But it wasn’t just any tarn—it was her tarn. The place she came to replenish and commune with the other gods. A place of strength and courage.
Cailleach raised her eyes to Tritus. “Why did you bring me here?” she asked carefully.
His tone was gentle. “Because you looked like you needed it. I can see the signs, Cal. You’re exhausted.”
Cailleach balked at his softness, the tell that he cared for her. Tugging her hand from his, she stepped back, trying to put space between them. Her mind rummaged through possible responses as she swung her long, heavy braid behind her back. “I…I didn’t know you knew about this place.”
He smiled. “It appears that my hunting abilities have improved, then.”
She blinked and asked incredulously, “You’ve been spying on me?”
How had he gone undetected? Were her powers failing? And how long had he known about this place? She swallowed the questions, not willing to voice her inadequacies.
Tritus cocked his head to the side as he considered her, the dark bone of the horns on his head glinting in the warm afternoon sun. “I was curious about where you always rush off to in the middle of the day. And when you always return with wet hair, I had thought you were keeping the knowledge of a hot spring all to yourself. I just had to come and see.”
She shook her head. “No, I—”
“I know,” he cut her off with a chuckle. “As soon as I touched the water, I knew I hadn’t been missing out. It’s freezing! I’ll take a bath in the cave any day.”
Cailleach hid a smile. “One of the perks of being a Winter Goddess.” Because she didn’t feel the cold but rather reveled in its strength. “I take it you won’t be joining me then?”
“No,” he murmured, eyes darkening with a spark that she’d come to recognize. “I plan to be in full working order.”
Her heart skipped. “What do you mean?” she fenced.
Tritus stepped closer, his big, muscled body infiltrating her space. She was unable to look away as he lifted a hand and ran it across the seam of her lips; caught how his face tightened with a flicker of desire.
“You know exactly what I mean, Cal,” he said slowly. “We had a bargain. If I proved myself over the winter, we would cement our claiming.” His hand dropped back to his side, but his gaze was no less damning as he added quietly, “Do you deny that I passed my initiation?”
She couldn’t. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t. Not after all the support he’d given her, not when he’d nurtured the animals and flora of the forest. Not to mention those evenings she’d returned, tired and hungry, to a warm, filling meal and a partner who seemed to understand when she needed to be alone and when she needed his company to shake off the death of the day.
She gave him the answer—the answer he deserved. “No.”
At her confirmation, Cailleach noted that the tension immediately left Tritus’s body.
“Good,” he said shortly, eyes scanning her features.
She knew he saw the fear that she so desperately tried to hide and was thankful that he didn’t comment on it. Tritus shifted abruptly and gestured at the tarn. “Now, I know something is bothering you, and it’s clear you’re exhausted, so I brought you here to do whatever it is you do here.”
Cailleach forced a laugh, willing the tension between them to dissipate. “It’s called bathing!”
“No,” he denied. “It’s more than that. I’ve watched you on that stone. It changes you.”
Her mouth dropped open. He’d been watching her? “For how long exactly have you been watching me?”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me what you do on that stone.”
Cailleach stuck her chin out, slamming her hands on her hips. After the last six months, she knew his mannerisms, knew he wouldn’t relent; the clenched jaw and arrogance on his face were testament to that. He had it in his head that they were equals. At times it was refreshing, but at others, it was a pain in her ass, and she wished she still had full faculty of her powers when around him. “Fine!” she huffed. “But it’s not a mere stone; it’s a carlin stone. Each member of my family has one, unique to each of us alone.”
Tritus repeated the name, running the words over his tongue. “A carlin stone. A fitting term for a tool of the gods.”
Cailleach nodded. “It not only links us to each other but to our magic, acting as a conduit to the source of our power.”
He cocked his head to the side. “But what happens if the stone is destroyed?”
She froze and felt ice crackle from her fingertips, the mere thought of that threat enough to stop her heart. “Then I will die,” she ground out softly.
Tritus stepped forward, a hand reaching out for her as he realized his blunder, but Cailleach stepped back, lifting her hands up to push him away. “Stop! Don’t come any closer!” she cried, fear lacing down her spine at what she’d just done, what she’d just shared. “Was this all a trick to discover the source of my power?” She was appalled to find her hands were shaking. “You have ranted that we should be equals too long now for this discussion to be mere chance! Was this what you wanted all that time? An opportunity to take my power?”
Cailleach was trembling at the strain of holding her emotions in check. Rage and fear lashed her in equal strengths, her magic screaming for release. She forced it down, reminding herself that he could have coerced her like this months before, especially if he’d been watching her for a long time already. I know his heart; I know his mind. All I need to do is give him time to confirm his intentions.
Tritus became deathly still as if he knew that her heart was splintering inside. As if he knew that he stood on a precarious line, and her power would explode with the merest flicker of a thought. His green eyes were smoldering with his own anger. He opened his mouth, and even though his words were soft, they were edged with a fine layer of steel, “If that is what you truly think, then our time together has all been a lie.”
Fighting the roaring in her head, she gritted out, “Explain!”
He had a chance, a very slim chance to remind her who he really was—partner or foe.
“I know what you’re doing,” he said softly. “I know you’re scared. I know you’re trying to protect yourself from what we have—what we could have! I know your mind turns with the position we’re in, day in and day out—whether what we feel for each other is prophecy or our own free will.
“I know you are a slave to it, and I can tell you that I let that internal fight go as soon as I met you. Because I knew, Cal! I knew that you were the one for me. The one that I want to spend the rest of my life with. And the knowledge that we are fated mates, bound by prophecy, does not lessen that desire—it only accelerates that realization!” Tritus threw out his arm in a slashing movement. “So, to hell with it, Cal! I say I don’t care! I’ve never cared that we were destined by prophecy because my heart and my mind both know that you’re the one for me!”
Every word was a weapon, a razor-sharp cut into the protective shield that Cailleach held around her heart. His words, so soft, yet honest, tugged her breath away. They were words she’d dreamed of, words she’d desired because the level of his commitment had always been in question. Since the unveiling of his heritage had become clear and since their union six months ago, she’d been too scared to ask him whether what he felt was merely a physical lust—an outcome of the prophecy—or an emotional one. So she hadn’t. And her fickle mind had continually played with her emotions, taunting her that he wasn’t real, that he wasn’t what she’d always dreamed of.