Pulling herself out of bed took some effort, between the soreness in her limbs and the weight of nothingness dragging behind her. There was a void, a spot deep in her gut where there had been the undefinable fullness that had bolstered her spirits throughout the summer and fall. It was the light, she knew now, that had grown and filled her with joy. Now it was gone.
How could emptiness feel so heavy?
She was still naked, and she wrapped herself in the handmade floral bed quilt and walked to the bathroom. The floor was dry when she entered, but the tub was still full. She hadn’t bothered to drain it. She had been too busy throwing herself at a god who had toyed with a thousand women, give or take however many more. Yet she had done the unthinkable. Maybe Jeff and Antoine were right. She spent too much time alone, working at her computer in the tiny cottage left to her by her grandmother. Maybe if she spent more time out with her friends, meeting guys for casual dates, she could have dumped her virginity long ago. Then she wouldn’t have caught the interest of not one, but two pagan gods who used her before vanishing into the nether. In which case, she probably wouldn’t be ready to snap the hairbrush handle she was gripping tightly enough to whiten her knuckles.
A crack sounded just outside the window, and she whirled. “Dominus?”
She went to the window and cranked the old handle, nearly twisting her wrist with the effort as the frosted pane creaked open. A tree limb reaching toward her had shed a clump of ice, which hit the ground. More crackled under the insistent warmth of the sun.
She heaved a sigh and wandered over to plunge her arm into the frigid bathwater. She pulled the plug on the bath and hopefully on the disastrous adventure that had been her foray into the world of pagan lore. She had expected so much more from the journey, but the more she thought about it, the more she wondered why. She had been raised without much in the way of spiritual beliefs, and she had survived just fine. At age twenty-one, she had her own cottage and a job that paid well with little commute time or rat race. Yeah, her love life was a vacuous black hole, but so what? She had friends she talked to online, over the phone, and even saw every now and then. Sure, they pestered her about being a hermit, but she was her own boss. She had time on her hands, though less than she probably would if she didn’t put in so much overtime on billing accounts. A hobby, that’s what she needed. Not a man in her life—she’d had enough of that for a while, sort of. She had to find something to wash away the memory of her humiliating behavior the night before. A date, maybe. Get back on the horse she’d never ridden.
Her wet arm throbbed with cold, and she glanced around for a towel to dry it with. A quick memory flashed of the last time she saw it, and clenching her teeth, she headed back to the hallway. The towel wasn’t where she’d dropped it, nor was it in the bedroom.
“So, the hotel guests are stealing the towels now,” she said aloud, too loud for her own ears. But she knew he wouldn’t hear.
She yanked on clothes with extra venom, nearly ripping the belt loop on her jeans in the process, and headed for her office. Papers were piled on the desk, printouts of billing and emails stacked on both the in and out boxes. A phone sat near the computer, and she headed for it. She should start a new chapter in life, one by which she did what she wanted because she wanted to, not because a god was whispering ideas in her ear.
Staring down at the receiver, she made that pact for herself. She’d do it today. Wouldn’t that surprise the hell out of Jeff and the others? Two social engagements in two days?
“Lorayna Woods, coming out in society at last,” she said. “Gentlemen, start your engines.”
She reached for the phone and paused. Maybe breakfast first. Or at least some coffee. Then she’d put the old Lorayna—and Dominus—in her rearview.
* * *
It was the dawn after the New Year—the one many humans marked, not the turn of the wheel Dominus had brought forth eleven days prior—before Herne returned from the first in a series of hunts commemorating the Thousand Seasons. It would be a season of culling and recruiting, honoring the end of an era and ushering in a new age. A concept Dominus knew all too well, but he detached himself from thoughts of it. He was too busy trying not to think about what he was doing standing at the veil bordering the edge of his property, the pendant in one hand and a certain white towel in the other.
“Son,” came Herne’s booming voice from behind him. The god of the forest never arrived without making an entrance, and he rarely made an entrance without a thunderous amount of noise. “I have been seeking you to have a word.”
Or many, as was often the case with his father. Herne was a powerful god, and he expected powerful things of his offspring. Particularly the sons he had tasked with business involving the realms.
Dominus kept his back turned. “Greetings, Father. I trust the hunt was satisfactory.”
“Not as satisfactory as your bringing of the Yuletide. I have heard little else than talk of the extraordinary power brought forth to mark the Thousand Seasons. And I am told that you yourself prepared the sun bearer for the birth.” There was a pause. “However did you manage it?”
Dominus’s pulse skipped, and he gripped the cloth in his hand tighter. “Not by my choice. Attendants were busy all year making preparations for Thousand Seasons rituals and celebrations.”
“Perhaps you will have to teach them how to attend the next light-bearer, considering your results were most exemplary.”
He winced at the mention of a new light-bearer. How could he consider it when he could not forget the last one?”
“You are too generous,” Dominus managed.
“Hardly. Even I, whilst sitting by a dwindling campfire way out on the edge of the dark forest, bore witness to the light. I was most impressed.” He heard Herne’s boot steps draw closer. “So a father must wonder, then, why his son does not seem nearly as content with his victory as does the rest of the realm.”
Although he didn’t trust his expression to remain passive, Dominus forced himself to face the man behind him. Herne’s eyes were a burnished golden-brown, unlike Dominus’s pale blue, and were focused narrowly on his son. He peered out from beneath lids that had been smeared with kohl, top and bottom, the way he often did before going on the hunt. Antlers jutted out from the sides of his head, divided into many branches that had been wound with holly to mark the season that had just passed. His tanned, muscled flesh showed none of the marks of age, yet his face held the carvings of many eons of wisdom.
“A father wonders about his son, or a high god wonders about his appointed servant?” Dominus asked.
Herne’s lips curled down slightly. “What is this about?” He glanced down at his son’s hand. “And why do you stand at the veil bearing the pendant charm? You need not concern yourself with the Earth realm until May Day, when you will select the next sun bearer.”
Dominus felt his skin heat, particularly about his face, and he could not help but flash back on the sear of Yuletide fire he felt when his body was pressed to Lorayna’s.
“It is not often that I see a flush of warmth on the blue skin of a winter god,” Herne went on. “You are holding something back. Tell me what it is.”
“Does it matter?” Dominus lifted his chin as he eyed his father. “The Yuletide is behind us, while seven more sabbats lie ahead in the Thousand Seasons.”
“What matters is that I have commanded your obedience, and you have chosen not to give it.” Herne stepped closer, and Dominus felt the sheer power of a hunter—no, a warrior—surround him under his father’s scrutiny. While Dominus could be something of a foreboding presence to those not expecting it, Herne bringing his power to bear was not something easily withstood—even by another immortal.
“Why were you preparing to phase through the veil?” Herne repeated, and the boom this time lacked any of the gregarious warmth in his greeting.
“I wasn’t,” Dominus said, wondering whether that was really the truth. “Though I confess I may have been considering it.”
His father waited, and a cloud of threat hung over the silence.
Dominus raised his hand, which was still clutching the towel. “I took this from the other realm. I meant only to return it.”
The lie was weak, and he knew it. Risking a glance at his father’s measuring gaze, he could see as much. Herne was no fool.
“I think the Yule mother can do without one simple drying cloth.”
Blood pounded in Dominus’s veins. His father would never understand. Dominus himself didn’t understand. He just felt the truth searing him like Yule light. He would never again be with the sun bearer—that was, the only one who mattered. Lorayna. And every minute since they’d been parted, that fact burned hotter inside him until he was ready to explode.
“If I could just see her,” he said. “Make certain she is all right.”
“Why would you concern yourself? Was there some problem with the ritual?”
“There were…complications.”
“Did the energy damage the human? There was certainly an excess of it. Did you not ensure she was free of all traces of the light before taking your leave?”
“I did, and she was.”
“Then there is no need for unease. By now she is just fine.”
Dominus heaved a sigh. “She may be.” He glanced away. “But I am not.”
His father strode forward, took hold of his son’s chin, and twisted it this way and that, examining him. “I see no signs that you retain residual energy, though I’m not certain how you would accumulate any in your role. Forget this human and come join me at the Rebirth Feast.”
Dominus pulled away. “Forget?” The word spat out on a cloud of bitterness. “I cannot forget her, Father.”
“Of course we revere and respect she who is the sun-bearer.”
“I do not merely revere her. I love her.” The confession slipped out without warning, but there was no denying it now.
“Love? Love?” Herne’s brow buckled dangerously. “Surely you can’t be serious.”
“And why can’t I?” Dominus paced in front of the veil. “Do I not deserve the happiness others take for granted?”
“Happiness? You are the god of a sabbat, a position that affords you respect and purpose.”
“Which is not the same thing.”
“But with a human female?”
“With a woman I myself attended for months.” He paused, but only for a brief moment. “This is the longest we’ve been apart.”
“Surely not.”
“I was with her numerous times per week since Beltane.”
The silence in his father lasted longer this time. “That is far more often than necessary for a mere attendant.”
“You said my results were exemplary.”
“And just what did your methods of preparation involve? Just how ‘with’ this female have you been?”
Dominus stopped pacing. “I think you know the answer to that. But it only happened once, on the night of the Yuletide.”
“After she bore the light, I presume. Because you were so caught up with the power of that particular birth.”
“We birthed that light together. Her and I.”
He felt almost as shocked to admit it as his father appeared to hear of it. He pointed a weathered finger at Dominus. “You sullied the Yule mother?”
“I united with the woman I love, but only after she insisted, and only then because she could not release the light. The ritual was failing. She would have perished if I hadn’t done what I did.”
His father closed his eyes and just stood there.
“I told you there were complications.”
“Complications that will now extend through the remaining seven sabbats of the Thousand Seasons.”
“I don’t understand.”
The eyes reopened looking tired, yet blazing with indignation. “Do you understand that you broke the cardinal rule about keeping the sun-bearer chaste? Did you never wonder why such a rule exists?”
He had, indeed. The eight sabbats all involved an act of sexual union between the two realms, a joining to symbolize and embody the balance between earth and immortal, male and female energies. Yet of all the sabbats, his was the only rite that required that act to be one-sided, without the full involvement of the male partner. Without him.
Dominus cleared his throat. “I presumed it was because the energy would not come forth purely otherwise.”
“Which is, in essence, true. But the energy you released this time is pure—purely erotic. Sexual energy, potently male and born of what you misguidedly claim is love, sent out to the universe on the wings of a sabbat.” Herne shook his head.
“And what of it? Do not my sabbat brothers do the same?”
“They do not. Each of the rituals involve certain similarities, but all achieve their own ends. Yours sets the wheel of the year in motion, son. Yours is a special destiny.”
Dominus sighed and folded his arms. “So you’ve been telling me all my life.”
“And yet you appear not to have listened. You are responsible to send forth the energy that catalyzes an entire year’s sabbats, harvests, and all that is life. And now, with the influence of your emotions and your lustful male greed, we will likely see ripples and side effects throughout the coming year.”
“I was unaware of such a result.” Not that it mattered. Flashing back on that moment, the decision to pull her beneath him, he likely would have done so whether he’d known the consequences or not.
Herne shook his head. “It seems we are in for a wild ride. I daresay the realms are already feeling the results of your own handiwork, including you. That is why you find yourself in this state.”
Dominus felt his fists clench at his sides. “I have been feeling this way for some time now. Too long to blame on whatever I may have unleashed by joining with Lorayna.”
Herne eyed him for a moment. “Time and distance will cure you of that. Come, we are expected at the feast. Many are eager to congratulate you on a memorable Yuletide—including a number of stunning goddesses who are perhaps influenced by the power you have unleashed. Perhaps one or more of them can aid you in putting thoughts of the Yule mother behind you, which is where they belong.”
Herne headed away, but Dominus stayed put. Was that all it would take to forget? The time and distance that had put all other females—in this realm and the next—so solidly in his past?
His father turned back just in time to see his son tying on the pendant. With a few choice words ringing in his ears, Dominus focused his intention on a particular location and then phased through the veil.
* * *
“You can do this,” Lorayna murmured. “You can dial a simple number.”
She sat in the comfy wing chair by the living room window, her cell phone in her lap. The tick tick tick sound was not from the old grandfather clock, which she’d forgotten to wind days ago, but the fingernail she tapped on the windowsill. Her manicure was chipped, largely by her own nervous fiddling. In her other hand, she twirled the mistletoe bundle that no longer hung above his offering.
Without turning from the view of an overly bright winter afternoon, she could feel that offering behind her, still sitting on the mantle like an absurd homage to a night she should have chalked up to a huge mistake. The plate and goblet called to her, insisting on an answer for their presence. The back of her neck prickled, and she sat forward to look around the brown upholstered wing of her chair. The mantle appeared normal, for the most part, though the remnants of holiday were still evident. The plate and goblet weren’t doing anything special, although their very existence there was certainly not normal. She could almost convince herself that like other things around the room, the offering had sat untouched since the night of Yule. But a curl of steam rose from the goblet, giving away the depth of her foolishness.
She sat back and glanced down at her cell phone. She should return the call. She should have picked up the call in the first place, really, rather than stare at the
display like a demon was about to burst through the glass. The call had gone to voice mail, but she hadn’t bothered to listen. The display had told her it was David calling.
The guy had seemed nice enough the night she’d dragged herself out to meet her friends. At Jeff’s prodding, she’d given David her number. He hadn’t called before today, although he’d texted her the following afternoon. Enjoyed talking to you, the message had said. I’ll call you later in the week. How polite of him to give advance written notice of his call, like the enemy sending a warning shot across her bow.
David. David Sterling. David Anthony Sterling, accountant. She tried to picture kissing him, imagined David kneeling over her in the tub while she masturbated for him. Watching her not with ice blue eyes capable of sending her heart into spasms, but with pale browns that lacked the hunger that would drive her to do things she never pictured herself doing. She plastered an image of his square, unassuming face over that of Dominus in bed, lying beneath her as she rode him with hard, fast thrusts while watching the way an odd, supernatural glow in her eyes were reflected in his.
With a sigh, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes, feeling a throb in the center of her forehead. She’d be better equipped for a rebound romance if she wasn’t so drained. If she’d still been possessed by the infectious joy that lit up her life, she’d be in a better mood to deal with the dating game. Now, that energy was gone, carried off by a greedy universe to use for its own purposes. She went back to twirling the mistletoe while wondering what she would do with it if she saw Dominus again. Would she stick that mistletoe over his head or jam it in his mouth?
She inhaled deeply through her nose, stopping when she caught a whiff of something. The pine scent—had she imagined it? She breathed again and again. It was there, and not coming from the boughs and tree that had gone brown and dropped their needles. Still with her eyes shut, she broadened her awareness of the room. The feeling began in her shoulders, a pressure like energy emanating from somewhere around her.
Dominus: God of Yule Page 5
