Eradimus: God of Imbolc (Sons of Herne, #2) Read online

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  Eradimus: God of Imbolc (Sons of Herne, #2)

  ERADIMUS: GOD OF IMBOLC: SONS OF HERNE 2 J. ROSE ALLISTER

  Read on for a look at the next tale- Tallisun: God of Ostara:

  Titles in the Sons of Herne Series:

  HTTP://JROSEALLISTER.COM | ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ERADIMUS: GOD OF IMBOLC

  SONS OF HERNE 2

  J. ROSE ALLISTER

  Eradimus must awaken a goddess before time runs out...

  The realms are in jeopardy. Violent storms erupt as the earth prepares to shake off its inhabitants, a fate that can only be avoided by the return of the woman Eradimus has loved for millennia. Brighid is destined to be in his arms only once each generation, a cruel enough fate before she failed to return at all. Now the world mourns her loss—and Eradimus’s father, along with the Counsel of Sabbats, insists that he take another lover for an Imbolc ritual that will hopefully avert disaster.

  Brighid is not having the greatest vacation. A sudden storm hits, almost taking her over the edge of a cliff along with her rental bike. Lost and alone, she makes her way to the nearest shelter—where a strange, but gorgeous man shows up and claims to know her. His sensual presence is overwhelming, and she very much wishes she could be the same Brighid he so desperately seeks.

  Is she the goddess Eradimus longs for? He must find a way to restore her true identity and join with her before all of humanity is lost.

  About the Sons of Herne series:

  The god Herne has appointed eight of his most virile, headstrong sons as keepers of the pagan holidays. To honor their sabbat, each must join with a mortal female in a ritual to maintain the balance between worlds.

  It is the year of The Thousand Seasons, and the Fates have conspired to grant the gods one thing they lack—a true passion that will last well beyond the fleeting moment of a sabbat joining.

  Herne’s sons will wrestle with the conflict between sacred duty and their own yearnings, a struggle that will not only challenge their beliefs, but may threaten the success of rituals that must be observed lest the realms of mortal and immortal collide in chaos.

  Genre: Erotic Romance/Fantasy

  Length: Around 15,000 words

  Copyright © 2016 by J. Rose Allister

  Second Edition Publication: July 2016

  First Publication: January 1, 2016 (limited release as Awakening of Brighid)

  Cover design by J. Rose Allister

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2016 by J. Rose Allister

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: You do not have the right to distribute or resell this book without the prior written permission of the author. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred.

  ERADIMUS: GOD OF IMBOLC:

  SONS OF HERNE 2

  J. ROSE ALLISTER

  “The storm grows stronger,” the assistant said as he stared through the veil between worlds.

  Eradimus, son of Herne, stood with his hands on his hips and his mouth pressed into a tight line. “And it will continue to do so, unless the ritual can be fulfilled.”

  “Then you may need to find another to fulfill it with.”

  He whirled on the aide, who had the good sense to take a step back. Eradimus was perhaps not like his father, but the quarter-bloods who aided the Counsel of Sabbats would do well not to stand in defiance of a demigod. Even if the aide was Jarvil, son of Sandovar, who came by his position because his father was a member of the counsel.

  “Find another?” Eradimus said, his voice rising enough to bounce off the walls of the sabbat chamber. “I believe you have mistaken me for one of my many brothers. The ritual of Imbolc does not rely on a meaningless rut with a nameless female. It is a destiny bestowed by my father to she who brings an end to the chill of winter, the keeper of flame. There is no other. There can be no other.”

  The assistant bowed his shaved head. “Forgive me, but with all due respect, none of the sabbat rituals are meaningless ruts. They are sacred rites of power, regardless of whether the gods stop to acquire practical knowledge of their females before proceeding to the carnal.”

  Eradimus blew out a breath. “Perhaps so, but do not toss away the meaning of my own ritual so lightly. I was the first of my brothers to be appointed as a keeper of a sabbat, and as such, I have fulfilled the task for far longer than they.”

  “Until last year,” Jarvil said, though he kept his eyes averted. “And what will happen if you should fail again?”

  Eradimus crossed the room to stand in front of the orb holding the mists of time. The black fog stirred and throbbed, as dark and chaotic as the storms rising across the veil, denoting that the time of Imbolc had come. Just as it had done so the previous year, when the sabbat had passed for the first time without him performing his duty.

  Heat flared in his chest. “I cannot fail again. The earth already shows signs it will shake off the inhabitants who have rejected the ways of magic. It despairs for a return to the old ways.”

  “And what of you?” asked a deep, familiar voice that did not belong to Jarvil. “Will you despair for her return until the earth rises up?”

  Eradimus faced Herne, who approached with two members of the Counsel of Sabbats on either side. The counsel members wore robes of gold, their hoods raised in deference to the day of a sabbat. His father wore his preferred gear of a hunt, a brown loin cloth girding powerful thighs and a crown of leaves wound through the antlers on his head. He stood with his legs wide and his staff held in a firm grip. The staff was smooth and carved only by nature, the remnants of a fallen branch which Herne had taken up to defend himself on a fateful `hunt long ago.

  As they stood in the Chamber of Imbolc, among the artifacts of the season and the gleaming marble that was impossibly bright in contrast to the view of the wicked storm through the veil, Eradimus felt the heavy measure of judgment in the eyes focused on him. He was the god of this sabbat, standing in the midst of the displays that commemorated his season—the trimmings of gold, the hand-woven cloth, the straw cross bound with willow reed—but it was his father who, as always, appeared most commanding. Eradimus was dressed in similar fashion to Herne, with a loin cloth and a circlet of greens, but he had already donned the sabbat robes. Long silken panels trailed behind like a train, glittering white and trimmed in the palest silver and yellow, traditional colors of the season.

  “We had hoped things were not as dire as we feared,” Herne said. “It seemed the earth had relented when the days grew mild around Yule. Now I see it was but a temporary respite while nature gathered her strength to unleash in a fury.”

  “The gauntlet is cast,” said Counselor Veramus from beneath his oversized hood. “Earth challenges Eradimus to bring the magic it craves into another generation. The Yule light was not enough to quell the planet’s thirst for proof that mortal souls should not be cast off.”

  “Has there been any sign?” asked the other hooded figure. “Any at all?” Counselor Sondovar sounded calm as he spoke, with his hands folded in passive repose in front of his robes. But the piercing gray eyes peering from beneath his hood told a different tale.

  Eradimus glanced at the alabaster pedestal upon which stood the bell jar. Beneath the crystal each year was placed a sign of Brighid’s return, preserved until the followin
g Imbolc. And for the first time since he had become the keeper of this sabbat, the jar was as empty as his thudding heart.

  “Not yet,” Jarvil replied, although the Counsel had taken no notice of him since they’d come in. “None since the fires of Kildare were rekindled. Ironic that the world should begin anew to revere the goddess Brighid just as she disappears for good.”

  “It seems your powers are weakening, Herne,” said Veramus. His tone held a note of mockery. “Your magic on the girl appears to no longer hold her in sway.”

  Herne’s nostrils flared. “It is my son’s magic that no longer holds the Earth in sway.” He stepped forward. “But then, nothing is destined to last forever. Especially not a spark of love declared in a moment of young, desperate passion.”

  Eradimus’s throat thickened. “Our love has lasted far longer than you have predicted, no thanks to you. And it still endures.”

  “Does it? Then where is she, this love that you defied a father and high god to pursue? She failed to return last year, and there is no sign she intends to do so in time for this sabbat.”

  Fists clenched at Eradimus’s sides. “There would be no need to await her return if you hadn’t doomed us to be parted in the first place.”

  “Something for which you should be thanking me. Trust me, one year out of twenty has extended your love beyond the normal reach of sanity. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

  “Or hardens it against the will of a father who is overly concerned with the affairs of a grown son.”

  Herne cocked his head. “I had hoped you would have seen reason by now. You are not merely a grown son. You are a god of the sabbat, and it is your sacred duty to maintain the balance between worlds.” He pointed to the portal. “You see what is happening because your ritual did not take place last Imbolc. If the planet succeeds this time in shaking off its human usurpers, the adjoining realms will suffer the fallout.”

  “If your woman does not return to you before sunrise,” Veramus said, “you must join with another and let your seed spill on the bare soil. Show the world that magic still exists in the race that has long since abandoned it in order to conquer and destroy her lands.”

  “The magic is between us,” Eradimus said. “Brighid and me. It is not mine alone. I cannot simply bed any woman who happens by on a sabbat, like my brothers, and convince the earth that ours is a race worth saving.”

  “Their race,” Herne said. “Humans have brought this fate on their own heads. We are the ones who must intervene.”

  “And as you have frequently reminded me, I am half human. Their fate is my own.”

  “Then find another, and quickly,” said Counselor Sandovar. “Surely you’ve taken other lovers. To go nineteen years in between...”

  “I have taken none other,” Eradimus said, cutting him off. “I will not.”

  Herne lifted his staff and brought the base of it down on the marble. The strike echoed through the chamber, the force cracking the tile. “You have lost Brighid to the ages, admit it. Or to the arms of another lover.”

  Eradimus’s breath dried in his throat upon hearing the words out loud. Oh, they had been whispered around the counsel. And in darker moments over the past year, whispered in his darkest thoughts. But he would not give strength to them.

  “No,” he said. “Something else has happened. She would not forsake me for another.”

  “She has already forsaken you. At the very least, she will return in a further nineteen years, too late to calm the maelstrom. The fate of the worlds can no longer hang on the heartstrings of an idealistic young lad. Take your balls in your hand and fix this. Tonight.”

  All stared at him, waiting.

  What could he say to them? That deep down, he felt the truth that he was never truly in command of Imbolc? That the magic that had turned the earth’s gaze aside from destruction had never been about his own immortal power, but that of a red-haired beauty. She had once been mortal, but had gone on to be heralded as the goddess of poetry, smith work, and the flame. Even if he were so cavalier as to bed another lover, Brighid in his arms was the magic the world sought. His father would never accept that humans were capable of such a power, not even back when magic was a common mortal practice.

  “And if I cannot fix this?” Eradimus asked. “Perhaps it is not Brighid who needs replacing. Perhaps it is your god of Imbolc.” He turned to the veil, watching as a jagged streak of lightning pierced the sky in the other realm.

  Herne grunted. “Would that I could, if that is your only response. But there is no time to appoint another and guide them through the proper rituals of purification in hopes they might succeed.” Herne stepped forward. “Must the entire earth suffer because you have? Or will you, the god of the spring’s return, do what is required to preserve the balance?”

  Breath stilled in his chest until his head pounded. His father was the last one to talk to him of allowing others to suffer because of his own past misery. The counsel and his father stood there, staring him down, eyes fixated on the one they called upon when the milk was newly flowing among the ewes. They wanted him to forget Brighid, the only woman he had ever loved, just like that. As a matter of duty, they expected him to take another lover before sunrise and hope the earth didn’t notice the difference between an act of copulation and a love that had endured since the days of old. If nature was not fooled, or if Eradimus refused to at least try, the planet’s inhabitants might be destroyed in a flood that had nearly succeeded once before. The day he found love in the arms of a mortal and given the earth cause to hope.

  “My lords!”

  He turned to see a young acolyte racing forward, his sandals slapping the marble as he ran.

  “Well, what is it?” Herne boomed. “Now that you’ve interrupted a vital discussion and startled us all.”

  The young man slid to a stop and gave a hasty bow. “This was just brought back through the Chamber of Portals.”

  His brown eyes wide with excitement, he held up a flower that quivered between his fingers.

  Eradimus’s heart gave a sputter. “Snowdrops,” he whispered.

  “It is a sign,” Jarvil said, pointing at the blossom. “The snowdrops bloom again. She is returning!”

  Eradimus grabbed the lad by the front of his tunic. “Where?” he demanded. “Where was the sighting?”

  The bloom fell to the floor, and the young man pulled away to retrieve it. “In the Green Isle,” he said. “In the field not far from where the fires burn in her honor.”

  “Then I know where she will appear,” Eradimus said, shooting his father a look. He took the snowdrop from the lad, feeling the longing burn inside him. Hope of pulling her into his embrace again scorched him from the inside. “At least, I know of the general region. There could be a few places within the area.”

  “Can he not just focus on her presence, as do many of the other sabbat gods when they cross over to seek their females?” he heard Jarvil ask.

  “It does not work that way for him,” Sandovar answered. “You should have learned in your studies how the Imbolc ritual differs from all others. As she who joins with the sabbat god is born anew each generation, Eradimus does not know precisely whom to focus upon. He has only the location where the signs have appeared to guide him.”

  “I know he only performs the full joining every second decade, and always with the same female. But I do not know why.”

  “It is speculated that the earth needs to see the magic born of a true love between mortal and immortal once each generation for it to relent in its despair and grant humanity another cycle of life.”

  A hiss in response turned out to be Herne’s. “True love. If that were the case, why then did the earth not respond when Dominus claimed the Yule mother? He, too, thought himself possessed of true love, yet storms blanket the realm all the same. So if you are quite finished giving your firstborn lessons in idle conjecture?”

  Heads bowed. “Apologies, my lord and my god,” said Sandover.

&nbs
p; “Perhaps it is not the love between beings on opposite sides of the veil that the earth saw,” Eradimus said, no longer able to bite down on the words that had resonated in him for centuries. “Perhaps my immortal power unlocked a magic within her, solely and exclusively in Brighid, that gave the world cause to spare the human race.”

  “Ridiculous,” Herne said, although counsel members were exchanging looks. Eradimus was already headed for the artifact pedestal when his father continued. “But if you feel she is so vital, delay no more,” Herne said. “Go forth and seek the place of her return. Do your duty, god of Imbolc. We will discuss matters when you have succeeded in your task.”

  Eradimus paused in front of the pedestal that was carved from the finest crystal and lit from within by its own energies. The garnet statue stood on top, and his eyes took in the lines of the exquisite carving. The bowed head, the delicate fall of wavy red hair, the cloak that fell in folds to her bare feet caught her essence, poise and beauty.

  “I knew you would not fail me,” he whispered. “I knew you would not wait another generation to return.”

  He reached for the figure, his fingers shaking while he reached for the wand cradled in her arms. The wand had been fashioned of ash, a branch of the very tree they had lain beneath together on that first day, sheltering from the storm that raged around them. The wood had been sanded smooth, but it was not perfectly straight. Knobs and slight bends fit his hand to perfection when he withdrew the wand from its perch. On the top end, a small cone from a conifer off their mountain had been dipped in pure silver and was attached to the top, creating a phallic shape. A pair of faceted crystals dangled from the other end, attached with the finest red silk ribbon. There also dangled a small velvet pouch, and into it he carefully placed the snowdrop blossom.

  The priapic wand heated when he took hold, the energies within swirling and demanding release.

  “Mai tune-mei Eradimus,” he called out, lifting the wand overhead as he invoked the sabbat prayer, “shai a Imbolc fuor a mata Brighid.”