His heart sped. Yes, she would be alone. And so would he. But for how long in her case? He wondered what measure of time would pass before she would take another lover. And how he would feel about the notion by then.
Harper got up on her toes and kissed his cheek, sending a little jolt through him. He still felt the press of her lips after she pulled away. “Thank you for a wonderful evening, you hot stag you.”
He didn’t reply, and she grimaced. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of it.” She lifted some reeds of her skirt and gave a curtsy. “Thank you, god of Ostara, for allowing me to be part of spring.”
She turned and walked away, leaving him staring after her, words he might say in response flying through his thoughts but refusing to come out. His head was telling him to follow, go with her to the campsite, but his feet defied the command. Harper was a hunter who liked being alone, just like him. She didn’t need a male holding her hand to guide her through the woods. She didn’t need him at all.
He swallowed and glanced back at the clearing, at the tree stump and the fresh blooms that stood at attention, bending slightly in deference to the god of spring. A wave of his hand snuffed the torches, plunging the setting of the ritual into darkness. With the spent antlers in hand and his destination in mind, he took hold of the veil pendant and phased out of the woods.
***
“Exactly how many more of those are you planning to eat?”
Haper glanced up to see Jessica staring with the mixture of horror, judgment, and admiration that only a best friend could perfect.
Harper rolled the hard-boiled egg on the counter, listening to the satisfying crunch of shell crackling beneath her palm. “I boiled two dozen.”
“And you’ve already devoured at least half that.”
“I like eggs.”
“You like meat, remember? A fact that I have been graciously willing to overlook in our relationship.”
Harper’s stomach turned sideways. “Why are you complaining? You’ve been bitching at me for two years about my consumption of red meat.”
“And with good reason. Do you know how many hormones and antibiotics they inject in those animals?”
“Not the grass fed stuff. And don’t forget I also eat fresh game.”
“Ugh.” Jessica’s heels clicked on the linoleum as she crossed over to the fridge. “I’d like to forget. How can you even stand that?”
It was a conversation the pair of them had roughly every few months or so. Jess was a born and bred vegetarian who had, against her better judgment, fallen in with the likes of a weekend hunter. Theirs was a strange friendship, an actual Nordstrom-clerk-meets-Bass-Pro-Shop thing that was reflected in the styles of the bedrooms in the apartment they shared. Each was decorated courtesy of fifty percent off sales at their jobs—one in modern contemporary, the other one in rustic hunting lodge.
Harper peeled the egg while she watched Jessica stick her head in the fridge. With the girl’s height plus the addition of the shoes, this involved bending over to see what was stocked. “Your steak looks gross,” she said. “It’s got that nasty gray stuff on it.”
“Since I know you’re not planning on eating it, I don’t see why it matters.”
Jessica pulled the Styrofoam package out and eyed the label. “Good god! Fifteen dollars? That’s a bag of farmer’s market produce down the tubes. It’s not like you to let a disgusting slab of rib eye go to waste. What’s wrong?”
“Maybe I’m tired of meat.”
“You? I should call 9-1-1.” Jessica put the package under Harper’s nose. “Just look at this sad state of affairs.”
Harper twisted her head and made a face. “I don’t have to look. I can smell it. Throw it away already.”
Jessica shook her head as the steak found a new home inside a scented Hefty bag. She washed her hands in the kitchen sink—twice. “You’ve been acting so weird since that camping trip before Easter.”
“You mean Ostara.”
“O-what? No, Easter. You were up by the lake the weekend before, and when you got back you started moping around and not eating.”
“You just accused me of wiping out a dozen eggs. How is that not eating?”
“You know what I mean.”
Jessica was a buyer for Nordstrom’s and looked every bit the part. Pastels and creams swirled along the tailored lines of her designer dress, which had been paired with matching strappy heels and a lavender infinity scarf. Her sleek chestnut bob hung in a perfect sheet with just the right amount of curve as it brushed her collarbones. Harper never had that kind of luck with her hair. Releasing the beast of wavy brown locks from its ponytail meant all sorts of adventures with hair care products that she didn’t have the time or the manual dexterity to deal with. She couldn’t pull off wearing a scarf, either. Some people just weren’t the scarf type, and she was woman enough to admit she was one of them. Jessica could throw one on and look like the editor of a fashion magazine. Harper could spent fifteen minutes knotting, flinging, and rearranging and look like her outfit had vomited up a bit of mismatched fabric. Since she worked for a sporting goods store, however, her lack of accessorizing ability hadn’t hampered her career prospects.
She grabbed the salt shaker and held her egg over the sink, sprinkling a generous amount on top.
“Excess sodium intake can make you retain water,” Jessica said.
“Lucky for me I don’t have to squeeze my feet into your size 5 heels.” She bit the top of the egg off and chewed.
Jessica leaned against the counter and sighed. “Okay. Fess up right now.”
“About what?” Harper asked, her mouth still full.
“I find you awake at all hours, you’ve stopped eating meat, and you’re acting generally weird and elusive.”
Harper glanced at the floor and noticed a bit of shell that had tried to launch itself to freedom. “How am I elusive?”
“See! You did it right then. I ask about you, and instead of answering, I get evasive maneuvers. You don’t even make eye contact.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“I know you, Harper Jean Malloy. You’re keeping something from me. Something happened up at the lake.”
“What could have happened at the lake?” she asked, and then groaned inwardly at the infraction. Jessica was right. Harper couldn’t answer a simple question when she was feeling guilty.
“So what did you do?” Jessica persisted. “Did you find out your hunting license expired or something?”
“Why do you assume I did anything wrong?”
Jessica’s eyes gleamed. “Aha!” she said, pointing at Harper. “More evasion. Go on. Spill it.”
Harper let out a sigh and dropped the remaining half of her egg on a plate. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”
“Okay. So what am I not thinking?”
She took in a deep breath, wondering if she was really about to tell her best friend everything. “There was a...guy.”
Jessica’s brows shot up. “Wait. A guy? Like as in a male guy?”
Harper snorted. “No, a chick guy. Of course a male guy.”
“And?”
“And I met him up at the lake.”
“Now we’re talking.” She leaned over and smacked Harper on the arm. “So what happened? Who is he? Was he hunting up there? Did you get his number? Is he rich?”
Harper held up her hands. “Whoa, whoa. Slow down there, Fiddler on the Roof. Before you go getting any matchmaking ideas, it’s not like that. We, well, it was just a thing. It’s over.”
Just a thing. Yeah. If she kept telling herself that, maybe plastered it on a billboard, she’d eventually believe it.
“How much of a thing was this thing?”
She shrugged. “You know. We had a thing.”
“You had a flirt-and-wish thing, or an actual sex thing?”
“It was pretty actual.”
Jessica sucked air through the slight gap in her front teeth, which was to date the only flaw Harper
had managed to catalog on her. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I wasn’t sure how to say it.”
“How about, ‘I met a guy and slept with him’?”
“Well, if you’re going to be all obvious about it like that.”
“Hell yeah, I am. So? How was it?”
She closed her eyes and the image came to life, him moving over her, the utter power and beauty in his carved face while he threw his head back, his horns tossing like a wild beast while he made her one with the universe. Mind-erasing, transformative, lingering...she couldn’t stop thinking of Tallisun and their time together. The crooked smile that lit his golden eyes into little flames, the muscles that beckoned her touch, the way he had stood with his head lifted, legs planted solid, and cock rising while he had blown the horn she could still hear late at night, when the world was too quiet to drown it out.
“Hello,” Jessica said. “Earth to Harper. Your jealous friend who hasn’t had a date in two months needs vicarious details. A name, physical description. Measurements. You know, the good stuff.”
Details? She opted for the safest one. “His name was Tallisun.”
A face followed this info. “First or last?”
“I’m guessing first.”
“What is it, Greek?”
“I’m not sure. He didn’t seem Greek.” But then, there were Greek gods. Did the ancient Greeks worship a god of spring?
“What was he like?”
She hugged herself, rubbing the arms of her double thick thermal knit. “Tall, brownish-gold eyes, blond hair.”
“Handsome?”
“Breathtaking.”
Jessica nodded. “Go on.”
“That’s it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh no, it isn’t. Did he make love slow or wild?”
“Both.”
“Ooh. At the same time, or was it more than once?”
“Twice.”
“But it’s over? How come?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Not for a best friend.”
Harper chewed a hangnail while considering how to answer. “Tallisun’s not from around here. He was only visiting for the weekend, then he was going away.”
“Away to where, another planet? Surely you can still keep in touch. It’s a global age we live in.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think either of us was up for a long-distance thing. Not him, at least.”
“Oh.” Jessica’s face fell. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine.”
“Except for the eggs and no meat.”
“Yeah.”
“Guys are jerks?”
“Not this time. But thanks for having my back.” She put away the eggs and wandered to the living room that took heavy influence from her chic, accessory-friendly roomie, save for the brown leather couch that Harper had contributed.
“So tell me about the show,” Harper said. “What’s the good word on the summer collection?”
They sat on opposite ends of the couch, feet curled beneath them and facing each other.
“You’re asking me to talk about fashion?” Jessica asked. “God god, you must have had it bad for this Tallisun. By the way, did he have a last name? A solid career path?”
“Distraction, please,” she said. “Not emphasis.”
“Fair enough. But not without wine. This is your basic alcohol consumption occasion.”
Jessica poured and talked, and Harper let her. She ordinarily could have cared less about summer palettes and the drape of organic fabrics or the virtues of palazzos versus capris, but she welcomed any and all chatter about something other than her internal monologue over Tallisun. She’d been stupid to let him go so easily. Sure, he was from another realm and hadn’t come here looking for a girlfriend. But they’d been so in tune with each other, so right when they fit together in all the ways that made her body cry for more. Even now she could feel him, smell the spring dew on his breath, feel the damp heat of his back when she held onto him. Yet she had barely said goodbye, let alone asking if he would consider seeing her again. She’d been too much of a coward to hear the answer. So she’d started babbling a preemptive farewell before he could dump her.
What would have been the point in asking for anything more? There was no future they could have. Not when he was a god who mated with human women each spring and probably had immortal girlfriends in between. But it might have been nice to be with him for a while, see how things went. Sharing the spring ritual and just leaving felt wrong now. Empty. She’d lost her taste for meat and couldn’t even think of hunting without wondering what she had ever seen in it. Something had changed in her when Tallisun had claimed her, just as he had transformed the landscape around them. The clearing had come into full bloom, and so had Harper. Now she felt shriveled. She wondered whether the forest around the phantom tree felt the loss of its god as well.
Curiosity nagged at her. She could go back, see for herself. He wouldn’t be there, of course. But was the stunning bed of flowers still blanketing the clearing? Could she still sense, maybe even see, the phantom tree without Tallisun’s help? Maybe being out there again would shake her loose from this feeling of emptiness. The weekend was coming, and she wouldn’t spend it sitting around the apartment. She could try to hunt, cook some meat over an open flame. Even though that didn’t sound particularly appealing at the moment, it was time to get back to her life. If she could figure out what that meant anymore.
***
Tallisun stood in the chamber, his hands clasped behind his back, staring at the antlers mounted on the wall. The chamber was an homage to his calling, a temple of sorts revering all that was Ostara, sabbat of spring. Behind him were displayed exquisite symbols of the season, such as delicate gold filigree eggs, marble hares with ruby eyes, and a hanging branch that had brought forth the first buds of spring. And his antlers of course, together with the orb that sat beside the arched doorway, its coloration and position denoting the time until the next sabbat. Within it were threads of black mist, the mists of time given by the Fates themselves, which at present were barely visible within the silvery-blue glimmer of the veil. The black mists would increase, shading more and more of the ball until the next sabbat was at hand. The orb in turn would shift around the room, a calendar of sorts, making its way around the chamber.
Many times had the orb completed its circuit, just as his antler sheds had been hung anew each Ostara. And now it was the Thousand Seasons, a time for rebirths, new beginnings, and shedding the cloak of a former season. All these things Tallisun understood well from his time as the god of spring, but he had not truly anticipated the depths to which those winds of change would penetrate him.
Recessed lighting shone on the antlers that had come off in Harper’s hands, showcasing the successful completion of the sabbat. They would be replaced with a new set next time, and as was customary, the previous sheds would be gifted to dignitaries, sold at private auction, or discreetly ground up and sprinkled over the crops being sown. By this time next year, his union with Harper would no longer be memorialized except in his own spirit, in the way he pictured her even now, her eyes sparkling while she teased him about his “crush” on the spring maiden. It had apparently delighted her that he felt an attraction, and yet she could barely be rid of him fast enough when the ritual was over. Well, that wasn’t quite true, perhaps, for she had initiated a second lovemaking before she had all but sent him away.
“You are here yet again,” said someone beside him, intruding on his thoughts.
Storell, son of Dornan, leaned against the archway with his thick forearms crossed. Time spent aiming a bow and wielding a sword had carved Storell into quite a figure, every muscle pronounced beneath the togas he preferred. They had long gone out of vogue in this realm, but few would say so to the son of a distant, yet important war god.
“I thought perhaps our timing was merely off since I’ve not seen you on the range,” Storell went on. “But today I hea
rd you have not sunk so much as a single arrow into the hay since the sabbat.”
Tallisun turned. “I have been otherwise occupied.”
“And what occupies the god of spring so thoroughly once his antlers have already been shed?”
“Nothing of any interest to the son of a war god.”
“Good. Shall we set out on a hunt, then? I hear the thickets have filled with an unprecedented amount of game this year. Too much for the amount of food they will be able to obtain.”
“Yet there is an excess of greenery as well,” Tallisun said. “Perhaps the abundance of game shall have a fighting chance during the year of the Thousand Seasons.”
“Especially if the great Tallisun, son of Herne the Hunter, has given up the sport.”
“I have not given up.” Except for a woman he couldn’t shake loose from his thoughts. Harper had dug in deep, growing inward like a pair of horns that he could not extract without damaging his own soul.
“Then come, let us make way. After the hunt, we will celebrate our fruits with wine I have brought from the tenth realm. Two or three goblets of that fine bouquet ought to loosen your sour expression.”
“My expression is as it has always been.”
Storell laughed. “Indeed? The night you returned from the sabbat, you looked as though someone had stolen your finest horse.”
“I do not have a horse.”
“Then perhaps that is the problem.” Storell tossed back a sheet of jet black hair. “Or was the rutting not to your satisfaction?”
Tallisun’s brows lowered. “I may bear the antlers of a horned god, but I do not rut like an animal.”
“Pity. For I heartily recommend a good, sound rut now and again.” The grin that broke out showed white teeth, and Tallisun couldn’t help but crack half a smile himself.
“I must decline your offer,” he said. “Perhaps next time.”
“So if it not a horse nor the pleasure in your sabbat joining, what is it that has you in such a poor disposition?”
Tallisun sighed. “It is all of this,” he said, waving his hand around at the chamber. “Is my life to be nothing more than statues and symbols and sheds on the wall, year after year?”
Tallisun: God of Ostara (Sons of Herne, #3) Page 8
