Chapter 19 #2
“Allow me to do this for you,” he said quietly.
I always liked how Cernunnos didn’t clean up other people’s messes. He let Evie fight her own battles, for the most part, and only stepped in where he felt he could do the most good. If I told him no, he might not like it, but he would stay his hand.
I said nothing for a long moment. She’d done unspeakable things to me, forced me into an immortality I never wanted so she could keep me as a victim, and the only reason I got away was because I planned for years and finally made my move when she was out of town.
I’d been running ever since.
My head was nodding before I could stop myself.
Cernunnos’s nostrils flared. “Yes?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
Power punched through the air, visceral and raw, leaving the real Cernunnos standing before me, a god of such immense power I could barely look at him. His antlers loomed above his head, those strange eyes swirling with multicolored magic.
“Stay here,” he commanded and disappeared.
I regretted the decision immediately. Sending him in when he couldn’t know what kind of monster she was seemed cruel to me.
A high-pitched female scream rang out. All the windows in the house shattered.
“Shit.” I left my hiding place and approached the house, carefully skulking around the edge.
Minka’s dark magic mixed with emerald green and silver, grunts of effort, both feminine and male, trickled through the windows. I slowly rose up and looked inside.
Minka and Cernunnos faced off, both of their hands raised in defensive positions. My mother was brutally injured, half her face burned and twisted. Cernunnos had punched a hole in her side, large enough to fit a handbag through.
And yet, she was still standing.
A chill rolled down my spine. She should be dead. Why wasn’t she dead?
“What could I have done to a god?” Minka asked.
Cernunnos loomed over her. “There are no living creatures here. You’ve taken too much of my natural bounty.”
Minka’s eyes narrowed. “No.” She shook her head. “You lie. Your animals die every day, by hands crueler than mine could ever be.”
A shield bubbled between them. “Tell me, god, does that woman you were with have anything to do with this?”
“Make your peace with the world, witch.”
Minka laughed, the sound rasping. “You underestimate my power, god. I’ve always wanted to tangle with one such as you.” She clicked her tongue. “Though you are a fine male specimen. Perhaps instead of tangling together in conflict, we should entwine in a more pleasurable way.”
Oh. Ick. No matter how much I hated my mother, hearing her proposition any man got my gag reflexes up.
Cernunnos laughed. My shoulders fell with relief. “You will never sully me with your touch, witch.”
Power snapped through the air. I ducked down and waited.
Minka’s power had always felt cold and oily to me, like someone had switched the butter for shortening in icing. An odd way to think about dark magic, but hers felt like a betrayal. Much like a baker who used shortening in their buttercream.
Speaking of which…I was going to make Cernunnos a big ass cake when we got out of here.
Just as I was growing concerned, the house rocked with a stunning boom of power. The siding I leaned against bucked, throwing me several feet into the air. Black smoke curled with emerald and silver poured from the shattered windows.
I landed with a hard slam against the ground, the breath knocked out of me.
Stunned, I blinked a few times, trying to catch my breath.
Silence reigned, and as I slowly got to my feet, the house began to crack and groan. There was no way she was still alive. I slipped behind a tree on the other side of the property and waited.
More smoke poured from the house. Concern brimmed in my veins. I stepped out from my hiding spot just as a flash of blinding light snapped from the windows and a body slammed through the wall like a comet.
It wasn’t my mother.
“Fuck,” I breathed as I took off running.
Fumbling through my bag, I swore as I realized I’d left those travel potions at my apartment. I landed beside Cernunnos’s still form and gently shook.
“You have to wake up,” I whispered. “We’ll die here if we stay.”
I gently lifted him, and settled him half in my lap, my arms under his upper back. If he woke up, I’d be touching him and he could get us out faster.
The back door fell off the hinges, revealing a dark-haired woman covered in soot and blood. She stepped onto the porch, her vivid gaze sweeping the area until it landed on me.
Realization settled on her face. “I knew there was something familiar about the woman he was with,” she said. Her accent was less pronounced than it used to be, but she was the same woman who’d made my life a living hell.
She studied me for a long moment. “You’re a woman now.”
“Too old for you.”
Minka snorted. “Life force is life force, my darling. While a child’s is more potent, it all becomes the same energy in the end.”
“Wake up, please,” I whispered to Cernunnos. He was breathing, I knew that much, but his chest was a ruin.
Minka stepped off the porch and walked toward me.
“Stay away,” I croaked, disgusted by the same shiver of fear I felt as a child.
She clicked her tongue. “I am your mother, and we have not seen each other for so very long. Surely you will not begrudge me a visit.”
How was she still upright? Her chest was a smoking ruin.
She caught my gaze. “Ah. It will heal within the hour. My spell work is much more powerful than it used to be.”
Minka came closer.
“I am not without my own power, Mother. Do not take one more step.”
“Och,” she chided. “Has my kitten grown claws, then?”
My stomach filled with acid. She only called me that when she wanted something, the term of endearment poison on her lips.
“You should have stayed hidden, my dear.” Her teeth were streaked with crimson, the cavernous ruin of her chest seeping blood. “The witches were easy enough to manipulate. They wanted the Lord too badly to understand the cost of my help.”
Things clicked into place. She must be feeding from the witches’ life force. Made sense if she survived Cernunnos coming after her.
“Stay there,” I barked when she took another step.
Minka heeded my warning. She hesitated, unsure what I might be able to do to her. Vampires had a stable of powers, but much like the Lords, all of them had one special gift. Some could mesmerize anything that breathed. Others could fly. Some had invisibility.
Few spoke about their unholy powers.
I had one. If I revealed my gift, Cernunnos might be conscious enough to remember what I could do.
If I didn’t, we both might die.
The god’s fingers twitched. He licked his lips. Keeping a careful eye on Minka, I bent closer.
“Drink,” he whispered, so low only I could hear him.
My eyes snapped to him. “No.”
“I do not have enough power to move us. You must.”
Tears filled my eyes. “How?” How could I have known what I was or what I could do?
“Drink,” he commanded.
I saw no other way out. My mother took a few cautious steps forward, her eyes narrowing as she strained to listen.
“Cernunnos...”
He grimaced in pain as he tilted his neck. My mother took another step closer.
Running out of time, I dipped my head and struck like a viper.