Patrick licked his lips, mouth dry. “Cernunnos.”
The god didn’t appear as if he was there under duress. Hades made no move to order Cernunnos around; if anything, the Greek god of the Underworld gave ground. Cernunnos moved in a way that reminded Patrick of a predator, despite the deer attributes he appeared with in his true form.
“You could probably win a Halloween contest,” Patrick rasped out.
“Samhain was never meant to be treated like the party you mortals turned it into,” Cernunnos said.
“Speaking of parties, I’ve been to better.”
Cernunnos tipped his head to the side, his massive antlers nearly smacking Hades in the face. The god slid out of the way with an annoyed glance aimed at Cernunnos, but he didn’t say anything. More proof that Cernunnos was here of his own free will.
Patrick licked his dry lips. “Brigid wanted us to find you.”
“She worries so, but my life was never hers to rule.”
Cernunnos stepped over the pentagram’s circle, the hellfire not a hindrance at all. He crossed another line, bringing him into the space where Patrick’s left arm was outflung into one point of the pentagram’s star. The god knelt, looming over Patrick in a way that made his heart speed up until it was a drum in his ears.
Dualistic gods were just as dangerous as trickster gods in the way their intentions could be twisted. In some ways, they were worse.
“What have you done to Hannah?”
It wasn’t the question he meant to give voice to, but it was still one he needed an answer to. Cernunnos reached out and traced one long finger down Patrick’s bare arm from elbow to wrist. They’d stripped him of his leather jacket, and he had no idea where it was. The god’s touch was warm, almost gentle, but Patrick knew that gentleness was a lie. If Cernunnos meant to save him, the god wouldn’t be looking at him as if Patrick was prey.
“What was asked of me to keep Macaria alive. I’ve taken life so that I can give it,” Cernunnos said.
Patrick blinked, the motion dry and painful, thinking of bare branches and fallen leaves at the height of summer. “The parks.”
Fingers dug into the tendons of Patrick’s wrist, sending tingling pain through the nerves to his fingers. “Yes.”
“And me? Are you here to kill me?”
“I am here to take what I need.”
Patrick laughed, the sound cutting his throat to pieces. “Of course you fucking are. That’s all your side does. Youtake.”
“It is your sister I am trying to aid.”
“My sister is dead.”
The words were bitter on his tongue, all thewhat-ifsof the life they could have had if Ethan hadn’t wanted to turn himself into a god nothing more than a fantasy.
“Her child will live, as will Macaria. The life I create for them both will ensure that.”
The dull prick of fingernails against his skin became sharper, more painful, turning into claws that sliced deep like a knife. Patrick ground his teeth against the pain as Cernunnos opened up the vein in his wrist, warm blood sliding over his skin to pool in his upturned palm.
“This won’t save you,” Patrick said, blinking up at the ceiling as he tried to wall off the pain.
“Ah, but it will save Macaria, and that is why I chose to help my cousin.”
“Your apartment was ransacked. The threshold was torn apart.”
Cernunnos laughed, the sound dry like cracking wood. “People see what they want to see, my own kind included. I came of my own free will.”
Patrick would’ve recoiled if he had the choice. “The fae won’t take kindly to that.”
“What they want is of no concern to me. What I need is your blood. It is the last essence I require to complete the spell. Twins are useful that way.”
Patrick’s blood trickled out of his vein, and Cernunnos drew it off his skin and the dirt floor by way of magic older than some nations. His blood floated upward through the air, like backward rain, until at least a pint of it spun like a mageglobe against the god’s palm. The blood loss wasn’t enough to make Patrick light-headed, but it would be if the god didn’t close the wound.
