Taking You by Rylie Dark

Author:Rylie Dark [Dark, Rylie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rylie Dark
Published: 2024-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“All for You, oh Great Horned One. I offer all to You in order for You to turn Your wrath from me and onto them.”

The worshipper raised his hands in reverence over the pentagram of black-painted river cobblestones. At each corner of the five-pointed star flickered a black candle.

It was sheltered here in this little hollow. The wind couldn’t get through the surrounding thicket to blow out the sacred candles, and the terrain shielded the flames from view of the nearby house.

The house he would break into very soon.

“I have already sacrificed two times to You. You have not reversed Your wrath. But three is a sacred number, a holy number. Morning, noon, and night. Sun, moon, and stars. Hot, cold, and temperate. God, priest, and sacrifice. This third sacrifice from me, Your reverent priest, will remove the pain and restore to me what I lack. All hail to You, o great Horned One! Give me a sign that You hear me.”

The priest of the Horned One closed his eyes and took several deep, measured breaths, trying to calm his mind. The turmoil he felt inside him all his life remained, but with the meditation techniques he had honed over many long years, that pain began to ease a little, and his mind grew clearer. He tried not to think, tried not to feel, only sense the sounds and smells of the forest.

He could hear the whir of the cicadas and the trickle of the tiny stream that ran not far from his spot of worship. He could hear a fly buzzing close to his ear. He breathed in again, and could smell mingled with the rich scent of the forest the headier scent of the candles he burned as part of his worship.

And then … a new sound. A sound he had wanted to hear for many years, a sound he thought he would hear after his first sacrifice.

The slow, heavy tramp of cloven hooves.

The Horned One approached.

The god moved softly through the woods, barely moving a branch, not snapping any sticks underneath, but nothing could mask the sound of His heavy body.

The steps drew closer. Directly in front of him. On the opposite side of the pentagram.

The priest always left a gap in the stones of the pentagram, hoping this day would finally come. He wanted to summon but not contain. As if anything fashionedby mortals could contain such an ancient deity.

The heavy footsteps stopped. The priest felt a great presence before him.

He shivered with fear, summoned his courage, and opened his eyes.

Beyond the pentagram, half in the shadow and half illuminated by the five flickering candles, stood the Great Horned One.

He looked as He did in all the ancient drawings—a being both human and animal. Standing a full seven feet tall, with the broad bare chest of a muscular man, the hairy hips and legs of a beast, and a pair of large, cloven hooves.

The priest kept his gaze averted. One did not look upon the face of a god without permission, and one never did so lightly.

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