Page 34 of Call of the Ride
Veles
It must be something in the water. Every midsummer—every blasted time I tried to sit down and enjoy a moment of peace and quiet—I was being summoned away to a sacred grove to either reassure farmers about their crops or be subjected to idiotic humans dancing naked in the moonlight.
Whoever is to blame for the thinning veil is officially on my shit list.
Sighing heavily, I smoothed down my robes, preparing to exit the willow and greet whatever shaman or priestess or toothless peasant had called for me. If Marena was here, she would’ve pointed out howgratefulI should be for being summoned at all in modern times, but she wasn’t, so I chose annoyance instead.
Contrary to popular opinion, gods did notneedhumans to believe in them in order to exist. And after centuries of my many followers dwindling to a loyal few, I couldn’t say I minded the slower pace my semi-retirement offered me. Mokosh was always the one who’d been fascinated with humans and their brief lives and saccharine familial love, but I never saw the appeal.
Until I experienced it for myself.
Emerging from the shadow of the tree, I paused, allowing my vision to adjust to earth’s night and hoping this encounter would be resolved quickly. At first, I saw no one, until a low groan brought my attention to a crumpled form lying on the ground across the grove. I slowly approached, frowning as the person began cursing my name along with the entire pantheon of Slavic gods, and some Turkish ones as well. Too late, I realizedwhoI’d stumbled upon, but before I could escape, he rose and turned, his white horns catching the moonlight as he spotted me as well.
“For the love of Victorian dildos, why must I be tortured so?”
“The feeling is mutual, Taneer, I can assure you,” I replied, narrowing my eyes as I searched the grove for the rest of his pack of degenerates. “However, it appears as though you have called me—whether or not you meant to. So let’s get this over with. What is it you could possibly need from me?”
To my surprise, the man before me fell apart, his normally cocksure expression turning to anguish. “I want to know…why?”he choked out. “Why would you knock up a human woman just to abandon her and her child as if they meantnothing?”
I froze. While Taneer had shown a hint of the sight when he assisted Marena and me with scrying, I couldn’t imagine how he’d uncovered my darkest secret. My immediate assumption was that this was the work of Perun—perhaps even that shit-stirrer, Jarilo. My greatest nemesis often enjoyed digging up dirt to further drag my name through the mud.
Trusting that my imposing mask hadn’t cracked, I shrugged dismissively. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and if this foolishness is the reason you called me here…”
“I’m your fucking son, you overgrown bovine!” he barked with an unexpected fierceness that caused me to stumble backward in alarm. “Zehra is mymother,Veles. Cass apparently summoned you, 32-ish years ago, to help her fulfill her destiny and create one of Vasi’s Riders. I have no clue whyyouwere the unlucky god chosen to be the sperm donor, but here we fucking are!”
My momentum carried me all the way to the altar, and the moment the back of my thighs hit the stone surface, I sat down, hard. I knew Zehra had borne my child, but discovering it was aRider—that it had been for a purpose greater than a single night of pleasure—was astounding.
It appears even the gods cannot escape the hands of fate.
Long-buried memories washed over me. I recalled the exact moment I was yanked through the ether to find one of the most breathtaking women I’d ever seen waiting for me on the other side. She couldn’t have been more than 20 human years old, with wide hazel eyes and long, wavy chestnut brown hair that shone against her coppery skin, even in the dim light of Cassandra Moonstone’s dusty back room. Humans had never interested me in that way before, but something about this woman called to me.
Like…destiny.
Looking at the demigod in front of me, it was somewhat ridiculous that I hadn’t recognized the resemblance until now. Then again, I hadn’t seen Taneer since he was a baby.
Not since I held him in my arms.
The man in question was still glaring at me from a few feet away, but there was something besides anger in his expression. It was wild and raw and the unexpected need to ease his pain cracked me wide open. Before I knew what was happening, words I’d never spoken aloud were slipping past my lips.
“I used to sneak into your bedroom after you were born…” Quickly realizing how unsettling that sounded, I cleared my throat and started over. “Gods don’t enter life as babies—we simply appear fully formed—so at first, I think I was more curious about you than anything. But when I found myself next to your crib almost every night for your first year of life, even I had to admit that I...cared. It was only because of my concern you’d start remembering my visits that I finally let you go.”
Even though it killed me.
Taneer had stepped closer, the tension in his body lessening as he observed me, the pure openness in his expression shattering my defenses further. “But you created a demigod,” he hesitantly spoke. “One who’d eventually figure out he wasn’t like other humans. Did you not feel any responsibility for my life?”
I grimaced. “Disappearing probably wasn’t very responsible of me, but to be fair, demigods are completely human until a divine touch awakens their power. At least, that’s what I’d heard. Unlike someothergods who’ve been spreading their seed since the dawn of time, this was the first—and only—time I strayed from my love…”
Understanding washed over Tan’s features as a harsh truth surfaced in my consciousness. Yes, Zehra had been beautiful, but it wasn’t lust alone that spurred me on that night. I’d finally found Mokosh in a tiny village on the Barents Sea, only to discover she’d taken a human lover with connections to occultists who lived there. After a fiery confrontation, she’d disappeared again, leaving no clues behind other than a child an old priestess insisted was her grandson.
I knew who he was, but murdering an infant who didn’t yet pose a threat was lower on my to do list than finding my runaway consort. When my efforts to locate Mokosh failed again, a deep need for revenge settled into my bones. Lying with Zehra was the first opportunity I was given to retaliate, although clearly fate was still working in Mokosh’s favor.
The safer bet for vengeance came years later. When Nox died, I was able to take away the one person he loved—although attempting to transfer my pain to him failed miserably. In the decades since both incidents, I’d slowly come to acknowledge how poorly I’d handled the situation. If I’d simply assisted Mokosh with restoring the balance when she first begged for my help, none of this would have happened.
But perhaps it was meant to happen this way.
“I didn’t completely abandon you,” I stood and tentatively approached Taneer, my arms spread beseechingly. When I noticed his eyes narrowing, I hastily continued. “I’ve always surrounded your mother’s home with protective wards, no matter where she was living. Fidelity is fairly uncommon with the gods, yet we have a history of murderous jealousy. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if something happened to Zehra because of my actions, so keeping her safe was the least I could do. But yes, Ididfail you as a father—in all the ways humans care about—and for that...I am sorry.”
Taneer surged forward with blinding speed, crushing his body against mine in an attack before I could react. Registering the lack of pain, I realized he washuggingme, but it still took a shamefully long moment before I dared wrap my arms around him in return. As soon as I did, light began emanating from Taneer’s copper skin, pulsing with forgiveness, somehow filling the cracks that had decorated my soul for far too long.
