“Padraig,” he called out, that old name the most human-sounding word Caradoc had spoken since they met in the dance circle.
“I am Patrick now. I am not that weak coward. I am stronger, my love.”
“Don’t—”
“I will never betray you.”
“Damn you, man. You know—”
Patrick silenced Caradoc’s protest with a sharp thrust, a brutal penetration that made Caradoc’s eyes widen before they narrowed in anger. Patrick stilled inside Caradoc and leaned close, staring into the dark, fearsome depths of his lover’s eyes, meeting the pain and fury he saw there without flinching.
“I know the man I am. And now I know the man I was. I know I can be better.”
“You know nothing.” Caradoc looked ready to strike him dead, but he didn’t move, didn’t so much as tense a muscle as he lay beneath Patrick.
“I know you want to punish me, and I know I would deserve that punishment.” Patrick brushed his lips across Caradoc’s, the softest whisper of a touch before pulling back. “No matter that I never denied you in my heart.”
“Your denial, your betrayal, was complete,” Caradoc hissed. “The centuries I spent wandering the void were proof enough of that.”
Patrick claimed Caradoc’s mouth again, not flinching when the kiss quickly turned brutal. He allowed Caradoc to bite him, to bleed him. As the sharp, metallic taste of his own blood poured from his lip to coat their tangled tongues, Patrick realized that there was only one way to prove to the other man the truth of what had happened so long ago.
Now he could only pray that he remembered how to work the magic, and that Caradoc would be willing to let him inside his heart and mind, even if for only a few precious moments.
Patrick pulled away and began to work Caradoc’s body again, his thrusts harder and his fist tighter, his desire inflamed by the vicious kiss. It had always been like that between them. They enjoyed walking the razor’s edge between pleasure and pain. Caradoc relished the feel of teeth sinking deep into his muscled flesh and Patrick had never come so hard as when he had held his knife in his hand, tracing shallow cuts in his chest as Caradoc fucked him from behind.
Patrick felt a skin-memory wash over him, and for a moment he could see the devotional scars in the moonlight, and remember how it had made him hard just to trace the raised flesh with his fingertips.
“Yes!” Caradoc cried out as Patrick’s thrusts grew frenzied, the last of his control vanishing along with the memory.
He began to fuck Caradoc in earnest, ravaging his ass with his cock as his hand worked Caradoc’s furiously swollen length. His lover’s breath grew faster, as did his own. They were both so desperately close. Patrick’s thrusts grew faster and faster, until he was pounding into Caradoc even as his fist jerked up and down, flying over the slick, silken skin of Caradoc’s erection. The world narrowed until all Patrick could see was his god, until all he could feel was the achingly perfect connection of their bodies and the overwhelming pleasure surging around them.
“Caradoc!” Patrick screamed the name, a desperate prayer, as Caradoc’s cock jerked in his hand, his creamy come shooting out to coat Patrick’s hand and his own muscled chest.
The sight, the smell, of the other man’s release tipped Patrick over the edge. His cock jerked and twitched, the release almost painful as he shot himself deep inside his lover’s ass. Low in his body, the fierce tension exploded into indescribable bliss. Patrick’s eyes squeezed closed and his jaw clenched as wave after wave of release swept through his body, the orgasm consuming him until he felt outside himself, banished from his own skin by the power of his pleasure.
Only then did he collapse forward, cupping Caradoc’s face in his hand and pressing their lips together. He murmured the words of the sharing spell into the other man’s mouth, giving him no chance to pull away before the magic swept over them.
Patrick gasped as he felt his soul leave his body in his next breath. Suddenly he was inside Caradoc’s mind, living his memories, walking through the mists of nothingness, crawling through tight, dark places toward a light he didn’t know if he would ever find. And all the while, beneath the physical and mental agony was the wound of Padraig’s betrayal, a hurt that never healed, that still bled as freely as it had when Caradoc had realized that Padraig had sworn faith to the new god.
The pain, the sorrow, was almost more than Patrick could bear. He clung to Caradoc, holding him in his arms, sobbing as the other man’s arms closed around him, hugging him tightly to his strong chest. They held each other as if they would never let go. Every muscle in Caradoc’s body was clenched and tight, and when tears wet the other man’s cheeks, Patrick knew Caradoc had made the journey through his own memories as well.
He had known the despair of Padraig, the horror and shame that had slowly driven him mad until, one day, not long after his swearing of allegiance to the Christian god, he had walked into the river. The rocks he’d tied to his legs had pulled him down to the bottom, making certain there was no chance for survival. He had betrayed the only man he had ever loved, and deserved no better than death.
Caradoc had also walked with Patrick in this new incarnation, known the terror of the final war, witnessed the deaths of Patrick’s parents and older brother as they succumbed to radiation sickness. He had shared Patrick’s grief, known the pain that consumed him as everyone he loved had died and yet he remained. He, who he felt was so unworthy in comparison, had managed to live and thrive while hundreds of thousands of good people had perished.
Slowly, Patrick felt his soul slide back into his own skin. He opened his eyes to find himself lying on his side, huddled in a fetal position with Caradoc’s gentle hands stroking along his skin. He sucked in a breath and dared a look up into the dark eyes of the man he’d been waiting to come for him for longer than he had imagined possible.
“Patrick, my love.” Caradoc’s eyes were soft, all his anger banished in the wake of what they shared.
Patrick surged upward into his arms, knowing this embrace was the most wonderful thing he had ever known. No matter what the night held, no matter what the morning would bring, he would have peace now. Finally, his soul could put away the sadness and pain of the past, and move forward to a future free of shame.
They made love again and again, for hours, until Patrick lost track of the times he had given and received pleasure. By the time they collapsed onto the soft pine needles, as spent as he could ever remember being, Patrick had no doubt of what the future held for him. He would follow Caradoc to the other side. This time there would be no betrayal, this time he would find his lover in the Otherworld and they would have that eternity that had been denied them for so long.
“I can not take you with me,” Caradoc said, as if he had read Patrick’s thoughts. The sorrow was evident in his voice, a fact that made Patrick feel strangely blessed. This man would be sorry to leave him. It was a gift, one he didn’t intend to take lightly.
“You can take me with you. I remember the ways of these things now, Caradoc.” Patrick lifted his head from Caradoc’s chest to meet his lover’s eyes. “Our souls are as bonded as they ever were. I will find you this time. I won’t return to the earth. I’ll stay in the Otherworld until I find you and—”
“No, I will not have your life cut short again.” Caradoc pulled away from the hand Patrick reached to cup his cheek. “There is a reason the gods have sent you back to the Earthly plane.”
“What gods? Here we worship only Mother Earth.” Patrick stood on shaky legs as Caradoc surged to his feet. “The gods abandoned us when the war began sixteen years ago. Since then, none have dared speak their names.”
“You purposefully misunderstand me,” Caradoc said, a faint smile on his lips as he raked his fingers through his long brown hair.
Long ago they had spoken of the one true power, the pure life force that came from the earth, the air, the stars, that gave the humans’ gods and goddesses their power. It was that force, funneled through hum
an belief, that made miracles happen, that made gods flesh. It was that force which all creation worshipped, no matter what names they would give it.
“Never, my love.” Patrick moved closer and wrapped his arms around Caradoc’s waist, sliding his palms down to cup the other man’s ass in his hands. Caradoc tensed for a moment, but allowed the embrace. “I understand you perfectly, but I believe I have no higher purpose than to serve you.”
“The world is not as it was, Patrick. That much is clear. The earth bears many scars.” Caradoc took Patrick’s face in his hands and stared deep into his eyes. “There is no more river Caradoc. The waters are tainted with death. There is no home for me here. You and I will never have what we did so long ago.”
“I know,” Patrick said, meeting Caradoc’s searching look with a smile. “That is why I must come with you. I don’t have the power to bind you to this world without your river home. I’m only one man. That is why I will follow you to the other side.”
Caradoc was quiet, but Patrick could see the battle waging behind his eyes. “The Otherworld is a cold, sterile place. I had no form, no flesh. The pleasures of this world were no more, and—”
“That was my doing, my fault. It will be different when we are together. With your human servant by your side, you will find the true Otherworld, the beautiful land where the—”
“We can not be certain.” Caradoc sighed and pulled away, pacing through the woods. “And if we are wrong, there is no way to undo the deed. You will be a specter for eternity, never able to return to the earthly plane.”
“You have returned.” Patrick hurried to keep up, afraid that Caradoc would disappear any moment. The air around them was slowly turning the darkest shade of gray, a sign that the sun would rise soon. Neither of them had spoken the words, but they both knew that they had only this one night. When it was finished, Caradoc would vanish. Patrick couldn’t let that happen, not until he had convinced his love to wait for him on the other side, to reach out to his spirit through the void and guide him through to the Otherworld.
“Only on Samhain, when the veil is thin.” Caradoc moved into a jog, and Patrick followed, ignoring the way the sticks and brambles dug into his feet. “And I am a former god. A human man would be trapped forever.”
“I would relish that forever if I am by your side.”
“Even if we can not touch, can not speak, can not—”
“Yes! Now stop, please.” Patrick tried to keep up but it was nearly impossible. Caradoc’s feet were no longer touching the forest floor. He was flying, faster and faster, his body fleeing the light that crept upon them from the east.
Patrick ran until his muscles burned and his feet bled, churning his legs, silently praying he would close the distance between them, that he could somehow grab hold of Caradoc. Then he would hold tight and never let him go, not until the veil had parted and the Otherworld accepted them both into its shadowy realm.
Closer, and closer, he was nearly there, nearly able to reach out and grasp Caradoc’s ankles when his foot caught on a twisted tree root. Patrick crashed to the earth with a cry of anguish, an anguish born not of physical pain but from the torment he suffered as he watched Caradoc vanish from sight. He was simply there one minute and gone the next.
With his departure, Patrick felt the magic vanish from the world. No longer was he a god’s lover. Now he was simply Patrick, a survivor of the final war, one man amongst a band of brothers struggling to find a way to thrive in the oftentimes inhospitable world Earth had become.
“Caradoc.” Patrick whispered his lover’s name as he rolled onto his back in the dirt, wishing more than anything that he hadn’t lived to see the sunlight creeping through the trees.
* * * * *
One year later, Samhain, 2217
Caradoc had waited only a year for this night, but the time had passed even more slowly than all those thousands of years before. He’d been so desperate to return, to find out, once and for all, if his love was truly his forever. If Patrick had waited, if he had forsworn all other lovers, and had dedicated himself to nurturing the magic and power they had awoken in him just a year before then there was a chance he would be strong enough to bind Caradoc to the earth once more.
If not, his devotion would prove that he understood the chance he took. If he were waiting, then Caradoc would take him back through the veil if a life together were not possible on the earthly plane.
“There is no if. He will be here.” Caradoc’s voice was firm and sure. If only he could say the same for his heart.
He pushed his way through the trees, only to stop dead at the edge of the ceremonial space. The clearing where Caradoc had found Patrick the first time was silent and abandoned. The men who had danced here had moved elsewhere. No one had lit a sacred fire in the pit for some time, that much was obvious from the weeds that grew within the shallow indentation in the earth.
Caradoc knelt by the pit, his throat tight and aching as he sifted the ash through his fingers. Gone. The men were gone, Patrick was gone. Perhaps he had fled the place where he had been reunited with Caradoc of his own free will, or perhaps he had perished in Caradoc’s absence. The new Earth was still a dangerous place, filled with disease and violence. It would be ages before the remaining humans were once again at the helm of the planet’s destiny.
He should never have left without Patrick, damn his reservations. The man had been as sure of their entwined fates as he was himself. Caradoc had been a fool to let doubt cloud his thinking, to convince him that a year spent apart would teach Patrick the truth of his heart.
“I have to agree. You were a fool,” came a soft voice from above him. Caradoc looked up to see Patrick straddling a thick tree limb. “I knew the truth of my heart a year ago, and you have wasted precious time.”
Caradoc had never been called a fool, not once in thousands of years, but he didn’t refute Patrick’s claim. The relief coursing through his veins was too overwhelming to allow room for argument.
“You read my thoughts?” Caradoc asked as Patrick leapt from his perch and came to stand before him.
His body ached to embrace the other man, but he didn’t reach out to touch him. Caradoc was almost fearful to make contact, afraid that Patrick was a hallucination that would slip through his fingers and vanish into the cool air.
“I’ve been working to rebuild my magic. But even without it, I think I would have read the truth on your face,” Patrick said with a smile of pure joy. “You looked like you were pretty sorry you didn’t take me with you the first time I asked.”
“You are right.” Caradoc leaned closer, inhaling the sweet scent of the man he knew he would never be without again. “Is there any way you can forgive me?”
“I can think of a few ways.” Patrick moved forward and claimed his lips.
The first contact between them was as overwhelming as it had been the year before, even more so if such a thing were possible. Their connection was strong, fierce and true. The power coursing from Patrick’s human form was staggering, a tidal wave of magic that made Caradoc’s lips buzz and his skin itch to be pressed tighter to the source of his pleasure, to his lover.
But when he moved to close the last of the distance between them, Patrick pulled away.
“My band of brothers moved into the mountains last spring,” he said, holding Caradoc at a distance with strong hands on Caradoc’s shoulders. “Several of the brothers have found women. We have built a village, a real home for ourselves.”
“Then you are…happy here on Earth?”
“I am. The village is hidden and easily defended. The soil there is good and pure. We made our first harvest only a few days past.”
“Then I am happy for you.” Caradoc smiled. Patrick’s happiness and love were all he required. He would gladly wait for him, returning each Samhain until his lover was ready to depart the earthly plane.
“There will be no waiting.” Patrick kissed him, grinning against his lips. “There is a stream that begins
high in the mountains. A clear, uncontaminated stream that becomes a river as it flows toward the valley.”
“Is that so?” Caradoc asked, running his hands lightly down Patrick’s back, itching to free him from his robe.
“We were so grateful to find clean water at last that we began leaving offerings on the banks. It didn’t seem fitting to leave offerings to a nameless river, so I suggested we call our saving grace the Caradoc.”
The Caradoc. Patrick had found him another home, and what sounded like the beginnings of a small band of followers.
“They will accept you gladly, but none will worship you,” Patrick said, stepping closer, heat glimmering in his eyes. “I alone will attend to that, tonight and every night until we once again pass through the veil, together.”
Caradoc opened his arms and pulled Patrick close. Just holding him again was like receiving every offering he could ever want.
“So what do you say, my love? Will you come see our new home?”
Caradoc smiled and kissed Patrick’s throat. “Soon.”
“Soon?”
His confusion turned into a wide smile as Caradoc grabbed the hem of his robe and began lifting it. “We have a year of separation to make up first.”
Their lips touched again, in a kiss so full of love and passion it healed the remaining wounds in Caradoc’s heart. He would never feel that loneliness again. He’d found his way through the veil, and this time it would be forever.
About the Author
A.D. Christopher came back to his love of writing after ten years as a florist and wedding planner. A love of romance, combined with a passion for...passion inspired him to pen tales of strong, powerful men and the alpha males who love them. A.D. is lucky to have many gay friends as well as straight friends who know how to act gay in public.
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