradimus, however, she could see she was not the only one.
***
Eradimus shot upright at the sight of his father looming over them. An unexpected appearance of Herne rarely bode well, especially when the visit took place on the mortal plain while Eradimus was in the arms of his love.
“Father,” he said, arranging his loin cover and helping Brighid to her feet. “Why have you come here?”
“I did not think your lover, this human, would return to perform her duties this time,” the god said. His voice rumbled through him much like the thunder that seemed to have stopped.
“She is no mere human, as you are well aware,” Eradimus said. “No more than I.”
“And you cling more to your human side than is often prudent,” Herne said. “It is a weakness I sought to change when I called you to this sacred duty.” The golden-brown eyes turned to her. An unreadable, churning maelstrom flamed in their depths. “The earth despaired in your absence, Brighid of the Seven Hills. Why did you ignore the call?”
She tightened her hold on the blanket wrap. “I didn’t ignore it. I haven’t ever ignored it. I was kept away by amnesia. I simply didn’t remember.”
“Nonsense,” Herne replied. “The power I granted you included awakening to your true identity in your nineteenth year.”
Eradimus put an arm around her, drawing her close. “There was an accident,” he said. “A car wreck claimed her memories until moments ago, when the lightning came down on her and restored her to the truth.”
“Yet she was already here.”
“When I had recovered from my coma and injuries,” she said, “I was drawn to come here, even though I didn’t know why. I bought a plane ticket as soon as I could afford it.”
The god eyed the pair, and Eradimus saw him taking note of his son’s firm hold on the woman beside him. Good. Let him see—finally see—that nothing would take him away from her forever. It was still Brighid whom he loved. It would always be Brighid.
He and his father had drawn sides before over her, and the similarities to that first encounter were not lost on him. Brighid had stood beside him that time, too, gaping at the forest god and dripping wet from the storm that had nearly seen her end as well as that of all of mankind. She hadn’t understood what he was capable of then, and neither had Eradimus, really. Now they both knew all too well that when Herne appeared, life would forever change. He could part them for all time, if he so choose, and Eradimus might well be powerless to stop him. That wouldn’t keep him from fighting, however, in whatever way he had to.
He felt Brighid press herself tighter to his body, and he slid his arm around her more fully.
“Whether or not forces outside our control delayed her return,” Eradimus said, noticing how his father’s eyes narrowed at the mention of something having been out of his hands, “I have performed my sabbat duty. And she hers.”
She turned her face up to his. “But it isn’t out of duty that I return to him. It is because of my need to be with him.”
Eradimus gazed down at her, and for a few shallow breaths, her smile was all that existed. Herne clearing his throat brought the pair back to the moment.
“She was a distraction you did not need,” he said. “One of many that kept you from following in my footsteps the way I had hoped.”
“You didn’t care whose footsteps I followed, least of all yours,” Eradimus said. “From the moment of my birth, you have tried to pass me over. Even the name you gave me means to erase or blot out. I was an inconvenience more than a son.”
“That is not true,” came the reply, and Herne’s burning eyes glowed hot. “You have always been my son. I play no favorites among my offspring, but did you not see that I hoped to groom you above the others to be a true god of the forest?”
Eradimus blinked in confusion. One might gather that it was his own intent to follow in his father’s footsteps just by looking at his choice of attire, the loin cloth and low boots so similar to his father’s. But he was no hunter and never would be. Not like his brother, Tallisun, who would rather have prey in his sights than to attend his sabbat responsibilities. In truth, Eradimus had never considered it possible to be anything other than what he was.
“How would I have seen it?” Eradimus asked. “My mother was no goddess, no supernatural being. She was human. I have less power than some of my siblings, who inherited immortality from both parents. My appointment as god of Imbolc was meant to keep me in line, not prepare me for a greater purpose.”
“Yet what could be more important to a forest,” Herne said, “indeed, to the entire earth, than to see to the end of a biting, killing frost?”
Eradimus lifted his chin. “Then prove it. Grant your son that which he—and the world—needs in order to become the god you would see revealed.”
***
Silence fell for a moment, and Brighid saw Herne and Eradimus squared off, eying one another in a challenge she feared she might not want to know the outcome of. Then Herne gestured, waving over his son’s head with his gnarled staff.
She gasped as she watched a change come over Eradimus, and not just in his expression. Antlers sprouted from him, not as large or grand as Herne’s, but branched out to strong, majestic points. He reached up to run a hand along them while his wide eyes searched his father’s.
“Eradimus, god of the forest,” Herne said. “Someday.”
“And what of Eradimus, god of Imbolc?” Eradimus asked.
Herne glanced at Brighid for a moment. “I believed you would be distracted from your calling if I allowed you to have love. But I have watched over the millennia, and I have seen the truth. In the years when you and Brighid are together, you are more focused, powerful, and productive than in the years you are waiting for her. That yearning, the anticipation of her return, does not catalyze you into a new life. The loss of her robs you of the desire to seize your destiny, something I feared would be permanent when she did not come back. I feared the earth would yet again cover itself in a blanket of sea.” He signed. “This I cannot risk. So the time of your nineteen-year cycles has come to an end.”
So, he would part them after all. Brighid’s heart threatened to beat out of her chest.
“No, Father,” Eradimus said. “You cannot do this.”
“Don’t,” she whispered, her stomach thudding at the prospect of being ripped away from him. “Please. Just hold me.”
She clutched onto him as though Herne’s s
taff could not divide them if they only clung tight enough to one another. Eradimus shoved her behind him and stood between her and his father.
“Out of the way,” Herne said, and with a wave of his staff, Eradimus was gone. With wide eyes, Brighid watched as he skidded backward and hit the ground.
“Eradimus!” she cried.
The staff waved again, pointed straight at her. The flow of Herne’s magic swept over her, and there was nothing she could do. His will would be done in their lives yet again.
The flood of heat was intense, much more so than when Eradimus had healed her wounds. She shut her eyes, raising her hands to shield herself from the power of Herne’s staff. The weight of his power pressed down, forcing her to her knees. She would be sent far away, born into a soul who would never remember her true destiny. Or perhaps to another dimension far away, out of love’s reach.
When the power receded, she dared to open her eyes and found herself right where she’d been. She scrambled to Eradimus’s side, helping him sit up.
“I am all right,” he said, getting to his feet and extending his hand to her.
“Brighid, keeper of the sacred flame,” Herne boomed. “Even as a human, your passion burned bright enough to not only seduce my son, but inspire the earth to end its despair and entertain the notion of spring. No more will you fall into darkness while you are born into each new generation. Awaken now into an eternity of love.”
“What?” Eradimus said.
A tingling in her limbs as she rose brought the first stirrings of new power. Herne had vanished by the time she shirked off her blanket and, naked once again, threw her arms around Eradimus’ neck. Whatever was happening, wherever he was sending her, she would cling to love until the bitter end.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“I don’t believe it,” Eradimus whispered. “Thank you, Father.”
The god was nowhere in sight, however. He had vanished.
She frowned up at him, and found him staring down at the ground with an awestruck gaze.
Eradimus: God of Imbolc (Sons of Herne, #2) Page 4