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Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 01

By: jdnunyer



Part Three picks up where Part Two left off. Be advised that if you haven't read Part One and Part Two, the story may be quite difficult to follow.

This is primarily an incest story, but it is also sci-fi/fantasy, and supernatural elements are not incidental to the plot. Additionally, most chapters will feature elements of other categories, particularly group sex and anal.

All characters are over eighteen. All acts are consensual.

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I felt her presence before I heard her footfalls or smelled that hint of vanilla.

Ordinarily, I would have been able to tell what kind of mood my aunt was in. But she'd done something or other to prevent me from being able to do. I could feel her Libido, feel how it vast it was, but I couldn't read it.

A few months ago, I'd figured out how to mask my own Libido. And I'd been quite proud of the accomplishment too. I'd imagined that I'd finally discovered something about our powers that even Aunt Iva didn't know.

So much for that.

"Hi, Iva," I said.

"Hey, Frank."

She came and sat beside me on the bench swing. Her eyes followed mine out to the lake at the bottom of the hill, and past it, to the wooded shore. "Nice view."

"Yeah," I said. Here, in Autumn, the trees all grew tall and their leaves always painted a beautiful picture. "I missed this place."

"So why'd you disappear?" she asked. Before I could answer, she added, "Well, okay, I guess that's obvious. But why were you gone for so long?"

As if she really needed to ask that any more than why I'd left in the first place. If she hadn't figured it out already, I'd have seen her long before now. Even though I'd learned to mask my Libido, I couldn't hide from her. Not even by leaving Autumn and wandering the most remote corners of the Homelands. The others, I could hide from, sure. But not Iva. Therefore, she'd obviously been deliberately giving me the space I needed.

"I dunno," was all I said. Though of course I did.

I'd killed my wife. In self-defense, yes. But the more I thought about it, the more sure I was that I could have escaped without harming her. She might have been trying to Devour me, but when I Devoured her, that was more out of convenience than necessity.

"You have to forgive yourself eventually," she said.

I wasn't sure how much she knew about what had happened. But since this was Iva we were talking about, it was a safe bet that she knew more than a little.

"Do I?" I asked.

"Frank."

"You know, for a while, I tried telling myself she deserved it," I said. "Your mother thought she was spying on me for Silas. So I tried to believe that. But it just doesn't add up. She'd been dropping hints for a long time that all she wanted was to get as far away from politics as she could. I think if she'd Devoured me, she'd have gone and taken our kids back from their foster families and disappeared somewhere to raise them in solitude. Away from every other immortal. Away from a world in which people routinely kill those they love in hopes of gaining just a little more power. And can you really blame her for that?"

Iva placed a hand on my thigh, just above my knee and squeezed gently. "I didn't know her well, but that was the sense I got too. That's not the point, though. Whatever her motives, however hard a life she led before she met you, however fucked up our world can be, she still meant to kill you. You had every right-"

"But that doesn't mean it was right," I cut in.

Her hand retreated into to her lap. "I'd have done the same."

"And not felt any guilt?"

She didn't reply.

"Some days, I wish she'd still been on good terms with her family," I said. "Good enough, at least, that some brother of hers, or maybe even the father she hated so much, would come looking for me. Be no more than I deserve."

"Funny you should say that," Iva said.

I finally took my eyes from the reflection of the trees in the lake and regarded my queen.

She was every bit as beautiful as I remembered. Her skin was like porcelain, smooth and pale. She had modest crows' feet and laugh lines, but otherwise, her complexion was flawless. Her red lips were overfull, soft and pouty. Though her hair was golden, her lashes and eyebrows were thick and dark, and her eyes brown.

I wanted to lose myself in those eyes. Feel those lips pressed against mine. Wanted to feel her silky blonde hair pour between my fingers.

But there was a reason for this visit, and it wasn't that she'd missed my touch. I forced myself to focus and asked, "Why is that funny?"

"Welllll," she said, drilling a hole in the hardwood planks of the porch with her bare foot. Her hands were tucked under her thighs and she stared down into her lap. The very picture of innocence. A little girl caught stealing a cookie fresh out of the oven.

This from the woman who'd Devoured her father because he'd, at one point, refused to have sex with her. The woman who'd Devoured Silas' daughter for reasons unknown, and my brother because he was Shadow to a queen she sought to depose. Who'd Devoured my nephew after he'd killed hers, and Devoured several others on my command. A woman who'd shown no sign of regret for any of the lives she'd taken, save the first.

But. Despite all that, she had passed up a great many opportunities to do me harm. That she was dangerous, there could be no doubt. But I still trusted her.

"When do I leave?" I asked.

"At your leisure. But sooner is better than later," she said.

"It's the Shadowed Glade then, is it?" I asked.

But I knew the answer. Why else would it be funny that I'd mentioned Lily's family?

Iva nodded.

"Have you heard from them? Or is this, what, preemptive?"

"I guess the latter," Iva said. "Ostensibly anyway."

I raised an eyebrow at her.

She ran a hand through that sheet of golden hair. "My mother."

"Can be a real bitch. What of it?" I asked.

"We've been fighting. A lot."

"About?"

"Lots of things," she said, in a tone that suggested that there was no need to elaborate. Nonetheless, she did. "I'm too idealistic. Too focused on reforms that are only going to backfire anyway. I'm not doing everything I need to be doing to protect myself. To help build a lasting legacy for House Farrier. Blah, blah, blah."

"I particularly like the sound of that last part," I said.

When was the last time either House Orwin or House Farrier had put two rulers on the throne in a row? Since at least the time when Grandma Noreen sat the throne, it had more or less been Orwin then Farrier then Orwin then Farrier, over and over and over. And I'd never even met Grandma Noreen. So it had to have been a long time.

If you counted me as an Orwin, anyway.

Of course, something told me that maybe Grandma Kaitlin wasn't so inclined to remember that I also belonged to House Farrier.

Iva frowned. "Yeah. I have a feeling the next fight we have might be about why I've left you and Brianna lying around."

Lying around?

"So she is back, then?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah," Iva said. "For a while now." With frantic waves of both hands, as if clearing away smoke, she continued, "That's not the point."

She looked so cute just then, with that little overdramatic gesture, that it was no easy task to let her finish.

"I was going to send Wendy anyway, so I figured it'd be best to send you too, and let you deliver an apology in person to House Furcas. But obviously my real hope is just that once you're out of sight, you'll be out of mind."

I didn't know what to say to that.

Grandma Kaitlin had generally been good to me. Scary, yes, but in an overprotective kind of way. Of course, that was then. Before things had changed. After all, I was only her grandson. Better to see me on the throne than my cousin, sure. Half Farrier was better than none. But now that her own daughter, a full-blooded Farrier, sat the throne?

"Frank, you're so sweet." Iva planted the lightest of kisses on my cheek and ran a hand through my short hair. Her hand lingered on my neck for a few moments before retreating.

That little touch alone sent jolts of electricity down my spine. I felt Little Frank stir. It took me a moment to remember what we were talking about.

"Probably should have thought about this before I named you as my heir."

"Probably," she said. "Or maybe I should have warned you."

Would have been nice.

But I shouldn't have needed it. No one had ever accused my grandmother of being overly sentimental. And time hadn't made her any more so.

On the other hand, if I hadn't put her on the throne myself, would it have mattered? If I hadn't, if I'd left the throne vacant, there'd have been a succession ritual. And there was no real question about how that would have turned out.

"So how far is Grandma going to push this?"

"I don't know," Iva replied. "But I don't want you to be around when I find out."

I sighed and wrapped an arm around her.

Iva rested her head against my shoulder. "So, anyway. Like I said, the story is that you're going to present an official apology on behalf of the court. Which, by the way, means offering Lily's father to ask any restitution of you that he wishes." She waited a moment to see if I'd react to that. I didn't. "Besides Wendy, I'm also sending Mel and Sean with you."

"Oh?"

"They've been itching for the throne since before you claimed it. If I don't send them away, I might as well Devour them myself."

Probably so, from the sound of it. Fuck. What a mess I'd left behind.

As usual.

"And Wendy?" I asked, voice heavy with resignation.

"Know how I was just saying that my mother thinks' I'm too idealistic? Well, one of the first things I did that pissed her off was I decided to make the prime minister's office an elected position."

I laughed. "I can see how Grandma might not have been crazy about that, yeah."

It was such an Iva thing to do, though, that I was surprised she hadn't suggested it when I was still king. Maybe she would have, if I'd hung around longer.

"Well, I established a Lords' Council," Iva said. "We're not exactly talking universal suffrage. There are ten permanent seats, all held by...whatever. You don't care about the details. Long story short, I thought they'd elect Wendy, but they decided to go and replace her with Harold the Hack instead."

I dimly recalled Harold. His house was one of the smallest and least influential. Which meant he'd owe a lot of favors to his supporters on the Council. And, if Iva intended to give the endow the office with any real power, that would be quite valuable.

"So," Iva continued, "I've decided to set Wendy to work writing that textbook we once talked about. And what better place to start than with the courts we know the least about?"

Reasonable enough. But it felt more like I was the real impetus for the trip, and Wendy the one who got tacked on, rather than the other way around.

"So I'm to offer to let Lily's father ask for any restitution that he wishes?" I asked.

"Well, you said he disowned her, right?" Iva asked.

I frowned at her dodge. "Yeah."

"So, I'm sure it'll work out fine."

"How reassuring," I said.

Iva huffed. "You're a big boy. Seen the world and all. You can take care of yourself."

Seen the world. Right.

"Lily once told me her father makes Silas look like a newborn pup," I said. "And it seems like no one who's met Silas can so much as mention his name without pointing out that he's not someone you want as an enemy. What do you suppose my late wife's father is like then? Probably a real friendly and understanding guy, wouldn't you say?"

"So run away again. See if I care," Iva snapped.

I took my arm off her and slid a little away. "Where's this coming from?"

My aunt leaned down and buried her face in her hands. "I'm sorry. I know you needed some time. And I really didn't want to bother you. Wouldn't have, even after I saw that you came back, if I didn't think I had a really good reason. I just can't believe you left me all alone like that!"

"All alone? Sounds like Grandma's about as active a Shadow as anyone could-"

"That's what I need help with!"

I sighed, slid back over to Iva and took her hands in mine. "I'm sorry," I said. "But Iva, honey, if I was whispering in your ear, helping you figure out ways to subvert her will, don't you think it would be even worse?"

"Probably," she said, over-enunciating each syllable. "You just don't know how hard it is trying to tell myself that, even with all the shit I let my mother talk me into doing, it's still worth it. That I'm making enough of a difference with the other stuff. Because I'm really not sure that I am. Plus," she paused, searching for the right words. "Well, basically, you just don't know how much I've missed you."

"I've missed you too," I said.

She stared at me flatly, all but declaring my words a lie.

"Stop it," I said with a laugh. "I feel naked when you do that."

"And you have a problem being naked in front of me now?"

By way of response, I leaned in and kissed her. With our lips still locked, I slipped out of the bench swing. Then I picked her up, supporting her weight with hands cupping her ass. I turned around, stumbled over to the porch rail, and propped her up on it.

At last, our lips parted, and we both gasped for air. I stared down at her, drinking in her feminine form. She wasn't quite as voluptuous as my mother, but she definitely had a woman's body. The wispy blue dress clung to her delicious curves, and hid just enough of her large breasts to almost appear decent, particularly when compared to her usual attire.

It was pretty, and I wouldn't mind seeing her wear stuff like it more often, but just at the moment, she really, really needed to be free of it.

I grabbed a fistful of the hem and pulled, burning up some energy to make sure it came away clean. It was like I was pulling away cobwebs.

My aunt gasped, closed her legs, and instinctively covered her breasts.

Well, covered her areola anyway. It would take a lot more than two hands to cover her breasts. They weren't as huge as my mother's, but they were quite hefty all the same. She had modest but pleasant curves from the waist down, a flat but not toned stomach, and the slightest bit of love handles. Some men would find that unattractive, but I thought they were cute. Almost as cute as the way she'd blushed and covered herself up, then laughed nervously at herself, and allowed her hands to fall away.

She gripped the rail as I went to my knees and pried her legs apart with my hands.

I started off strong, but just as she was approaching orgasm, I backed away and launched into my merciless tease routine. One moment, my tongue was assaulting her clitoris relentlessly. The next, it was as if I'd forgotten where it was.

"Oh, you bad, bad, man," she whispered.

I tried reading her Libido again, and found that her mask was gone. I studied her closely, trying to discern the different types of energy roiling about inside her. Grandma, the first woman I'd read this closely, had a taste for kink. Iva? Not so much. At least not by the standards of our kind. She ached for the simple, physical pleasure of intense stimulation. But more than that, she wanted to feel desired. And cared for.

I sensed, too, that she did in fact feel that way with me.

There was also a darker, greener, strain. Targeted at my mother.

There was little enough I could do about that.

I could try to tell her that I didn't really feel the same way about my mother now as I once had, that I didn't really miss her, that I wasn't just a moment ago comparing Iva's heavenly body to my mother's. But it was literally impossible for me to lie to Iva.

Nonetheless, I could make her feel special. Because she was, even if she wasn't the only woman who was special to me.

Only after I guided her through her second orgasm did I start to add all the supernatural flourishes. Floating hands and mouths tended to her glorious breasts and stiff pink nipples. Meanwhile, I stroked her hair, kissed her neck and ears, pinched her love handles, massaged her feet, licked and sucked her hips, planted a string of soft kisses down her thighs, and wrapped spectral mouths around her fingers and toes.

Again, I brought her to the edge, then backed away. And did the same again. And again.

"Yes, yes...ungh...that's it...you better let me...oh FUCK!"

Her orgasm left her Libido fully exposed. I gasped when I saw just how powerful she'd become. She'd never been weak, and she'd grown steadily stronger while she'd served as my Shadow. But I still wasn't prepared for the tidal wave that crashed into me. Even though I was deliberately trying to stem the flow of energy, I was nearly knocked flat on my ass.

At the same time, I felt so powerful, and so free of even the slightest discomfort, that I too reached climax. Just from the rush of drinking her energy in.

My aunt slowly climbed down off the rail, panting. Her knees buckled. I steadied her with one hand. Of which, there were again only two.

Iva wiped a sweaty lock from her face and said, "Sometimes I forget you're a man."

"Um, is that a compliment?"

She laughed and pinched my nose between her pointer and middle fingers. "It is. No one knows a woman's body the way a woman does. I give myself the best head. And my mother is right up there. But that was something."

Memories of Iva sixty-nining herself came to mind. Freaky and sexy at the same time.

Her chest rose as she breathed in, then fell again as she exhaled. "If you backed away again that last time, I'd have ripped your head off. But you didn't. So, all things considered, we'll call it the next best thing to perfect."

I pulled her up off her feet and kissed her. Our tongues sparred gently. Electricity shot through my body. The soft touch of her skin drove me insane with lust. Abruptly, I ended the kiss, spun her around, bent her over the porch rail, and took her from behind.

"Oh!" she whimpered. "Frank. I've never seen you this wild."

I winced with guilt. My mother loved me wild. But Iva preferred me tender, controlled, and disciplined. Her Libido told me that the surprise of it, if nothing else, was working for her, for now. Nonetheless, I slowed down the pace. And I didn't tug on her hair or slap her ass nearly as vigorously as I would have my mother.

Again, I waited a while before bringing the supernatural flourishes back. First came the hands and mouths. Then an extra cock so that I could fuck both her holes at once.

At one point, blue bolts arced off both our bodies at once, met in mid air, and with a deafening clap, delivered intense orgasms unto us both.

Our orgasms either lasted inordinately long, or we experienced a long string of nearly continuous ones. I couldn't have said which. One way or another, we were in a constant state of climax for so long it almost became unbearable.

Cum dribbled out of both of my aunt's holes, down my sac, and dripped down to the deck beneath our feet. Still my balls pumped more and more inside her.

After a while, I pulled out. She went to her knees and I shot jet after steaming jet of white spunk onto her face, neck, and breasts. I plastered her eyes shut, coated her lips, nearly sent some up her nose, and drenched her tits.

After that, we still weren't quite done. I sat down on the porch swing and she climbed in my lap, straddled my hips, and started riding me. As she picked up steam, I started to worry that we might knock the swing off its chains.

Like Mom and I had broken a bed that one time.

The frown on her face told me that she sensed what I was feeling.

Of course she did.

Unsurprisingly, then, it took longer than before for us to get off again. We hardly spoke. Just worked at it, slow and steady, like it was a chore.


Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 01



When we were done, we sat in silence for a time.

Then Iva said, "I can't believe I haven't seen you in almost two years, and now I won't see you again for who knows how long."

"Two years?"

"Well, maybe more like one and a half. Something like that. Why? How long did you think you were gone?"

Damn. My kids would be of age soon.

Would I be here when the time came? Or would I still be in the Shadowed Glade?

"A few months," I replied.

"Where'd you go?"

I shrugged. "Here and there. Don't really feel like talking about it just now. I wish it hadn't been so long, but I guess we do what we must."

"More like we do what we want, and then live with the consequences," she said.

I chuckled. "Too fucking true."

We sat in silence for a moment.

"You know, I can't figure that cousin of yours out."

"Brianna?"

I had three others. And it was probably high time I paid them a visit. But of course I knew they weren't the ones she meant.

Iva nodded. "She's been so sweet. Of course, my mother is convinced she's just playing me for a fool. But I'm not so sure." She sighed. "I mean, that woman sees threats everywhere she looks these days. It's getting old."

"Do you think it was a mistake, letting her-" I began.

At the same time, Iva said, "She deserves a second chance."

I smiled. "You're right, of course. Besides, if she does try something, she's no match for you. Not anymore. Right?"

"Hope not," Iva said.

I raised an eyebrow. "You're practically as strong as your mother at this point, no?"

She shrugged. "Sure. But strength isn't everything. The real question is whether Brianna wants the throne back worse than I want to keep it."

"Fair enough. So how badly do you want to keep the throne?"

"I'm not sure I love it. But I think what I'm doing is, well, I don't want to say important. Too pretentious. But Daphne wants to meet me, and-"

"Daphne?" I whistled.

My aunt looked away, but there was no mistaking the grin on her lips. "Yeah, well. So. I'm certainly not getting bored with it all, that's for sure."

"What have you done that's got her attention?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Nothing I guess." Iva met my eyes, hesitantly, then tried to deflect my gaze with a bat of her hand. "It's nothing personal, Frank. But I can't. My mother would kill me if I discussed that kind of stuff with you. You understand, don't you? I mean, she might be crazy, but she knows what she's doing. A lot better than I do."

"Yeah, I get it," I said.

"Don't do that," Iva said, sliding up close to me and nuzzling my neck.

"Do what?" I asked, laying my free hand on the small of her back. "I can't help that I don't love it. But I do get it. And you're right. You need her." I sighed. "You ever get her to tell you that secret? The thing she regrets?"

"Not yet, but I think I'm wearing her down," Iva said.

"Maybe when I get back you can tell me," I said. "Been wondering for some time."

My aunt kissed me softly on the lips. "Maybe," she said.

"So, what can you tell me about my mother?" I asked.

Iva went stiff.

"I know, I know," I said. "If you weren't about to send me away, I might be willing to put off asking about her until later. But you can't really expect me to-"

"Suppose not, no," Iva said, with a sigh. "She's back. And she didn't come back alone."

My heart raced. For a moment, I remembered the last time I'd been with her, and the moment where it had felt like something impossible had happened. At the time, I'd thought I'd read her mind. But what if it had been something else? What if...?

"A child?" I asked.

Iva's head jerked back a little. "What? No, I'm talking about her brother. Your uncle."

"Oh. Right. Bobby," I said.

She ran a hand down my arm lightly. "He's actually really nice, you know. You'd like him. If you weren't so clearly determined to hate his guts before laying eyes on him."

"Oh, and I suppose you'd be really open to the idea that they're terrible for each other, huh? You're not hoping that I'll move on now or anything?"

She waved the comment away. "You didn't really think she'd have his child, right?"

No, not his.

"I mean, I know jealousy can make people think crazy things," Iva continued.

"Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking," I said.

"That's just not something we do," Iva said. "There are lines even we depraved, incestuous, hedonistic sex demons won't cross."

"I get it, I get it," I said with a laugh. "How about we stop naming all the reasons it was a stupid question for me to ask and get back to telling me how my mother's doing?"

Iva offered a faint smile of sympathy. "I've honestly never seen her happier."

I didn't feel like I'd been kicked in the gut, but I should have. Or maybe I should've been happy for her. I don't know. But I should have felt something.

I couldn't though. I was simply too stunned.

#

"There's really no faster way there?" Sean moaned. Again.

"There's really no way to shut you up?" I asked.

Mel snickered at that.

"Frank," Wendy said, laying a hand on my arm.

I still hadn't gotten used to hearing her call me that. No matter how many times I had insisted that she needn't do so, she'd called me Your Majesty, or Your Grace, or some other lofty appellation, the whole time she'd served me.

But I was no longer king. Nor she prime minister.

We were both essentially outcasts now, however much Iva had tried to dress it up.

I softened my voice as I said to my nephew, "As Wendy has explained, we could try something more direct, but there are good reasons not to."

"You mean you're not sure you're strong enough to 'port us into a world you've never been to before," he said. It was most pointedly not asked as a question.

The way he referred to teleporting only added to my fear that none of this was quite real to my niece and nephew.

But then, had I been any different when I'd first discovered all of this? And was it just the fact that I saw myself in them, Mel especially, that had me on edge?

Well, in truth, there were important differences as well. My nephew had his father's intellectual curiosity. Which was to say, virtually none. Mel was more like me in that respect, but unlike me, she was patiently learning all that she could of our world. Maybe she didn't show the proper reverence over certain customs, but I couldn't say she was as quick to try to take control of a world she didn't understand as I had been.

"It's not a matter of strength," Wendy interjected. "If you have any doubts in your mind, if you start to wonder," she had been saying, when I touched the small of her back. The words stopped flowing out of her mouth.

"The appropriate thing to do is present ourselves formally," I said. "This is one of the oldest and most powerful courts. We don't want to risk offending them."

"I get that," Sean said. "I just wish there was a faster way."

I sighed, but couldn't really disagree with him. Perhaps on the return trip, we'd take the more direct route. But, for now, we traveled by rail.

When Brianna had first taken the throne, she'd kept us all in the Homelands for a time after her coronation. But she'd eventually decided to send us back. When she had, she'd sent us back by rail. She'd also both laid a heavy veil upon us and put us to sleep, so I scarcely remembered it. But it was coming back to me now.

The train station was perhaps the part I remembered best. Then, as now, we'd stood on a concrete platform that floated in a sea of nothingness. Entirely too reminiscent of the world in which Brianna had been imprisoned.

If one expected to find tracks below the platform, one would be disappointed.

It was only when a light fog rolled in and we saw lights dancing within that this changed. At least, I assumed that at that point, it actually did. Truthfully, I never actually saw any train tracks. But the flashes of light appearing at regular intervals were pretty suggestive.

A few seconds later, the train rolled up to the platform, silently, and came to stop.

"Creepy," Sean said. "You hear that?" he asked Mel.

"Hear what?"

"Exactly."

Wendy and I smiled at each other. Briefly. She looked away quickly enough though.

The four of us filed into the single car. Inside, it was four times as large as it appeared to be on the outside. Rather than rows of hard-backed seats, there was a king sized bed, a mini bar, and a table with a booth, like you'd find in a restaurant. Windows in front, back, and along one side, allowed us to look outside. But the far wall was steel, like the rest of the car, and had a flat screen television embedded in it.

Mel and Sean insisted that we watch some stupid comedy. Wendy and I deferred. We tried paying attention to it for their sake, but it was too painful. For her part, Mel seemed to find her brother's overly enthusiastic enjoyment a lot funnier than the movie itself.

Eventually, though, even they lost interest in the movie, and made their way to bed.

"Aren't you going to join them?" Wendy asked me.

Her question seemed to answer the one I'd been about to ask. I tried to hide my disappointment. "Nah. Those two crazy lovebirds deserve some time alone."

Wendy nodded. "So what have you been up to? I've asked Her Majesty, but she doesn't seem to want to talk about you."

"Nothing, really," I said. "Hiding. Wallowing. Self-loathing. Fun times."

The brunette offered a faint smile, just enough to show her dimples. "You've missed out on some serious craziness. I sometimes long for the quiet days of your reign. But I wouldn't really want to go back. Even though it would mean being prime minister again."

I did my best to hide my reaction by raising my glass of Scotch to my lips. Perhaps I hadn't made the best king. And it wasn't like I'd ever thought there was, or wanted there to be, anything between me and Wendy. But if not for me, she'd still be the youngest daughter of an all but forgotten house.

That said, something about Wendy's words only intensified my desire for Iva. I'd hardly been able to handle what were apparently quiet and placid times. My aunt had seemed a little weary the night before, sure, but she was obviously handling things well if she inspired such a reaction from Wendy even after getting the woman removed from office.

Then, of course, there was the small matter of Daphne wanting to meet her in person.

Grandma Kaitlin undoubtedly deserved some of the credit. Perhaps most of it, when it came to whatever policy changes had attracted Daphne's attention. But if that was all there was to the story, I couldn't imagine that Wendy would have had the look in her eyes that she'd had just a moment ago.

I tried to pry more information out of Wendy. No such luck though.

"We Samhills haven't got much left, but we've still got our pride," she said.

I knew more than a few nobles who might take issue with that characterization of House Samhill, but I didn't argue. I suspected even Wendy had her doubts about the veracity of that particular statement. But it wasn't her pride that had impressed me back when I'd assumed the throne, and I doubted that was what Iva saw in her either.

Having failed to get her to fill me in on the goings-on at court, I asked her what she knew about the Shadowed Glade of the Moon.

"Little enough," she said. "They're the oldest of the courts. Older than time, if you believe some of the more creative accounts. Them, and, of course, the Eternal Garden of the Sun. As long as there's been the one, there was the other. They've fought no fewer than seven great wars. For some time now, though, they've had an uneasy truce. Granted, some individual houses within one court will wage war with some specific house in the other, over some private insult, real or imagined. But, officially, the courts remain at peace."

I gestured for her to continue.

Wendy shrugged. "One old tome I found claimed that the moonlit folk are the inspiration for mortal beliefs in fallen angels and demons. With their sunlit cousins, of course, being angels. But I'm not sure about that. There's little enough evidence anywhere to suggest the Eternal Garden of the Sun bears anything but a passing resemblance to Judeo-Christian conceptions of heaven, or that its inhabitants recognize, let alone claim to serve, any power higher than themselves. And I don't believe the two ever shared a court."

I pondered that for a bit. "My Lily was a lot of things, but she was no demon."

"Right. But, in fairness," Wendy said, "mortals are prone to simplifying things. And, supposedly, the sunlit folk want nothing so much as to be worshipped, while the moonlit prefer to be feared. So I guess it's not such a stretch that the former would be thought of as resplendent and majestic beings, and the latter somewhat more nightmarish."

Nightmarish was the very word I'd used to describe one of Lily's preferred visages.

"Anything else?"

"Well, I guess you've already gathered that the moonlit folk invest every bit as much effort into honing their skills for combat as they do bedroom play," Wendy said. "Only Summer and Winter are even half as violent." Her lips curled as she said, "They say that Daphne has dozens of kids, all by her brothers. Besides the Second Wintry Court, which is hers, the others are ruled by whichever son or daughter defeats all the others. Successions are rarely settled in bed, the way ours are."

"Her children are...I thought that was just about the only taboo we have left?"

"It is, throughout most of the Homelands. Was in Winter too, before Daphne took power. But who's going to tell her what she can and can't do?"

"Fair enough," I said. "So, tell me more about how to use our powers for combat."

Wendy smacked my wrist. "You'd know better than I would. I'm a bookworm. I can tell you what people have reportedly done. But how? I don't even know how the queen does half the things she does." With a blush, she hurriedly added, "Or how you do. Obviously."

I laughed. "Right."

Just as I was going to say that it would be plenty useful to hear what people had done, Mel climbed out of bed and came over to us.

"You two need to stop talking," she said. "You're distracting me. Besides, we could really use the company."

"I don't know," Wendy said.

"Come on," I said. "It will be like old times."

She stared flatly at me. In the "old times," we hadn't had any foursomes. In fact, besides me going down on her most every day, we hadn't done much of anything. Between that and the way she'd been talking about Iva, it finally occurred to me. And I felt like a complete fool for not seeing it sooner.

"Mel, sweetie, have you figured out how to wear two bodies yet?" I asked.

My niece nodded and split herself in two.

"How about you two stay here," I said, taking Wendy's hand and putting it in one of Mel's. Then I took the other Mel by the hand and started towards the bed. "And we'll see if you can still handle both me and Sean."

#

Sean stood beside me at the front of the car. Wendy and Mel were still going at it, but my niece had worn her brother out, and I'd decided that meant it was time for me to take a break too. Otherwise, some delicate egos might get bruised.

We stared out into an unending black sea, an emptiness broken only by the column of fog that preceded the train. For a while, neither of us spoke. We just watched the green and blue bursts heralding our advance. They were nearly as hypnotic as a good fire.

After a time, Sean said, "Why is Wendy with us?"

"Your sister's not going to get distracted, don't worry," I said with a laugh.

"I'm not worried about that," he said. "I don't care if she wants to eat a boxed lunch from time to time." He scratched the back of his head. "I mean, except for her, this feels like the kind of thing where, whether we come back or not, it's a win for the throne. I don't get the impression that the queen sees the former prime minister as expendable though."

Maybe he didn't take after his father quite as much as I thought.

"The Shadow would be glad not to see your or me or your sister return, true enough. And she's the real reason the three of us are here. But it was the queen's idea to send Wendy with us. And, unlike my grandmother, Iva would actually like to see all of us return."

"Are you sure about that?" he asked.

I started to laugh dismissively, but the sound died off. Like a car engine stalling in the peak of winter. Maybe he had a point.

"I think so," I said.

Sean shrugged. "I never even knew Uncle Dom. And Dad did say he could be a real dick. But still. If it had been my brother, I'm not sure I'd be so fond of the queen."

"It's not like I wasn't sad. I just...." I could see in his eyes that nothing I could say would make sense to him. Whether that was because Iva wasn't family to him or that he was picturing how he'd react if someone Devoured Mel rather than some hypothetical brother, I wasn't sure. "It's complicated."

"You know I'm not a teenager anymore, right? I know what that really means."

"Okay, smartass," I said with a laugh. "I'll concede that I don't know my aunt as well as I sometimes like to think I do. But I still feel pretty confident saying that she didn't send us here in the hopes that we'd get into trouble we couldn't get out of."

"I guess we'll find out soon," he said, jerking his chin out ahead of him. "Something's up ahead. Guessing that's it."

We were heading downhill, which felt strange, seeing as there was no hill. All the same, up ahead, the track started to curve downward, and the court clearly lay beneath us.

From here, it looked like nothing so much as a silvery crescent moon itself.

"I'll go tell the girls to clean up and get dressed," he said.

"Best do."

I wasn't sure if I should switch into something less modern. Like everyone in my family, I'd grown up in a world patterned after the late twentieth century of the mortal world. If what Wendy said was true, some of the moonlit folk were older than human civilization itself. If they'd picked up mortal customs somewhere along the way, it seemed unlikely that they'd dress in the same fashion as we did in the Autumnal Courts.

But what else was I to do? Dress in the garb of Ancient Greece, only to find that they favored Roman fashion? Don the armor of Medieval lord and find they were obsessed with Victorian England? In the end, I opted for the kind of expensive Italian silk suits that had always looked better on my father than they ever would on me.

By the time the others joined me at the front window, the Shadowed Glade of the Moon loomed large ahead of us. I'd taken it for a single crescent shaped island, but I saw now that it was in fact an archipelago. The islands were mostly rock, but there were thick forests on the larger islands. Each had at least one castle, the smallest of which was three times the size of any the mortal world had ever seen.

The main island was rimmed with trees, but the center was cleared out, and that clearing contained a miniature city. The population couldn't have been much more than a thousand. Still, there was nothing in Autumn that came close to resembling a proper city.

Tall buildings of glass and steel, buildings that would not have looked out of place in a small American city, stood shoulder to shoulder with palaces carved from marble and slate and granite. The streets looked to be paved with blue slate, with sidewalks that might have been pure silver. The lamp posts definitely were.

Cars without wheels and wagons drawn by ghostly steeds filled the streets. The skies were busier still. Some of the city's denizens had leathery wings, others feathery appendages. Still others flew without any wings at all.

"Psh, whatever," Sean said. "You can fly like that, can't you Uncle Frank?"




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 01



"Yeah," I said. My voice sounded distant to my own ears.

Some of the figures dotting the sky looked exactly like my mental image of a fallen angel. Others embodied all that was demonic.

Did it matter if Iva's intention was for us to return home safe?

"It's beautiful," Mel said.

Wendy stepped up beside me. "Sure is."

I glanced at the others, wondering what they'd chosen by way of apparel. Wendy wore an indigo gown, a belt of silver medallions, and a hooded black cape. Sean wore a suit much like mine. His was navy blue with pinstripes while mine was solid black. Mel wore a red skirt with orange and brown leaves embroidered along the hem and up one hip. Her blouse was plain brown. A silver necklace, its links shaped like oak leaves, hung about her neck.

"If it comes to that, do you think the two of you can fight?" I asked Sean and Mel.

I'd tussled with Lily a few times, while wearing a wolf's skin. As Sean had pointed out, I'd had some practice flying as well. But what of the two of them?

"Think so," Mel said, sounding uncertain.

"No doubt," Sean said.

I sighed at my nephew's response. Even I wasn't sure I wanted to go toe to toe with anyone we might come across here.

"Ready as we'll ever be," I said.

The train pulled into the station, which looked like a dock for ships as much as anything. It was a long stone pier jutting out from the edge of the island into the sea of nothingness.

A robed figure awaited us on the pier. His garment was finest silk, and decorated with silver crescent moons and stars.

"Can you say cheesy?" Sean muttered.

Mel elbowed him in the ribs.

The door to our train car slid open with a soft whoosh.

A deep voice came from under the hood. "Welcome to the Shadowed Glade of the Moon."

"Thank you," I said. "We are honored to be your guests."

The stranger craned his neck back to look Sean in the eyes. The light from the lamppost at the edge of the pier fell on his face, and I was not the least bit surprised to find it was skeletal. Silver tongues of flame danced in his otherwise empty eye sockets.

I told myself that I could look the same way, if I chose. Nothing scary about it.

"Let me show you to Ahpanastar," the voice said. "We've prepared rooms for you in the Supplicants' Hall, where you can wait to be summoned by the Magister."

"I'm sorry, did you say Upon-a-Star?" Sean asked.

"Ahpanastar," the voice said. It sounded the same, but the words were mushed together.

Upon-a-Star. The Supplicants' Hall. "I'm sorry. I trust our queen did convey that I'm here to serve as an ambassador for the Third Autumnal Court."

"'And thus shall you await your audience with the other ambassadors, and do so in luxury," the voice said. "Else we'd send you to the Forgotten Tower, high upon the Isle of Refuge, where we send all those who seek asylum."

"Has anyone ever actually been granted Asylum?" Sean asked.

"Certainly. Nearly two in ten are eventually welcomed into our court."

"That's not so bad," Sean whispered to Mel.

"This way, if you please," the skeletal figure said, beckoning us to walk down the pier. His finger bones were yellowed, almost golden.

We followed as the stranger led us down cobbled streets. The Supplicants' Hall was only two blocks away. It was a long, low, rectangular building, carved from purple marble. Bas relief carvings were etched into the walls, depicting battles between angels and demons. Or so I'd have thought, once. But I supposed it was a scene from one of the seven great wars between the Eternal Garden of the Sun and the Shadowed Glade of the Moon.

"You're free to roam the city tonight, if you wish. So long as you stay outside Old City."

"Tonight?" Mel asked.

"When the moon is out, as it will be tomorrow, your kind would do well to stay indoors," our guide said. Then, after a brief pause, he added, "Forgive me. I forget myself. As I understand it, your courts have both nights and days, and you mark the passing of time by their comings and goings. It is, of course, always night here. But you'll adjust quickly. It's simple enough. The moon comes out every other night."

The guide led us inside the building. Everything was shades of black, blue, and purple, trimmed with silver. The rooms were more of the same.

They were also cramped. There were mattresses lying directly on the floor, without frames or box springs. Other than that, the only other furnishings were a small table and two wooden chairs that looked designed for minimal comfort.

"Your other room is the one across the hall," the guide said. Then he offered a slight bow and added, "I bid you good evening." His robe crumpled to the ground, then melted into the shadows and was gone.

"Show-off," Sean said.

"So, who wants to go exploring?" Mel asked.

"No one's going out," I said.

"But it's safe tonight. No moon. Skeletor said so," my niece insisted.

"Not until we know more. His definition of safe may be as different from yours and mine as his concept of luxury clearly is."

#

We waited in the Supplicants' Hall for more than two days before seeing the Magister. When we were finally summoned, I told the Magister that I was only requesting to be allowed to pay a visit to Lily's father, Lord Furcas, that I had no business for the King or his Council. I was promptly informed that Lord Furcas would be made aware of my request, and he would send for me when and if he saw fit.

As it turned out, we only had to wait a few hours for that to happen.

Vincent Furcas sat atop his throne, resting his hands on the head of his great double-headed battle axe. Each blade was half again as large as my head, and, from the look of it, sharp enough to shave with. But Furcas was more than man enough to wield such a monster. He stood close to eight feet tall, and his every muscle was enormous even considering his height. His white beard reached the floor, but the top of his blue head was bald. Runes of some sort or other had been tattooed in silver on his scalp, and covered the length of at least one arm. I couldn't be sure about the other, because it was covered in mail and plate. As was the rest of his body, save for his head and the one arm. The mail was black, the plates deep indigo, lined with silver filigree.

Even Sean was speechless.

Four men and three women sat on the stone steps of his dais. They all had blue skin, and hair either of indigo, violet, or some other shade of purple. Only two of the men and one of the women wore roughly human visages.

One of the men had black, leathery skin, huge bat-like wings, a chin that reached almost to his abdomen with teeth to match, a barbed tail, and claws like steak knives. The insides of his wings were indigo, as were his pecs, abs, and most of his forearms.

Another had goat legs, a man's torso, and three heads: a lion's, a dragon's, and a bull's. He held a flaming sword in one hand, a length of chain in the other.

One of the women had six arms. Each held a wickedly curved knife. She wore a veil of steal chain over her blue face, a chain mail hauberk, and leather pants. She could have been Lily's less voluptuous, more athletic twin. You know, besides having six arms.

Wendy pressed up against my back, one hand on my side, the other on my shoulder. I heard her breathe in, but not exhale.

We'd taken to dressing a bit more in line with the local custom, but none of us wore armor or weapons. Nevermind wings, dragon's heads, or extra arms.

I was awfully tempted to wolf out. Not in the four-legged sense either.

"Lord Furcas," I said, bowing.

"So. You're the whelp that Devoured my daughter."

Well, now I knew where my late wife's bluntness had come from.

"I've come to offer restitution in whatever form you'd have it."

He snorted. "Well, if no one had told me, I'd never have known or cared. But I'm not one to turn down a gift." He eyed first Mel, then Sean. "So happens I've got two sons and a daughter who've recently come of age. I'd like to marry them off. Maybe one of them will give me some grandchildren that'll be less disappointing than most of this brood has been."

Sean stood up straighter. Mel betrayed no reaction at all.

Though his words were more or less directed at my niece and nephew, his eyes never left mine as he said, "The girl can have her choice of my sons. The boy will marry Rose." He nodded to himself. "Yes, that will do. You may go now."

Before any of us could respond, the winged demon spoke up. "You can't really mean to let Lily's killer go that easily? It would be an insult to House Furcas."

Lord Furcas harrumphed.

"Let me give you his head," the demon said.

I did my best to keep my voice calm. "Make it a duel."

Eight pairs of eyes turned to me as one. A shudder ran down my spine.

"Your son wants to kill me?" I said. "Let him try. But if he fails, our debt is settled. And we all get to go leave."

"Interesting," Lord Furcas said. "But I'm afraid those two are staying either way though." He turned to his son. "If you manage to win, I'll let you go to the Garden."

"Done," the demon snapped.

"Don't do this, Frank," Wendy whispered.

"This guy will just kill me in my sleep if I don't take care of him now," I said.

The demon leered at me, a forked tongue dancing over those massive teeth.

I looked to Mel. Her face was impassive. But after a while, she nodded.

"There are worse things than marriage," Mel said in a whisper.

I looked back to the throne. "Agreed," I said.

"Excellent," Lord Furcas said.

"So when will we-"

The demon closed half the distance between us before I even realized he was moving. I dove right, but he corrected course. Those long claws bit into my left leg.

The pain was excruciating.

I couldn't see. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.

My vision slowly returned. I glanced down to see the wound in my leg.

There were four gashes, each bone-deep. Gashes might not even have been the right term. For fuck's sake, huge chunks of my leg were missing. There were some bloody bits remaining, but basically, from mid-thigh to just above my knee, one side of my leg was little more than exposed bone and gushing blood.

Wasn't my life supposed to be flashing before my eyes?

Why did I feel so numb?

The demon leaned down in front of me. His forked tongue flickered back and forth, stinging my cheeks. "He's still alive," he said.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw him raise his right hand.

I caught it in my left hand and made a ruin of his head with the right. Bloody bits of bone, skin and brain rained down on me as everything above his lower jaw exploded.



Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 02



######################

Part Three picks up where Part Two left off. Be advised that if you haven't read Part One and Part Two, the story may be quite difficult to follow.

This is primarily an incest story, but it is also sci-fi/fantasy, and supernatural elements are not incidental to the plot. Additionally, most chapters will feature elements of other categories, particularly group sex and anal.

All characters are over eighteen. All acts are consensual. 

########################

I woke up in the stiff bed in my room in the Supplicants' Hall. Someone sat on the bed beside me. I felt her Libido, though it was dim and, at the moment, cold.

"Frank!"

Wendy. Yes, that was Wendy's voice.

She threw her arms around my neck, knocking the wind out of me. But when she heard me cough, she eased up. I reached up and stroked her unruly brown hair with one hand.

"How long was I out?" I asked.

"Four days," she said. "Well, four nights, at any rate. But you know what I mean."

"Shit," I said. "What's happened in the meantime?"

"Nothing," she said. "At least, not that I'd know. I, um, haven't...."

Left my side. Of course not. She might not have the kind of feelings for me that she had for Iva, but Wendy wasn't the kind of person for whom that mattered.

"No word from Mel or Sean?"

Wendy shook her head.

I groaned as I tried to sit up. A stab of pain immediately forced me to lie back down.

Gesturing at my leg, Wendy said, "You were lucky to close that back up, you know."

"Why are we still here?" I asked.

I poured energy slowly into the wounded leg, and weeks' worth of healing took place in a matter of moments. It left me worse than tired, but at least the pain was gone. I raised the leg, bent it at the knee, tested the range of motion. As if nothing had ever happened.

"Should we go?"

I sighed. "No." I rubbed my temples. "We can't just leave Mel and Sean."

"That's what I was thinking," she whispered. "Though, I might have lied just a moment ago. About not hearing from them."

I laughed. "That was quick."

"Yeah, well," she blushed. What she didn't say, didn't {need to say, was that I'd been in excruciating pain a moment ago. "Anyway, they said not to worry about them."

"Why not?"

Wendy fussed with her hair. "They'd rather go home, of course, but they're not in any danger. And they would be, if we tried to help them escape."

"There's got to be {something we can do," I said.

"She said she'd disown you and worse if you tried."

Brave little Mel. If only she knew what she was getting into.

"She also said that she's pretty sure she'd be in more danger back in Autumn," Wendy added. "She doesn't think you realize it, but she's well aware that your grandmother is about one bad day away from declaring all of House Orwin traitors to the realm." Wendy placed a palm against my cheek. "Of course, the queen wouldn't let her. I just know she wouldn't. But your niece might be onto something. You know that, right?"

I didn't reply.

"You belong to both houses. And you already gave up the throne once. So it's hard for her to argue when Iva insists that you're not a threat. She's obviously not persuaded either, but she doesn't argue. Unfortunately, it's a little different with Mel and Sean. Kaitlin can hardly bear to hear anyone say their names."

"Fuck," I said. "You're right."

Wendy smiled softly. Not so wide as to reveal the slight gap between her front teeth, but wide enough to show her cute dimples.

"Sleep now," she said, planting a kiss on my forehead.

I wanted to protest. Wanted to insist that I was fine. But the words came out as mumbles.

When I next awoke, everything was exactly as it had been when I fell asleep. Wendy was still sitting next to me, in the same exact place.

"Just a few hours," she said, in response to my unspoken question.

And just a few hours after {that, we headed back to Autumn. In the meantime, Wendy showed me just how much she could enjoy the company of men after all.

#

When we got back, Wendy bid me an awkward farewell. I wasn't sure whether to be amused or slighted by that. I chose amused.

Much as I dreaded having to tell him about Mel and Sean, I owed it to Todd to go see him. But just as I was about to do so, I remembered all the things Iva and Wendy had said about my grandmother,a nd I decided I'd better go to court first. It wouldn't do to give Grandma Kaitlin reason to think House Orwin was loyal to itself and not the throne.

The royal palace had changed a great deal since I'd stepped down. In contrast with its present appearance, it had looked almost modest back when Brianna sat the throne. The imposing castle, with its dark stone battlements, would not have looked out of place in the Shadowed Glade of the Moon.

Not exactly what I'd expected.

Liveried guards, who wore chain mail and carried freaking halberds, escorted me to the throne room. The throne itself, carved from oak and heavily gilded, was twice as large as the one upon which I'd sat.

The outfit my aunt wore almost made me want to laugh. Or tremble. Or both.

She was certainly taking her new position seriously, that was for sure.

Her red silk dress had a tall collar trimmed with ermine, and the bodice was decked with diamonds and pearls. The neckline plunged nearly to her abdomen, exposing a great swath of delicious cleavage. Her white knee high stockings were trimmed with red ribbons and tiny little diamonds. Her heels were thickly crusted with diamonds and bore one fat ruby apiece near their tips. A golden tiara, also heavily adorned with rubies, diamonds and pearls, sat just a bit askew atop her golden hair. She held a golden scepter that, of course, was likewise crusted with a stunning amount of rubies, diamonds, and pearls.

In contrast, my grandmother, who stood just behind the throne, wore a simple black leather dress. Yet, as modest as her own attire was, something told me she was responsible for all the grandiose trappings of power with which Iva now surrounded herself.

In fact, the moment Iva laid eyes on me, she blushed and looked away.

For her part, Grandma's thin lips pressed together tightly.

Though I desperately wanted to make a joke, I bit my tongue and went down on one knee, head bowed. "Your Majesty," I said, hoping my voice sounded reverent and humble.

As I spun my tale, both Iva's embarrassment and Grandma's wariness faded. Neither was pleased, but I suspect for rather different reasons.

After I finished, Iva simply said that I must be exhausted and offered to have a room prepared for me. "That won't be necessary," I said, before adding, "Your Grace."

"But we insist," my grandmother said.

Did the queen wince at that?

"If Your Majesty has no further need of me, I'd just as soon go see my brother. He should hear the news from me, and sooner rather than later."

"That won't be necessary," Grandma said.

A moment later, the throne room had melted away. We were now in a treehouse unlike any I'd ever seen, built around what must have been a massive oak tree. One wall of the room we occupied consisted solely of the trunk, which had to be fifteen feet across. A hole had been carved out of the trunk and a stone hearth set in it. The other walls were open, save for a two-foot high rail. There was no ceiling.

Two couches, one large enough for three people, formed an L in one corner of the room. The couches faced a large TV that sat atop an entertainment center. A king sized bed occupied another corner of the room. Where the lamps and TV and video game consoles got their electricity, I couldn't have said.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Your prison," Iva said, voice heavy with resignation.

Grandma rolled her eyes. "If you can call it that, comfortable as it is."

Iva didn't even look me in the eye as she said, "I'm sorry, Frank."

For a brief moment, I considered doing something stupid. But between the two of them, there was enough power lined up against me that there was only one way for that to end.

"Now, the last Orwin to be replaced by a Farrier, she was put in {a prison," Grandma continued. "Nothing like this resort."

"And the others?" I asked with a sigh.

"We have to separate you," Iva mumbled. "But their prisons are no less...hospitable."

"You're not going to let me see them?"

"You won't be completely alone," Grandma said. "The two of us will visit you from time to time." She turned to Iva. "Isn't that right, sweetie?"

Iva didn't respond.

My grandmother took a step towards me, gave my shoulder a light shove with two fingers, and I toppled back onto the bed I hadn't realized was right behind me. "It'd be a shame to let you rot away here without anyone getting to enjoy all that you have to offer."

Was she serious? She couldn't really think I'd want to, could she?

Yet as she crawled up onto the bed, stalking me like a jungle cat, I realized that I very much did. There was a part of me that didn't, yes. A base instinct to rebel, to fight, to do something other than allow the woman who was seeking to imprison me from using me for her pleasure to boot. But as much as I knew that the last thing on my mind should be how badly I wanted to be inside her, there was no denying that my body was responding to that hungry look in her eyes.

It wasn't entirely my fault though. I don't just mean because my grandmother can be damn seductive when she wants to be. Which she can. Very much so. For all that she might not have been the most physically attractive member of the family, there was definitely something about her that was incredibly intoxicating. But no, it wasn't just that. She was inside my head. Or my Libido at any rate. Pouring energy into me at a frightening rate, and turning just the right knobs. And though she no longer had the power advantage over me she'd once had, she was far from weak.

Maybe, if I tried hard enough, I could resist.

Maybe.

As my hands went to the backs of her legs and slid up towards her ass, I cursed myself.

A fleeting thought crossed my mind that in a sane world, not only wouldn't I be doing so, but the reason I'd be resisting her would be that she was my freaking grandmother. Yet, though there were quite a few reasons I wished I had the willpower to say "No" just then, the fact that the same blood ran through my veins as hers was not among them. The absurdity of that realization almost made me laugh.

The thought was quickly displaced, replaced by the faint sense of wonder at her how nice her ass was. It wasn't as large as I liked, but it was round and firm and shapely. This wasn't the first time I'd noticed that, but somehow, I managed to forget every time.

Being in control of your own feelings is really overrated anyway.

I was just hiking up the hem of her dress when Grandma pushed me flat on my back and whipped my stiff dick out. We stared into each other's eyes for a few moments before she adjusted her position and took me in her warm mouth.

The queen came and sat on the edge of the bed beside me. She stared down at me with sad, brown eyes, so unlike her mother's hungry hazel orbs. Whether they were more disappointed in me or herself, I wasn't sure.

Through gritted teeth, I grunted, "It's okay." To reinforce the point, I reached out with the hand that wasn't buried in my grandmother's blonde tresses and silently implored my aunt to hold my hand. She sighed and her slender fingers wrapped around mine.

Fuck, Grandma Kaitlin knew how to work it.

Her thin lips didn't have the nice soft, pillowy feel of her daughter's. But her tongue was nimble, her jaw capable of opening wide for extended periods, and she provided just the right amount of supernatural flourishes. I wasn't likely to lost a whole lot longer.

If the two of us had been alone, I'd even have enjoyed watching Grandma work, for that matter. Her dark eyebrows, fair skin, big eyes, and pretty little nose would make quite a sight as she bobbed up and down on my oversized cock.

But it was Iva's face my eyes couldn't bear to leave.

Did she look older?

None of us aged the way mortals do. For her part, my grandmother could easily be mistaken for a teenager by anyone who didn't look close enough. And the first guess you'd offer about Iva, if you saw her from across the room, would be that she was in her early to mid-twenties. But there were a few more gray hairs than there'd once been, and the faint hints of crow's feet were just a touch more pronounced.

I wish I knew what thoughts lurked behind those sad eyes.

Before I could hazard a guess, the orgasm I'd been fighting to delay overcame me. My balls convulsed, pumping an unseemly amount of cum into my grandmother's inviting mouth. She swallowed most of it hungrily then let me slip out past her lips and jerked me furiously, ensuring that the last few spurts shot onto her face.

It took a while longer before Iva finally joined us. And even then, her movements were hesitant and unenthusiastic. At first, anyway. Eventually, she started to get into the mood.

Of the many women I'd shared Iva with, I'd never have thought that Grandma would be my favorite. Iva didn't have the burning passion for her mother that she did for her sister. And I myself was not nearly as attracted to Grandma as I was to my mother or even my sister, both of whom I'd also shared with Aunt Iva. But the two really worked well together. At times, I was content to simply watch the two of them. And when they made me the center of attention, I felt like the king of the universe, rather than a royal prisoner.

For a while, I told myself that I should make it disappointing for them. Or, at least for Grandma. But I just couldn't. And then I tried telling myself that if I made it good enough for her, maybe she'd reconsider banishing House Orwin. But that was foolish, of course.

Not because I failed in my effort to make it good for her. I'd gained a lot of power and learned a lot of tricks since we'd last been together. And I made sure that it showed. It had probably been a long time since Grandma had been with a man who knew how to use our powers the way I did. But it had no doubt been far longer still since she'd allowed her emotions to sway her from the course that best served her interests.

And I knew that.

If I was doing everything in my power to rock her world, it was just because seeing the look on her face as I did was a huge ego trip. Simple as that.

In fact, when Grandma passed out, a goofy grin having temporarily displaced her characteristic perpetual sneer, I felt an enormous sense of accomplishment. Granted, I immediately realized how pathetic that was. But I still felt it.

Just before she'd passed out, I'd had Grandma grow an extra ass hole as well as a vagina in the bottom of each of her feet. She was more than happy to oblige, particularly when I mentioned that second part to her.

Man, that woman loved integrating her feet into bedroom play.

I then split myself into four bodies, two of which had an extra cock. One lay down on his back while Grandma mounted him cowgirl style. The two dicks sprouting from between that body's legs both went inside her tight pussy. Then another of my bodies knelt behind her and, after working her two sphincters loose and lubing them up generously, slowly worked two more dicks into her two browneyes. Finally, the last two of me each knelt at the bottom of the bed and fucked Grandma's feet. As if that hadn't been enough, though I damped down her senses overall in order to keep her from being overwhelmed by the stimulation she was receiving from my six dicks, I actually ramped up the sensitivity of her nipples and earlobes. The me that knelt behind her, fucking her hard in both her asses, tweaked her nipples in his fingers and suckled on her earlobe as he did. She'd lasted longer than I'd expected, but not for a moment had she seemed to be anything less than impressed by the pleasures I was visiting upon her.

How I'd lasted long enough to drain her dry before shooting a half-dozen loads into her many holes, I couldn't have said. Even if it hadn't felt as good as it did to be inside her, there mere thought that the woman who'd once called me a newborn pup was dangerously closed to being completely overwhelmed by my efforts was itself a powerful turn-on. Certainly wasn't anything I'd soon forget, that was for sure.

"Finished basking in your own glory?" Iva asked, draping her hands over my shoulders as she leaned in to nibble at one of my earlobes.

I cleared my throat. "Sorry."

She laughed. "Quite alright. Actually, it's kinda cute."

"Cute?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, was I supposed to say how impressed I was instead?" My aunt planted a soft peck on my cheek. "C'mon, Frank. You know you've got the moves."

"Me? You two are something else," I said, somewhat disingenuously. Not that Iva wasn't amazing. But she hadn't really pulled out many of the stops just now. What she'd allowed Grandma to do to her had made more of an impression on me than anything she herself had done, in fact. "But, um...do you...I mean, tentacles? Really?"

"What?" Iva asked. "Just because it looks freaky doesn't mean it doesn't feel good."

I shrugged. "Whatever does it for you."

"Well, that's certainly not the {only thing that does it for me," she said.

I laughed and, with great effort, forced myself to steer the conversation towards the less exciting but no less important topic of what I'd missed while I was gone.

Iva was predictably stingy with details. But she did inform me that I'd been gone for four months, and that my children were now of age, initiated, and, of course, imprisoned.

I didn't know what to say to that. It hadn't been even a week for me.

"I'm sorry, Frank," Iva said, starting to take her hands away. "Maybe I should-"

"No," I said, grabbing her hands.

I should have been mad at her. It wasn't fair to place all the blame at Grandma's feet, the way I was doing. But I just didn't have it in me to blame Iva.

"Is there really no chance I can see them?" I asked.

"Maybe something can be arranged. In time," Iva said. "For now, I was thinking I might at least be able to sell her on having you and Brianna share a prison."

I drew a deep breath. "You know, I'd really rather share-"

"Don't," Iva said. "I know, Frank. Believe me, I do. I can feel it rolling off you in waves. It's not as close to the surface now as it used to be, but it's still unmistakeable."

That stung. It wasn't surprising, perhaps, but still. When exactly had I allowed my desire for my beautiful mother to fade?

Sometime not long after my aunt had told me she'd never seen my mother as happy as she was with Bobby, perhaps?

"I'm sorry," I said. "But I have to ask."

"She'd never allow it," Iva continued, jerking her chin towards her mother, who lay fast asleep beside us. "And you may not want to hear this, but your mother wouldn't exactly appreciate being taken away from her brother. Unless you're saying you'd like me to put the three of you together in the same prison?"

"Not exactly what I meant, no," I said.

"Even if I was stupid enough to consider it, it's hard to imagine that ending well."

I sighed. Doubtless, she was right about that.

After some hesitation, I asked, "He's good to her?"

Even to my own ears, the resignation in my voice sounded awfully thick. Melodramatic even. It was a wonder that she managed not to laugh at me.

But my aunt just nodded softly. "He worships her."

As well he should.

"Like I said, though, Brianna might be possible. Mom wouldn't be so quick to object to that," Iva said. "Granted, you've both sought the throne before, as she'll no doubt remind me. But this is pretty damn strong prison, and your cousin is no longer one of the more powerful among us. With your mother's help, I suppose you {might be able to break out of here. But Brianna? Not gonna happen."




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 02



I'd assumed as much.

Iva had never been weak. And she'd grown more powerful even just since the last time I saw her. Which, as I now knew, was not nearly as recently as I'd first thought.

"Personally, I'd also like to see you and Brie try to get to know each other better," Iva said. "The three of us...well, listen to me." She laughed. "You're supposed to be my prisoner! I don't need to explain myself, do I? Brianna might be joining you. Your mother most certainly won't be. And that's that." She gave an over-emphatic nod.

I laughed. I'd love to know what she'd been about to say about "the three of us," but I let it slide. Didn't sound like she was likely to tell me.

"So. Now what?" I asked, feeling my Libido stir.

She planted a tentative kiss on my lips. Which gave way to a more vigorous kiss.

"This is only temporary, you know," Iva said. "Hopefully, I'll be letting you out soon."

"I trust you," I said.

And I realized that I did. True, I might have been willing to say just about anything in order to speed up the transition from conversation mode to fucking-each-others'-brains-out mode. But I really did trust her.

I probably should have been more patient. Later, when I was alone in my prison cell, I'd wish I'd asked Iva about my kids. What they looked like. Who they took after. How they were coping with their situation. But my Libido was going crazy. All it took was staring into my aunt's deep brown eyes, noticing the way she was staring at me herself, and there was suddenly no longer any room for rational thought.

Not ten seconds later, I was inside her.

To ensure that we didn't wake her mother, we stayed a good foot up off the bed.

We went through a few positions, and took turns pleasuring each other orally. Compared to the crazed, intense, orgy we'd had earlier with her mother, my aunt and I moved slowly. Which was exactly how I liked it. We spent more time staring wordlessly into each other's eyes than we did locking lips. Which wasn't easy, because those lips of hers were oh so sweet.

If she was going to make a point of visiting me from time to time, maybe I could get used to this being imprisoned thing.

#

"Give it back," my wife said, slapping my hand as she reached for the remote.

"No way," I said. "I can't watch any more of that trash."

"You promised you'd watch two episodes," she whined, continuing to struggle in vain to recapture control of the clicker. "We haven't even finished one."

"Doesn't count," I said. "You could get me to agree to let you stick hot pokers up my ass, if you ask me while you're in the middle of a blowjob I know you won't finish if you don't get the right answer."

"That was the idea, yeah," Brianna said. "And it does {so count."

I gave her a quick peck on the lips. While still keeping the remote out of her reach.

"Fine," she said with a sigh, crossing her arms under her modest breasts. "Turn on whatever stupid crap it is that you want to watch instead. But I hope you know your dick isn't getting sucked again until we watch two whole episodes."

I turned her show back on and dropped the remote in her lap.

"Thank you, dear," she said before giving me a kiss on the cheek. Fuck, her voice was cute. It almost didn't even feel like I was being mocked.

The next three and a half hours were absolute torture. And it did indeed take three and a half hours to watch the rest of the first episode and then one more after that. We hit pause every few minutes. Granted, some of those breaks were just so one of us could run to the bathroom or grab something to eat or drink. That was fine. What had me ready to scoop my eyeballs out with a spoon was that Brie felt the need to explain all kinds of perfectly obvious subtext to me. Or let me know who so-and-so was going to sleep with next, and how stupid this or that character was for not seeing what was coming. Best of all, she'd occasionally rewind things to replay some line of painfully overwrought dialogue. If you could even call it "dialogue." After all, everyone knows those shows are {real, not scripted.

The three and a half hour tally also counted the conversation after the show was over.

Because even after I'd made it through two whole episodes of melodramatic crap, Brianna of course wanted to hear me say that it wasn't so bad after all.

She also wanted to hear which sleazy character I hated most. And I simply had to confirm that the really hot character we were supposed to hate was not good-looking. Like most women, Brianna did not understand that men are capable of compartmentalizing. That even if we thoroughly despise a woman's personality, we're still capable of acknowledging her physical attractiveness. It was even important that I chime when she rank ordered the men in terms of their attractiveness. I'm not sure why this was so important to her, though, because it appeared that my taste in men left something to be desired.

At long last, though, my lovely wife rewarded me for putting up with all that.

And the reward was almost enough to make it worth it.

I only say almost because it was truly painful to watch that dreck. Not because the blowjob was anything but amazing. Because, damn, did Brianna know how to suck a dick.

Almost as well as she knew how to leverage that talent in order to get what she wanted.

We didn't fight as often as most married couples. But we had our little tiffs, about everything and nothing. And she won them {all. Whether she deserved to win them on the merits of her argument or not.

After she swallowed every last drop of my load, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, smiled up at me, and without a word, climbed into my lap. With a small hand that seemed even smaller whilst wrapped around my monster cock, she guided me past her moist folds and into her snatch. My breath caught as she enveloped me.

By the second time I got her off, I realized that the woman I was fucking furiously was not my wife, but my cousin.

For all the difference it made.

Even as the remnants of the veil were slowly scoured away, and I realized who we were, there wasn't so much as a moment when I considered pulling out. It just felt too damn good.

"That was something," my cousin said afterwards. She lay stretched out across the leather sofa, legs spread wide so she could air out her vagina. "From the way Iva talks about you, I knew you'd learned a few things since you and I last bumped uglies, but damn."

"Bumped uglies?" I asked with a snicker.

Brianna gave a faint shrug. "You want I should use more romantic language? Did we just make love, Frank? Is that what just happened?"

"No. We fucked each other silly. Like animals. I definitely wouldn't say there was a whole lot of {love involved. But still."

"Right. Of there wasn't," she said. Her lips tightened.

Oh, fuck me. "Wait, now I'm the one who's callous?"

"Didn't say that," she snapped.

I sighed, took one of her hands from the back of the couch and pressed it to my mouth, kissing it gently. "Brie, honey, I didn't mean anything by it. Can we not fight?"

With a huff, she said, "So if we fight, it's because I wanted to? Is that how it works? It's not because you hurt my feelings. Or even because there's a legitimate disagreement between us that needs to be resolved. No, no. It's, of course, because Brianna chose conflict over peace. By herself. Because, apparently, the matter's entirely up to me."

"We're, um, not married, right? That was just the veil?"

"Yes, Frank, that was the veil." She glowered at me. "Are you trying to suggest that women you use as a cum dumpster are only entitled to be upset at you having the emotional intelligence of a steaming pile of dung if you put a ring on their finger first?"

I let go of her hand and covered my face. "No, I'm not saying that."

"Good," she said. With a snap of her fingers, she went from stark naked to fully clothed. Baggy sweatpants and an oversized sweater. "Look, I know we're not in love. But you're my entire universe, for now at least. And I'm yours. So you could at least try a little harder not to make me feel like some random lay. Utterly forgettable and readily disposable."

"Okay," I said.

I wasn't entirely sure what I'd said or done to give the impression that I thought her either forgettable or disposable. But the tension level seemed to be falling, and I didn't want to stop it from continuing to do so.

"I didn't ask for this either," Brianna said.

"I know."

"But, stupid as I am," she said with a bitter laugh, "I actually did hope we might make the best of it. Start to put the past behind us and shit. The fuck was I thinking?"

"Brie, if the past wasn't behind us-" I began. But I didn't finish the thought.

"Yes?" she asked, brow raised.

I wrapped an arm around her and kissed the top of her head. For a moment, I savored the way her gorgeous hair smelled. Clean, and fragrant, and just a bit like cherries. "Look, I'd like to start over too. Sometimes, I'm going to put my foot in my mouth. Because, as you so aptly put it, I have the emotional intelligence of a steaming pile of dung. But that doesn't mean I'm not trying."

My cousin leaned against my shoulder. "Maybe not a steaming pile of dung. Just...I don't know...a dung beetle."

I snorted. "Thanks."

"Okay, obviously that's not true either," she said. "In fact, that's the thing, Frank." Her voice grew hotter, harder. "You're {not stupid. If you were, it would be annoying, but I could wrap my head around it. But we all know that you actually understand other people's feelings better than most guys. Better than a lot of women, too, for that matter. And that's {exactly what makes it so infuriating when you act like someone who doesn't."

Just when I thought I was out of the woods.

Brianna abruptly sat back up straight, forcing me to withdraw my arm. She glowered at me for a moment, then took my face in her hand. A thumb dug deep into one cheek and three fingers into the other, forcing me to make a fish face. "You want me to fucking spell it out for you? Do you know why it was Dom and not you?"

Why wouldn't it be?

Dom was a classic alpha male, and I was a beta. And while some women liked betas, I'd never gotten the sense that my cousin was one of them.

Brianna pushed my head back. "I never loved him. And he never loved me either. He loved being my favorite. Loved being Shadow. Loved watching me torture you and then fucking me silly afterwards. But I was just another conquest to him. And I knew that."

"I'm...sorry," I said. It almost came out as a question.

She laughed hysterically. It sounded like she was crying, though I didn't see any tears. "You're {sorry? Frank, do you have any idea how much of a turn-on it is {not when you want someone to want you, and their response is that they're {sorry?"

"Me?" I squeaked. There was no use pointing out that she knew damn well that I'd been talking about Dom when I said that I was sorry. She was back on the warpath, after an all too brief detour back towards sanity.

She tossed a lock of curly red-brown hair over her shoulder. "Dom was great, in a lot of ways. But he could never make me feel the way I knew you must have made your mother feel. I wanted {that. Every guy around me wanted me so bad that they'd let me do anything I wanted to them, as long as it meant they could be with me, if only for a few minutes. I was surrounded by men who would have killed for me. Died for me. As Dom did. My father too. Did I ever tell you that he gave me his fucking permission, by the way? I told him I was going to Devour him, and he told me I could, if it would make me happy. How fucked up is that? But, anyway. You. You I couldn't have. And why? Because, what," she grabbed at her breasts, presumably pressing them together, though the effect was somewhat ruined by her baggy attire, "my fucking tits aren't big enough?"

"Brie," I began.

But she just rolled right on. "You must be the only guy I've been with who's never said anything about my tattoos, or told me how pretty my eyes are. At first, I thought that was hot. Because so few guys seem to realize that it doesn't impress a girl to tell her the same exact fucking thing that every guy she's ever met has told her. But now I've got to wonder. Maybe it's not that you're smart enough to hide how impressed you are, but that you're actually not impressed. Have you got something against ink? Against green eyes?"

I wasn't sure about the eyes part. Had never really thought that much about it.

I stared at my cousin's emerald orbs. They {were awfully pretty. If I could change them to brown, would I have wanted to? No, definitely not. But then, if I could change Mom's or Iva's to green, I wouldn't do that either. Brown eyes suited them. Quite well. I wasn't sure I preferred brown eyes overall, but neither did I think green ones were inherently better.

Of course, that was pretty unimportant just at the moment.

"Um, what tattoos?" I asked.

She sighed. "So you can't even see them." She shook her head. "Fucking figures."

"Why exactly does that figure?"

My cousin shook her head. "Iva told me what we see when we look at each other. And, in light of that, I guess it only makes sense. Man, it ain't easy making an impression on you, is it? Without having a huge pair of funbags, that is."

Ignoring that last part, I asked, "So what {do we see when we look at each other?"

"Mostly, what's actually there," Brianna said. "But also what we want to see."

Obviously.

That was just about the only answer that would have made any sense at that point. Had I expected something more complicated than that?

I nodded. "For what it's worth, I never even realized that I don't like tattoos."

She snorted. "And you probably aren't even aware that you see all of us as having really thick eyebrows. Eyebrows, Frank? What's {that about?"

I gave the only response I could. A shrug. Perhaps I should have asked how she knew that. But the answer was obvious enough. There wasn't much Iva didn't know about what turned me on. It was just who she was.

"Okay," I said, as another implication came to me. "But then why was I more or less uninterested in my sister when she was fake 'n baking and dying her hair? Why didn't I realize how beautiful she is until later, when she stopped doing that?"

"When did she start?" Brianna asked. "I don't think I've ever seen Nat with a fake tan."

"Oh."

So much for that.

"Maybe it's not exactly that you see what you {want to see," Brianna added. "But your mind is definitely imposing itself somehow."

There {had been a time when I thought my sister superficial. It made sense.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't even know I was doing that."

"That's just the thing, Frank. You never seem to know how obvious it is that you're passing judgment on people."

By way of apology, I gave myself tribal tatoos. One formed a collar, two others circled my wrists. And, before long, my cousin would find one more, just below my foreskin.

"Better?" I asked.

A slim fingertip ran along the ink on my chest. "Not especially original, but yes. Better," she said. Then, with an edge to her voice, she added, "But don't think that means I'm going to offer to grow huge udders for you. I {like my body just the way it is, thank you very much. And so do most guys. And more than a few women."

"That's fine," I said. "I don't-"

Brianna covered my mouth with a finger. "Don't bother denying it." She took her finger away, paused a moment to be sure I was going to keep my mouth shut, which I was, then continued. "The only reason you weren't more attracted to me is that I scared you. That's what you were going to say?" When I nodded, she continued. "Fine. Maybe there's even some truth to that. But I bet if I'd had bigger tits, you'd have been less inclined to make an enemy out of me, and then I'd never have bothered trying to scare you in the first place. Similarly, if {she had {smaller tits, I'm sure you'd be scared of Iva. You should be anyfuckingway. She damn sure scares me, some of the time."

Iva? Scared Brianna?

Well, she {had locked all of House Orwin away in prison worlds. And broken us up into small groups while she was at it. That was all Grandma Kaitlin's doing, though, right?

Not entirely, no. I knew it wasn't.

But I still wasn't sure I could see why Brianna would say she was {scared of Iva.

At any rate, just at the moment, it was more important to play peacemaker than sleuth.

I stood up, wrapped my arms around her, and planted a kiss on the top of her head.

"You must think this is hilarious," Brianna said. "The kind of ironic Alanis Morisette wouldn't know if ten thousand spoons fell in her lap."

Another kiss. "You are easily the prettiest woman I've ever met. Hands down." At least, I'd thoughts so right up until the day Holly had become an immortal.

"Just not the hottest. Because I didn't have swollen, oversized melons."

"I didn't say that."

"Whatever," she said. "Like it's not obvious."

"And I'm sure you prefer men with relatively small penises."

"That's different," Brianna said.

"Care to explain how?"

"Some men think anything bigger than a healthy B cup is excessive. There are {no women who {prefer small guys. Some don't care. But that's not the same."

"Okay, but some women do think massive cocks are unappealing."

"Nope. There are no such women," she said with a smile.

I laughed and kissed the tip of her cute little nose.

"I'm not going to deny that I tend to favor voluptuous women," I said. "But I think you're underestimating how attractive I find you. I'd be surprised if there's a heterosexual male alive who could resist you."

"Now we're getting somewhere," Brianna said.

"To be honest, I had fantasies about you long before I knew who we were. Back when I still thought incest was disgusting."

"Really?"

"Really," I said.

She stared at me, fretting at her lower lip with impossibly white teeth. Her Libido soared.

"I {have changed you know. In case you're wondering. Which I know you are. But I'm not going to tell you I'm a whole new person. And if you think I should be, that I should apologize for everything I ever was, not just the worst of the things that I did, you can go fuck yourself with a sharp stick. In your piss hole."

"Lovely image," I said.

"I mean it," she said, poking my chest. "Write this down if you need to. I'm still going to delight in torturing you. Just somewhat more figuratively now. I never was the kind of girl you take home to mother."

"Brie, you've known my mother since you were a kid."

"That's not the point," she said. "None of the guys I dated ever introduced me to their parents. But there's not one that wouldn't have done just about anything you can imagine to keep me around for even another week."

"I get it," I said. "Basically, I shouldn't freak out at the first sign of your wild side."

"Exactly," she said.

I picked her up by the waist and slumped her over my shoulder. She squealed and drummed her little fists against my back, but only to make a show of it.

"I've changed too," I said. I threw her down on the bed, summoned some rope, and tied her hands and feet to the four corners of the bed.

Which only made her Libido soar.

I set about pleasuring her orally, but when she was right at the brink of an orgasm, I got up and climbed out of bed. As she stared at me in horror, I padded over to the kitchen, got a beer, and drank the whole thing before coming back to finish her off. 

After I had my way with her for a while, I untied her.

Once free, Brianna tackled me.

Over the next few hours, I came to fully appreciate how lucky Dom had been.




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 02



#

The next two weeks were about as pleasant as could be expected, given the circumstances.

As prison worlds went, it wasn't hard to imagine how our fate could be far worse. Brianna had spent nearly ten years in an abyss, without anyone or anything to interact with in any way, shape or form. And there was a certain appeal to our unusual accommodations. I almost wondered why the nobility of Autumn didn't choose such dwellings as a matter of course. As little sense as it made, when the leaves fell, they made a decorative carpet on the hardwood floor, but never made a mess of the kitchen or our bed or anything like that. And when it rained, nary a drop made it into our treehouse, despite the lack of a ceiling.

Living with Brianna was hardly unbearable either. She wasn't my first choice, but I found that I enjoyed her company a good deal more than I'd thought I would. And not just because we had great sex. Which we did. But she was fun to be around in other ways too. After a few more attempts, she more or less gave up on trying to get me to watch trashy reality TV shows. We found that there was a fairly wide range of shows we both liked. And the same went for movies and music as well. I even got her into video games. She was a fast learner, and naturally competitive. We made everything into a competition, using sex favors as the stakes of our wagers. Soon enough, she established an elaborate system, and winning at video games was just one way to acquire chits.

We had a blue shoe box filled with slips of paper that described fairly traditional sexual acts the owner could demand the other to perform, and a red box filled with ones that granted the right to demand the other person to perform more exotic and, often, embarrassing acts. The prospect of ending up on the wrong side of those, which could happen for all sorts of reasons, made even the most mundane and non-sexual of acts exciting.

By the end of the second week, the list of things I'd been forced to endure included: being forced to dress up in women's lingerie and give Brianna a striptease; going three days in a row without receiving oral sex; an entire day in which I had to wear a rubber gimp suit and ball-gag; and a very a brief round of pegging. Which I didn't exactly {enjoy, but wasn't nearly as unpleasant as I'd feared.

On the flip side, my own various and sundry victories in otherwise meaningless affairs had earned me a day on which I could demand a blowjob at any moment, and, no matter what we were doing at the time, Brianna would have to comply; a day where Brianna made her breasts two cup sizes bigger; several striptease shows of my own; and a day where Brianna didn't speak a single word except for whatever came out of her mouth in the throes of ecstasy.

But, despite all that, it hurt more and more that I couldn't see my mother, and that I was being denied the chance to meet my children.

To say nothing of the rest of the family. Which bothered me a lot too. Naturally, seeing Mom again and meeting my kids for the first time were my top priorities, but having no idea when I'd see my brother or sister again was starting to get to me as well. Did Todd and Holly know about Mel and Sean yet? How were they coping? What had become of Nat? Was she in some prison world somewhere too? Surely Grandma knew that she was no threat to the reign of House Farrier. What about Skye and the twins, for that matter? Like Nat, they'd be just as happy to wash their hands of the Homelands altogether. The idea that any of one of those four would make a bid for the throne was preposterous.

If I wasn't such a self-centered shit, I'd have asked Iva when I had the chance. But instead, I'd only inquired about the woman I loved and the fruits of my loins.

Brianna kept telling me I was a whole lot more like her and less like my mother than I cared to admit. And I kept denying it. But maybe it was time to admit that she was right.

Assuming she'd been given any opportunity at all to ask questions when she'd been taken, my mother must surely have asked about every single member of House Orwin. Mom never forgot about anyone the way I had. Never.

Thankfully, though, I did get another chance to ask about everyone.

Two weeks after Iva had brought Brianna to me, my father showed up.

"Well-hello-handsome," Brianna said, as if it was one word. She played with her hair as she stared him up and down, her Libido swelling. "You look good, Uncle Gus."

I hated to admit it, but I could see why she reacted that way.

At present, he didn't have half the muscle mass I did, but what muscle he had was beautifully sculpted and toned. He had just enough silver hair to look distinguished, but with a body like that, no one was going to say he looked old. When women spoke fondly of silver foxes, they had men in mind whom my father put to shame.

"Thank you, Brianna," he said, giving my cousin the once over. "I could say the same for you, but I'm afraid it would be a gross understatement."

I cleared my throat. "Thanks for checking up on us. We're fine. How's everyone else?"

He looked at me and gave me a sly smile that made me think that it was doubly appropriate to think of him as a silver fox. "Nice to see you again, too."

Glowering at me, Brianna swatted my upper arm.

I sighed and stepped over to the sink to wash my hands. My cousin and I had been preparing a homemade pizza, and my hands were covered in flour. I could have cleaned them off with a mere thought, as Brianna had, but I felt like making a show of it. After a quick rinse, I patted them dry with a dish towel and only then did I offer my father a drink.

I conjured up two glass tumblers of his favorite bourbon. Served straight up, of course. That was the only way for a real man to drink his whiskey, according to my father.

He had a lot of thoughts about what was acceptable behavior for a "real" man, my father. He'd kept tally, on a white board hanging from the refrigerator door, of the man-points earned and lost in the past week by each of the males in the house. Of course, it had always been a three-way competition between him, Dom, and Todd.

"That's the stuff," Dad said after his first sip. "Salut."

We clinked our glasses together. Brianna joined in. She'd apparently conjured up some fruity mixed drink, complete with a colorful little umbrella.

By this point, I probably should have known what my cousin's drink of choice was, but I really couldn't have said. It wasn't a cosmotini. I knew that. That was Iva's drink. Nor was it a margarita, which was Mom's. At least when Mom wasn't drinking her tequila straight. But I couldn't have said much more than that.

Granted, Brie didn't seem to have a regular favorite. She bounced back and forth between beer, straight liquor, wine, and mixed drinks. Which probably said something about her.

But this wasn't the first time I'd see her drink that particular drink. And the fact that I still couldn't tell you what it was said something about {me.

I bet Brianna knew what my favorite Scotch was, as well as my favorite beer. Just like she knew how I took my coffee, how hot I liked my showers, and all of that stuff. Whereas I couldn't remember if she took one sugar or two, what she'd do with the dial if she wasn't sharing the stall with me, and so forth.

I hadn't been like that with Mom, and we'd never lived together. As lovers. Just the two of us. Only in the sense that every son had lived with his mother.

Was it that I was more of a self-absorbed asshole than I realized, as Brianna seemed to think? Or was I just not particularly sensitive to {her needs?

"To answer your question," my father said, providing a welcome interruption to my thoughts, "I do actually have some bad news."

"Uh oh," Brianna said, in an overly dramatic tone. But then she looked at me, and presumably noticed the conspicuous lack of a smirk on my face. Her own disappeared instantly. She stepped closer and ran her nails lightly up and down the small of my back.

Would I have been as quick to make up for an ill-timed joke out of respect for her emotions if the situation had been reversed?

I wanted to think so. But I wasn't sure.

I forced myself to smile, put an arm around her shoulders, and kissed the top of her head, trying to pretend I didn't feel like a guilty shit. Why was it so hard for me to realize that, however much of a raging bitch she'd beenin the past, my cousin was trying a lot harder to satisfy me than I was her?

"Who?" I asked my father.

"Your son," he said.

I tensed up. "Which one?"

"Adam."

Not that I knew enough about them to know the difference, for fuck's sake.

"What happened?"

"His brother," Dad said. "I guess you could say that this time, Abel slew Cain."

"I don't get it," Brianna said.

Nor did I.

My father explained first how everyone who knew all of us would conclude within about five minutes of meeting my two sons that they were set to reenact the story of me and Dom, with Josh playing the former role and Adam the latter. Josh was a sensitive introvert who'd dated all of two girls before discovering who he was. Adam was an extrovert, a bad boy who never seemed to get in trouble because all the teachers and administrators saw his "potential." He'd also been a ladies' man before learning about his powers and his heritage.

Valerie, my daughter, was apparently the anti-Brianna. Or at least the opposite of how Brie, or even Nat, had been at her age. Whereas both my cousin and my sister had been incredibly popular, Val was a quiet, painfully shy nerd who'd dreamed of becoming an English professor right up until she'd learned who she was.

Before all hope of a normal life was taken away from her by my aunt, that is.

She'd also, apparently, developed quite a thing for Josh, and not Adam. Which was a problem, because Adam was not used to losing out to a beta. Which Josh clearly {was. Just like his father. So Adam had gotten a little aggressive with Val. To the point that Josh was concerned he might rape her.

That was apparently when Josh caved his brother's face in.

"Oh, Frank," Brianna said. "I'm so sorry."

I didn't know how to react.

The thought that I'd never even meet one of my own children was heart-wrenching. The idea that my surviving son was a kin-killer was hardly welcome news either.

But, at the same time, in a perverse kind of way, I was almost proud of Josh.

And glad that my daughter had found a guy who'd do whatever it took to keep her safe.

"You okay?" my father asked, putting a hand on my shoulder.

I looked back at him wordlessly.

"I know how hard it is to lose a son."

I almost laughed.

He'd disowned us. Or his mother had. And not over any loud protests on his part. At least not that Iva had seen fit to mention.

At least he'd {met his son, though. Raised him, from infancy.

That was more than I could say.

"I think I need to be alone," I said, slipped away from both of them.

"Are you sure?" my father asked. "Because I was told to bring Josh and Val here. To give you a few hours with them."

"Is this a one-time offer? I can't have some time to be alone {and get to meet them?"

"Sure," Dad said. His mouth worked soundlessly, and I suspected he was going to say he had to clear it with his mother. Or the queen. Which would, no doubt, amount to the same thing. But he didn't say anything. Just tipped back his glass and sipped his bourbon.

For the first time in a long time, I wanted to hug my father.

"Thanks," I said.

"What about me?" Brianna said. "Do you want me to...?"

I laughed awkwardly. Do what? Lock herself in the bathroom? There weren't many options for giving each other privacy. Then, realizing she wasn't mocking me, I said, "No. You, I'd like to have around."

"Say no more," Dad said. "I'm gone. I'll come back tomorrow."

I nodded.

Brianna hugged me gently, without saying a word.

I ran my hand through her hair, trying to process what I'd just heard.

My mind spun. On the one hand, the news sort of endeared Josh to me.

Yet, on the other hand, I was also sure that it was only a matter of time before I broke into tears. As if it wasn't bad enough that I hadn't been there for my kids during their childhood, hadn't been there to tell them who they were after they came of age, hadn't been there to explain to them why the mere fact that they carried my blood condemned them to the fate of being imprisoned shortly after joining the Third Autumnal Court, I had failed to keep my son safe. From his own flesh and blood.

Maybe he'd deserved it. But he'd also deserved a father who wouldn't have allowed him to start down a path that would bring him to such an end.

A father, and a mother, for that matter. He most definitely deserved a father who wouldn't {Devour his mother.

"I'm a complete and utter failure," I said.

Rage suddenly welled up inside me. I stepped back from my cousin and hurled my half-empty glass against the tree trunk.

Brianna recoiled as it smashed. But she didn't say anything. Just stared up at me, eyes wide. And not with fear. With concern.

Fuck, what had the world come to when I found myself wondering what I'd done to deserve being treated "that way" by Brianna, and meaning it {that way?

"All she ever wanted was to live a mortal life. For a little while. Until our kids came of age. She wasn't even talking about real retirement."

I could see the question in Brianna's eyes, but I didn't bother answering it.

"Maybe if she'd been there for them," I continued.

A look of recognition settled over my cousin's face.

Slowly, tentatively, she approached me. I nodded. She pressed herself against my chest and wrapped her arms around my back.

Then she did the most absurd thing she could have done. She summoned the red shoe box, shook it up, and offered it to me for me to draw a chit from.

I laughed.

"Go ahead," she insisted.

"You've got to be-"

"Seriously. It'll take your mind off things."

And she was right.

A different woman would have told me that it wasn't my fault, or that what mattered wasn't the mistakes I'd made in the past but what kind of decisions I made moving forward. Perhaps my cousin might even have pointed out that she had a rather colorful past herself, but she was through with wallowing in pity and self-loathing and was ready to move on. All of which would have been perfectly valid points. But I wasn't ready to hear any of them just then. So I was glad that she didn't mention them.

I kissed her forehead then reached into the box and pulled out a slip of paper.

I blushed as soon as I read it. "Who wrote these?"

Brianna laughed. "Who do you think? The sex-fairy?"

I snickered. "Seriously. I won't ask you to do that. I don't even know that I'd want to."

"That's fine," she said with a shrug. "No one's going to make you. But if you're just putting on a show for my benefit, don't bother. I've done worse. And enjoyed it."

The slip of paper burst into white-hot flame. The fire was gone in an instant, leaving only a few motes of ash.

"Or, draw another," she said. "Whatever floats your boat."

So I did. And that one too made me blush. But I wasn't quite as uncomfortable with what it described. It was definitely kinkier than anything I'd ever done, but I thought maybe I could see myself enjoying it.

"Well?" my cousin asked.

I smiled.

"Good," she said.

And for the next two hours, I didn't think once about Lily, or Adam, or any of them.



Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 03



######################

Part Three picks up where Part Two left off. Be advised that if you haven't read Part One and Part Two, the story may be quite difficult to follow.

This is primarily an incest story, but it is also sci-fi/fantasy, and supernatural elements are not incidental to the plot. Additionally, most chapters will feature elements of other categories, particularly group sex and anal.

All characters are over eighteen. All acts are consensual. 

########################

When my father arrived the next day with Josh and Val, as promised, Brianna slipped up alongside me and whispered, rather unnecessarily, "Ixnay on Adam-ay."

As if I was going to bring that up. "Thanks," I whispered.

We all introduced ourselves, then went and sat on the two sofas.

Josh looked more like Todd than he did me. He was a few inches taller than I was, with a lean, athletic frame and a mop of dirty blonde hair. He even had Todd's gray eyes. He looked out of place in his white tank top, though, as he lacked the bulk that tended to set Orwin men apart from Farriers. His ears were a little big, and his skin was a bit paler than women tended to find attractive on a man. By mortal standards, he was well past good-looking. But for our kind, he was about average.

Valerie wore a white T-shirt that was two sizes too small for her, and a pair of tiny white shorts that covered just a little more skin than panties alone would have. She wore just the right amount of makeup and had big gold hoop earrings. Her skin was as white as cream, like all the women of House Orwin. Her hair was dark brown, thick, and long. She had lips as big as Iva's, a cute little nose, beautiful brown eyes, long lashes and lush eyebrows. Thought that last part might only have been true in my mind, given what Brianna had said earlier. All in all, though, she looked a lot like my mother. Only prettier. And, in fairness to my mother, with a less ultra-feminine figure. Val's exaggerated curves put everyone else in the family to shame, but she didn't quite have her grandmother's figure.

I didn't need to look at Brianna to know she was immediately filled with envy. I could feel the insecurity, anger, and jealousy pulsing in her Libido.

I hated knowing that she felt that. If I could have stopped myself from noticing how incredibly sexy my daughter was, I would have.

Perhaps that wasn't even just for Brianna's sake, for that matter.

As immune as I'd thought I'd become to the guilty thoughts normal people experience at the mere thought of incest, thinking about violating my daughter was simultaneously filling me with excitement and revulsion. She was just so young. Pure, and innocent.

And bound to have all kinds of mixed up feelings about me.

Even if I welcomed my daughter into the family tradition personally, I didn't want to let myself develop any deeper feelings for her. It seemed that she and Josh were on their way to building something together, and I didn't want to get in the way of that.

When she pressed up against Josh and wrapped both arms around one of his, I felt a pang of jealousy. Followed quickly by guilt. Then something akin to pride. And it was that last feeling that trumped the others.

"What was it like? When you found out?" I asked Josh. Or both of them, I guess.

Brianna smacked my arm. "What your father means to say is, he's glad to finally meet you, and he's sure you must have a lot of questions for him."

"Yeah, that," I said.

Josh snickered. "That's okay. We can go first." He smiled affably. "So. Where to start." He drew a deep breath. "Well, I liked my foster parents. They were good to me. Even after they started to suspect that I was...different. Mom just about fainted the first time she saw my blue skin. But she didn't treat me like an alien, the way the kids at school did. In fact, I think maybe she thought I was a superhero or something." He laughed at that. "So, yeah, puberty was even less fun than I gather it usually is. But eventually I learned to control things. I'm only blue when I want to be now."

Valerie's blush told me when exactly it was that he wanted to be.

"When the queen came and told me I was from a magical world, and that it was time for me to learn about my heritage and such, well, it was like a dream come true," Josh continued. "What nerd doesn't secretly wish for that?"

He might look more like Todd, but Josh was definitely my son.

Both my father and Brianna clearly had the same reaction to that comment. Dad barely hid his snicker. For her part, my cousin gave me a look that was equal parts accusatory and amused. As she did, her Libido swelled.

That was interesting.

Suddenly, my Libido was swelling.

"Of course, finding out that the Homelands aren't like porn versions of Oz or Narnia is something I'm still getting used to," Josh continued, seemingly unaware of the reactions he'd inspired by revealing his nerdiness. "The queen seemed so nice. When she told us that we were going to be sent away and never allowed to return to an ancestral home we didn't even know about until recently, all because the grandmother we'd just met belonged to the wrong house, I cried." He looked at his grandfather. "That's right, I cried, and I'm not so insecure about my masculinity that I can't admit it."

Val giggled.

I gave him a affirming nod.

My father held up his hands in protest. "Hey, I didn't even say anything." Under his breath, he added, "Sissy." Then he turned to me. "He's definitely your son."

I was glad to see that Josh took that as a compliment.

"That's not a good thing," my father added quickly. With a shake of his head, he said, to no one in particular, "Poor kid."

My daughter gave him more or less the same look I imagined she might have given him if he'd stood up, turned around, pressed Josh's face against his ass, and farted on him.

"Thanks, Dad," I said, dripping sarcasm. Then, to Josh, "Ignore your grandfather."

He nodded the barest nod.

"Yes, by all means, ignore me. Your father always did. And look how he turned out. A widower who's been imprisoned by his hand-picked successor to the throne."

"Enough, Dad," I said. "We get it. You're the manliest man of the clan."

He shrugged. "Long as we're all on the same page."

Brianna ran her fingers through my hair. That slight touch made my skin tingle.

It was more than a little obnoxious of him to point it out, but my father wasn't wrong. Could my life have gone any worse lately? I'd killed my wife. The woman I loved had moved on. The other woman I thought I might be in love with had become a pawn to a grandmother I had never realized had so little regard for me. One of my sons had died before I'd even met him, and died at the hands of his own brother at that. And, to top it all off, I was developing feelings for the cousin I'd once feared and maybe even hated.

Yup. I was quite the role model.

"What about you?" I asked my daughter.

Val's story was broadly similar to her brother's. She'd never fit in. Had hopes that her life was about to improve when she graduated high school and was headed off to college. She was a little less excited about discovering who and what she was than Josh had been, particulary since she'd been a virgin at the time. But she'd warmed up to the idea quickly. Particularly the part about being the daughter of a king, which she figured kinda sorta made her a princess. Then she too was devastated to find out that she was being imprisoned for the crime of being born to the wrong parents. Parents she'd never met.

"I do actually think I made the right choice, letting you grow up there. Sparing you the craziness of this world until you were ready for it," I said. `For what it's worth. And I hope someday you come to agree with me about that. But I also want you to know that I'd meant to be there when you came of age. To be the one who told you who you are. I'm so sorry that I wasn't. I don't know if I can make that up to you, but I mean to try."

"Touching," my father said with a hint of amusement.

Brianna whipped an empty hand back, flicked her wrist, and threw something at him. It burst upon contact with a flash of light.

Dad jumped back violently. "Ow!"

"That was awesome," Josh said. "Can you teach me that?"

"I didn't even know I could do it, until I thought to try," Brianna said, eyes wide. She stared at her hands, as if the secret to how she'd done it might lie there.

"It didn't really hurt. Was just surprised, that's all," my father said, in case anyone was listening. Deeply concerned, I can only assume, that someone might dock him precious man-points if we thought it actually had hurt him.

"Nice one," I said to Brianna, ignoring my father.

Her smiled broadened.

Could it really be that she'd just wanted to impress me all this time?

It seemed so hard to believe. I'd like to think that was true, but there was just no way it was that simple. Was there?

Of course, even if she was simplifying the past a bit, the way she responded to a simple little compliment from me told me that there had to be at least a little truth to the story she'd been telling me for some weeks now. And that realization set off a chain of complex emotional reactions inside me. Not that I had time to sort through them just then.

"There are a few things we can do that are a little involved," I said. "The kind of thing where you need not just raw power but some actual understanding of what you're doing. Reading Libidos, for example. Some of the more fantastic transformations. But you'll find that an awful lot of what we do isn't very complicated. If you've got the energy to do it, it's mostly just a matter of willing it to happen." I turned to my cousin. "Wouldn't you say?"

"Sounds about right," she said, still smiling, if less unabashedly.

My father was still mumbling to himself. "You'd be surprised too. Can't blame a guy for being a little startled. Who goes around throwing balls of light at people?"

Josh held out his palm and a glowing ball of energy appeared. He bounced it up and down a few times. "So cool," he said, before letting it wink out.

My eyes bulged.

If I'd seen someone do what Brianna had done when I was as new to it all as he still was, would I have been able to mimic it?

As I'd just said, it was mostly just a matter of willing it to happen. But still.

"Whoa," Val said. "Cool!"

"I hope he takes after you in other ways," Brianna whispered in my ear. "Because there's no way he's leaving here without fucking me first. You realize that, right?"

My heart raced. I nodded without looking at her.

"So, anyway, why weren't you there for any of that?" Josh asked. "Why wasn't our mother? And why won't anyone tell us what happened to her?" When Val shot him a shocked and disapproving look, he held up his hands defensively and rushed to add, "I'm not judging. I'm sure he had his reasons. I'm just wondering what they are." He turned back to me. "No one tells us anything."

I couldn't blame him. In fact, it almost felt like I was speaking to myself with my son's mouth. I'd have asked the exact same questions in his shoes.

I sighed. "Neither of those stories are pleasant. I could use a drink first. Anyone else?"

"Should you be offering us alcohol? We're minors," Val said. Then she winced, like she wanted to take the words back. "There's, um, not really a drinking age here, is there? Of course not. If incest is cool, can't imagine you're big on the whole legislating morality thing."

"Not really, no," Brie said. "You'll find plenty of other reasons to resent the political system here. But no one's going to tell you what you can put in, or do with, your body."

My father smiled wickedly. "Oh, I'll tell her what to put in-"

Was that the same look Josh had gotten on his face right before he'd killed his brother?

Dad swallowed his words. "So, anyway, the question is, does anyone want a drink?"

Josh, Brianna, and I said yes, but Val politely declined.

"Requests?" my father, the self-appointed bartender, asked.

"I sometimes drink vodka," Josh said. "Or, um, I've heard-"

I laughed. "It's okay. Really."

My father flashed a look of what could only be described as wariness, if not quite fear, at Josh. Perhaps he was thinking about whether to point out that "real men" drank whiskey. If so, he plainly thought the better of it.

"Vodka it is then."

After the four of us did a shot together and Dad placed the bottle and glasses on a wooden coffee table that hadn't existed a moment ago, I settled back in the couch and drew a deep breath. I'd practiced parts of this speech a hundred times in my mind.

Nonetheless, I still felt completely unprepared.

The first of Josh's questions was the easier. "The queen sent me to your mother's world. The Shadowed Glade of the Moon. Which is one of the two oldest courts. Time flows differently there, just as it flows differently here than in the echo of the mortal world."

"Echo?" Josh asked.

"We'll get there," I said. "The point is, when I left, you were still underage. And though I only felt like I was away for a week, which should have meant I'd have been back in plenty time to be there when you came of age, what I thought was a week was more like four months here. And four months in Autumn is more than three years where you were."

"Wait, so how old are you?" Val asked. Then she covered her mouth with a hand. "If you don't mind my asking, I mean."

Brianna laughed. "Aww. Your daughter is such a little angel, Frank."

Val smiled meekly, mistaking the insult for a compliment. The poor girl.

Part of me wanted to reproach my cousin. Flick her, or pinch her, or something. But if I did, my daughter would realize the truth. But Brianna would definitely hear about it later.

And to think, I was just marveling at how sweet she could be.

"That's a complicated question," I said to my daughter.

I explained to them why it was, much as Iva had once explained it to me.

"So you didn't discover the Homelands for the first time until just a few years ago yourself?" Josh asked, as if I hadn't already said pretty much exactly that. "And you had just graduated college at the time?"

I nodded.

"So...in a way...my father isn't almost the same age as me," he said.

Brianna giggled. "Such awe you inspire."

That time, I did flick her. She yelped, but it quickly turned into a laugh.

"You could look at it that way," I told Josh.

"Now, your grandfather, on the other hand," Dad cut in, "has actually been around the block a few times. Seen a few things. Learned a few tricks."

I rolled my eyes. He was older than me, yes. Quite a bit. But I was actually pretty sure that, in all the ways that counted, he was less experienced. And he damn sure didn't know more tricks than me. As Aunt Cindy could attest.

"When exactly were you initiated, anyway?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "Before Iva was born, I'll tell you that much. And she was of age before you were born. So I'm old enough to be your grandfather, nevermind his," he said, jerking a thumb at Josh.

"I see," I said. I hadn't realized he was so much older than Iva.

That seemed significant, somehow. I'd have to file that away for later.

"So, about our mother," Josh prompted.

I nodded. Holding up a finger to signal that he should give me a minute, I poured us all another round of shots. Vodka wasn't my liquor of choice anymore than it was my father's, but it worked well enough for shots. And shooting good whiskey was a crime.

The vodka went down quickly. I waited for the burn to fade before speaking again. "Your mother and I had different views about how you all should be raised." True enough, so far. "I wanted you to have normal, happy lives in suburbia. She wanted you to live with us, to be part of our world from an early age. In every way." The lie came out easier than I would have thought. "I wouldn't have it. We don't have a lot of rules about sex, but requiring that everyone involved be a consenting adult is one of them."

"Good rule," Val said softly, eyes wide in shock at the "revelation" about her mother.

"Yeah," I said. "Kind of a biggie. So we argued, and arguing turned into fighting, and then one night, she tried to kill me. I killed her instead."

They'd need to know about Devouring eventually, but I couldn't bring myself to explain it just then. It was hard enough seeing the look on my daughter's face when I admitted to killing their mother without explaining how I'd done it.

Brianna, who didn't know the truth herself, caressed my shoulder reassuringly.

Back to sweet, then. Couldn't make it easy, could she?

"You have to understand, I did it for you. For your safety. If she'd killed me, as she'd intended, she'd have taken you from your families," I said.

Val pressed herself against Josh's arm. "This is sounding less and less like a fairy tale."

"Could be a reason for that," my father observed.

"Very adroit of you," I said.

"Very SAT of you," he replied.

Brianna giggled at that.

I might even have pointed out that before they were whitewashed for modern audiences, fairy tales were actually themselves pretty dark. But now wasn't the time.

"So I guess," Brianna said, with a devilish grin directed at my daughter, "that means you don't want to hear about how, when I was queen, I sent your father away, and he ended up being held captive for nearly three years. Or how I was sent to a dark abyss for a decade by my successor. Or how the current queen killed your uncle."

Val's eyes went wider and wider with each revelation.

"Brie," I said.

And the pendulum swings again.

She smiled innocently at me. "Sorry. Sometimes I just can't help myself."

That was the exact grin I remembered from before she was deposed.

I tried to remember what she'd told me about how she refused to apologize for who she was, even if she regretted some of the things she had done. That I shouldn't freak out if every now and then if something she did reminded me of the way she'd used to be. There was, after all, a big difference between delighting in scaring my daughter a little and Devouring her parents or threatening to rape my mother.

But, even so, I liked that grin not at all.

"Cheers," my father said, raising his shot glass to his niece.

Josh glowered at him again. My father's cheeks went red and he knocked the vodka back, breaking eye contact almost the moment it began.

"So, I have a question about those rules you don't have many of," Val said. Her pale cheeks turned blue, and a dark blue at that. "You know, about, uh, about sex."

"We do a lot of that," my father said.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Yes?" I asked Val as I poured a third round.

Staring at her hands, she said, "Well, I guess, basically, what I want to know is...."

Brianna started to say something, but I flicked her thigh and she got the message.

Was she finding it hard to resist being mean to Val because Val was meek and therefore an easy target? Or because she knew that the voluptuous brunette was very much my type?

The idea of Brianna being jealous of other women because I found them attractive was still not an easy one to wrap my head around. Was I really supposed to believe that all that time, she'd been angry at me for not being in love with her instead of my mother?

It just seemed so crazy.

"We all, you know...with each other," Val said. "That's, like, what we do, right?"

"Pretty much," Brianna said.

"We're a family of filthy, horny, degenerates," my father added.

"And we do it with everyone?" Val asked. "No one ever, I don't know, just ...stays loyal to one partner?"

Josh placed a hand over one of hers.

"Generally not, no," I said slowly. "But you don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with. And while none of us are exactly monogamous, most of us do tend to form strong bonds with particular people. Your grandmother and I were like that, for a time. Now I suppose she and her brother are. And though your grandfather and his sister take other lovers at times, they're closer to one another than anyone else." I turned to him. "At least, I assume that's still true?"




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 03



He shrugged. "I suppose. We were closer to exclusive before, when Mom was still retired. But, yeah, even though we're not necessarily any closer than my mother and I are, there's definitely something between me and Cin. Something more than just sex."

Interesting. That too got filed away for later.

"And your father and I are pretty close now," Brianna added.

Which I supposed we were.

I turned to her, smiled, and kissed her forehead. At just the moment, I had a hard time agreeing with that statement, but if I contradicted her now, she'd probably go into ultra-bitch mode. And start ripping into Val mercilessly.

"So, if we don't feel like sharing much, that's okay?" Val asked, looking from me to Josh.

"Sure, baby. No problem," I said.

Brianna probably thought that my daughter's timid nature turned me on. And when I was younger, it would have. In college, I'd have been all kinds of smitten with her, and not the least bit interested in Brianna, even setting aside any differences in their appearances.

But I wasn't so sure I found meekness all that attractive anymore.

That said, the more I looked at her, the more I thought Val was the most physically attractive woman in the family. The only women who were prettier than her lacked her curves, and the only woman with curves like hers wasn't nearly as pretty.

"Good," she said with a sigh of relief. "Because some of the guys in the family don't seem like they'd be very gentle."

My father noticed the way she glanced at him when she said that, and scoffed in protest.

"Honey, someday you'll realize that `gentle' isn't exactly the most important quality in a lover," Brianna said. Her voice was close to mocking, but not quite there.

Dad beamed at her. "Thank you, Brianna."

"Your grandfather's real problem is that he lacks imagination."

His smile evaporated. "I see. Orwin against Farrier, then, is it?"

He didn't seem to realize the irony in that statement at all.

Brianna carried right on. "And he's not all that powerful. Your father might not be much older than you two, biologically, but he's really learned how this game is played. And, for the record," she added, glancing back at me, "he can be gentle too. Too gentle, really."

"Dig a little deeper," my father said, motioning as if plunging a dagger into his chest. "You haven't reached the heart yet, but you can get there if push just a little harder."

"Sorry, Uncle Gus," she said with a shrug. "But it's true. You're nice enough to look at, but your son, well, he's just fucking amazing in the sack." She gazed off into the distance. "I don't think I've ever been with a man who was half as good."

No man, but obviously a woman. I didn't need to ask which one though.

"I...I see," Val said.

Brianna smiled. "Give your father here a chance. He'll show you what I'm talking about." She kissed me on the cheek.

"That's quite an offer," Val said.

"Ha ha!" My father slapped a knee as he laughed. "She hesitates. Even after that endorsement!" He turned to Brianna. "By the way, Brie, that performance really could have earned you a nomination for an acting award."

She sneered at him.

Josh kissed his sister's forehead. "Baby, it's okay if you want to get to know our father better. I can't say I'd blame you. After everything we've heard about him, I'm almost sad I'm not into guys myself."

My father roared even louder at that. Then he poured out two shots and handed one to Josh. "That one was just so easy, I'm not even going to say anything. Just salute you for it. Cheers, kid. Thanks for being such a steady source of amusement for the rest of us."

As he clinked his glass against its twin, Josh rolled his eyes. "Glad I can be of service."

"What about you, Josh?" Brianna asked. "Are there any women around that you're dying to get to know better?"

Vodka sprayed against my side as my father coughed up the shot he'd been about to swallow. "Him? Really? Are you kidding?"

Brianna grinned at me, and my skin went cold. Yet my dick gave a twitch of excitement, all the same. "Don't worry, Gus. I've got more than enough holes."

Then Josh sprayed his vodka out too.

"But first," she said, and pulled my dick out of my pants. "Watch closely now, all three of you. Josh, this is what I'm going to do to you next. Val, sweetie, I want you to pick up where I leave off in just a minute, okay? Watch for a little bit first though. You might learn a thing or two, and your brother will thank you for it."

I held my breath in anticipation as my cousin's head slowly descended.

"He's huge," Val whispered. "How is she going to fit that thing in her mouth?"

"He got that from me, you know," my father said.

"True," I admitted.

"Damn right it is," he replied.

And it was. In fact, there'd been a time when he was naturally larger than I was. Over time, as I'd gotten stronger, there got to be a smaller and smaller difference between the body I had when I enhanced myself and the one I had when I didn't, to the point that I might actually be about the same size as him now. But when I'd first come of age, it took a lot of effort to get in the same ballpark as my father.

At the moment, though, I was nearly the size of my cousin's forearm.

Even so, Brianna had no problem sliding my fat head inside her enlarged mouth, and her teeth stayed nice and far away from my sensitive skin. After a few moments, with her lips still wrapped around my helmet, she slid her tongue out and slid it down my shaft. It grew longer and longer, until she covered the entire length of my monster and was teasing my balls with the tip of her tongue.

I moaned contentedly, gently bucking my hips, and played with her hair. It was so soft and thick and rich. With my hands still in it, it went from short and spiky to long and curly. The pixie cut worked for her, especially since she had something of a fey look to her to begin with, but I simply loved it when she wore her hair longer.

"That's...freaky," Val said. Then she turned to Josh. "Do you think that's hot? Should I try that sometime?"

He shrugged, but his wide eyes undermined his attempt at feigning indifference.

Brianna's tongue retreated. I sighed in disappointment as she then removed her mouth as well. "Val, honey, come over here. Let me show you how it's done."

My daughter chewed her lower lip, making no sign of getting up.

"It's okay," Josh said. "I think it'll be hot to watch you."

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, voice oozing with desire.

His tone convinced her. She kissed him on the cheek and then came over to kneel in front of me. Giggling as she did, she wrapped one small hand around the base of my cock. Her eyes were in imminent danger of falling out of their sockets. "It's so big!"

I laughed.

"He can go bigger if he wants," Brianna said. "Your father can do pretty much whatever he wants with his body, in fact. Most of us can change the way we look a bit, but for some reason, it's really easy for him. If you want him smaller, he'll make himself smaller. But I want you to try him like this first. Guys like to see that a woman can handle a real monster. Turns them on to see it disappearing inside you. Once Josh learns to control his size, if he hasn't already, he'll appreciate you being comfortable with some real size."

"Is that true?" she asked him, looking over her shoulder.

Again, he gave a shrug that was presumably meant to look indifferent, but the look on his face supported Brianna's claim.

"Good to know your son's not a complete sissy," my father said.

"Just imagine that your mouth is really wide and your teeth are really close to your gums," Brianna said. "And the they will be. Now, some men like to feel your teeth every now and then. But your father's not one of them. Freaks him out. Might ruin the whole blowjob if you scrape him even once. Not that I ever found out the hard way or anything."

I laughed. "Some men like that?"

"Believe it or not," my cousin said. Then she sat back up to give Val room.

"Hello, there," my daughter said with a giggle. She gave my cock a little shake to make it clear who she was talking to. Then she planted a light kiss on the tip of the head.

"Hi, princess," I said, reaching down to run my hands through her hair.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," she said. "I know Josh is my brother, but I only just met him. It doesn't really feel like incest."

"You've only just met me," I said.

"But it's different. You're my father. I feel like I should be lying to you, telling you I've never even had sex yet. Not...not...sucking your dick!" She giggled again. And blushed.

"Well, you're not. Not yet anyway. But you're welcome to start anytime," I said.

"Okay, here goes," she said. But she laughed just as her lips were about to come into contact with me. "Oh, my god. This is so wrong."

I heard Brianna say to Josh and my father, "Now, show me what I'm working with."

"Yes, ma'am," Dad said.

"I don't normally do this," my daughter told me. "Not with older men. Not the same day I meet a guy. Not...not with one this big!" She closed her eyes and laughed nervously, but her hand stayed put. "Don't think I'm a slut, Daddy. I don't even swallow," she added.

"You should," Brianna said, over her shoulder. "Swallowing doesn't make you a slut. It just makes your man happy. Though letting him shoot it on your face and breasts works too. With most guys, anyway. This time, that includes your father."

"Me too," my own father said. "As I'm sure you recall."

"No! At least, not with me. You don't want to do that, do you, Daddy?" Val asked.

"No, sweetie. Not with you," I said.

I felt Brianna's Libido grow hot, but not with desire.

I couldn't help it though. For some reason, the idea that that my mother loved cum, loved feeling it and drinking it, loved watching the look on my face as I covered her in it, had always turned me on. I liked that she had a filthy side to her. And the same was definitely true with Brie, who absolutely loved cum.

But I honestly didn't think that would turn me on with Val. My sweet little angel was so innocent, so timid, that I wanted every moment with her to be tender and caring.

Girls like Val were probably the ones that your average guy most wanted to see covered in cum, precisely because she would be so reluctant to let them do it and would feel so ashamed of herself afterwards. But that didn't do it for me. Humiliation was never one of my turn-ons. I only liked when women did slutty things because they wanted to, because it turned them on to let themselves go with me in a way they wouldn't for other men.

"Okay, good," Val said. "Well. Here goes. For realz this time."

The very tip of her tongue pressed ever so lightly against the underside of my cock, just below the head. Then she dragged it up over my helmet, until it passed over my slit and then left my member completely.

I shuddered. "Good start."

Val smiled.

I couldn't believe my daughter was about to suck my dick. After all this time, you'd think I'd be completely numb to the residual guilt that those of us who grew up amongst mortals felt when we first gave in to our true nature. And, for the most part, I really didn't feel bad when I was with the other women of the family.

But this was a life that I'd created. Not someone who was related to me because we shared grandparents. The fruit of my own loins.

Was this what Mom felt when we were together?

It was a weird feeling. But not necessarily bad. In fact, the stabs of guilt that broke through here and there only served to make the experience that much more arousing. When my little angel finally engulfed me, I thought I might only last a few seconds.

It was longer than that, but not a whole lot.

Valerie pulled back, coughing and covering her mouth at the same time. My dick, still hard, bounced around like a car antennae.

With a loud gulp, she swallowed. Blushing, she said, "Sorry, Daddy. I'm still learning."

"It was great, sweetie."

Her smile turned sincere. She climbed to her feet and kissed me on the forehead. Then she glanced over her shoulder to see what her brother was up to.

Brianna had her face buried between his legs. One of her hands roamed over his abs. The other jerked my father's python furiously.

"Oh, my," Val said. "She's not very, um, inhibited, is she?"

I laughed. "That she is not."

I let my cock return to its natural size as my daughter and I got back to work. I hardly used any supernatural flourishes, except to get her more aroused or make her a little more comfortable with whatever I was doing. She wasn't ready for any of the other stuff yet.

She either didn't know any real flourishes herself or was too close to being overwhelmed to focus on them. Which was fine. For now, I was content to just marvel at the fact that I was giving my daughter the fucking of her lifetime. As I did, I let my hands, just the two of them, explore the unreal curves of her body. I could see how I might get bored after a while if this was all she had to offer, though. She really didn't really do much.

Well, except cum. A lot. But still.

That made it easier to be happy for her and Josh rather than jealous of the way she worshipped him. Which was good, because there was less and less doubt in my mind that, purely in terms of looks, Val had no peer. She was gorgeous, and had a killer body. I very, very much enjoyed fondling her huge breasts and fat, round ass.

Before long, though, I switched places with Josh, lest I start to forget that I wasn't impressed by her skills.

For his part, my father looked sad about not being asked to pull out of his niece's snatch. But Val didn't seem to have any interest in him. And Brianna was delighted to be able to fuck two guys at once again. Which really turned me on. So the two of us gave it to her, and gave it good, while Josh and Val made love.



Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 04



Part Three picks up where Part Two left off. Be advised that if you haven't read Part One and Part Two, the story may be quite difficult to follow.

This is primarily an incest story, but it is also sci-fi/fantasy, and supernatural elements are not incidental to the plot. Additionally, most chapters will feature elements of other categories, particularly group sex and anal.

All characters are over eighteen. All acts are consensual.

########################



Over the next two days, Brianna pretended everything was fine between us. She did a good job of it too. If I hadn't gotten to be pretty good at reading Libidos, I might even have been tempted to believe it. But there was, in fact, a rather serious storm brewing.

What it was that finally set her off, I couldn't even have said. All of the pent up emotions just suddenly came out. A good deal of screaming, name-calling, crying, and apologizing, in roughly that order, came along with them.

Jealousy of Val only had so much to do with it. My daughter made her feel insecure, both because she knew I found Val more attractive physically and also because she thought, mistakenly, that Val's sweet and innocent personality was something I'd want in a romantic partner. It took time, but I think I actually convinced Brianna that the first part was true, but the second was decidedly not.

Which wasn't to say that I would want my daughter to be any other way. As a father, I was glad that Val hadn't become either as jaded or as depraved as Brianna yet, and hoped she never actually did. But those were no longer qualities I sought in a lover. The point was, I didn't want to take my daughter as a lover. I was glad to welcome her into the fold, and if we ever got out of our prisons, I'd no doubt sleep with her again. Many times. Because that was the way of our kind. But I simply wasn't interested in her the way Brie thought I was.

None of my finely chosen words swayed her, I don't think. But I was pretty sure she'd noticed that I hadn't so much as glanced at my daughter after switching places with Josh.

Even after we more or less established that I wasn't romantically interested in Val, though, the fight continued. Longer than it should have, really. And it was undeniably my fault. I shouldn't have needed to hear her say anything more. We were living together, sleeping together, and not really seeing other people. None of that was exactly by choice, but that didn't matter. There was no telling when the arrangement would end. So unless I started acting as if all of that was by choice -- unless I admitted to myself that for all intents and purposes, we were in a romantic relationship -- there would be plenty more screaming matches and tears in my future.

We agreed to go a week without sex, focusing instead on getting to know each other. The way we would have already done if we were still living as mortals. Or, at least, the way I myself had done at the start of each of my relationships in our echo of the mortal world. I got the impression that Brie had never done that, even as a mortal.

I also got the impression she'd never told anyone she loved them. Besides, of course, her family, and that only before she'd come of age. To be sure, she'd had plenty of boyfriends. But none of them had ever been anything but toys for her to play with until she got bored. And though I suspected she had actually loved Dom, despite her claims to the contrary, it seemed unlikely that she'd ever told him so.

The plan didn't quite work out, naturally. But we did get through three days whole days of abstinence. Having already been physically intimate with each other as often as we had, it was a little awkward. The thrill of wondering whether our make-out sessions would ever go further wasn't there, the way it always had been in the early stages of relationships I'd had in the mortal world. Nonetheless, those three days somehow managed to be both torturous and delightful. In the best possible way.

It was also nice to get to know my cousin better. I didn't realize how little I knew about her. Watching TV and movies together, listening to music, initiating her into the cult of gaming, and so forth, that all certainly counted for something. It was part of the process of building trust and preparing to open up to one another. But knowing someone's interests obviously isn't the same as actually knowing that person. Building the trust necessary to open up to each other isn't the same as actually opening up.

Of course, I'd been aware of that. It wasn't a difficult point to grasp.

Yet, somehow, it just hadn't occurred to me that, until recently, my cousin was still virtually a stranger to me. She was close family. We had quite a history as political rivals. And quite a history of physical intimacy. But, in the end, there it was. I simply hadn't known very much about her. Who she really was. What made her tick. What her values and core beliefs were. What terrified her. What inspired her.

We talked about religion and politics. We debated controversial moments in history. We somehow even managed to argue about social issues, though I'm not sure our views were actually all that different on that front. None of that really mattered much, except perhaps our religious beliefs. Or lack thereof. Any attachments we had to political parties, any beliefs we had about why members of certain demographic groups did what they did, or whether certain decisions made by mortal governments were appropriate or not, were purely academic at this point. We were no longer a part of the world that gave those debates meaning.

Nonetheless, I think we both felt we learned something about each other as a result.

Perhaps more importantly, we also discussed the nature of our kind. Our history and our potential. What it all meant. If anything. Which was itself a matter of some discussion.

"What do you mean, what does it mean?" I asked.

"Well, you've been to Hell, right? As near as makes any real difference? Doesn't that convince you that there's a grain of truth to certain spiritual teachings?"

"Sure, in a sense. But I think you mean something different by 'grain of truth' than I do. To me, all it says is that this is the reason why mortals believe in divine beings of pure good and pure evil dwelling in separate, otherworldly, realms. The Glade isn't Hell, though, and I doubt the Garden is Heaven. If anything, I'm less inclined to believe in anything more than what we can see with our own eyes now that I've seen some of the very mysteries that are so central to mortal belief systems."

Brianna dismissed my argument with a wave of her hand. "You're being pedantic. And pig-headed. And puh-something else. I'm not sure what. But there's a third thing. Because lists have to have three elements. You get the point though."

I laughed. "Persuasive? Is that the third 'p' word you're looking for?"

My cousin shook her head. "Nope, not that one." She twirled a red-brown ringlet around a slim finger. "Pugnacious?" A nod of her head. "Yes, that's it. Pugnacious."

We were rolling around on the bed a minute later. Though our clothes stayed on.

We never did revisit the topic of what the original immortals told us about creation.

If anything.

All in all, it was surprisingly enjoyable to take the time to court each other the way mortals do. To discover that Brianna was, in some ways, more conservative than I was, even if, expectedly, she was the more liberal one in most other respects. I'd assumed that because she was anything but conservative in the bedroom, she probably wasn't in other ways either. Which, for the most part, was true. But there were all these interesting nuances and contradictions to her views that I hadn't anticipated.

All things considered, if it were up to me, we'd have gone the full week.

It was Brianna who crossed the line.

We'd been dry-humping. I'd thought that was a bad idea to begin with. It, of course, ended exactly the way you'd expect it to end. With all the desire we'd kept bottled up for days finally able to escape, our little slip-up turned into a marathon session that didn't end until a good twenty hours later.

We did, however, try to stick to the script again after that. And we made it a full eight hours on the second go at abstinence.

Yeah. Eight hours.

In light of that, we decided it was time to call the exercise a partial success and move on. It was obvious we'd never get to a full day again.

From that point on, we tried to strike a balance. We spent plenty of time doing G-rated coupley things. Things couples would do if they couldn't leave their apartment because it was literally the only place that existed in the whole world, at any rate. We couldn't take each other out to dinner, or to the theater, or on outdoor adventures, of course. But we watched TV together, played games, and sat around debating Big Important Stuff that didn't really matter. Of course, we also spent a lot of time in bed. Or in the shower, or on the kitchen counter, or wherever else we felt like doing it. But we didn't spend entire days having sex anymore. Things remained exciting, and the blue and red shoe boxes continued to figure prominently, but sex wasn't the only thing binding us together.

Of course, there was the whole shared experience of imprisonment thing. But, you know, whatever. Who pays attention to stuff like that.

In fact, somehow, we managed to construct a shared illusion that it was strictly voluntary that we never left our treehouse.

One morning, after I woke Brianna up with some expert tongue play, then offered her breakfast in bed, she told me that she was glad that we'd decided to move in together. And I didn't miss a beat in telling her that I was too.

Which was, at the very best, an overstatement of my position. But the main reason I was aware that I was misrepresenting my thoughts on the matter was not because it seemed strange to me to describe our circumstance as a conscious choice the two of us had made, but because I was thinking of my mother.

As I fixed her yogurt parfait and fresh fruit salad, I mulled that over. Had Iva found a way to manipulate our thoughts more subtly than through the use of a veil? That was just about the only way to explain why we were technically aware that we were imprisoned, but somehow managed to keep letting that fact slip away from us. The only way to explain why it took a conscious effort to even realize that I should have been thinking about my mother a whole lot more than I was. A whole lot more.

If so, it was damn fine work on my aunt's part. Not only had she succeeded in keeping us from thinking about certain things, but even when we managed a few lucid moments, we didn't detect any overt and unmistakeable signs of foreign influence. With a traditional veil, it would have been obvious that our minds had been tampered with.

"You should be anyfuckingway," Brianna's voice echoed in my mind.

Suddenly, the thought fled, and I went back to focusing on breakfast. Went back to wondering why it was that Brianna always requested such bland, healthy fare.

Those of us who had lived healthy lifestyles in the mortal world often tended to keep it up for a while after discovering who we were. But our bodies would be perpetually youthful, fit, and beautiful, regardless of whether we did anything to maintain them.

And as that awesome truth sunk in, most of us started to eat like shit.

For example, I was preparing for myself a mountain of hashbrowns, covered in melted cheese, and an absurdly over-stuffed omelet that contained three cheeses, a fistful of crisp bacon, another fistful of savory sausage, and yet another fistful of tender ham.

But Brie? Yogurt and fruit salad.

It was perplexing. And cute too, I had to admit.

I'd been thinking about something less frivolous than my cousin's dietary choices just a moment ago, though, hadn't I? Was it her tattoos? How surprised I was that I'd mentally blocked my ability to so much as see them for so long, when it turned out that they were really tasteful and did a great job of accentuating her best parts? The way the trail of windblown leaves along her hip bones not only subtly drew the eyes to one of the few parts of her body where there was something close to real curves, but was also quite fitting for a daughter of Autumn? Or how glad I was that she didn't have a tramp stamp, since her ass was perfectly capable of drawing one's attention to itself all on its own? Or the way the tongues of flame forming a V around her pubic hair, itself shaved into a V, gave new meaning to the term "firebush" without quite straying into the realm of tacky?

No, no. None of that. I'd definitely been thinking about her tats recently. And the firebush thing was totally tacky. But that was okay. It was still sexy. I'd had that debate with myself that morning, yes, but not while I was preparing breakfast. In the shower, maybe. Something else had been on my mind just now though.

"How's your disgusting pile of grease coming?" Brie called out from bed.

I laughed. "Almost done."

Whatever it was that had just been on my mind, it couldn't have been too important. It wouldn't have slipped away from me if it was important.

I finished up the two breakfast trays and headed back to bed. "So, let's talk about what the brownie points I just built up can be traded in for."

#

Later that afternoon, while we were playing a game of poker to determine who'd get to draw from the red shoe box, I had another lucid moment.

"So, you said you got to be pretty close with Iva, right?"

Brianna's green eyes slowly peeled away from her hand and drifted towards me. "If you're not talking about your mother, you're talking about her," she mumbled to herself. Or something like that. I wasn't sure. Her words were barely audible. And before I could absorb them, she said, in a normal voice, "Not sure I'd say we were close. But we spent some time together, yeah. Why?"

Her tone reminded me of a yellow traffic light. It didn't quite say that I had to stop. But if I were smart, I'd have done so anyway, just to be safe.

If I were smart.

So, of course, I went ahead anyway. My cousin couldn't really get too jealous of Iva as a result of what I wanted to discuss, anyway. I hoped.

"I think I just figured something out," I said.

"Do tell," Brianna replied, over-enunciating each word.

"You think it's possible that her real father is, well, my father?"

She rubbed her forehead with the palm of her hand. "Why would you think that?"

"Well, Grandma once told me that there are just two things in her life that she regrets, and both have to do with Iva. I already know that one of those is that she banished Iva after Iva Devoured my grandfather. And we know he wasn't really her father. I think the other thing she regrets might be that she let my father impregnate her. With Iva."

I reminded her that my father had told us that he wasn't any closer to Cindy than he was to his mother, and that Iva was born after he came of age.

"I guess," Brianna said. "It would explain why she and Cindy pretty much stopped seeing each other. I kinda thought I might be the reason for that, but if you're right about this, that would make more sense."

"Wait, why?" I asked. "I don't get that."

"Well, since Iva forged her alliance with Daphne, I think House Farrier took a page from Lady Winter's playbook," Brianna said.

"Meaning?"

"Inbreeding."

"Oh," I said. "Oh. Wow."

Did that mean it wouldn't make sense to think Grandma regretted having her own son's baby? Or had she genuinely regretted it at one point, but changed her mind since?

"Why didn't you say anything about that earlier?" I asked.

"I did," she said. "Don't you remember?"

"No."

"You seem to be having a lot of memory issues lately."

I shrugged.

So she explained, not for the first time, apparently, that Daphne wanted Iva to become Autumn's Matriarch, and that my father and Mark were taking turns impregnating Cindy.

If Iva had known that her real father had actually been in her life all along, and had never rejected her, she might never have Devoured the step-father who'd spurned her. Might not have spent most of her life as an exile. It wasn't hard then to see why she'd have some strong feelings about the matter of inbreeding. And might not take too kindly to her sister, her lover, engaging in the practice.

"Great. Two more things you have in common with her," Brianna said.

"Excuse me?"

She rolled her eyes. "Apparently, you have the same father. And you both react to the mere thought of inbreeding the way a mortal would."

If Iva did too, then why did she forge an alliance with Daphne in the first place?

But the answer to that was obvious. For power.

Yet again, my cousin's words echoed in my mind. "You should be anyfuckingway."

I suppressed a shudder.

"So, what, it doesn't bother you?" I asked.

At that point, I should have seen how deep the quicksand was getting, and should have been trying to get out. But her biting tone got under my skin, and the question left my lips before I had time to think about it.

"Why should it? You don't think we need to worry about birth defects? Have you ever met one of our kind who had any kind of health problem to speak of?"

"Well, no, of course not," I said. "But-"

"But what? 'It's just wrong' isn't really an argument. And, if it was, it's obviously not one that means much to you, or you'd have a problem with incest. What makes it okay for us to have sex with each other but not to have each other's children?"

I didn't know what to say to that. She'd guessed exactly what I was going to say, and of course she was right that it was a pretty weak argument.

"Isn't that like saying that if you've ever downloaded music illegally, you should just go ahead and rob banks?"

But even I realized that was a lazy argument. Perhaps a step above the one I'd been about to make, but only a small step.

My cousin snorted. "More like saying that if you're okay with drinking, it's pretty silly to look down your nose on people who smoke weed."

"Well, no, because--"

"Whatever," she said. "Who cares which metaphor is better. I don't see anything wrong with it. If I wanted to have kids, I'd probably be pretty upset that it would apparently be impossible to talk you into helping me fulfill that desire. But, fortunately for you, I'm not planning on having kids any time soon, whether by one of my relatives or anyone else. So I guess it doesn't matter. It's just weird to me that you think that way. But then, there's still some part of you that thinks incest is wrong, isn't there? Not so wrong that you shouldn't do it. Just wrong enough that you have a lingering sense of guilt that actually makes it more exciting for you. Just a little bit of that mortal way of thinking. Am I right?"

"Yeah," I confessed. "I don't always feel it, but sometimes I do."

My cousin shrugged. "I stopped feeling that a long time ago. I'm not interested in you because you're my cousin. Nor would I say that I'm interested in you in spite of the fact that you're my cousin. It just doesn't really enter into the equation. I'm interested in you because you're really hot and ridiculously good in bed. Mortal men are boring compared to our kind, and, even among our kind, most men have next to no idea how to use their power. I'm sure I could meet plenty of guys who are just as good as you if I went to the Eternal Garden or the Shadowed Glade, but those guys wouldn't give me the time of day. So that's pretty much it. Well, that, and the whole hard to get thing. You are, after all, just about the only guy I've ever had to try to win."

"So, for you, incest is just," I held up my hands, palms towards the sky, "eh, whatever?"




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 04



"Pretty much. I mean, those things I just mentioned, they're not entirely unrelated to the fact that you're my cousin. The reason we both have the powers we do is that we both inherited them from our parents, who got them from the same parents, and so on. But otherwise, yeah, it's neither here nor there."

"I see," I said.

I had to admit though, my own views were progressing in that direction.

"So. Like I said. Two more things you and our dear queen have in common. Lovely."

Finally, I forced myself to recognize that she was tossing out bids for reassurance left and right. "Brie, baby, you know how I feel about you."

"Do I?" she asked. She pushed her chair back from the table, and turned it at an angle, facing me. Then she crossed her legs. Her arms folded under her modest breasts. "Tell me. What is it that I know?"

"What do you want me to say? That I'm not interested in my mother anymore? That I don't feel anything for Iva? You're the one who was just talking about being over mortal views about sex. Don't you realize that just because I have feelings for them doesn't mean I don't also have feelings for you? That monogamy isn't the way our kind does things?"

"I don't want to be an also, Frank. And it's not because I'm hung up on mortal views about monogamy. You've got a bunch of beautiful and talented women to choose from. Me? I don't have a father, or a son, or a brother. Sure, there's Todd, who, don't get me wrong, is fucking hot. But he doesn't seem to care that much that there's a lot more he could do with his power, if he bothered to take the time to work at it. And I'm not counting Uncle Gus, the way you shouldn't be counting Iva, but for some reason still do, because he's a fucking Farrier. In case you hadn't noticed, that's something of a problem."

Well. If you put it like that.

"You've got me all to yourself," I said.

Stupid.

"For now," she said.

As I would have, in her shoes.

"The minute we're released from this place, assuming Iva wasn't lying to us when she said it would be temporary, you're going to go running for your mother, aren't you?"

No sense in denying it.

I didn't want to hurt Brianna. I really had come to develop feelings her lately. Which, not that long ago, seemed like something that never could have happened. But of course she was right that, as soon as I had the chance, I was going to try and see if I couldn't win my mother back. And though I wouldn't want that to mean Brianna and I wouldn't see each other anymore, it would obviously be a bit of a change from our current arrangement.

"So. There you have it," she said, eyes watering.

"Brie-"

Her chair toppled over as she stood, whirled, and strode away. A moment later, a wicked groaning filled my ears, and the ground beneath me shook. I realized that Brianna was splitting the treehouse in two. The floor separated cleanly, without any of the planks so much as splintering, and the two halves began to drift apart.

I struggled to keep the gulf from widening as I went after her.

She must have given up, because one moment it took a great deal of effort just to keep the gap between the two halves from growing, and the next, everything was back the way it was. But my cousin didn't stop her retreat until she got to the couch. She dropped down onto it like a wrestler giving his opponent an elbow-drop, picked up the remote, and turned on my least favorite reality show.

As I settled onto the couch by her feet, Brianna gave me a nasty look. But she didn't offer a word of protest.

And I didn't offer a word of argument, or reconciliation, or apology. Just took her feet in my lap and started giving her a massage. A gentle one. Not the stuff of foreplay.

For a while, neither of us spoke. Eventually, I asked a question about the show. Brianna answered, a bit snippily. A few minutes later, I asked another question, and this time, her reply was flat. When the episode ended, she looked a question at me, and I merely nodded. She snorted at that, but when I made a snide remark about one of the bitchy characters some time later, she chuckled. And before long, we were talking and joking with each other almost as much as we usually would.

When the fourth episode ended, Brianna turned the TV off and drew her legs up to her chest. "Okay, that was nice. You get points for that. But not too many. Because I know you, Frank. You can't stand to argue. So even though I know that must have been torture for you, no matter that you did actually do a nice job of pretending to enjoy it, which I appreciate, I think you'd probably be willing to do the same thing in order to end a fight with someone you didn't care all that much about. Because you're a peacemaker."

"Okay, there's obviously a lot of truth to that. But I do care about your happiness."

She sighed. "I know." She leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek. "And I know that sulking won't make you lose interest in your mother. I've just never worried about losing a guy to another woman. That sounds incredibly vain, but it's true. And I'm having trouble learning how to deal with it."

"I understand. You don't need to explain," I said, running my fingers through her hair.

"No fair," she said. "How'm I supposed to stay mad at you when you're being all sweet and understanding?"

I chuckled at that.

"But just because I realize I have no right to be mad at you doesn't mean I'm ready to forget about it. I'm still sad. And scared. And most definitely not in the mood for the makeup sex you think you just earned."

I laughed. "No one said anything about that."

"Mmm-hmm." She climbed out of the couch. "I need some trashy comfort food. Think I'm gonna make brownies. Care to help?"

So we went over to the kitchenette that absolutely didn't belong in a treehouse and made brownies. As we did, we flirted, exchanged a few kisses, and gave each other's asses a few light taps. Despite her words, I knew that if I wanted to, I could take her right then and there, and she'd be glad I did. But afterwards, she'd be convinced that I'd been nice to her just so I could get laid. So I behaved myself.

After we put the brownies in the oven, she asked, "What do you want to do next?" As if her voice wasn't suggestive enough, she buried her teeth into her plump lower lip and pumped her luscious eyebrows up and down at me.

"Finish that game of poker?" I asked.

She studied me silently for a few moments then said, "Okay. We can do that."

We got a few hands in before she threw everything off the table, jumped up onto it, spread her legs, and demanded that I fuck her.

Which I did. But not for long. After a few quick pumps, I picked her up, carried her to bed, laid her down, and went to work seducing her as slowly and torturously as I could. She almost cried when my tongue finally flitted over her little lady for the first time.

The sweet sound of desperation in my cousin's voice when she begged me to release her was all the motivation I needed to drag things out. But it didn't hurt that she tasted so good. Her juices were both salty and sweet. The cherry aftertaste was delicious.

My tongue slowly grew longer and more flexible. Soon, there were two of them. I licked her clit and labia while tongue-fucking her, reaching inside her womb with one of the overlong and preternaturally flexible appendages to stimulate her G-spot. A third tongue formed and worked her smooth brown-eye. All the while, Brianna bucked her hips, gripped the back of my head tightly, and muttered various curses and pleas.

When I finally entered her again, she practically melted. Her walls spasmed wildly against my shaft, her nails dug into my back, and her legs pulled me down harder than I'd have thought they could, slender as they were. It was in her face, though, that I saw just how intense her orgasm was, to say nothing of the way her Libido all but exploded. I'd never seen such a look of pure ecstasy.

Never, that was, seen such a look on her face.

A wave of guilt came over me.

It should be my mother underneath me. Not Brianna.

The brownies were a burnt mess by the time we remembered them.

"Well, shit," Brianna said when she took the smoking tray out of the oven.

I laughed. "Sorry to have distracted you."

She blushed. "I didn't mean that."

"I know. Just teasing."

I took the tray from her and shook it a few times. When I stopped, the tray was clean and empty. Then I shook it a few more times and it was suddenly filled with a fresh batch. Cream cheese was swirled throughout the top layer and chocolate chips were buried inside. As if that wasn't decadent enough, they were covered in a thick layer of rich frosting.

"That's cheating," she said.

"We're above that?"

"Not at all." She went up on her tiptoes and kissed me.

There was no way to eat the brownies without making a mess, but we enjoyed licking the crumbs and frosting off each other's fingers before cleaning up and heading back to bed.

Slowly, all the supernatural tricks we knew made an appearance, from blue bolts of ecstasy, spectral mouths, and floating hands to defying gravity.

For a while, Brianna split herself in two. I fucked her doggy-style while she ate herself out. Then she rode me while the other her grew a dick, knelt behind the first Brianna, and fucked her in the ass. Then, while the first Brianna was still getting DP'd by me and the other Brianna, I split myself in two as well and came around behind the second one. I tried not to think too much about what was between her legs as I lubed up her ass.

This was hardly the first time I'd seen her grow a dick. Back when she was queen, she and I had DP'd my mother, just before she sent me off to Silas' court. I'd even allowed her inside me a few times. Though it wouldn't quite be fair to say this was one of her favorite tricks, it certainly wasn't her least favorite either. So you'd think that sooner or later I'd just get used to it. But the idea still weirded me out. At least, if I thought too much about it. As long as I didn't look at it, the fact that she was fucking herself was almost arousing. So, putting it from my mind, I slid into her ass.

I wasn't sure how it must have felt for my cousin to be getting fucked in three holes while fucking a tight ass herself. Her own ass. But it had to be pretty intense.

Sure enough, we only kept that up for a few minutes before she couldn't take anymore. So we collapsed back down to one body apiece.

While I lay on top of her, fucking her missionary style, I tried something new. I thought back to the time my cousin and my mother had unlocked a memory of mine. One hand stayed on the mattress beside my cousin, but the other went to her forehead, and the tips of my fingers disappeared inside her. It was almost like dipping my fingertips in a sink full of water. I felt a little something when they broke the surface of her skin, but that was it. Much like it had felt when she'd stuck her fingers inside my head.

For a moment, I simply got used to the feeling. Part of me expected to be able to read her mind, even though Iva had told me that was impossible. But I really wasn't surprised to find that I couldn't. When was Iva ever wrong, anyway?

I had no idea how my cousin had found the memory my mother and father had sealed away. Maybe memories that were locked up stood out somehow. I couldn't really say much of anything about what was inside my cousin's head, even now that I was more or less literally poking around inside there. This must have been one of those applications of our talents that requires some genuine skill. A skill I apparently lacked.

At any rate, my goal was modest enough. I called to mind a series of memories of my own. Memories that included her. A few moments later, something floated up to the surface of her mind. I could only hope that it was actually the memories I was trying to bring forth.

My goal was to get her to stop thinking of me as a good lay who just so happened to be her cousin to start thinking of me as her cousin, who just so happened to be a good lay.

Her breathing accelerated and her Libido soared. I took that as a sign that it had worked, though I still couldn't have said exactly what was going on inside her mind.

It wasn't long before we climaxed in unison.

Afterwards, she lay beside me, one leg draped over mine, trailing her fingers over my chest. The smile on her gorgeous face took my breath away.

Fuck me.

I was falling in love with her.

I didn't want to. It had taken a long time to be able to admit to myself that I was in love with my mother. It felt so vulgar to fall in love with a family member. But if I was going to let that happen, I wanted it to be with my mother, and only my mother.

Still, there it was. There was no denying that I was falling for Brianna. Hard.

"So. Did it work?" I asked.

"You think I scream and curse and bite my lip til it bleeds just for the hell of it?"

"No, I don't mean did you cum. I mean, did you feel a hint of residual guilt? Did bringing up those memories force you to think of it not just as sex, but incest?"

Brianna offered a lazy smile. "I may have exaggerated anyway. Earlier. When I said I never feel that guilt. But, yes, whatever you did just now, I felt it more than I usually do."

"And you liked it?"

She chewed at her lower lip and nodded.

"Good," I said.

"It's strange. I guess it's just that I feel like we should think of it as if it's just sex. It's weird to me that we can be who we are, do what we do, go through what we go through, leave our mortal lives behind in so many ways, but still have this sense that it's wrong. It doesn't hurt anyone. And it feels really good. Why should we care?"

"I don't know," I said. I had some ideas, but it sounded like a rhetorical question.

"Mmm," was the only reply my cousin offered.

I smiled.

"You know, I've never really been obsessed with muscles," she said. "But this loook really works for you. Your arms have got to be thicker than my thighs."

"Well, in fairness, you haven't exactly got the thickest thighs in the world."

"From most guys, that might sound like a compliment," Brianna said.

I kissed her nose by way of response. Then her forehead. Then the top of her head. I lingered awhile, relishing the smell of her hair. Almost all trace of sweat was gone. Had gone when she'd cleaned up the facial I'd given her just a little while ago, I suppose. Now, her hair mostly just smelled of shampoo laced with a faint aroma of cherries.

"I love your hair, you know."

She started to laugh, but the sound died in her chest.

I suppose it sounded like a weak compliment. At least if you thought hair wasn't all that important. Which, I suppose, for some guys, it's not.

"And?" she asked. "What else?"

I slapped her ass. "This."

She gave a light whimper. "And?"

"Your eyes. Your tattoos."

"Now you're just making fun of me," she said. But her voice remaind playful.

"Not at all."

"Do you really like my ass?" she asked.

"Is that a serious question?"

She didn't respond.

"Absolutely," I said. It wasn't as big as I liked, but it definitely was nice. Her cheeks were nice, round, and well separated from her thighs. Usually girls as thin as her had tiny little cheeks that didn't touch each other, and it was almost impossible to say where their thighs ended and their ass began.

"Good," she said. "I guess I knew that. But it's nice to hear. I know you prefer your women curvier. But I'm proud of what I've got going back there."

"As you should be."

She gave me a good, long kiss.

"Did you mean what you said earlier? About being upset that I'm not into inbreeding?"

"Hey," Brianna said, tapping my chest. "I said if I wanted children, then I'd be upset about you being opposed to it. Don't make it sound like I said I am upset."

I snickered, gave the top of her head another kiss. "Right. If. But that's something you've thought about?"

"You haven't?" she asked.

I had. Hadn't I? But not with her, I didn't think.

With who then?

"I don't know," I said.

"Well, like I said, I'm not even sure that I want kids."

Wait, why were we talking about having kids?

"Okay," I said.

"Hmm. Memory problems again?"

"I guess," I said, unsure what we were talking about.



Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 05



Part Three picks up where Part Two left off. Be advised that if you haven't read Part One and Part Two, the story may be quite difficult to follow.

This is primarily an incest story, but it is also sci-fi/fantasy, and supernatural elements are not incidental to the plot. Additionally, most chapters will feature elements of other categories, particularly group sex and anal.

All characters are over eighteen. All acts are consensual.

########################



My breath caught in my throat and my pulse accelerated. I'd looked up from the book I was reading and noticed that Brianna was dancing. She stood in front of the stove, working on dinner, grooving to whatever tunes were playing on her headphones.

Not for me, and not seductively. Just having fun. A few hip shakes here, a shimmy there. Nothing more than that. And she was wearing a loose pair of sweatpants to boot.

But even so, the gentle shake of her little ass and the graceful roll of her hips had me hard as steel. I couldn't explain why. Maybe it was just the mood I was in. Or the way my feelings for her had been changing. But it was driving me insane. If she'd been wearing a more revealing outfit, or putting some real effort into it, I might well have exploded.

I marked my page, put my book down on the glass coffee table, then crept up on my cousin. Once behind her, I placed a hand on her hip. She gave a gentle start, but a moment later pressed her ass against me and gave it a good wiggle. Then she turned her music off and slipped her headphones down to her shoulders.

"Hey, you," she said in that unbearably cute voice of hers.

"Just wanted to tell you how sexy you look, standing here, dancing with yourself."

She laughed. "Right. Sexy. I'm wearing your sweatpants, which are all kinds of too big. I don't have any makeup on. And my hair's a mess. What could possibly be hotter?"

"Damned if I know."

She scoffed.

I kissed her cheek. "I could watch you dance for hours."

"I wasn't even dancing. Not really."

"Doesn't matter." My lips moved to her neck. "You're just about the cutest thing ever."

"Mmm. Frank. I'm trying to make dinner. You know how rare that is."

Yet her tone was hardly one of protest.

"I know," I said. "Not trying to distract you. Just wanted to tell you that you're amazing." I kissed her cheek again, gave her a brief hug, then walked away.

She sighed in exasperation. The warmth from her swelling Libido almost made me cum.

When I got back to the couch, I finally looked back. She glanced over her shoulder at me, turned her attention back to dinner, then to me again.

I thought she might abandon dinner and come pounce on me, but she didn't.

And I was okay with that.

Which wasn't to say I'd have been unhappy if she did, of course. But I honestly hadn't been after that. I wanted her to know that I meant what I'd said. That I was saying it because it was true, not because I wanted to get laid. If it had gotten me laid, it wouldn't have meant anything.

For over a week, I'd been planning to tell her that I loved her. But I hadn't found the right time yet. Would that have been it, just there? Did I need a quiet moment? A candlelit dinner? No. Nothing cheesy and romantic like that. There'd be no better time than a random moment in the middle of the day, when she least expected it.

Still, I couldn't help wondering who the hell I thought I was kidding. We kept referring to our decision to move in together, but that wasn't how it was. When I forced myself to think about, the truth always came back to me. We'd been imprisoned.

We weren't settling down together.

Whatever my cousin and I had going was just something to tide me over for now. Sooner or later, Iva was going to release us, and I was going to try to get things going again with my mother. Because no matter how much I might be in love with Brianna, no one could take the place of my mother in my heart. It might take some effort, because Uncle Bobby was apparently perfect for her, but one way or another, my mother would be mine again.

At least, Iva had certainly led us to believe that we'd be released at some point.

"You should be anyfuckingway," Brianna's voice echoed in my mind.

I shuddered.

There was no need to react like that, though. It had been less a month since we'd been imprisoned. That wasn't so long. No reason to start doubting Iva's word. I'd once been imprisoned for three years. Brianna had been for ten. A month? That didn't even count.

No. Even if she'd been telling the truth, there was no reason to expect to be released any time soon. And though it would have been nice to be able to see the rest of my family, to find out how everyone was doing, I couldn't exactly claim that our imprisonment was especially torturous. It could almost be thought of as a pleasant retreat. An extended vacation.

What exactly did that mean for me and Brianna? As usual, I'd run myself in circles. On the one hand this, on the other hand that. We couldn't really be together, not in any lasting sense. And we both knew that. We just were making the best of a bad situation. That was all. Except it wasn't. There was a very real, deep connection between us. Not strong enough to keep me from my mother, but not weak either.

And that was after just a month.

Suppose Iva never released us? Or didn't for a very long time? If I was this in love with my cousin already, might a few years together with her make me forget about my mother?

I lowered the book I wasn't really reading anyway and stared at her again.

Fuck, but she was sexy. Not as voluptuous as I liked, but she still oozed sex appeal. And I felt like I could be myself with her. Didn't need to try to live up to expectations, the way I did with my mother. And exactly how much did my mother and I have in common?

Just the other day, Brianna had observed that, if anything, I was more like her mother than my own. Which I myself had once noticed.

Liz was gone now, and so was the well-mannered, well-behaved, goody-two-shoes I'd once been. But the man I'd become probably wasn't necessarily any more similar to my mother than the shy, nerdy, responsible boy I'd been was. Rather, I'd gone from being a good match for Liz to being a lot like Brianna. If my mother wasn't, well, my mother, I probably wouldn't even be so attracted to her.

And I knew that.

I hadn't told Brianna about Lily at first, but she knew the truth now. And she'd been more understanding than I could have asked for. Could I expect the same of my mother? Or would I get a big fat order of "I told you so"?

Maybe Iva could be counted on to react the way Brianna had, if I ever told her exactly what happened, given how many skeletons were in her closet too. Assuming she didn't know already. Which she probably did.

Not that any of that mattered. I'd been mistaken about my aunt in a lot of ways. She might be able to accept who I'd become, but I wasn't sure I could say the same of her.

Among those women I still cared to be with, Brianna was probably the only one who could hear the cold truth about what had happened with Lily and take it in stride.

Just then, my cousin covered the pot of stew, moved it to the back burner, spun around, and headed towards me. The look in her eyes was priceless.

"Hi," she said, as she climbed atop me.

"Hi," I said, with a chuckle.

"You're a jerk, you know that?"

I laughed. "Why is that?"

"I thought you were going to have your way with me earlier. But no. You just left me there, all hot and bothered."

"Thought you were making dinner?" I asked.

"So? Wouldn't be the first time we burned dinner."

"True."

She cupped her breasts, which I was less and less inclined to think of as modest. They weren't large, but they fit her perfectly.

Nonetheless, when she augmented them, making them grow a good two cup sizes, I felt no need to complain. She might look damn good even without enhancing them, but I'd be lying if I said she looked worse with a bigger pair.

Her hands grabbed mine and guided them up towards her girls. "Got a little treat for you," she said, as if I might have failed to notice.

"You don't need to do that," I found myself saying.

And more or less meaning it.

"I know," she said. "Which is why I don't mind."

I pulled my hands away, slid them up to her shoulders, and pulled her down for a nice, long kiss. When I finally let her up for air, I said, "I love you."

She just stared at me, expressionless.

"I tried to resist it at first," I continued. "But I can't deny it anymore. I'm madly, painfully, crazily in love with you."

After a few moments, she said, "Don't fuck with me, Frank."

"I'm not."

"That's not something you just say."

"I know."

"We're supposed to pretend that doesn't happen," Brianna said. "That it's just sex for us. Total bullshit, of course, but we work hard at maintaining the fiction."

"Believe it or not, I'm aware of that."

She grabbed my wrists, took my hands away, and placed them on my chest. "What about your mother?"

I hesitated for a moment. "Nothing's changed there. But she's not here. And my feelings for her don't make my feelings for you any less real."

Brianna drew a deep breath. "And when we're released?"

"Which will be when?"

She nodded. Slowly at first. Then a bit more vigorously.

"I love you too, Frank." She closed her eyes and exhaled heavily. "Fuck me. I've never told a guy that." Her eyes opened, and the emerald orbs stared back down at me once again. "I can't say I ever imagined that the first time I said it, it would be to a guy I new was in love with another woman either. But damn if these past couple weeks haven't been perfect."

I offered her a wan smile.

We did, of course, end up burning dinner after all.

#

Another two months went by. In that time, we received two more visits. One was from my father. Brianna was more pleased to see him than I was, but I'm not sure even she was exactly delighted by his decision to drop by. She never was as interested in him as was in having me think she might be anyway. Or in having him think she was, so that he'd be more interested in her. I wasn't sure which. Maybe a little of both.

The other was from my grandmother. And that wasn't any more welcome, however pleasurable it had been in a strictly physical sense. Which, of course, it was. Afterwards, Brianna and I had a fight about the fact that I hadn't tried to coerce her into releasing us. But I was pretty sure we were just going through the motions. I didn't call her on it, but I sensed that Brianna knew that I couldn't have tried even if I'd wanted to. Kaitlin had been laying it on thick, and neither of us had been able to resist.

Perhaps it would have been easier to just admit that even though we were neither one of us weak, we were still no match for Kaitlin. Nor did we have the same skill at using what raw power we had as my grandmother did hers. Yet for whatever reason, giving voice to those fears felt too much like admitting that we had no control over whether we'd ever set foot outside our prison again. The thought that we were completely at the mercy of House Farrier was not exactly a pleasant one.

What if my grandmother decided to Devour us instead of keeping us locked up forever? Or instructed Iva to do so? Would we have any chance of resisting either of those two?

Perhaps I would. I'd survived an attempted Devouring once before. Granted, Lily wasn't as strong as either my aunt or my grandmother. But, precisely as a result of that event, I was a lot stronger now than I'd been then. All in all, I thought I'd at least have a chance.

But Brianna?

She'd once been a good deal stronger than me, and probably stronger than Iva as well. But she wasn't much stronger now than she'd been then, whereas Iva and I had both grown a lot more powerful since. Especially Iva. And I could only assume that the next time we saw the queen, she'd be even more powerful still.

Those thoughts weighing on our minds, the first few days after my grandmother's visit weren't particularly pleasant. But, gradually, those concerns receded.

It wasn't like my grandmother had given much indication that she intended to go to that extreme. In fact, she went out of her way to remind us that she had no hard feelings against us personally, she just didn't have any desire to see the throne pass back and forth between Farrier and Orwin any more. Naturally, it was hard not to think that if she really bore us no ill will, she wouldn't have had Iva imprison us, but reminding myself of those comments made it easier to believe that the risk of being Devoured was relatively low.

So, with the exception of those two visits, and a few days immediately following the latter one, my cousin and I mostly managed to enjoy our time together.

We had our ups and downs, to be sure. As any couple might. We argued about all kinds of things, from what to watch, to what to eat, to what we'd done to each other in the past, to what the future held for us. Especially that last part. But we also had a lot of fun.

Sometimes, when I least expected it. Which was to say, Brianna's sadistic side was alive and well. She wasn't expressing it in the same way, but it was definitely still a part of her.

Even though she made me do a lot of things I'm not proud of, however, she also showed me a side of myself that I wouldn't otherwise have discovered. And for that, I was grateful.

We opened up to each other in many other ways as well. It wasn't just physical. We told each other deeply embarrassing, but ultimately meaningless, incidents from our youth, shared our deepest fears, and everything in between. With each passing day, I found myself feeling more and more comfortable with her, and more and more terrified at the prospect of things changing between us.

For that reason, as much as I hated the idea that we'd never be able to leave unless Iva freed us, I almost came to dread seeing my aunt again.

On the one hand, I couldn't imagine not pursuing my mother again. She was my mother, after all. The woman who'd brought me into this world, and the woman who'd introduced me to what lay beyond the mortal world. The first woman I'd ever really loved.

But I genuinely loved Brianna too. And what we had felt more real, less like a silly fantasy. Things would unravel for us when I started chasing after my mother. Which I wouldn't be able to keep myself from doing. Yet I didn't really want that to happen.

So it was with both relief and disappointment that we greeted the arrival of Her Majesty.

One moment, my cousin and I were alone in the treehouse, and the next we weren't.

For a brief moment, I thought I'd felt the air stir. But it wasn't the air. It was the world itself. But only for a moment. And then Iva stood before us.

Brianna pressed up against me and squeezed my hand tight between hers.

"Your Grace," I said, bowing to my aunt. "You look lovely."

Lovely wasn't the word for it. She looked damn good. Regal, yet sexy as all hell too. The bejeweled tiara and red silk cape, which was, of course, trimmed with ermine, established a certain air of nobility. The leather corset, translucent panties, and sheer thigh-high stockings and matching gloves, made a striking statement as well, but one of a rather different kind.

Of course, she always looked good. But I didn't think it was just the fact that I hadn't seen in her some months that had me thinking she looked even better than I remembered. When last I'd seen her, I thought there were a few more signs of age to be found in her face, a few more grays in her hair. Now, she actually looked younger. Moreover, I thought her eyes might have been bigger, her lashes fuller, her teeth whiter, and her legs curvier.

Then I noticed the real change. The one that might well account for the others, if indeed they weren't simply in my imagination. Her Libido, which she hadn't bothered to mask, was so potent that I gasped the moment I glanced at it.

"What is it?" Brie asked. But she must have thought to check for herself, because a moment later, she muttered, "Holy fucking shit."

That about summed it up.

When last I'd seen her, she was already more powerful than her mother, who was one of the strongest women I'd ever met. But now, I'd have to say that Kaitlin was as weak compared to her as my daughter was compared to me.

"Thank you, sweetie," Iva said.

She undid the clasp on her cape, swept it off her shoulders, and tossed it aside. It faded away like it had been made of smoke. Then she tapped her tiara with one finger and it burst apart. A sheet of sparkling dust rained down about her, like fireworks.

"It's," Brianna said, hesitating a moment before adding, "a pleasure to see you again."

Iva smiled at her, but it was a smile without warmth. In fact, I could almost think that Iva was disappointed, maybe even hurt, by Brianna's tone.

"Can I offer you something to drink?" I asked.

The smile she offered me was closer to genuine. "Like I'm a guest. Oh, Frank. Thank you, but no." Then she stopped and tapped her lips. "On second thought, yes, I would. And, in just a minute, I'm betting you will as well. So how about we split a bottle of wine?"

I wasn't much of a wine drinker, but I wasn't categorically opposed either. So I went over to the kitchen table, summoned a bottle of chilled white wine and three glasses, and set about pouring for the three of us before taking a a seat.

"I realize I owe the two of you an apology. And an explanation. Hopefully you'll at least find the latter compelling."

Brianna glanced at me, face expressionless.

I sipped my wine, using that as an excuse not to acknowledge the look.

The women came and sat to either side of me. Brianna gave Iva a war look as she reached for her glass. That put a frown on the queen's face.

After a generous swig of wine, Iva said, "You've been gone for about a year."

"You made a prison world where time goes slower?" I asked.

She nodded.

I'd never even considered that. It seemed like every time someone created a new world, time passed more quickly there. At least, that was true of the seasonal courts with respect to the original courts, and our echo of the mortal world in comparison to the lands of Autumn. And every other prison world I'd ever known about.

"Believe it or not, I didn't really like the idea of imprisoning you at all. I figured if I was going to do it, best to make sure it wasn't for long. At least as far as you were concerned."

I actually would have preferred to have more time with Brianna. But of course I didn't say as much. Who complained about being released from prison too soon?

"I am sorry that it came to this," Iva said. She looked at Brianna. "Please know that I'd have rather kept you by my side, if I could. But I just couldn't."

Brianna held the queen's gaze for a few moments before turning to her wine.

"It's not like I-" Iva began. Then she cut herself short, sat up straight, and continued in a calm yet firm voice. "You won't be returning to the Third Autumnal Court. Instead, I've decided to establish a Fourth Autumnal Court. I'll be sending some of the nobles over with you. None of whom, of course, are powerful enough to compete with House Orwin for the throne. You can decide amongst yourselves which of you will rule. I assume that will be one of you two, if the other Orwins have any sense, but it's really none of my business."

"Not me," Brianna said quickly. "I've had my fill of playing queen."

"Are you sure?" I asked. "I was just going to say it should be you."

"Nuh-uh," she said. "I don't trust myself. Neither should you. And you can be damn sure the rest of the family won't either. No. Once was enough for me."





Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 05



"That was a long-"

My cousin covered my mouth with a finger. "Forget it, Frank. I appreciate the thought. But I'm not the least bit interested. Really."

"Okay," I said.

She took her finger away.

I turned to Iva. "Can you even do that? Establish a new court? That seems like something the Patriarch would have to sign off on."

"The Matriarch did. Since I am she."

"Oh."

That certainly explained the dramatic increase in power.

She told us the story of how it happened. Or gave us a very brief version thereof, at any rate. After many months of preparation, she Devoured Silas, allowed Deirdre to takeover as queen of the First Autumnal Court, and then went and extracted a pledge of fealty from the queen of the Second Autumnal Court.

And that was that.

She made it sound so easy that one could almost wonder why she hadn't done it years ago, instead of living in exile for so long after Devouring Silas' daughter.

Of course, she'd been a lot weaker then.

We talked for a while about what would be involved in establishing a new court. We'd initially share the Third Autumnal Court's echo of the mortal world, but would eventually need to establish our own. For a while, we wouldn't owe Iva any kind of tribute, the way Silas had expected when he was Patriarch. But that too would change. Basically, we had a grace period to help us get on our feet, but she expected us to be self-sufficient before long.

My aunt made a few remarks here and there about needing to get ready for "what's to come" and things to that effect.

So I finally asked, "So what is to come? I mean, what are you working so hard to prepare for? And what does Daphne have to do with it?"

Brianna, who was slowly warming back up to Iva, slapped my bare upper arm.

"What?" I asked. "If she doesn't want to answer, she doesn't have to. But you can't blame me for being curious."

My cousin rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms under her breasts.

Iva smiled wanly. "It's okay. He's right. We can't blame him for being curious." She turned to me. "I can't tell you that yet, dear. I'd love to. I really would. Soon, though. After a few more preparations have been made. Give me, let's say, three months. Then I'll have the two of you over for dinner, and I'll explain everything."

Brianna's eyebrows slowly climbed her forehead.

"Would you like that?"

I put my arm around my cousin's shoulder. Though I spoke to Iva, my eyes were on Brianna as I said, "We sure would."

Brianna smiled faintly. "I suppose we would, yeah."

"Great!" Iva said. "Then let's drink to that, and save the rest of the questions for then. It's about time we got reacquainted with each other more properly, wouldn't you say?"

We agreed.

The wine was good enough to deserve to be savored, rather than chugged like cheap beer. But we just weren't in the mood to do it justice.

Iva got up, came around the side of the table, took Brianna by the hand, and pulled her out of her chair. Music loud enough to make the tree shake began playing, and the two women started dancing with one another.

Words cannot describe how happy that made me.

Brianna slid up between Iva's legs, placing one hand on her ass, and running the other up her thigh, over her hips, back down, then up again, but farther this time. A few more times back and forth and she was running her hand very lightly over Iva's huge breasts.

Meanwhile, Iva held both hands up in the air, with her elbows bent, so that her arms formed a box around Brianna's head. She stared into the shorter woman's eyes intently, but otherwise made no contact with her whatsoever.

If I wasn't hard already, that sure would have done it.

Fuck, I'd punch a baby in the face to have those brown eyes bore into me like that.

When they started making out and fondling each other, I started having a really hard time resisting the urge to jerk off. I was particularly impressed with how they didn't so much as miss a beat, no matter how adventurous their hands got, or how much it seemed like one of them was trying to suck the other's soul out their her mouth. With anyone else, it would have simply looked like foreplay. But those two managed to lock lips and feel each other up without losing their rhythm. Well, perhaps it was somewhat less graceful than before. But, even so, the point was, they were definitely still dancing.

When they got to the point where they were grinding up on each other, one of them shaking their ass against the other's crotch while the latter pretending to spank the former, I came really close to whipping it out. But I wanted to enjoy the show as long as I could.

I even managed to keep it in my pants when Iva feigned biting Brianna's nice, round ass, and when Brianna slipped a few fingers inside Iva's panties.

However, I still made a mess of my boxers.

It wasn't just the dancing that had done that, of course. Couldn't have been. I'd never met a woman who could work a dance floor the way Brianna could. There were only two women who even came close, and one of them was my aunt Iva. So there was no question that watching them dance with each other was just about the sexiest thing I'd ever seen.

But all I was doing was watching. I hadn't even touched myself yet.

I'd heard of guys ejaculating without any direct stimulation when they got too excited about the imminent prospect of getting laid. For guys like that, watching my aunt and my cousin dance, knowing that a threesome was to follow shortly thereafter, would undoubtedly have done the trick. But I'd never been one of those guys.

Iva had been staring at me over Brianna's shoulder when it had happened though. Had she somehow made me cum with a mere glance? Was that something she could do now?

It pretty much had to be.

That made me think that I'd discover several new and dramatic applications of our talents over the course of her visit.

And I did indeed see a few tricks I hadn't seen before. But not many, and nothing quite as surprising as her ability to make people cum with a mere glance.

Really, the only other thing she did that made a real impression on me was that she made herself look exactly like Aunt Liz.

Which wasn't even surprising because of the extent of the physical transformation. Though I'd never tried going to so far as to mimic the specific appearance of another person, I knew the moment I saw her do it that I could do it too.

Indeed, I proved that to myself shortly thereafter by turning into Dom. Which I'd thought that Brianna would appreciate, seeing as it meant having not one but two of the people she'd lost returned to her. But it turned out she wasn't nearly as amused by me turning into my brother as she was by Iva turning into her mother, so I went right back to myself.

Brianna's reaction notwithstanding, the point was that Iva's feat wasn't impressive because it was difficult to turn into someone else.

No, what was so impressive was that, to my knowledge, she'd never met Liz.

And when I mentioned that, she told me that she drew upon the memories Brie and I had of her. Which, apparently, were vivid enough for her to do a perfect impression. And I mean perfect. Even her smell and taste changed, the sweet but subtle vanilla replaced by a hint of blackberries. It was uncanny.

That said, I wasn't sure there was much that would surprise me anymore about what Iva could glean from inside my head. She still maintained that it was impossible to literally read minds, but it seemed that she could come awfully damn close. So it probably shouldn't have surprised me much that she was capable of pulling off a complete transformation of a woman she'd never met, just by using the images of her my cousin and I had in our minds.

Other than that, though, I got the impression that she was holding back.

More than once, Brianna grew a fat cock and my cousin and I DP'd Iva. Other times, Iva simply laid on her back and let Brianna go down on her while I fucked my cousin from behind. Or she'd let Brianna sit on her face while I fucked her missionary. One way or another, Iva herself never really took control.

I understood why, of course. Even holding back, Iva was still more than capable of satisfying us. And if she decided to pull out all the stops, it was unlikely that either my cousin or I could handle it. But it was still a little disappointing. Part of me was dying to know what it would be like to see everything she was capable f.

To be clear, though, it was disappointing only in that sense.

My mother gave good head. Brianna gave damn good head. But Iva?

Iva was the fucking queen of blowjobs.

The merest touch of her soft lips had me quivering. Not once did I feel the slightest brush of her teeth. She could keep me in her mouth for extended periods of time. Nothing killed a blowjob quicker than having her take her mouth away at the very moment that you were starting to enjoy yourself. That was never a concern with Iva, though.

And that was just what she did physically.

Getting to taste her again, to feel her, smell her, and kiss her, to be inside her, to stare into her big brown eyes and run my hands through her golden locks, brought me no small amount of pleasure. It didn't really matter that she was being fairly passive. She didn't have to do much besides be Iva.

And sharing her with my cousin only made it harder to pretend that I wasn't having the time of my life. The two were both incredibly skilled lovers, yet, in a variety of ways, a study in contrasts. Brianna was wild, aggressive, and kinky. Iva was tender, intimate, and submissive. Brianna had the prettiest face my eyes had ever had the pleasure to look upon, and a reasonably nice ass, but otherwise had a rather underwhelming figure. Iva was prettier than most women, but did not possess the kind of beauty that was painful to behold, the way my cousin did. Her ass left a little something to be desired too. But overall, she had a great body, with the cutest little beginnings of love handles, great hips, and a pair of breasts that one might be tempted to describe as divine.

Though I'd never found MFF threesomes as exciting as it seemed like I should, I'd be hard pressed to name a pair of women I'd enjoy having such a threesome with more than I did those two. And if I did, I'd have to include either Brianna or Iva.

After a while, Brianna had all she could take. While the three of us were taking a breather, she fell asleep. With my arm beneath her, of course.

Iva snickered. "Think you can escape without waking her up?"

"Think so, yeah," I said.

"Good. I'm far from done with you." She floated up off the bed and drifted towards me.

"Actually, I think I'm gonna tap out too, as long as we're at it."

Iva frowned. "Oh. Okay. Um. Is everything all right?"

A jumble of thoughts ran through my mind.

She really didn't seem to think it was possible for me to refuse her.

Maybe that was because I'd so easily slipped back into thinking of her the way I once had, for a while there. Damn, but it had been all too easy to remember how close I'd once come to thinking I was in love with her. How convinced I'd been the whole time that I'd been away from Autumn that when I returned, if my mother was still gone, or if she'd returned and was no longer interested in me, that Iva and I would get together.

But now that I had a moment to catch my breath, reality was starting to edge out those fantasies. Things had changed.

She'd changed.

"I get it," she said, sounding like a little girl who's father told her that they couldn't keep the puppy that had followed her home from school.

"Iva," I began.

But I didn't know what to say.

I didn't want to hurt her. But at the same time, it seemed insane that I was worried about that. Here she was, Autumn's new Matriarch. A woman more powerful than I'd have once thought any of our kind could be. A woman who'd imprisoned my whole family to guard against the possibility that one of us might one day want to sit atop the throne.

I should be worried about what she'd do to me, not the other way around.

"Nevermind. Wouldn't be right to have any fun without Brie anyway," she said, with a faint smile. "Anyway, I'll see the two of you in a few months. For now, the two of you should enjoy one last night together. In the morning, you'll find yourselves in your new court. Along with the rest of the clan."

Before I could reply, my aunt kissed me on the forehead then disappeared.

"Well, shit," I said to myself.

I glanced at my sleeping cousin. Not for the first time, I wondered how she had become the most important woman in my life. Physically, she wasn't exactly my type. As she was keenly aware. She was also the kind of girl I'd hated growing up, and the kind that had hated me. Not to mention her penchant for sadism. True, she seemed content to gratify that through purely consensual acts these days, unlike in the past. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy any of what it led her to propose. But at the same time, I kind of resented the fact that I'd even found out that I was capable of enjoying some of that.

It wasn't really that much of a mystery, though. She might not have the curves I typically preferred, and she wasn't what you might call a proper lady. But she was gorgeous. And fun. And comfortable in her own skin. And, most importantly, willing to accept me for me, even knowing all the worst things about me.

Who was I kidding, thinking I was going to steal my mother back from Uncle Bobby? Was there any reason I even wanted to, besides the fact that she was my mother? I couldn't tell her the truth about Lily. About the things I'd seen, and done, after I went wandering the Homelands in an attempt to hide from myself. I wasn't even sure I'd want to tell her some of the things I enjoyed doing with Brianna. Or, rather, letting Brianna do to me.

And Iva? She'd never exactly presented herself as the most scrupulous person in the family. Unlike some of the worst of our kind, she didn't covet power for its own sake. She saw it as a means to an end. A noble end, one might even say. I was pretty sure I believed that she genuinely wanted to make the world a better place. But pretty much since I'd first met her, I'd known that she was willing to justify an awful lot of things to herself if she thought it helped her achieve that end. Perhaps she was a little more self-reflective now than she'd been in the past. Or she'd finally crossed some lines that gave her pause.

But she crossed them all the same.

And would cross many more still, I had no doubt.

"You should be anyfuckingway," I whispered as I poured myself a glass of Scotch.

"Mmm. Frank?" Brianna mumbled.

"Sorry, baby. Did I wake you?"

She sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands. Her hair was a gorgeous mess. Innocence was not a look often found upon my cousin's face, but in that moment of groggy confusion, I thought that maybe that was precisely what I was seeing. 

It suited her. Mostly because it didn't.

"Huh? Oh, no, I was just...." She yawned, stretching her arms above her head. They fell back to her side with a thump. Then she swung her bare legs off the bed. For a moment, they remained outstretched. Then she gradually lowered them to the floor and stood up. "Where'd Iva go?" she asked before taking her first tentative, jerky step.

My heart raced. Damn, she was cute.

"She left."

"Thought you guys'd keep going without me."

"Pass," I said.

Brianna cocked her head quizzically at me. A smile slowly formed. "Yeah?"

With a laugh, I took a sip of my drink, put it down on the counter, and went over to her. I slipped a hand around her waist, hugged her against my chest, and kissed the bird's nest that passed for her hair. "Yeah."

She moaned throatily and ran her hands over my bare chest. "I would've understood."

"Didn't want to."

"Good." She kissed my chest. "Gotta say, though, she almost won me back over. If only we could just get her away from that mother of hers. And from Daphne."

"Yeah."

If only.

I ran a hand through her hair, fixing it up just the way she liked it. And her makeup too, while I was at it. Probably wouldn't have worked if it was a change she'd have opposed, but it turned out to be quite easy.

"What'd you do?" she asked.

A mirror appeared in my hand. I held it up for her.

"Huh. Neat," she said. "Didn't know you could do that."

"Me either," I said.

"You like experimenting with new uses for your power, don't you?" she asked.

Her tone was friendly enough. On the surface. But there was just a bit of an edge to it.

"So?" I asked.

She stepped back, looked away, and folded her arms under her breasts. "Sorry. That wasn't called for. We all do. And most of the time, I like that about you. You can be as dumb as a rock sometimes, but there's no denying that you're creative. Clever, maybe even. And that's hot. It's just. That thing. Did you have to turn into Dom?"

"Oh. That," I said.

My cousin sighed. "It just felt like you don't really believe that I'm in love with you. I mean, how can you still be jealous of him? After these past few weeks?"

"I'm not," I said.

Did she really think I was?

"Are you sure?"

I grabbed my Scotch. After a few sips, I said, "I don't know. On some level, I suppose I am. Maybe I always will be. But that's not on you."

"Right. Your mother. How could I have possibly forgotten about her?"

"Brie."

"Just tell me what you want me to do," my cousin said. "What it would take to make you happy. I'll do it. I've offered to make my breasts bigger. A bunch of times. You keep saying no. What should I be doing instead?"

I grabbed her again. She resisted at first, jerking back softly and giving a little grunt. But she gave in quickly enough and pressed the side of her face against my chest as she wrapped her arms around my waist.

"You do make me happy. There's nothing else I want from you. I love you."

"I love you too, Frank. A lot. So much it scares me."

"I'm scared too. Maybe it doesn't show all the time, but I am."

"Of what?" she asked. "I'm not the one who's all but promised to throw this all away in order to chase after an old flame. Who, I might add, is with someone else now."

"That's not fair. You know it's not that simple. And you know that's not how things work with us. I'm not going to complain when you sleep with Tood or the twins or whoever."

"What about if I fell in love with them? Moved in with them?"

I didn't reply. How could I?

"Whatever. Nevermind. I'm not going to sit here and beg you to stay with me," she said. "If you need to figure out for yourself that the two of you aren't right for each other, that's fine. I can be patient. For a while. Maybe even as long as it takes for you to get it through your thick skull that I'm the girl for you. If you're lucky." Leaning back and staring up into my eyes, she added, "What I will beg you not to do is don another crown."

Again, I said nothing. That cried out for an explanation. Best wait until she gave it.

"It's not that I don't think you'd make a good king. In fact, I'm sure you would. But it never ends well, Frank. At least not for people like us. And you wouldn't have anyone's support. Besides mine, and that would be grudgingly."

I started to protest, but it was hard to see what I would gain by insisting that my mother would be in my corner. Whether I was right on that point or not, it was best left unsaid.

Nor did it seem wise to ask what she meant by "people like us."

"Think about it, Frank. Every single member of your family has got a reason to, at the very minimum, want to keep you off the throne. For Todd and Holly, those reasons are named Mel and Sean. For your sister, that would be Patrick. Skye and the twins have you to thank for the death of their mother. As do your own children. Who's going to be eager-"




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 05



"I get it," I said.

Fuck. She was right.

Of course she was right.

It wasn't easy to admit to myself, but I was responsible for an awful lot of suffering. More so than Iva, really. Where did I get off thinking her unscrupulous?

If there was anyone who was capable of convincing themselves that they were making the world a better place despite doing the exact fucking opposite, it was me.

"Honey, don't get all sulky," Brianna said. "I wasn't trying to tear you down. Just being honest. If you call for a succession ritual, people will grumble, but they'll have to agree that it's reasonable. It's how we do things. And you'll prevail, because no one's got anywhere near enough power to challenge you. But they won't like it. It will only be a matter of time before someone tries to topple you. And I don't want to see you go through that."

I kissed the top of her head. "I know. It's just that," I began. I finished the sentence with a sigh. "Forget it. You're absolutely right. We should suggest putting it to a vote or something instead. And I should nominate, I don't know, Natalie. Right?"

"If she's open to it, yeah," Brie said. "Todd would work too. Maybe even Skye, come to that. But Nat would be my first choice."

I nodded.

"Glad that's settled." She took me by the hand and led me towards the couch. "We can strategize more later. But for now, I'm too tired to talk about it anymore. And too tired for sex, sorry to say. But not too tired to watch a movie. Maybe one of those nerdy superhero ones I keep shooting down? Or an icky gory horror film?"

"That works," I said. "I won't even complain if you make fun of it the whole time."

"Good. Because I'm going to anyway."

I gave her ass a little slap, and she flashed me a devilish grin. A grin that I thought might prove that she was lying about being too tired for sex.

She wasn't, it turned out.

But that was okay.

The quiet evening we spent on the couch was just perfect.



Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 06



######################
Part Three picks up where Part Two left off. Be advised that if you haven't read Part One and Part Two, the story may be quite difficult to follow.

This is primarily an incest story, but it is also sci-fi/fantasy, and supernatural elements are not incidental to the plot. Additionally, most chapters will feature elements of other categories, particularly group sex and anal.

All characters are over eighteen. All acts are consensual.
########################



The world was as yet empty but for the land. We were surrounded on all sides by rolling hills, placid lakes, meandering rivers, lightly wooded plains, and, most of all, dense forests. There was not a manmade structure to be seen anywhere.

None, save the stone pavilion I'd created a moment ago, beneath whose arched dome were gathered twelve Orwins. We nibbled at hors d'oeuvres while drinking various alcoholic beverages. Yet one needn't be able to read Libidos to know that we were in a sober mood. If our faces weren't enough of a giveaway, one might also note that we were all more or less fully clothed. There wasn't a bare torso to be found among the men, nor a single woman clad in lingerie. That wasn't exactly typical for us. At least, not when we were in the Homelands.

Each of us had our own reasons for our uncharacteristically somber dispositions. Natalie, Skye, Ismail and Vince had been enjoying quiet lives, away from all the craziness of the Homelands, when their queen informed them that they were no longer welcome in the Third Autumnal Court or any of its properties. Including its echo of the mortal world. They hadn't been imprisoned like the rest of us, but their lives had still been uprooted for no other reason than the fact that they were related to me.

Val seemed keenly aware of the way my own brother and sister stared at me and whispered about me behind my back. Perhaps it was starting to hit home that I wasn't a fairy tale king, and she wasn't a fairy tale princess.

For his part, Josh seemed incapable of smiling so long as his sister was not.

Of everyone there, Todd and Holly came closest to actually enjoying themselves. Or, at least, to convincing the rest of us that they were. But the absence of their children had to be that much harder to forget now that we were in the midst of the Orwin family reunion than it must have been over the past few weeks.

As for myself, Brianna, Mom and Uncle Bobby, there was plenty of tension there. I wasn't sure I would've expected there to be many sincere smiles among the four of us even without politics being thrown into the mix.

And, of course, politics was the reason for the get-together.

Thus far, we hadn't gotten past greetings. But no one seemed particularly inclined to engage in small talk, so it was only a matter of time before we broached the subject.

"You know, I always wondered, why were you worried about her?" I whispered to Brianna after a brief and awkward exchange with Skye.

She shrugged. "She's got more of her mother in her than she thinks. But a good deal of your mother too. Even some of mine. Meaning, she's idealistic, but shrewd, stubborn, and afraid of nothing. Might not have much in the way of power, but that's still a dangerous combination."

Afraid of nothing?

"Are we talking about the same Skye?" I asked.

Brianna sighed. "Ask her what her childhood was like sometime. Specifically, how she found out who and what she is."

"I will," I said, "if she ever decides to talk to me for more than five seconds again."

"That might help, yeah," Brianna said.

"Smartass."

"Is that what you like so much about my ass?" my cousin asked, giving her hips a wiggle. "That it's smart?"

I rolled my eyes. "Should've quit while you were ahead. That was lame."

"Huh," she said. "And here I thought lame jokes were your favorite kind. Or is that only if you're the one telling them?"

That smart ass of hers got a playful slap by way of response.

"I'm gonna go talk to this new uncle of ours," Brianna said, noticing that he'd stepped away from my mother. "Why don't you go talk to your mother? Wouldn't do to have her thinking she's an afterthought, would it?"

No, it wouldn't.

I smiled at my cousin's retreating back. That couldn't have been easy for her to say. Then I cleared my throat, stood up straight, and headed towards my mother.

"So it's divide and conquer, then, is it?" Mom asked with a cold smile. She flicked her eyes towards Brianna and Bobby.

I cleared my throat. "Sorry if it seemed like I was being rude earlier."

Perhaps it had seemed that way because I had been. I'd only been able to stomach a few minutes of pretending to care about getting to know my uncle before I felt the need to pull Brie away under the pretense of needing to go say hi to Todd and Holly. As everyone kept saying, Bobby did in fact seem quite nice. But I just wasn't ready to deal with him.

My mother frowned. "I'm sorry, dear. I just...." She sighed. "I'm sure it's not easy for you. Seeing me with him. I mean, I can't say I love seeing you with her either. But let's just both try to put that aside and start over, okay? It's been too long since we've seen each other. Neither of us wants to start back off this way."

I forced a smile.

Neither of us really wanted to say much about what we'd been through since she left. Inevitably, then, we came back around to the topic du jour.

"So," she said, after a lull in the conversation. "You're really going to step aside? Seriously?" Her voice all but buzzed with excitement.

"Seriously."

"You know, for the longest time, I thought Iva stole you away from me," my mother said. "I realize that's silly," she said holding up her hands in deference to the protest I hadn't even made. "Whatever feelings the two of you might have had for each other, it never went anywhere. I realize that. Part of me almost wishes it had, so maybe you could get it out of your system. Assuming it really is just a crush, the way I'd like to think. But anyway, the point is, I see now that whatever there may or may not have been between the two of you, it was really the throne that split us apart. You might have been tempted by other women, but the reason I felt like your heart no longer belonged to me was because you were more in love with the legacy you thought you were building than you were anything or anyone else." She let that hang there for a moment, then asked, "No?"

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe. Maybe not. I don't want to lie. There was something really powerful between me and Iva. The throne didn't help anything, but it might not be fair to say that was all it was."

"I see," she said.

"I'm sorry."

My mother held up a finger. "Stop right there. You don't get to to do that, Frank. Just say that you're sorry and make everything okay."

"I know."

She planted her hands on her hips and glowered at me. Like she would when I'd come home late as a teenager and she'd think I was lying about whether I'd had anything to drink. "If we're going to repair things, it's going to take time. And you need to know that I'm madly in love with my brother. That doesn't mean there's no room for you in my life, but you can't just expect me to shove him aside."

Fair enough. I felt the same about Brianna.

Not that it would be a good idea to point that out.

Of course, I did anyway.

"Same with me and Brie."

"Hmm. 'Me and Brie.' How cute. It even rhymes."

I reached out to put my hand on her shoulder.

She jerked back. Not sharply, but it sent a pretty strong message all the same. My hand fell back to my side.

Had that been why I'd said it? Precisely because I knew it would upset her?

To make her feel what I felt when she told me that she was madly in love with Bobby?

No, I didn't think so. That might have been part of it. But, at the same time, I'd have felt guilty if I hadn't said it. As much as it was disrespectful of my mother's feelings, it would have been doing Brianna an injustice not to say it. Like I was ashamed of her. Or trying to give my mother the impression that I was relatively unattached.

"So. What do you say, is it about time we got down to business?" I asked.

My mother studied me silently for a moment, then gave a curt nod.

This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. Our reunion was supposed to be heartfelt, tearful, joyous, and maybe even lusty. I wanted to scream.

Of course, I realized that it was my fault as much as hers. Not that knowing that made it any easier. But I'd already tried apologizing, and look where that had gotten me.

Perhaps I should have pressed the matter. It might not have been fair that I had to, but since when did fair matter when arguing with your mother? If I wanted to put this awkwardness behind us, it was on me to keep trying to convince her to forgive me.

And I would do just that. Eventually.

For now, I raised my voice and asked everyone if they were ready to discuss the matter of who was to be our first ruler. I then opened things up by saying that I thought it would be best if we could settle the matter by consensus rather than succession ritual. Then I added that I had no interest in the throne myself.

At first, my words were met with silence. Then applause. Todd got it started, but Nat and Skye and the twins quickly joined in.

Brianna slipped up beside me and rubbed my back. "I'm sorry, baby."

"It's okay," I said, kissing the top of her head. "You were right, by the way."

"Of course I was," she replied. "But I wasn't going to say anything. You're more than welcome to say my 'I told you so's for me anytime you want, though. Just FYI."

That got a grin out of me.

A quick scan of the crowd confirmed that Val was more upset by the applause than I was. It was one thing that I wasn't going to try to be king again. It was quite another to see how pleased everyone was to hear it. The poor girl.

Why did the look on her face upset me more than the exchange with my mother had?

Maybe I was actually hoping to have things go poorly with Mom?

It would at least spare me from having to make any difficult decisions.

Or maybe I just cared more about keeping my baby girl happy than I'd realized. And not just in the way that men of our kind usually tried to put smiles on their daughter's faces. I really wanted her to be happy.

"Wait, what about her?" Skye asked Todd, jerking her thumb towards Brianna. As if she wasn't even there. "Maybe he's just stepping aside so his girlfriend can take power again."

"No, no," Brianna said, stepping forward. She held her hands up to quiet everyone down before they could even react to Skye's words. "Count me out." She looked over her shoulder at me. Our eyes met briefly. Then she turned back towards the rest of the family and gestured towards Natalie. "Nat? Care to show your brother and I how it's done?"

"Me?" my sister said, eyes wide.

"Why not?" Todd said. "I think that's a great idea."

"I don't know," she said.

"That would work for me," Skye said. "Be nice to see someone on the throne who wasn't so desperate to get there, for a change."

Eventually, my sister said that she'd agree to take the throne, but only if there was universal support for her to do so. If even one of us thought someone else would be better, she said, she'd refuse.

It didn't take long, though, to establish that it was in fact unanimous.

Next thing I knew, Natalie was holding court, despite the fact that we hadn't even had a coronation ceremony yet. She chose Skye as her Shadow, which stung a little, and disappointed Val even more so, but was probably a smart move. We discussed, all of us, as equals, the need for a relatively open policy regarding those seeking asylum, and what we were going to do about the inevitable problem of immortals from all over the Homelands flocking to our court in order to Devour hapless refugees. And many other matters besides.

A few hours later, I was exhausted, but glad to see that my sister was already proving to be the kind of ruler I'd always wanted to think I could be, but never had been.

#

"Mmm, that was great, Mom," Brianna said. "You'll have to give Frank the recipe."

Ellen and I both laughed.

"It was really good. As always," my father added.

"Thank you," Brianna's mother said to them both as she gathered up empty plates.

"You know, she only pretends she can't cook," I said, following the example of my mother. "Every now and then, like when I get sick, she decides to take over in the kitchen. And then the truth comes out." I paused before picking up my wife's plate. "Isn't that right, honey?" I asked, before planting a quick kiss on her nose.

"I don't know what he's talking about," Brianna said.

"She's just afraid of you forcing a bunch of recipes on her, and then calling her every few days to ask if she's tried them," I explained to Ellen as I followed her over to the sink. "So now that I've revealed her secret, you have to promise not to do that. Because, if you do, I'll be sleeping on the couch for weeks."

Ellen laughed again. "Is that so?" She gave me a devilish grin. "Maybe I don't care if she refuses to let you sleep in her bed. You probably deserve it, even if not for this."

"Amen to that," Brianna called from the table.

"What's for dessert?" Bobby asked.

I hid a snicker to myself at that. It was such a Bobby question to ask, on so many levels.

I wasn't sure why I didn't like my father more than I did. One the one hand, if he had a sense of humor, even a lame one, he did a damn good job of hiding it. On the other, I knew that wasn't it. He was one of the nicest guys I ever met, and that made up for a lot.

There was something it wasn't making up for though. I just wasn't sure what.

"Ice cream sundaes," Ellen replied, raising her voice to be heard over the running water. "We've got chocolate and vanilla ice cream, chocolate or caramel syrup, sprinkles, and crumbled Oreos." She turned to me. "Speaking of which, dear, would you mind setting everything up? You can leave the ice cream in the freezer for now, but get out some bowls and the fixin's. You know where everything is, right?"

I did.

Did it make sense that I did?

That was a strange thought. Why shouldn't I?

Something was off though. I had no idea what, and I probably shouldn't have been worrying about it. Should be content to just go with the flow. We were having about as much fun as a young married couple can have when visiting the wife's parents. But throughout dinner, it had been bugging me.

"Trivial Pursuit? Or bridge?" Bobby called from the dinner table.

"Please, no more bridge!" Brianna howled.

"Seriously," I added. "Every time we play, my hips and knees start to ache, and I start thinking I've got arthritis. I'll be filing for Social Security before you know it."

"Well, I guess that settles that," Ellen said, smirking. "Glad to know that's what you think of us." She looked down at her body. "For somebody as old as you seem to think I am, though, I'd say I'm in pretty decent shape."

"If you say so," I said.

Which earned me a splash of soapy water.

She did in fact look good for her age, though. Not that she or Bobby were nearly as old as my comment would have suggested anyway. They were only in their early fifties. And both could pass for a decade younger. Ellen probably wasn't what most guys had in mind when they talked about MILFs. A bit on the heavy side, even for those who liked their women voluptuous. And she wasn't anywhere near as pretty as her daughter. Nor, to judge from old photographs, had she been in her youth.

But this was not the first time I found myself wishing my wife was built a little more like her mother. Other men might not understand why, but I found it really hard not to stare at Ellen. Especially, but not exclusively, her amazing tits.

Feeling flushed, I forced the goofy smile off my face and turned to the cupboard.

#



"Mmm, not tonight, honey," Brianna moaned when I started to slip her panties down.

"Everything okay?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said. "Just tired. And not really in the mood."

"Okay." I pulled the blanket up higher, kissed her shoulder, and laid back down.

"If you're really worked up, maybe you can go see if my mother's awake."

"Whoa. That came out of nowhere."

"Really?" she asked. "You don't think it maybe was brought on by the flirting the two of you were doing with each other all night? Damn, Frank, I know you said you're not really into younger women, but I thought that just a way to make me feel better about the fact that I'm a few years older than all your friends' wives. My fucking mother, though?"

Brianna rolled over to face me. Her emerald green eyes were wide and her nostrils flaring. I wasn't sure if that was better or worse than if her anger was more towards the explosive end of the spectrum. The fights that started off that way were always worse, but they also ended quicker. When her anger was more akin to a bed of coals than a raging inferno, it could stay hot for hours. Days, even.

"I was being nice," I said, trying to keep my voice calm. If she thought I was being defensive, things would only get worse. "I guess you could say it was flirty, yeah. But I was just trying to flatter her. Not seduce her."

"Maybe you should explain the difference to her. Cuz she was getting pretty worked up."

"So? Good for Bobby," I said.

Wrong. Fucking. Answer.

"You noticed, then? And didn't stop?"

"No, Brie, honey, I didn't notice. In fact, it still doesn't seem that way to me, but I know better than to argue with you. So I'll take your word for it."

"Oh, I get it. I'm overreacting, but you're not in the mood for a fight, so you're going to humor me." she asked. "Lovely."

I drew a deep breath. "I didn't say that."

"Well, that's what it sounded like," she said. "And damn if that wouldn't be just like you. Mister Peace-At-Any-Price."

"I wasn't humoring you. Your mother didn't seem to me to be sexually aroused. But she's your mother, and you're better at reading people in general, so if it seemed that way to you, I can only assume that you're right. If you'd said something to me at the time, I'd have stopped. I was just trying to be charming. I want your parents to like me."

"Funny. Didn't see you trying so hard to flatter my father."

"That's different."

"Sure it is. You don't suck cock, do you?"

"Okay, I walked into that one," I said, with a smile.

A faint smirk cracked my wife's otherwise solid mask. But she corrected it quickly. "Stop. This isn't funny. Case you hadn't noticed, we're having a fight."

I put my hand on the back of her head, delighting at the feel of her silky hair, and pulled her a little closer so I could kiss the top of her head. "I know. And I want you to know that it's important to me to understand where you're coming from. But I also want you to know that I love you. A lot. Even when you're angry with me."

I'd only been saying what I felt at that moment. There really hadn't been any strategy to it. But my words had an entirely welcome side effect. It was as if I'd thrown a bucket of cold water on her bed of coals. The sigh she let out was the steam rising up afterwards. After that, the heat was all but gone.

"You don't fight fair," she said, before planting a soft kiss on my lips. "I thought the downside of marrying a nerd would be all the lame jokes and cheesy movies. But no. It's this. Most of the time, it's like you haven't got a clue, but every now and then, you know exactly what to say. Just when I don't want you to."

I laughed before giving her a kiss of my own.

"But, seriously, why do you keep acting like you wish my father didn't exist? It's so awkward. I might not even have thought you were flirting with my mother if not for that."




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 06



"I don't know. I don't mean to," I said. "I can't lie to you though. Something about him just bugs me. Not sure what or why. But, at any rate, it's not deliberate."

"You sure it's not that he's got my mother while you're stuck with me?" she asked.

"Don't be ridiculous," I said.

Except the minute she said it, I felt a deep sense of relief. Like I'd scratched an itch I'd been trying to reach for hours. Or finally sneezed after several false alarms.

For all that I was sure it was right, it still made no sense. I couldn't really be jealous of Bobby because of Ellen. She wasn't a bad looking woman, for her age, but damn.

"Well, I wasn't lying about being tired," Brianna said, rolling back over so we could spoon again. "Sorry. Makeup sex will have to wait until morning."

I laughed. "I'm just glad we cleared that up."

She moaned softly as I planted a trail of kisses down the side of her head, across her neck, and over her shoulder. But they were fleeting, superficial kisses. Kisses of affection, not seduction. And her moan was a moan of lazy contentment rather than excitement.

Sure enough, she was asleep not five minutes later.

I tried to fall asleep myself, but I couldn't. Which wasn't necessarily unusual, since I was even more of a night owl than Brianna was, and she herself was no morning person.

But part of why I couldn't sleep was that I couldn't stop thinking about Ellen.

Could my mother still be awake? What if I went down to the kitchen? Just to get a drink, of course. If I happened to run into her, well, it was her house. Who was I to question her comings and goings? Maybe Brianna had mentioned that her mother didn't often sleep through the night, but maybe I'd forgotten that.

Still, I waited nearly a half hour, lying there alone in bed with my thoughts, before deciding to go through with it.

Just getting a drink, of course. A little Scotch to help me sleep.

When I found the kitchen empty, it was both a relief and a disappointment. I tried not to make much noise as I rummaged through the liquor cabinet.

But if I really wanted to behave myself, I'd have taken my Scotch back to the bedroom and drank it there, in the dark, rather than sitting at the kitchen table with it. And if I was going to drink it in the kitchen, I wouldn't have nursed it. Or topped myself off after finishing half of it. There was no denying, even to myself, that I was trying to draw things out, so as to maximize the chance of "accidentally" running into Ellen.

Which, sure enough, eventually worked. After about an hour.

"Hey, you," she whispered, as she swept into the kitchen. "What are you doing up?"

"Couldn't sleep," I said.

I hoped it wasn't obvious how much I appreciated her skimpy negligee. Probably was though. God, what a sick fuck I was. She was old, and out of shape. Yet, there I was, checking her out. Shamelessly.

She wasn't old, though. Nor in particularly bad shape.

Not even to begin with. And definitely not now.

Not now?

She'd changed quite a bit in the few hours since I'd last seen her. Even though that made absolutely no sense at all.

She still wasn't exactly thin. Especially in the hips and thighs. To say nothing of her generous T and A. But overall, she definitely had slimmed down. It was clear in her face, neck, waist, arms, and, well, everything that shouldn't be round and soft. On top of that, her hair was almost entirely black again. Except for those delightful red highlights. The silver and gray that had been plentiful before was almost completely gone.

That was all strange enough. People didn't shed years and pounds when they slept. But if you only noticed those things, and hadn't seen her earlier or didn't know her age, you'd think she looked real enough. My mother shouldn't have looked the way the woman standing before me did, but there were women who did.

Or so it seemed at first glance.

When I looked closer, though, I realized the truth was more complicated.

For one thing, her thighs were as smooth as marble. Even a woman who was in her thirties, as Ellen somehow now appeared to be, would have had more than a little cellulite. Especially with thighs that thick. But she had none. At all.

Moreover, though she wasn't wearing a bra now, her massive breasts still sat much higher on her chest, and were shaped more like bowling balls and less like torpedoes, than made any sense. If she actually was in her thirties, that wouldn't have been as absurd as it was given that she was supposed to be in her fifties. But at just about any age, it was at least a little odd, taking their size into account. They obviously weren't implants though. There was definitely some sag going on, and the way they bounced when she walked suggested a fluidity not commonly found in silicone. Fuck, they were glorious. Divine, even.

"Me either," she said.

I almost asked what she meant, but then I remembered.

"Brianna said you were a Scotch drinker. Is that a good one? I told Bobby not to go crazy, but I told him not to get the cheapest bottle either."

I laughed. That was my mother's way of doing things too. When in doubt, pick something in the middle of the price range. She refused to buy the cheapest version of anything, even when it was clear that all she was paying for was a brand label. Yet neither would she go top of the line, even if we could have afforded it.

"It's fine. Besides, they can get really expensive. Hundred, hundred fifty a bottle."

"Really? I hope you get a trip to Scotland and a tour of the distillery with that too."

I laughed.

"Can I try some?" she asked.

I shrugged. "If you want. It's an acquired taste. And this one is pretty peaty."

"Peaty?" she snickered. "You know, it took me a few months to get used to Bobby saying that he liked his beers hoppy. I kept thinking he'd hop around the kitchen if he had a few." She shook her head. "You boys and your drinks. I bet you like to make fun of wine snobs, too. Do you really think you're any better?"

"Well, manlier, at any rate."

"Hmm. Well, I won't argue with that," she said.

My heart started beating faster.

She'd definitely just given me the once over. Same as I'd done when she walked in.

I looked down and noticed for the first time that I too was wearing a supernaturally young and sexy body. Though my twenties weren't far behind me, I hadn't looked this good then. Not by a long, long shot. I'd always been stocky, if not quite overweight. And I was still bulky, but now it was all solid muscle. I wasn't so ridiculously cut as to look like a greased up anatomy chart, the way professional bodybuilders did, but I was still pretty shredded. And though I wasn't tensing them up, my abs looked beyond awesome.

Another change was that the thick carpet of body hair that should have been there had thinned out. There was enough left for me to look manly, but nothing like the pelt I normally sported. Making it that much easier to see the aforementioned abs.

"Wow, you weren't kidding," Ellen said, making a face like she'd just sucked a lemon. "Here," she said, pouring the rest of what little she'd put in her glass to begin with into mine. "I'll stick with my friend Jose." She went to the liquor cabinet and took out a bottle. "I have to warn you though. Tequila makes my clothes fall off."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Haven't you heard that song?" she asked, blushing.

"Oh, riiight," I said. Of course she'd been referring to the song. Silly me.

Her cheeks went from pink to red. She flicked her wrist, as if swatting away a fly. Or any snide comments her son might think to offer.

I kept all such comments to myself as she poured herself a shot and came to sit at the table across from me. Didn't even say anything about the lack of salt and lime.

"So. That daughter of mine didn't wear you out?"

"That's not an awkward question."

She shrugged. "What? We're all adults here."

"Yes. Yes, we are. But still."

"Am I supposed to pretend I don't know that she really gets off doing things she shouldn't?" my mother asked before knocking back her first shot. "Not that I even care, but I just know that doing it in her parents' house has got to excite her. Bet she told you that too, didn't she? Makes her feel like a rebellious teenager again?"

"If you must know, she was too tired," I said, before raising my glass to my lips.

"Aww," she said, as if I'd said that my favorite team lost a big game. "I'm sorry. That must be why you couldn't sleep. Feeling all frustrated. And it's not like you can relieve yourself, what with her in the bed beside you."

"Okay, this is definitely not what I thought we'd talk about when you walked in."

"No?" she asked. "What did you think we'd talk about? That question you swore you actually got right? Should we write a letter to Parker Brothers?"

"I don't think Parker Brothers makes-"

"I don't care, Frank." She poured herself another shot. "I don't want to talk about Trivial Pursuit. And I don't think you do either." She leaned back and stretched, forcing her breasts to rise and separate.

The thin layer of silk didn't do much to hide her nipples. Which were obviously hard.

The second shot disappeared a quickly as the first. As she went to place it back down on the table, she dropped it to the floor. I think it was meant to look like an accident, but it wasn't. There was no doubt in my mind about that.

As it rolled away across the tiled floor, my mother dropped down on all fours and crawled after it. Giving me a nice view of her bare ass, and a glimpse of her glistening, pink folds. Because, of course, she wasn't wearing any panties.

Ellen looked back over her shoulder at me as she crawled away and gave a playful little bark. It didn't sound anything like a dog, but it was cute as hell.

And reminded me of someone else who'd once done that. The first woman I'd ever slept with, maybe. No, not Lauren. Someone else.

Why did that remind me of my mother, of all people?

I didn't bother to think about it. A few moments later, I was kneeling behind Ellen, pajama pants still on, a surprisingly huge cock in hand.

When had it gotten that big?

Probably around the time that Ellen grew younger still. She now appeared to be an absolutely inhumanely proportioned sex goddess in her early twenties rather than a pleasantly voluptuous thirty-something.

But that too was something entirely unworthy of my attention at the moment.

If ever I'd been more excited to enter a woman, I couldn't remember it. Her tight lips parted reluctantly, but still willingly enough to tell me I was most welcome. Fuck, she was wet. It took a few thrusts to get all the way inside her, but it went quick. With the last, firm thrust, Ellen let out a whimper.

"Oh, fuck, yes, Frank. God, I've been waiting for you to do that all day."

That went for both of us.

Before long, I was pummeling her so hard, it was a wonder that I wasn't hurting her.

Or maybe I was.

But if so, she didn't seem to object. Rather, she pressed her legs together tightly, turning her warm hole turned into a vice grip. The sudden change in pressure made me gasp. As soon as my mental faculties returned to me, I slapped her fat, white ass, hard, then started slamming into her even faster than before. Faster, and harder, than I'd have thought possible.

I couldn't have said how I did it. I just thought to myself that I needed to step things up, and someone I managed to do so.

"Ungh, yes, yes, fuck, baby, just like that," Ellen panted.

I watched, enraptured, as the smooth flesh of her ass rippled. There was no way any woman could have an ass that size with a waist that small. No way an ass could be that perfect, on any body. It was soft enough for my fingers to sink into it like a pillow, but a thick layer of muscle underneath the padding gave it the perfect heart-shape.

"Oh, yeah, mmmph, don't stop, baby," Ellen said. Then her voice got louder and her words became indecipherable as an orgasm overtook her.

Her walls spasmed around me, milking me, begging me to pump my seed into her. Who was I to deny the request? Between the hypnotic sight of her exquisite ass, the almost unbearably pleasurable feel of being inside her, and the rush of knowing I was fucking my mother, I couldn't hold out any more.

Wait, my mother? Not Brianna's?

Yes, that was right. As my balls jumped up and down, working overtime to pour cum inside the very womb that had sheltered me since before birth, my mother's own cum, and the supernatural energy that bled out of her along with it, helped to sweep away my veil.

A veil I'd placed over myself. And my mother, my cousin, and my uncle.

So that my mother and I could have the reunion we deserved, if only for a little while, before we got back to resenting each other for moving on. Got back to keeping secrets from each other about what had happened since we'd last seen each other. To wanting to throw that all aside but being too damn stubborn to do so.

I wasn't sure if her memories were returning too, now that she'd drained me as well. It was hard to take in much energy when you yourself were in the throes of ecstasy. But this had been a particularly light veil. It shouldn't take much for it to fade away.

At any rate, I wasn't about to ask if she remembered who she was, and how mad she was at me. I was inside her, where I belonged, and I meant to take advantage of that.

After a few moments to catch my breath, I went back to assaulting my mother's pussy.

"Oh, fuck. Mommy's missed your big ol' cock, Frank.  Keep going."

That answered that question.

Now that I remembered who and what we were, I started to use more of my powers. Floating hands massaged my mothers feet, held her ankles in place, caressed her smooth ass, fondled her huge, swaying breasts, gripped her shoulders, and gently tugged at her hair. Meanwhile, spectral mouths sucked on her stiff clitoris and her thick, hard nipples.

God, I loved those nipples. There was nothing wrong with puffy nipples, like Iva had. But Mom's were nice and hard, and I liked that better.

I liked almost everything about her better, in fact. Better than Iva, and better than any other woman. She didn't have the prettiest face, but she was pretty. And though she wasn't as imaginative, or active, as Brianna, that was just fine. Sex with Brianna could sometimes be too much of an adventure. I never knew what she was going to try to get me to do. And as much as I liked that she'd broadened my horizons, sometimes I just wanted to do what I was comfortable with and nothing more. My mother also wasn't as powerful as some women. But while I couldn't deny that I very much enjoyed the supernatural flourishes, after a certain point, it didn't make much difference. Maybe even felt excessive. I couldn't imagine being satisfied with a really weak immortal, or one who didn't really know how to use her powers, like my daughter. But my mother was more than good enough.

Maybe Brianna was right that we weren't right for each other in other ways. And I really had fallen in love with my cousin. But just at that moment, as I was fucking my mother like the world depended on it, I realized that I'd never had, and never would have, more satisfying sex. Maybe other women could, through supernatural means, induce a higher level of pleasure. But this was as rewarding as it got, in the fuller sense of the term. Nothing, not nothing, compared to having sex with Mom.

I was lying flat on my back, watching her ride me cowgirl, when Uncle Bobby walked in.

He came to a dead stop, jaw agape. It took me a moment to remember that he was probably still under the veil. "Hope I'm not interrupting anything," he said.

"You won't be, if you join in," Mom said.

He made a disgusted sound.

I slapped my mother's ass, hard, and told her to get off.

She slammed her hips into me a couple more times, then, with a groan of protest, dismounted. Pulling the hem of her negligee down, as if it was possible to salvage some sense of modesty, she stumbled towards the man who thought he was her husband.

The effects clearly hadn't worn off entirely, given his behavior, but they were definitely fading. He no longer looked like a man in his fifties, even one who was relatively fit for his age. Rather, my uncle was wearing his true form. That of a sex god.

Looking him over quickly, I was struck by several things. First, he was shorter than I was. It would only have been by an inch or two if I hadn't enhanced my height a few minutes ago. Granted, he still had several inches on Mom, as short as she was, but given that she liked her men tall, I was still having trouble wrapping my head around that.

The other was that he looked like Grandpa Dick's twin more so than his son. I hadn't really noticed before, back when I laid eyes on him for the first time. And I hadn't seen my grandfather in his true form but once, and that was on video. But even so, it was immediately clear that the two men were almost identical, aside from Bobby's height. They had the same gray eyes. Eyes that Todd had inherited, whereas mine and Nat's were as brown as our mother's. His jaw was broad and square, like Grandpa's had been. He had a short beard, cropped close to his face everywhere save the mustache and chin. His beard, like Grandpa's, was closer to brown than anything, but had heavy red highlights. There were bits of silver and white in it too, particularly around the mouth and at the corners. His hair was more red than his beard. Almost the same color as Brianna's, in fact. His face was leathery and rough. I might have said that gave him a hard look, except that his smile was so easy and warm that it seemed odd to think of his face as hard.

No, "hard" wasn't the word. "Ruggedly handsome" fit him far better. In fact, he just about perfectly embodied the concept. He certainly wasn't classically beautiful like Sean. But not every woman went for that. For those who preferred their men a bit, well, manlier, Bobby was a real sight to behold. Even in his prime, Clint Eastwood would have looked oridinary compared to my uncle.

That wasn't easy to admit, but it was also hard to deny. If that makes any sense.

If he still thought himself an happily married mortal man, he probably wouldn't still be standing there, arms folded beneath his barrel chest.

When Mom went to lay her hand on his huge arm, he sighed, and you could be mistaken for thinking he'd just watched his dog make a mess of his food bowl.

"Don't be mad, baby," Mom said.

He started to reply, but swallowed his words as she went up on tiptoes to kiss him.

I came up behind my mother, gave her gorgeous ass a good smack, and let out a serious burst of crackling blue ecstasy as I did. The bolts jumped and arced in all sorts of directions, but they mostly targeted my mother. As intended, she immediately went into orgasm.

As she gasped and spasmed, my uncle drained energy from my mother. Without even realizing it, to judge by the shocked look on his face. But her well was so large that she was still teeming with energy afterwards, even though an undeniably generous amount of energy passed from her to him.

"Let's take this party back to the bedroom," she said. "Those tiles are cold."

"Hope you're not mad," I said. "We seemed to be getting off on the wrong foot. Thought this was the easiest way to hit the reset button."

"Do I look mad?" my mother asked. "It was a good idea." She glanced over her shoulder at me as she started down the hall towards the master bedroom. "Just don't think this means we're going to skip the awkward conversations we both know we need to have. They can wait, but they're still going to happen."

"I can live with that," I said, starting after her.




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 06



"Fine with me," Bobby said, trailing behind. His voice sounded like that of someone who'd just woken up. I wasn't sure if he had any idea what my mother and I were referring to, or was just agreeing to agree. That would be just like him, if so.

And Brianna thought I was too non-confrontational.

"Good. Then we'll do that tomorrow. But the night's still young. Sort of, anyway. So for now, I want the two of you to focus on fucking the hell out of me."

That was exactly what I intended to do.

Bobby laughed awkwardly. Was he not used to hearing her talk that way?

When we got back to their bedroom, Mom slowed things back down. She sat both of us on the edge of the bed, did a little dance for us, and gave us the slowest, teasingest blowjobs ever. Just as I was getting to the point that I thought I might cum, she'd switch over to her brother. She kept working me with her hand while she did, but that doesn't compare. It was her warm mouth and expert tongue that I wanted. That I needed.

Eventually, though, she got me so close to the brink that even a hand would do. And she did the same for Bobby. Then, sitting on her haunches with her eyes closed and her mouth open, she asked us to cum for her.

My uncle and I exchanged awkward glances, shrugged, then stroked ourselves off, shooting rope after sticky rope of jizz into her mouth, onto her face, and into her hair. More than a little made its way to her huge breasts. Particularly since I was cumming buckets. For his part, Bobby served up more than a modest amount. Enough to shame any mortal. But he either hadn't thought to, or didn't know how to, extend his orgasm supernaturally. Myself, I came and came and came some more. Most of it landed on her face or tits, but my mother still swallowed enough that, if she was mortal, she'd need to have her stomach pumped.

"I love when you do that," Mom said, after she cleaned herself up. "Even with my eyes plastered shut by your spunk, I can still picture the look on your face. Does it turn you on, knowing how much it turns me on?"

"You have no idea," I said, running a hand through her hair.

And she really didn't. She looked damn fucking good, covered in her son's cum.

She smiled and reached out to give her brother's chubby a few playful pumps. Bobby was shorter than me there too. Quite a bit. But just as thick. "You think you can figure out how to do that for me, baby?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I think so."

"Good. I just love being covered in jizz."

He gasped. But whether it shocked him, disgusted him, or excited him, I couldn't have said. Maybe all three. Heck, it did all three for me. Mostly the last one, but the others too.

"Now, what do you say you boys return the favor?" Mom asked, rising to her feet.

Without a word, we laid her down on the bed and set to work.

I took pleasure in noticing that my ministrations aroused more of a reaction from her than Bobby's did. But my insanely jealous mind wanted to believe that he couldn't satisfy her at all, and that clearly wasn't the case. If he was not quite the master of oral seduction that I was, he was hardly a novice. And he knew what his sister liked.

A different part of me, perhaps a more mature part, was actually glad to know that. If Mom was in love with this man, he damn sure better be able to satisfy her.

After we guided her through a few orgasms, groping and sucking and nibbling and kissing and tongue-fucking her from head to toe, we all pulled apart and took a breather.

I almost couldn't believe how much I'd missed that taste. In a way, all the women of our kind had it. A hint of sweetness mixed in with their salty juices. But each woman was unique as well. And my mother's was probably my favorite, if only because it was hers.

"So," my mother said, after a few minutes. "Are you boys ready?"

Could there be any doubt?

Bobby nodded emphatically. "Sure are."

I basically pounced on her by way of response.

She laughed and the two of us rolled around a bit, fondling each other and exchanging kisses. But she worked her way back up to her knees and told us how she wanted us.

And it wasn't quite the answer I'd hoped for.

Bobby was to take her doggy-style. The lucky bastard.

It was her favorite position. And, once upon a time, I'd been her favorite lover. But that didn't mean it was "our" position. However much I wanted to believe that it was.

While he did, I sat in front of my mother and tried my best to enjoy the blowjob she gave me. But, unfortunately for me, Bobby seemed to have an even better idea of how to pleasure her than I'd realized, and that left her pretty distracted.

I reminded myself that was a good thing. But I wasn't listening.

I was still better, of course.

That wasn't just my ego talking. When we switched positions, and I slowly slid my mini baseball bat inside her, it took only a few moments for my mother's body, and her Libido, to tell me the same thing. She didn't need to say it aloud for me to know.

After a while, though, I forgot to worry about whether I was getting better treatment than my uncle, or whether I was doing a better job of satisfying my mother. I was simply hypnotized by my mother's beauty. Her figure was so unreal. In all the right ways. I could almost fully encircle her waist in my hands, at least now that I'd added several inches of height and accordingly had bigger hands. Yet, despite that relatively small waist, she had broad hips, full thighs, and breasts the size of her head. Bigger, actually.

None of this was news. But I didn't think I'd ever really believe it. Every time I made love to my mother, every single time, I marveled at her surreal proportions, at her extreme curves. If Bobby was the embodiment of the very notion of ruggedly handsome, my mother could similarly be said to be femininity made flesh.

For me, anyway.

In the back of my head, a voice buzzed, reminding me of all the crap about socially constructed gender norms that I wasn't sure if I'd ever actually studied or perhaps had only somehow acquired through repeatedly transforming myself into an academic.

Of course it wasn't fair to say she was femininity made flesh, given how problematic the very notion of femininity was. But she was certainly the paragon of a particular imagine of feminine beauty. One that resonated with me quite strongly.

And when Bobby sat above her face, his thick but relatively short cock hanging down beneath him for her to take into her mouth, I couldn't take my eyes off that either. Not that I liked staring at my uncle's cock. Just that watching my mother suck dick, even another man's dick, was intoxicating.

Since Bobby had joined us, we'd made relatively little use of our supernatural powers. Extra cum here, easy cleanup there, but not much else.

It was getting to be time to change that.

I lifted my mother's legs up onto my shoulders and leaned back, lifting her hips gently up off the bed. I also reshaped my cock, putting a kink in it that would allow me to directly stimulate her G-spot with each thrust. Moreover, I summoned a spectral mouth with which to suck on her stiff little lady. On top of that, the slightest little bolts of ecstasy crackled all around us. They mostly targeted my mother, but Bobby and I enjoyed a few of them as well. They were too small to bring anyone to climax by themselves, but they created a powerful rush of euphoria that added to the whole experience.

It wasn't long before my mother experienced a monster of an orgasm. Her body went wild, and it was a good thing for Bobby that his dick didn't get bitten off. To liken the reaction inside her Libido to a nuclear bomb exploding would have been hyperbolic, but only a little. The sudden rush of energy pouring out of her and into me almost knocked me out.

The intensity of her climax had a lot to do with the pent up desire from not having seen each other for so long. This wasn't really her favorite position, and the one spectral mouth only added a modest amount of additional stimulation. But that was okay with me. Just knowing I could have that effect on my mother was a huge ego trip. So what if it was only because of the circumstances, the way she felt about me and the frustration from fighting with me recently, rather than my skills as a lover?

After that, Mom said she needed a break.

"Why don't you go get us some drinks, baby?" she said to her brother.

He gave her a look that threatened to cross over into sad protest, but quickly turned into a tepid smile. "Love to." He kissed her cheek before leaving.

"I've missed you," she said to me after he left. "You and that glorious dick of yours. Good sweet Lord, you know what Mommy needs." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "But don't make more of this than it is. Because Bobby is incredible, and I've been happier than I ever imagined since I met him. This time, when I say it's just sex, I actually mean it."

"Understood," I said.

"That's not nothing, of course. If there's one area where he'll never compare to you, it's this. He's good. Don't get me wrong. But you, you're much, much better than good. You're...," she didn't finish the sentence. Just smiled a smile that made my knees buckle.

The rest of what she'd said, about that being the only area where he didn't compare to me, or how she really meant it when she said that it was just sex, could sink in later.

"He'll be back soon. Tell me one thing first. Is Brianna good to you?"

I hesitated, then nodded.

The hesitation wasn't because there was any uncertainty in my mind about what the honest answer to that question was. Only over whether she really wanted to hear it.

There were things about my relationship with Brianna that I wasn't proud of. Things I wouldn't speak of aloud, and rarely even allowed myself to think about. But in a lot of ways, she was exactly what I needed. And I'd never have guessed how sweet she could be.

"Good," she said. "I don't know that I get that. But as long as you're happy."

Which I was, in a way, but the she said that as if she was giving up already on the idea of us getting back together.

Which, maybe she was.

And maybe I should too.

Fuck.

I was actually happy with Brianna. And when things weren't great, it was mostly because we were fighting about my mother. What if I just let go, and committed myself full to Brianna? It wasn't like I'd never get to have sex with my mother again. Brianna didn't care about that. So long as it was, to use my mother's words, "just sex."

"Tequila for the lady," Bobby said as he came down the hall. "Scotch for the men." He held up the bottle as he looked at me. "I'm a bit of a novice, and so probably don't have what it takes to really appreciate this, but I trust you'll forgive me for taking some?" He paused for a moment before adding, "After all, we did pay for it."

I snickered. That was awfully close to a joke.

"Not with real money, though," I said.

"I suppose not, no. But I didn't know that at time."

We poured out a round of drinks.

"To letting go of the past," Mom said.

Those words were still buzzing in my head a few minutes later, when my mother's face was buried in her brother's neck. It wasn't even like she was being subtle about it. Why wasn't the message getting through?

For a while, I sat and watched. It wasn't easy, but they deserved some time together. And I wanted to get a better sense of what kind of chemistry they had.

I remembered how Mom and I had always struggled with the fact that I wanted to seduce her slowly, romantically, and tenderly, while she'd never been more excited than when I threw caution to the wind and let my inner animal out of its cage. Maybe instead of watching, I should grab her, bend her over the bed, and take her, while my uncle watched.

If we'd still been together, then, yes, that might well have been what I should have done just then. But we weren't. I needed to accept that.

Just as I was thinking that, Bobby unleashed his own beast.

With a growl, he told my mother to get down on all fours. She did as instructed. He didn't waste any time before entering her, nor in building up the pace gradually once inside her. I never would have guessed my mild-mannered and ultra-polite uncle had it in him.

"Oh, that's it, baby," Mom moaned. "Fuck your big sister. Fuck her good."

Not for the first time in my life, I was struck by the fact that there was nothing more painful yet more beautiful than watching another man fuck my mother. I wanted so badly to be him in that moment. But seeing Mom from angles I couldn't manage while I was inside her myself was a pleasure all its own.

Did she get that same look on her face when I fucked her doggy-style? Or was Bobby the only one who could get her to the point that her face was contorted with ecstasy so intense she almost seemed to be in pain?

It wasn't as though I didn't know that when I fucked her like that, her huge breasts swayed back and forth crazily. But watching it happen while Bobby assaulted her was an experience so intensely arousing I almost forgot to be jealous. For a moment, anyway.

In fact, I might even have been a little impressed.

My uncle wasn't quite as thickly muscled as I was, but he was closer to my physique than any of the other guys in the family at this point. And he was every bit as chiseled. Perhaps a touch more so. So I tried to tell myself that my abs looked that good when I fucked my mother. That my chest bounced the way his did when he tensed up then relaxed then tensed up again. That my arms were equally wondrous to behold.

Where he wasn't nearly as strong as me was in the supernatural department. Or if he was, he'd yet to show it. I hadn't seen him wear two bodies, grow a second cock, summon extra hands or spectral mouths, or any of that. No need to be too in awe of the insanely handsome god wrecking my mother's pussy then. It might sound like she was getting fucked better than she'd ever been fucked before, but that simply couldn't have been true.

It just couldn't be.

Still, it only took a few minutes before they filled the room with their howls of ecstasy. As Bobby slammed into Mom one last time, hard, he gave her ass a good slap. Then he sighed and slipped away. Mom slowly stood up, her feet unsteady, and stumbled into bed. Once there, she rolled onto her back and collapsed, a huge smile on her face.

After a few quick breaths, she beckoned me forth with a curled finger.

"Take your time," Bobby said, clapping me on the back as I walked past him.

"Thanks," I said, flatly.

I'd wanted to add "Asshole" to the end of that sentence, but I behaved myself.

I didn't say a word to my mother as I climbed atop her. She stared up at me with a hunger deeper than I'd feared her capable of at this point. Yet her hunger paled in comparison to my own, I was sure. It gnawed at me, screamed at me, demanding to be satisfied. It left me feeling as though I was burning alive.

I stared down at Mom's smooth, creamy white skin, and refused to think of her wrinkles as imperfections so much as reminders of her maturity and experience. Those eyes of her were not merely beautiful, but mesmerizing. Perhaps I really did prefer brown eyes. Brianna's emerald orbs were definitely pretty, in their own way. But staring into her eyes didn't make me swoon like this. Never had, and never would.

Or maybe it was just that my mother's eyes would have had the power to take my breath away and make my heart beat just a little faster no matter what color they'd been.

I wasn't sure. And I didn't care. Either way, I could have stared into those eyes for hours, dumbstruck by their beauty.

And I didn't care if Brianna thought it was weird that I had a thing for eyebrows, or if it was only in my head that my mother's were so thick and dark. For me, they were every bit as beautiful as her full lips, long lashes, porcelain skin, and dark eyes.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I entered her. It felt so good, so right, to be back inside that womb. Back where I belonged.

She was so warm. Her labia were swollen from all the fucking she'd already received that night. Her walls were relaxed and she hardly needed any time at all to accommodate my monster. The juices dribbling down my shaft to collect on my sac were thick and phlegmy.

As I slammed into her, I held her shoulders. A few extra hands appeared so that I could finish getting reacquainted with the pleasures of her body. At first, it was just two hands, to fondle her breasts. Then another pair of hands appeared and held her thighs up by my ribs. Then another pair lifted her hips up and cupped her soft buttocks. Still another pair massaged her feet and ankles.  Finally, a single spectral mouth appeared and went to work sucking on her stiff clitoris.

Just as I was building up a steady rhythm, though, I pulled out. I didn't want to be on top of her. I wanted to fuck her doggy-style. I might not be our position, but I would pretend it was, for just a little while. I gestured for her to get down on all fours.

Mom stared up at me, eyes wide, smiled, and did as instructed.

The moan she let out when I slid back inside was alone nearly enough to finish me off.

It took a good deal more effort than superficially reading a Libido, but I looked closer, studying the shape and taste and color of her energy.

Once, I'd thought my mother had a taste for pain and humiliation. She'd insisted that what got her off was exciting powerful emotions in her man, whatever emotions those might be. Whether she'd been telling the truth all along or her tastes had changed since meeting Bobby, I'd probably never know. But just then, at least, I saw none of the darker energy I found in Grandma Kaitlin or, to a lesser extent, in Brianna. My mother's tastes were hardly vanilla, but she didn't want me to hurt her. She wanted me to want her, to need her.

Which I did. Didn't she get that?

I loved Brianna, yes. But I didn't need her. Not like I did my mother. And though Brianna knew a thousand and one ways to make a man cum, and no one would every say that sex with her was boring, I'd never, never, cried when entering her.

"I love you, Mom," I whispered as I slammed into her, all the way to the hilt.

The sharp change in her Libido told me that was a mistake. But before she could say anything, her climax overtook her.

It was not a violent, monster orgasm, like some of the ones she'd had already that evening. Rather, it was a long, slow, steady one. A moaner, not a screamer. She convulsed beneath me, slumping forward and resting her face on her arms. Before her breathing even settled back down to something approximately normal, she said, "You shouldn't say that, honey."

"I'm sorry. But I can't help it."

"That's sweet," she whispered. "But things are different now. Don't you see that?"

"They don't have to be," I said.

She rolled onto her back and stared at me. With pity.

"Can I cut back in?" Bobby asked.

Politely, of course.

He did everything politely.

Was that what had been missing? All that time I'd worried that I wasn't aggressive enough for her, and this was what she replaced me with?

"Just a minute," Mom replied. "My son did a number on me."

So we had another quick round of drinks.

When we started back up, I found it hard to concentrate. Sex was the best part of what Mom and I had. And, judging by what she'd said earlier, she felt the same. So I should have just focused on enjoying the hell out of it. But even with her full lips wrapped around my mushroom cap and her silky hair running through my fingers, all I could think about was the fact that she'd told me not to tell her I love her.

There was no hope of us rekindling our romance.

And it made sense. I didn't want it to, but it did.




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 07



######################
Part Three picks up where Part Two left off. Be advised that if you haven't read Part One and Part Two, the story may be quite difficult to follow.

This is primarily an incest story, but it is also sci-fi/fantasy, and supernatural elements are not incidental to the plot. Additionally, most chapters will feature elements of other categories, particularly group sex and anal.

All characters are over eighteen. All acts are consensual.
########################



We arrived back in Autumn, and I was getting ready for the next jump, when Brianna yanked her hand free of mine.

"So that's it?" she asked. "We're going to charge into one of the oldest courts in the Homelands, storm a castle, and demand that a lord who's far more powerful than either one of us release your niece and nephew? Just like that?"

I sighed. "When you put it like that, it sounds hasty."

My cousin rolled her eyes at me.

"You heard my mother."

"I did, yes."

I looked away. She didn't need to say it.

Could I be more of a mama's boy? My mother laid a guilt trip on me, and all of a sudden I was willing to do something profoundly stupid? To risk life and limb, just to avoid disappointing her?

No, not just for that reason. At least, I really wanted to think it wasn't. It was about Mel and Sean too. It was about doing what was right, for a change. Putting my family's needs before mine, instead of always ruining their lives, like I usually did.

"I guess we need a plan. But, yeah, we're going."

"Oh, I didn't meant to suggest we shouldn't," Brianna said, holding her hands up in protest. "But that plan thing sure sounds good."

I laughed, hugged her tight against my chest, and kissed the top of her head.

"So," she said, dragging the word out. "What's the plan then?"

"Um. I don't know. Hope we take him by surprise?"

"Some plan."

"That's pretty much all I've got. We go invisible, wait until we catch him with his pants down, literally, and then jump him. I don't care how powerful you are, if someone puts a gun to your head while your as vulnerable as vulnerable gets, you're going to pretty open to making concessions."

"Say it like that and it actually does sound like a plan," Brianna replied.

So that's what we did. No trains. No skeletal figures in hooded robes. No Supplicants' Hall. None of that bullshit. We teleported directly from the Fourth Autumnal Court into to Lord Furcas' throne room.

The room was empty. Which I suppose made sense, since Lord Furcas presumably wouldn't have had any reason to expect any visitors.

Holding hands to keep from losing each other, my cousin and I made our way through the dark halls of his monstrous castle. We walked slowly, careful not to let the sound of our footsteps give us away. Resisting the urge to race down the halls wasn't easy though. I'd just as soon not spend a second more in that place than I absolutely had to.

The tapestries depicted brutal scenes of rape, torture, cannibalism, necrophilia, and worse. There were grotesque statues everywhere, some of which had blood flowing out of their mouths or eyes or other orifices, pooling in broad basins beneath.

And there were a few paintings that was I pretty sure weren't made from canvas.

"This guy's got style," Brianna said dryly.

I wanted to laugh at that. Only Brianna. But instead I whispered for her to be quiet. No use going to the bother of making ourselves invisible if we were going to announce our presence in some other way.

As luck would have it, we hadn't been searching for but ten minutes when we rounded a corner and found Lord Furcas lounging on a stone bench. Two of his daughters were on their knees before him, pleasuring him. At the moment, neither has any extra arms or demon parts or anything. Aside from their blue skin, they could have been any other preternaturally beautiful denizen of the Homelands.

"You again?" Lord Furcas said, looking me dead in the eyes.

Well, shit.

So much for the invisibility.

Perhaps my plan wasn't much of a plan after all.

How could I have assumed that he'd be fooled by the simple little cloaks we'd conjured up? Lord Furcas might not have been the most powerful lord in the Shadowed Glade of the Moon, but even the weaker among them made the strongest of our kind look feeble.

Granted, I'd never heard of anyone seeing through that trick. But still. With beings as old and powerful as him, it was best not to take anything for granted.

What a damned fool I was.

"No, don't stop, baby," he whispered, putting his hand on the top of his daughter's head.

Then, to me once more, he said, "What do you want? You can see I'm busy, can't you?"

After a moment's hesitation, I transformed into a mythical beast, the way his daughter had taught me. A beast standing nearly nine feet tall, with sharp claws that were more than six inches long. I could crush a car with my fist, and snap a man in half with my jaws.

Lord Furcas laughed.

Nonetheless, I held a claw to his throat.

His daughters slipped away and pressed up against the wall. Out of the corners of my eyes, I noticed one getting ready to make a move.

Before she could, Brianna pressed the sword that just a moment ago had been her forearm against the girl's chest. Her other forearm, which had also turned into a blade, lined itself up with the other girl's navel, poised to disembowel her.

If Brianna had any practice using her powers for such a purpose, it was news to me. But, then, even though we spent most our time using our powers to pleasure one another, it wasn't really any more difficult to put them to a different use like this.

"Let my niece and nephew go," I said. It wasn't entirely intelligible, even to my ears, but I think he got the gist.

Lord Furcas stood up. My claws started to follow him, but he batted my arm away. He moved faster than I could have imagined. All I saw was a momentary blur.

"First of all, they aren't prisoners. They're free to come and go as they please. My understanding is that they intend to visit your lands next week."

Oh.

As if I didn't feel stupid enough to begin with.

Assuming, that is, that he was telling the truth.

But, unfortunately, I thought he probably was. What incentive did he have to lie? To keep me from hurting him? He didn't exactly look scared. No, his body language and tone of voice both suggested that he saw me as a nuisance rather than a threat. A vaguely amusing nuisance, at that. Which wasn't the least bit insulting or patronizing or anything.

"Second, while I might have been inclined to overlook the insult if you'd merely threatened me, the fact that your companion's got blades pointed at my daughters is not so easy for me to overlook."

Before I had any idea what was happening, I found myself lying flat on my stomach, with two strong hands wrapped around my throat. With a neck as thick as I had in this beastly form, it shouldn't have been possible to cut off my airflow like that. Not even for someone his size. But all the same, there I was, suffocating.

"So here's what we're going to do," Lord Furcas said. "I've got a sunlit whelp in my dungeons that I've been holding hostage for some months now. You and your woman are going to battle him to the death, for my amusement. If you live, it'll almost be like this never happened. Though I strongly advise you not to return here a third time. Ever. For any reason. On the other hand, if you don't feel like dueling for your life again, you can let me rape your woman before having my daughters pull her entrails out through her eye sockets. Your choice. What's it going to be?"

His fingers eased up just enough for me to draw a few gasps of air.

"We'll fight your fucking duel," I snarled. Then, feeling small and ineffectual anyway, I turned back from nightmare beast to man.

"Good," Lord Furcas said, before climbing off my back. "Girls, go get your brothers and sisters, will you? And tell Sebastian to bring that golden shit up from the dungeons."

"Yes, father," they said in unison.

Then one of them spat on Brianna, and the other called her "an ugly pink cunt" before the two left. Under different circumstances, that might almost have been funny.

We were now alone with a man who did indeed make Silas look like a newborn pup.

"I should warn you," Lord Furcas said as he settled back down onto the stone bench, "I brought Alex in myself. He won't be as easily dispatched as my poor late son."

"Wonderful," I said.

Brianna pressed up against me, wrapping her arms around my waist. I sensed no fear in her Libido. At all. I wished I could say the same of myself, but, truthfully, I was pretty damn terrified. Brianna though? She apparently felt nothing but excitement, bordering on sexual arousal. "Bring it on," she said.

Lord Furcas laughed. "This one is a real improvement over the one you had with you last time. She was weak, and stank of fear." His purple eyes turned to Brianna. "What's your name, and what are you doing with this loser?"

"Brianna," she said. "He's my cousin."

"Ah. My apologies. But we can't choose our family, can we?"

"Fuck off, asshole," she spat back.

Lord Furcas shrugged. "I'd offer you a drink, but, well, I just don't feel like being particularly hospitable towards you. I'm sure you'll understand. You did, after all, come into my home uninvited and threaten my life and that of my children." He stood up. "Take a minute to compose yourselves. Or say goodbye to one another. Whatever."

With that, he left us alone.

"Don't suppose we could just leave?" I asked.

"Sounds like the kind of guy who might hold a grudge," Brianna said.

That he did. And though he might ordinarily consider us so far beneath him as to be unworthy of his contempt, if we skipped out now, I could see him making an exception. I'd rather face his hostage now, knowing that a fight was coming, than worry about when Lord Furcas himself might show up to do the dirty work himself.

"Brie, I just want you to know-"

She pressed a finger against my lips. "We're not going to die. Don't say anything that would make it sound like you think we are. Whatever it is, tell me when we get out of here."

I gathered her up in my arms and kissed her. Long and deep. In fact, our lips didn't part until Lord Furcas ducked his head back around the corner and told us it was time.

He was wearing his armor again, but of the wicked axe he'd held when last I visited his castle, there was no sign. Even without it, he cut an imposing figure. Of course, my impression might have been colored by the fact that I now knew just how fast he could move, how extremely deadly he could be even when unarmed.

I tried to echo my cousin's stoicism as we marched into the throne room. But it was no easy task, what with the memories of the last time I'd dueled here. I'd barely escaped with my life. In fact, I'd only survived because his son had been reckless.

The whole Furcas clan was assembled. Most of them in the same exact positions as before. A few of them had transformed too. There was the six armed woman, who I realized was the one who'd spit on Brianna earlier.

Sean and Mel were there too. Though both refused to meet my gaze.

Neither looked like they'd been harmed in either way. But of course they hadn't been. Lord Furcas didn't seem to think I was worth lying to. So when he said that my niece and nephew could come and go as they pleased, he'd naturally been telling the truth.

As Lord Furcas took his place on his throne, one of his sons, the three-headed one with goat legs, led our opponent in.

The sunlit man had bright gold skin that shimmered in the torchlight. Though his hands and feet were bound in chains, he was anything but broken. He held his head high, and his broad shoulders were swept back, his powerful chest puffed out.

If there'd ever been any doubt in my mind about whether the original immortals were the inspiration for human myths about angels and demons, it vanished in that moment. Lord Furcas and the other denizens of the Shadowed Glade of the moon fit the bill well enough. But not the way this man reminded me of every cheesy painting of an angel I'd ever seen. Even without feathery wings and a glowing halo, it wasn't hard to see mortals worshipping him. Heck, it was almost surprising that we didn't all take a knee ourselves. Lord Furcas included. There was just an air about him, even in chains.

"Any brilliant ideas?" I asked Brianna.

"That wolf-thing seemed pretty bad-ass."

I shrugged and changed form.

For her part, my cousin summoned a half dozen floating balls of fire. They hovered in a cluster near one of her hands. The other hand turned into a sword, the same as before.

At his father's command, Sebastian unfastened the angel's chains. The golden man stretched his arms out, looking like a man who'd just climbed out of bed. Then he took up a swordsman's position, and before the absurdly oversized flaming blade even appeared, I knew that was what was going to happen.

"Care to rethink your strategy?" I said to my cousin. Or tried to. Speaking with a wolf's maw wasn't exactly easy. I have no idea if she understood what I said.

But it wouldn't have mattered. She wouldn't have had any time to react anyway.

The sunlit man probably didn't move quite as fast as Lord Furcas. But he came pretty damn close. I was only barely able to see what he was doing.

I leapt out of the way, hoping that it worked out better for me this time.

Which I'm not sure it would have, if not for Brianna tossing one of her fireballs.

He flicked it away with his sword the same as he would have if it had been a volleyball, but at least it meant his sword was busy doing something other than cutting into me.

I immediately reversed course and charged right at the guy. Thankfully, Brianna did the same, coming in at an angle after tossing another fireball directly at him.

Our opponent hesitated for a moment.

I could see the indecision on his face. I was closing in on one flank, my cousin the other, and a fireball was rushing towards his chest. There weren't many options for him.

He chose to leap towards Brianna, swinging his sword around as he did in a slow arc that would allow it to deflect the fireball before descending on her.

Even with the opening his brief hesitation brought, things might have ended badly, if not for Brianna's fireball. Not only did he waste time before deciding how to respond to our three-pronged attack, but he had to waste time swinging the sword around to the side rather than going straight for my cousin.

Before his slice could reach her, I landed on his back. With one claw, I cut his hand clean off. His sword, whose flame was instantly extinguished, went clattering across to the stone floor, before turning to smoke. With my other claw, I reached underneath and eviscerated him. Meanwhile, I bit a chunk out of his neck so large I nearly decapitated him.

Though, if I hadn't, he'd have been no better off, since Brianna's sword went in his face and came out the back of his head a split second later.

A chorus of jeers filled the throne room. But Lord Furcas only let his brood heckle us for a few moments before silencing them.

"Would've been nice if you drew things out a bit more," he said. "Gave us a bit of a show. But congratu-fucking-lations anyway." He turned to Mel and Sean. "Your uncle apparently thinks now would be a good time for you to go back and visit your family."

"Cool," Sean said. "That okay with you, baby?" he asked the blue-skinned beauty on his arm. I realized that she was the other one who'd been with Lord Furcas earlier.

The one who'd called Brianna an ugly pink cunt.

I remembered the name of the daughter Lord Furcas had said Sean was to marry. Rose.

She shrugged. "If you'd like."

Mel winced, squeezing her eyes shut tight. Whether it was me or her brother who had her ready to die of shame, I wasn't sure. Maybe both. But she eventually nodded.

"Go, or don't. Doesn't make much difference to me. But make up your minds. I'm tired of looking at these two," Lord Furcas said.

#

Todd and Holly had built themselves a house that would not have looked out of place in a typical American suburb, yet, by the standards of the Homelands, was quite modest.

"Is this how your nobles live?" Rose asked as we walked across the front porch. She stared in awe at the potted flowers. "How, um, charming."

"I'll talk to Dad about getting a blood-spewing statue put in," Sean said to his wife. That earned him an amused snicker.

As I knocked on the front door, I told myself to just pretend I hadn't even heard her comment. Or the one she'd made about Brianna earlier. Sean seemed to have some real affection for his new wife, and that was what really mattered.

My brother answered the door, looking irritated. Then he saw who all was with me, and something very much like a smile spread across his face. "Hey, hun?" he called out. "You might want to come out now. We've got visitors. You'll never guess who."

"Come out now?" I asked.

Todd looked at me and shook his head. Then he hugged each of his children and introduced himself to his new daughter and son-in-law, Rose and Troy.

A minute later, Holly joined us. Though her makeup was perfect, as always, her eyes were red and her cheeks puffy. She shrieked with joy and nearly knocked me and Brianna off the porch as she rushed towards Sean and Mel.

"And that's why I'm never having kids," Brianna whispered to me.

I snickered. "Well, in her defense, she had to have been worried sick-"

"That's exactly what I'm talking about," Brie said, slapping my arm.

"Oh," I said.

Of course. Did I need it spelled out for me? Todd and Holly had been fighting. She'd locked herself in the bathroom, where she'd been crying.

Brianna might blame motherhood, but I blamed myself.

Nonetheless, Holly pulled herself away from her kids long enough to come plant a kiss on my cheek and tell me I was an angel for bringing them back safely.

As if they'd even been in danger in the first place. Or wouldn't have come to visit her on their own if I hadn't decided to wage a surprise raid on Castle Furcas.

We slowly moved inside. Holly offered to fix us drinks. Once she got into the kitchen, she apparently decided she also needed to put out some food, because she started pulling stuff out of the fridge and fetching pots and pans and cutting boards from the cabinets.

Sean announced that he was going to take Rose and Troy on a tour of the house. That struck me as strange, since he'd never seen it, but he explained that the house was an exact replica of the one he and Mel had grown up in.

I probably ought to have guessed Todd and Holly would do that.

When Sean asked if Mel was going to join them, she replied that he probably remembered where everything was well enough himself, and that she thought she should help their mother in the kitchen instead.

Then, to my surprise, Brianna said she was going to help out as well.

"You? Help cook? Won't you get an allergic reaction?" I asked.

"Very funny," she said, rolling her eyes.

As she started to head for the kitchen, I grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back. She spun around to face me. I stared into her green eyes, sighing involuntarily.

Fuck, she was gorgeous.

How could I have been so wrong about her for so long? How could I have not noticed how amazing she was? How selfless she could be? How brave?

"Seriously though. I want thank you. You were great back there. And I-"

Brianna stuck her fingers her mouth and made a gagging sound.

My brother found that to be downright hilarious.

I was glad one of us did.

"It was nothing, Frank. No need to get all sentimental and shit." She turned to Todd. "He always does that." Then, back to me, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to try and make myself useful." She kissed me lightly on the cheek and headed for the kitchen.




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 07



"How'd that happen anyway?" Todd asked, jerking his thumb at Brie's retreating form.

I shrugged.

"Well. I guess you always were the first to get Dom's hand-me-downs."

I slapped his arm. "Jackass."

He laughed. "I'm gonna smoke a quick cig. Step outside with me?"

"Sure," I said.

Out on the front porch, Todd offered me a smoke as well.

I declined. We could smoke and drink and eat as much as we liked, and we'd never have to worry about our health. One of the many gifts of having the blood of angels and demons, or whatever the sunlit and moonlit folk were, running through our veins. But it just wasn't a habit I'd ever picked up, hanging out with nerds and pretending to be an academic. Smoking was, after all, one of the many issues on which academics and military guys tended to have slightly different views. And, for better or for worse, leaving the mortal world behind didn't always mean leaving mortal ways of thinking behind.

"Thought maybe you'd loosened up a little. That Brianna had helped get that stick out your ass," he said. Then, with a shrug, he added, "Suit yourself."

"Guess she's doing a bad job of being a bad influence," I said.

"Not entirely, from what Mom said." He whipped out his lighter and put a bright cherry on the end of the cigarette. "By the way. Holy shit, man. She was fucking pissed at you. Or maybe still is. I don't know. If I were you, I'd go see her after this."

"Yeah," I said. "You're right."

He clapped me on the back. "Now, me? I'm not mad. You hear the way my wife shrieked when she saw our kids? Like she was having an orgasm? I felt something then. Not sure how to describe it, really. Like a river that had run dry started flowing again. Or whatever. I don't know. But something inside Holly came back to life. Something that had gone cold."

"Her Libido," I said.

"Yeah, that," he said.

"How do you still not know these things?" I asked.

"I don't know, man. I haven't studied this shit, like some fucking nerds among us. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, things have been bad between us. Now, I'm pretty sure they won't be. So as far as I'm concerned, it's all good. Can't say the same for Mom, but you can at least be sure that you won't get anything but gratitude from me or Holly."

"The thing is, I don't really deserve that," I said. Then I told him what Lord Furcas had said. "Granted, another week there would have been the better part of a year here. So it's not like the trip was for nothing. But I didn't exactly pull them out of a fire."

"Whatever," Todd said. "You didn't know that. Neither did we. And to be perfectly fucking honest, I'm not sure I could have made it through a year or even a few weeks with things being the way they'd gotten between me and Holly. So you get my gratitude whether you want it or not. Deal with it."

I laughed awkwardly. "Okay then."

"For what it's worth, I think Mom's more upset that you told her she was being a bitch to Brianna than anything. She wanted me to think she was worried about my kids, upset that you didn't seem to think anything could or should be done for them, but I'm not stupid."

"So says you."

"Ha freaking ha."

"And, I never said Mom was being a bitch. I just-"

Todd waved away the rest of my comment. "Whatever. Argue about with her. I don't give a fuck one way or the other. Just trying to give you some advice, so maybe you can keep her from running your balls through the meat grinder."

"Thanks." I drew a deep breath. "Why is it that I feel like I'm the little brother?"

"Pfffft. Cuz you are."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, you've got a huge dick," I said. "And mine's tiny, right?"

"No, I'm not talking about that," he said. "I mean, yeah, of course, yours is pathetic, and mine's a work of art. We all know that."

I laughed. Same old Todd.

"But the point is, I'm really not the younger brother. I was born after you, sure, but I've lived longer. Holly and I spent twenty years in the mortal world, during which time you spent two years in the Homelands. That makes me older, unless they've changed the rules on math since I last checked."

"Fair enough," I said.

The argument was sound. But it still seemed odd to think of him as older.

"Anyway, enough about who's mad at you, who's not, and all that shit," Todd said. Then he took a long drag on his cigarette. The red tip seared, turning orange then yellow. "Let me ask you something. Should I be okay with not one but two of my children being married to these damn blue-skinned freaks?"

"They're not freaks," I said.

"Well, obviously I was speaking loosely," he said. "I mean, your kids are good-looking enough, and they certainly didn't get that from you."

I rolled my eyes.

"So, yeah, I'm not worried about having grandkids that look like smurfs. What I want to know is if the resident expert thinks that these moonlit folk can be trusted."

"I'm not an expert. And they're not all the same, man. Come on, now."

Suddenly I had flashbacks to conversations we'd had about politics back in the mortal world. Remembered the way Todd would judge people by the color of their skin or their nationality or their religion. We weren't talking about Islam and terrorism or race and unemployment or anything like that at the moment, but some things never changed.

"I can't tell you if you can trust Troy and Rose to be good to Mel and Sean. What I can tell you is that the more I think about it, the more I think things could have worked between me and Lily if I'd handled them better. So if Rose is like her older sister, then Sean could definitely have done a whole lot worse. But is she like her sister? Damned if I know. I haven't really got any more information than you do at this point."

Which was mostly true. I knew some things about Lord Furcas, though, and what little I did know about Rose didn't make me think particularly highly of her. That said, I wasn't confident enough in my assessment to risk prejudicing my brother against someone his son seemed to really care about. Todd was far too reluctant to change his opinions about people.

"Bullshit. I know you hate generalizations so much that you're not even comfortable saying that tall people and short people tend to differ from one another in terms of height. I get it. But you were married to their sister, and you've met their father, and you've seen their court. How can you say you've got no more information than me?"

I laughed. "I'm not that bad."

"You sure about that?" he interrupted.

"Anyway. For what it's worth, their father is a monster, and their court ain't pretty. So, yeah, there's cause for concern. But Lily was nothing like her father."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Todd said, "but Lily ran away from home, right?"

Was exiled, in fact, but near enough. I saw where he was going. "True. But Rose and Troy only just came of age. Lily was a bit older than them when she left."

Todd shrugged. "I guess we'll just have to convince Mel and Sean that they need to stay a little while then. See if I can't get a read on them myself."

Couldn't argue with that.

"On a different note," my brother said, "you need to go see Nat soon too. She's dying to forgive you, but too stubborn to do so until you give her reason to."

I jerked my head back a bit. "She is?"

"Don't be so dense," he replied. "She's always wanted the two of you to be closer. I can't say it bothered me that you never picked up on that, because I kinda like being her favorite brother, but, yeah. So. Swallow your fucking pride, tell her you realize that you've done a lot of shit you shouldn't have done, but you've learned your lesson now, and you're a changed man, and all that good stuff. Like I said, she already wants to forgive you, so it won't be that hard to convince her to do so."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said.

"Good," he said. Then he took the last drag of his cigarette and flicked the butt away. It evaporated into smoke in midair. "Shall we?" he said, gesturing towards the door.

I nodded and we went back inside the house.

We found everyone sitting at the dining room table. Bowls of chips and salsa had been laid out, and Holly informed us that a tray of lasagna would be coming out of the oven in a little while. Todd took a seat next to Mel and I sat down beside Rose.

The girl looked a lot more like Lily than I'd realized at first. She was a few inches shorter and lacked Lily's curves. In fact, she was much too thin for my tastes. But she had the same heart-shaped face, thin nose, and prominent cheekbones. Her hair was closer to violet, and where Lily's eyes had been purple, Rose's were blood-red. That latter point was somewhere between intoxicating and unsettling. But, besides the difference in hair and eye color, she looked the way Lily would have had Lily been more athletic.

Images flashed through my head. Some were memories of Lily that I'd like to forget, and others were ones I savored, but none were welcome at that particular moment.

"You really should have seen it, Dad," Sean, who sat on the other side of Rose, said to Todd. "The way these two fought," he said gesturing towards me and Brianna, "was just so freaking cool. She was tossing fireballs left and right, and Uncle Frank was some kind of man-wolf hybrid death-beast thing. Seriously awesome."

"Let's not get carried away, dear," Rose said. "They got lucky. Besides, it was two against one. I bet neither one could have taken him alone."

Her tone was polite enough, and she wasn't wrong on either point. We had been lucky, and it didn't seem likely that either one of us could have faced him alone. But I still found myself grinding my teeth together.

Lily had been plain-spoken to the point of being blunt too. Yet, with her, I'd found it endearing. Perhaps I needed to give Rose more benefit of the doubt though.

"I'm not sure that 'cool' was quite what we were going for anyway," I said.

"Speak for yourself," Brianna said.

A few of us snickered at that. Including Rose.

"I'm gonna have to try the fireball thing out next time we spar," Sean said his wife.

"What's that?" Holly asked.

Todd didn't say anything, but I saw the muscles in his jaw tighten.

"Rose is teaching me how to fight," Sean said, in a tone of voice that would have been appropriate for announcing that she was teaching him to paint. "She says that even though I'm foreign, I might be able to join the Brotherhood, if I get good enough."

Mel had started to shake her head at him, then covered her face with her hands.

"And what exactly is the Brotherhood?" Holly asked.

It finally dawned on Sean that his parents might not share his excitement. He looked confused by the revelation though. "They're like special forces for the Shadowed Glade of the Moon. Mostly they go on raids in the Eternal Garden of the Sun to rescue hostages and stuff. Though sometimes they have missions in the lesser courts."

"It's a position of great honor," Rose explained.

"Todd, honey, would you explain to your son-" Holly began.

"Don't you think you should wait until you've been there a while longer before making a decision like that?" Todd asked Sean.

"It's not like I've signed up," he said. "Just something to aspire to. For now, we're just training. There's no harm in that. It's fun."

"A lot of fun," Rose said in a voice that, for just a moment, made me forget her utter lack of curves and wonder what it would be like to see those red eyes staring up at me while I fucked the hell out of her.

I must not have been alone in noticing that. Everyone went quiet. Then Todd cleared his throat, turned his daughter, and asked, "And what have you been doing with your time?"

Mel shrugged. "Reading, mostly." She patted her husband's leg gently. "I don't get out much. But that's okay. I'm learning a lot."

"Every time my father sees her, he asks her why she isn't pregnant yet," Troy said, blushing. "I've tried telling him that we've decided to wait, and that neither of us wants to rush into that, but he doesn't really listen. To anyone. Ever. About anything."

"So what you're saying is that he's every bit as charming once you get to know him as he seems to be at first," Brianna said.

Another round of chuckles and snickers.

But not from Rose.

By the time we finished dinner, I found myself wondering why Troy hadn't run away from home, whereas it was clear that Rose was madly in love with their father. And though it didn't seem fair to think of it this way, I thought to myself that it was good that it was Mel who'd married the nice one. Not that Mel couldn't handle herself, or that Sean in any way deserved worse. But it still seemed fitting.

I also couldn't deny that Sean seemed happy with Rose. I found it harder and harder to convince myself that I wasn't giving her a fair chance, and I wasn't crazy about who she wanted Sean to become, but I had to admit that they were a good fit for one another.

Holly and Todd seemed to share my assessment. No one said as much, but there were lots of subtle cues that both my brother and his wife were already prepared to accept Troy, but had their doubts about Rose. Yet I also thought they too had noticed that Sean and Rose seemed to be really into each other.

Brianna didn't seem to be paying much attention to the unspoken vetting that was taking place. She kept tossing out one-liners but had little else to say otherwise.

It took a while for me to realize that this wasn't Brianna enjoying herself, it was Brianna busting out her defense mechanisms.

I pulled her aside after dinner, while Holly and her kids did the dishes.

"I'm sorry if I embarrassed you earlier," I said.

"What? Oh, when we first got here? Forget about it."

The tone in her voice told me I was being silly for even bringing it up.

But her eyes told me that she wanted to apologize for embarrassing me with the way she'd reacted when I'd tried to pay her a compliment.

I ran my hands through her hair, wondering how to get her to talk about what was really bothering her. Or if I even should. "So what do you think of Rose?"

She shrugged. "You mean besides the fact that she thinks I'm an ugly pink cunt? I suppose, setting that aside, I'd have to say...she seems like a real fucking bitch."

And then it clicked. How could I have not seen it earlier?

"I'm not crazy about her either," I began.

"And boy does it show," Brianna snapped.

I sighed. "If it was Josh that had married her, I'd say something."

"Oh, I get it. Because she married someone less important to you, that means she can treat me however she wants and you won't do anything about it?"

My hand left her hair. "That's not what I was saying."

Brianna crossed her arms under her breasts. "Sounded like it."

"I just feel like I've ruined the lives of enough people in my family. If Sean and his parents are going to fight about his wife the whole time he's here, I at least don't want it to be because of me. They can figure out on their own how to feel about her."

"So what you're really saying is I have to watch you be polite to that bitch because you want to have a clean conscience. That's just great, Frank."

I sighed. "Fine. You're right. I'll go talk to Todd."

She grabbed my wrist. "No, don't do that."

I raised an eyebrow at her. Then I let out a nervous laugh. "So you're not mad because I'm trying to pretend I haven't made up my mind about her. You're mad that it's not a whole lot harder for me to fake it."

"Maybe," she said, staring at her feet.

You could be forgiven for thinking Brianna didn't know the meaning of the word innocent, but damned if she couldn't fake it.

I wrapped my hands around her hips, pulled her against me, and kissed the top of her head. "But it isn't easy for me, baby. Troy seems okay, but I don't care for Rose at all."

"Really?"

"And I don't even care that you're trying pretty hard to convince Todd that things aren't all that serious between you and me."

Brianna dropped the cute and innocent look, reminding me that no one could do devilish the way she could either. "Noticed that, did ya?"

I gave her ass a playful smack. "What do you say we head out? Maybe conjure up a place to live and have ourselves a little house-warming party?"

"Why, Frank, are you asking me to move in with you?"

"Certainly sounds like it," I said.

Suddenly, I found my heart racing, even though I had no reason to doubt her answer.

My cousin went up on her tiptoes and plant a soft, fleeting kiss on my lips. Light though it was, it made my knees tremble. "We can't leave just yet."

"No?"

"I still haven't gotten good and fucked by Todd," she explained.

I gave her ass another smack.

She giggled. "Besides, I'm not crazy about sharing, and if you touch Rose, you can forget about sharing a bed with me tonight, but Holly and Mel are both dying to jump your bones. You should have heard them while we were making dinner."

"Now you're just fucking with me," I said.

"I wish," she said. "Don't let this go to your head or anything, but yeah. Holly asked me what it's like to get to sleep with you every day, and I almost felt bad telling her the truth. She also told me not to say anything, but the best sex she ever had was with you. She's totally in love with Todd, mind. Not like she has actual romantic feelings for you. But if you don't fuck her brains out before we leave, she'll be mighty disappointed."

"I suppose we can do something about that," I said.

My cousin studied my face. Or perhaps my Libido. But eventually she decided that I was not unduly excited about the prospect. "You have my permission to take good care of her. I guess the same goes for Mel, but if you decide not to bring your A game with her, I certainly won't complain. But, like I said, you better not touch Rose."

"Not a big fan of Mel either?" I asked.

Brianna shrugged. "She's fine. Under different circumstances, I think I could actually see myself really getting along with her. But I don't like the way she talks about you. Holly wants to get off, and knows you know how to make that happen. But Mel? I think she's borderline obsessed with you."

"What?"

"Oh, of course she doesn't show it when you're around. But you're like some kind of role model to her, I think. Especially now that she's married to Lily's brother. That really seems to mean a lot to her." Brianna shrugged. "Which is fine. Weird, but sweet." Her voice came down in pitch just a bit as she continued. "What's more troubling is that I'm not sure there's much she wouldn't do to impress you. And I don't think she's going to be content with getting a little bit of attention during a group session. She's going to be looking for some alone time before they head back to the Shadowed Glade, you can be sure. Someone needs to tell her that you've already got yourself a beautiful redhead as the captain of your fan club. You don't need another." Then, almost as an afterthought, she added, "And someone also needs to tell her that those boobs look ridiculous on that body. She's way too lean and muscular to have a rack like that. It's absurd."

I laughed.

"Don't laugh," she said. "I know you love big tits, but even you have to admit-"

I held up my hands in protest. "I'm not arguing. It's just funny."

She sighed. "Anyway, she probably has some actual, legitimate questions to ask. So if she wants to meet up with you at some point, that's fine. But it better not be just for sex."

"Are we telling each other who we can sleep with now?"

"No. I fully expect you to fuck her tonight. And if she wants to come over our place for a threesome sometime, I can get behind that. I wouldn't mind getting a little rough with her. I just mean that if she's going to expect to get you all to herself, it better be because she needs to ask you for advice about how to deal with her father or something."




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 07



"Got it," I said, before kissing the top of her head. "And, yes, they don't fit her body."

"Thank you!"

We kissed. Passionately. Then our hands started to get pretty adventurous. Just as it was getting to the point that I wouldn't have had the willpower to stop if we went any further, Brianna pulled away and said we should go rejoin the party.

The others were in the living room, watching a movie.

Brie and I sat on a leather sofa, next to Todd and Mel. On the other couch, Troy had his arm around his sister, and Holly was leaning against Sean. Everyone was actually paying attention to the movie, but it still seemed like it was only a matter of time before the fun started. The air virtually reeked of desire.

"Nice of you to join us," Mel whispered to me.

"Didn't realize we were keeping the party from starting."

"Kinda were, actually," she said, rubbing my pants.

"You could've started without us."

She stared at me for a moment, but she must have failed to come up with a good response, because the next thing I knew, my semi-erect cock was inside my niece's warm mouth.

Brianna patted me on the head, smirking, as she walked past on her way over to Todd.

Everyone else took that for a sign. No one bothered to turn the movie off, but a minute later, just about everyone was getting busy with someone.

There'd been a time I thought Mel was overly enthusiastic, and not particularly sophisticated. There was still some truth to that. She wasn't the expert tease that Brianna was, nor the all-around talent that Iva was. But she'd learned a few tricks since I'd last had the pleasure of being pleasured by her.

But I was keenly aware that Brianna was just a few feet from us. And I had no intention of risking my cousin thinking that I thought Mel was anywhere near as good as her. So I dampened my sensitivity.

Melanie wasn't as good as Brianna, of course. There was only one woman that I could honestly say sucked dick better than Brie, and that was Aunt Iva. And Iva could make people cum just by looking at them. It didn't take much to make my cousin jealous though.

Thanks to my self-numbing tactic, I still hadn't cum by the time Brianna and Todd were on their third position. Brie had gotten off a few times. Quite vocally.

That had sent a few pangs of jealousy through me, but I did my best to ignore them.

I probably ought to have been thinking, "Good for her."

And good for Todd, for that matter. Though he'd always been better looking, it hadn't taken long for all the women of the family to realize that I was the one who knew how to use our powers best. For all that Todd acted like he thought he was better than I was, I had to imagine that he was in fact more than a little jealous of me. Would it hurt anything to let him think, just for a little while, that he could play in the big leagues?

By the time my niece finally swallowed my load, Brianna had already tired of Todd and went to play with Holly. For her part, Holly had been abandoned by Sean, who was now helping his brother double-team Rose.

As Mel got ready to do for her father what she'd just done for me, I stared at the moonlit siblings. Troy wasn't as tall as his father, who was huge, but he was closer to that height than Sean's. Easily over seven foot. He wasn't nearly as built as his father either, but he was far from scrawny. He was also perhaps the first guy I'd ever seen wearing a ponytail that I didn't think looked like a complete idiot as a result. He had a shiny silver tribal tattoo that stretched from his chest over his shoulder and down his arm, stopping just at his wrist. It probably had some deeper meaning that was lost on me, but even so, I was more than a little impressed by it. The contrast between it and his skin, which was a deeper blue than that of his sisters, was striking.

Rose was less impressive. Seeing her naked only reinforced my belief that she wasn't nearly curvy enough. And she was a lot more ripped than I'd realized. Too skinny was one thing. Too muscular was entirely another. The fact that she had serious biceps, prominent tris, a full eight pack, and relatively modest breasts, was not doing it for me.

That said, I couldn't deny that her sheer sensuality held at least some appeal. She was getting fucked hard in both holes by her husband and her brother, and yet you'd think they were going easy on her by the way she taunted them. For a moment, I couldn't decide if I felt sorry for Sean or was jealous of him, seeing the way Rose pressed her forehead against his and stared intently at him while growling at him to fuck her harder. Staring into those red eyes must have made him feel like he was being immolated.

"Are you going to join in or what?" Mel asked.

I shook myself out of my trance and noticed that my niece was riding her father lazily while looking over her shoulder at me. She clapped her thick, meaty ass cheeks together a few times, as if I wasn't sure where she wanted me.

Mel had thicker muscles than Rose. At least, from the waist down. She didn't have the same arms and shoulders. Nor was she anywhere near as ripped. Plus, she had nice, big breasts. Brianna was right that they looked out of place on her. But if you put them on Rose, as lean as she was, they'd really have looked silly. Mel wasn't really my type, but she was a whole lot closer to it than Rose was.

As I watched her, I found my Libido soaring.

"Well?" she asked.

"Don't mind him," Todd said. "He's just a little slow."

Twice was enough.

I lubed her ass up then carefully worked my way past her sphincter.

"Oh, fuck. That's it, Uncle Frank," Mel moaned as she collapsed against her father's chest. "God, I've needed this."

Todd glowered at me over the top of his daughter's head.

Despite everything I'd told myself earlier about how he deserved to feel like he could satisfy Brianna just as well as I could, that felt good. I can't say I was proud of that. But there's just no fighting the competitive impulse that brothers share.

He'd have been more than happy enough to gloat if she'd said his name, after all.

Just to make sure there was no question in Mel's mind which of her two lovers was better, I summoned a few spectral mouths and kissed and nibbled her neck and ears, down her spine, and sucked on her ankles and toes. I was tempted to tend to her more sensitive parts as well, but that might have been simply too much. Besides, Todd was already working her nipples pretty good with his fingers.

"Yes, yes, just like that," Mel whimpered.

Her sphincter slowly contracted, loosened, then seized up again. My breath caught each time. Damn, it was tight. Beautifully, mind-numbingly, tight.

And though I typically preferred women with asses that were a bit softer than Mel's, such as my mother's, I couldn't deny that it was pretty damn nice to look at while I slowly slid in and out of her. Her cheeks were nice and thick and round. Mostly muscle, yes, but there was enough padding there that they rippled pleasantly each time I slammed into her.

I quickly realized that if I didn't numb myself again, I'd soon be blowing my load. So once more, I dialed down my sensitivity. I wasn't sure if Brianna was still paying attention, and surely she had to expect me to get off a few times, but being too cautious simply meant denying myself an orgasm or two, whereas not being cautious enough could mean spending the rest of the night fighting with my cousin.

After Mel's second monster orgasm, she suggested we switch positions, so that she could take her father in her ass and me in her pussy. But I decided that was as good a time as any to make my exit. I smoothed out her sweat-dampened hair, kissed the top of her head, and told her it was great to have her back in Autumn before heading over to Brianna and Holly.

"Are boys allowed at this party?" I asked.

Holly smiled up at me and flashed a thumbs up with one hand.

I knelt behind my cousin, spread her cheeks apart gently with my hands, and admired her womanhood for a few moments. She had a tight little slit, not puffy and prominent lips like some women. I wasn't sure which I liked better. Iva's labia were more of the latter type, and I'd never seen anything wrong with that. But as I stared at Brianna's modest little vulva, I can't say I'd have wished her folds to be any different than they were.

The little high-pitched whimper she gave at the first stroke of my tongue sent chills down my spine. My Brie had the cutest voice you ever did hear. Pleasuring her was itself a pleasure. Not only for that reason, of course. Her sweet juices, with their delicate cherry aftertaste, made it hard to stop.

But I knew she wasn't in the mood for too much foreplay. I could sense that she was aching to get fucked. And hard. If we were alone, I'd even have said she was in the mood for some real kink. The kind of stuff I still hadn't entirely admitted to myself I'd allowed to become a regular part of our repertoire.

So after just a few minutes of feasting upon her gorgeous pussy, I replaced my tongue and fingers with my stovepipe cock. Even after all this time, knowing that the women of our kind were not like mortal women, it amazed me that a tiny little thing like her could handle a cock as huge as I'd forced mine to be. I stared in awe as it disappeared inside her with each quick stroke. If it was possible to fit inside her at all, it shouldn't have glided in so easily. It made no sense. But of course it didn't need to.

Mel was a hot piece of ass. No doubt. And if Brianna would swell her breasts to the size of my niece's, I wouldn't have complained. But, all in all, this was where I belonged.

It was also nice to share Brie with a woman she seemed to be genuinely attracted to. When my cousin grew a dick, as I'd known she would sooner or later, she wasn't rough with Holly. And Holly had grown much more comfortable

with her powers since I'd last visited her. She didn't get too creative or anything, but the difference in stamina and the ease with which she accommodated both me and my cousin when we DP'd her were welcome changes. There was also no denying that Holly was painfully gorgeous.

But, of course, Holly was just the icing on the cake. It was Brianna I couldn't pull myself away from. All the other women were just distractions.

In fact, when Holly left us to go get more acquainted with her new son, I hardly even noticed. My cousin and I were the only two people in the universe.

Until, that is, Mel joined us.

Brianna smiled warmly and made room for her, sure. But I felt the change in her Libido. And when Brianna went shemale on my niece, she was anything but gentle, the way she'd been with Holly. She slapped my cousin's breasts like a boxer working a speed bag.

Mel's whimpers drifted towards cries of pain a few times, and if she bit down on her lower lip any harder, she was likely to break skin, but she didn't say anything.

I should have. I knew that.

But I couldn't bring myself to. It wasn't fair to say that Mel had asked for it by interrupting us. Not by any means. But even so, I found myself thinking that, if only as justification for why I allowed Brianna to treat Mel the way she was. The real reason, obviously, was just that I was afraid of my cousin.

I hadn't really realized that before, because I was in love with her. But it was true. Brianna still terrified me. Not the way she once had. But she did.

When I made Mel ejaculate wildly, without even intending to do so, Brie almost exploded. And that made me cringe.

If you'd asked me, I'd have said I was phoning it in. No supernatural flourishes. Nothing special of any kind. But for whatever reason, Mel had just really got into it. Maybe just because of the sharp contrast between the tender loving I was giving her compared to the aggression she'd been getting from Brianna a moment ago. I don't know. One way or another, my niece had the kind of orgasm most women only ever dream of experiencing.

Brianna simply gave me a cold stare and went to pull Todd away from Rose.

"I do something wrong?" Mel asked, still lying on her back. She wiped a lock of damp hair back from her forehead.

The way those magnificent breasts rose and fell as she fought for air was hypnotizing.

I really wanted to think they were too big. There was no question they were incongruous with her overall frame. But fuck if I didn't see that as a plus.

"No," I said. "It's me she's mad at."

"Because of me, though, right?"

I sighed. "Maybe. But it's still not your fault."

"I could say it wasn't good," Mel said, finally sitting up. "But I'd be lying. Even though I know you were holding back on me. Troy is convinced that us lesser immortals are basically as delicate as mortals, and he refuses to really give it to me the way he does his sister. It's nice to get properly fucked again. Or something close to it, anyway."

I smiled wanly. "How are things working out besides?"

"Fine. Great, actually. But we can talk more about that later. I have something I want to ask you. For now, though, you should try to get back into your cousin's good graces."

I nodded and thanked her.

At first, Brianna wasn't very receptive to my attempt to join in. And boy did Todd love that. But eventually her lust got the better of her anger.

In fact, the combination of the two made for some rather intense sex. That wasn't the kind I liked best, but my cousin felt that there was no sex like angry sex. Just then, I was grateful for that, because it meant that by the time we called it a night, she was so happy that she forgot she was mad at me.

Or so I'd thought.

The next day, she made me pay for it.

Whips, chains, pegging; the whole deal. She even tied me up in the corner for a few hours and made me watch as she fucked first Todd, then Troy, then the twins, then Josh, and then, best of all, Uncle Bobby.

It was brutal.



Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 08



######################
Part Three picks up where Part Two left off. Be advised that if you haven't read Part One and Part Two, the story may be quite difficult to follow.

This is primarily an incest story, but it is also sci-fi/fantasy, and supernatural elements are not incidental to the plot. Additionally, most chapters will feature elements of other categories, particularly group sex and anal.

All characters are over eighteen. All acts are consensual.
########################



When I closed my eyes and called to my mind my mother, a faint sense of direction came to me. There'd been a time when I'd have gotten a much stronger response, but I guess that was to be expected. Things weren't the same between us anymore.

One second, I was walking down the cobblestone path that wound its way through the garden in front of the cottage I shared with my cousin. The next, I was standing on the balcony jutting out from the back of my mother's manor house.

The balcony overlooked a beautiful garden. At the center of that garden lay a small pond, and at the center of the pond stood a statue. The kind of statue you'd never find in Castle Furcas. Carved of white marble and depicting a voluptuous woman. A ring of men, kneeling before her, formed the base.

"Oh! Hi, daddy," Val said from behind me.

I turned around, and found my daughter, my son, and my mother sitting at a glass table, drinking coffee. My mother wore a red dress, my daughter a white one with floral print.

My heart accelerated instantly. No matter how hard I tried to tell myself that I wasn't as obsessed with breasts as Brianna thought I was, seeing the way they both all but spilled out the tops of their dresses was almost enough to make me cum in my pants.

I wasn't sure where things stood between me and Mom romantically these days, but the physical attraction I felt towards her was every bit as powerful as it had ever been. I could only hope the same was true for her.

She flicked her wrist towards me and a fourth white chair appeared. "Nice of you to join us," she said. "Care for some coffee?"

"Please," I said, taking a seat.

With a gentle nod, Mom conjured up a ceramic mug. Wispy tendrils of steam rose from the black surface, telling me it was still scalding hot.

No, not still. She hadn't poured it from a pot or carafe or anything that had been sitting around, cooling off. If it was hot enough to burn any idiot who might have picked it up without thinking, that was because she'd wanted it to be that way.

"So, I hear you brought Mel and Sean back?" Mom asked.

"Something like that," I said.

I told the three of them what had happened when Brianna and I went to the Shadowed Glade. Val and Josh hung on my every word. But my mother wavered back and forth between being disinterested and disappointed.

Part of me wanted to explain to her that we wouldn't have rushed in without anything resembling a real plan if it hadn't been for the fire she'd lit under my ass, but I didn't.

We soon got to talking about Rose and Troy, which wasn't a topic that worked any more in my favor. If my mother was relieved to hear that Mel and Sean were both happy with their spouses, and that Todd and Holly genuinely approved of Troy, she certainly wasn't letting it show. When I mentioned some of the reasons I was way of rose, she also kept her thoughts to herself. But her facial expression said plenty.

"You think we can visit them after they go back?" Val asked. "Their court sounds scary, but I'd still love to see it." Turning to Josh, she added, "As long as you came with me."

"I don't think that's a good idea, dear," my mother said. "Though I suppose it's really up to your father."

I was going to say it was actually up to her and Josh. But not after that. "Maybe someday, honey. But for now, I have to agree with your grandmother."

Val pouted like only a daughter can pout. I wavered, and very nearly told her that she and Josh were old enough to make those kinds of decisions for themselves. If my mother wasn't staring me down, I might have. But I held firm.

I looked away from both of them, staring at the house. "Nice place you've got here."

"Have you been inside?" Mom asked.

I shook my head.

"It so happens it is nice, thank you very much," she said. "By the way, how is that lovely cousin of yours?"

"She's fine," I said.

"Grandma was just telling Val to forget what Brianna taught her about how to please a man," Josh said. "Seems to me she knows what she's doing, but I haven't had a chance to compare her to Grandma yet. Hopefully we'll be fixing that soon?"

My mother flashed a quick smile at Josh before staring a challenge at me.

"Well, she asked me who I've been with so far," Val explained. "And I told her about the time we came and visited you two. And how your cousin taught me how to give a blowjob."

I gave my mother a flat look. "So you didn't enjoy it any of the oh so many times Brianna sucked your dick? Is that what you told my darling daughter?"

I didn't dare say she was wrong, but just then, I wasn't exactly in the mood to let her swipe at my cousin go entirely unchallenged.

My mother shrugged. "I'm sure she's very talented. She must be, since all you boys seem so obsessed with her." She turned to my daughter then. "But remember what I said. There's a difference between the girl guys like to fuck when they're sowing their wild oats and the one they'll decide they want to spend the rest of their lives with." Mom's brown eyes turned back to me. "All I'm saying is it's no surprise that Brianna never had any children. Or that she's never managed to hold on to the same guy for long."

Conveniently enough, Mom failed to mention that the primary reason my cousin hadn't been able to hold on to Dom was that Dom had been Devoured. She also failed to mention that there had been a time when my mother had only had eyes for her eldest son, yet she couldn't have him because he'd chosen Brianna.

I let that slide though. After all, my alleged purpose for coming here was to start trying to patch things up. The one little riposte I'd struck was probably too much already.

"You want to be careful with that way of thinking though, baby," I said to Val. "There'd been a time that I believed it when all my female friends told me that women would appreciate me when I was older. You know, after they got the whole chasing after bad boys thing out of their system. But while it turned out that they were right, it hasn't been for the reasons they had in mind." I paused to let that sink in. "Now, it's different with mortals, but, with us, the lustful part of the equation never stops being important. No one's looking for someone to grow old with, after all, since none of us ever grow old."

Val looked to Josh, who simply shrugged.

"It's probably also different for men than for women," I continued. "I've never heard a man talk about how hard he gets when women show how decisive they are, for example. No matter how long I live, I'm not sure I'll ever quite understand why women use that word as if it's pornographic. Men care more about superficial stuff, I suppose. Anyway, the point is, while your grandmother is probably right that there's a distinction between the girl a guy wants to fuck and the girl he wants to spend the rest of his life with, you might not want to assume that it's always the sugar and not the spice that boys like best."

Val's face betrayed no reaction. She looked from me to my mother and back to me again.

Mom kept silent though.

My daughter seemed to find that fascinating.

English majors do love their subtext.

"Well, sure," my daughter said at last. "But isn't there a difference between the kind of sex you want to have when you're with some random girl compared to the love of your life?"

My mother stared flatly at me. "Good question. Is there?"

"Of course there is," I said.

Josh nodded emphatically. "Yup. Definitely."

I sipped my coffee and pretended not to notice that it was painfully obvious that both women wanted me to elaborate.

There was really no way to continue the conversation without getting myself into trouble. I certainly wasn't about to compare Brianna's style to that of my mother.

"I don't know that I want to be too much like her anyway," Val said, at last. "Aunt Holly says that Brianna likes to grow a...a cock...and fuck women with it. Probably men too, if they'd let her. Talk about gross!"

My mother snickered.

Val looked down at her lap. "I just can't even...no, no thank you."

Perhaps I should have played it off like that disgusted me too.

At one time, it would have.

But I simply shrugged. "Stay in the Homelands long enough, you may come to look differently at things that gross you out now."

"I don't know," Josh said. "I think I've got to side with the women on this one."

I'd had about enough. "Have you had any experience with other women yet?" I asked my daughter.

Val blushed, dark blue circles forming in her cheeks.

Fuck, that was cute.

I probably should have thought it weird. But the faint reminder that she was less removed from the first immortals than the rest of us sent a shiver down my spine.

"Well?" my mother asked her, sounding genuinely curious.

"Only a little," Val said. "Just Aunt Holly, earlier this morning. At first we took turns with Josh and Uncle Todd. But at one point, the two of us played with each other a bit too. It was awkward, but...okay. Doesn't really compare to being with a man. But as long as she wasn't too pushy about it, I could see myself enjoying a woman again."

"Holly's certainly beautiful," Mom said. "And I'd expect her to respect your boundaries."

My daughter nodded enthusiastically. "She totally did. She was very sweet about it."

"It was pretty fucking hot, I have to say," Josh added.

Val blushed.

"If I went the rest of my life without tasting another pussy, I don't think it would bother me," my mother said. "But, with the right woman, it can be fun."

"Well, if you're not gonna say it," Josh said, looking at me, "I will." Then he looked at my mother. "I'd love to see you teach Val how much fun two women can have together."

"I bet you would," she said with a laugh.

My daughter fretted at her lower lip. "Would it be weird if I said I'd like that too?"

Mom reached across the table and laid her hand atop Val's. "No, sweetie, it wouldn't be weird." Her hand retreated across the table, and I thought she was going to explain why it still wasn't going to happen. But she simply pushed her chair back, stood up, and said, "Shall we move inside?"

No one objected. Naturally.

When I saw how her bedroom was decorated, it wasn't easy resisting the temptation to make a snotty remark  The rugs, bed covers, and drapes were all striped fur. Black on white.

Like a snow leopard.

I wondered who might have suggested that particular theme?

My mother's dress unzipped itself and fell to the floor as she walked over to the stone fireplace. She placed a few logs inside, stood up, bent down and added a few more, then turned and made her way back to the bed. A fire leapt up behind her, as if of its own accord.

"Go on," I said, with a hand on the small of my daughter's back. "Don't make her send you a special invitation. She doesn't like that."

Val smiled up at me nervously. She went up on her tiptoes, kissed my stubbled cheek, and then padded over to the bed, pulling her dress up over her head.

While I'd never quite understood why some men thought that there was nothing sexier than watching two women together, I found myself getting really turned on. Especially after my mother got my daughter to show her what she looked like with her natural skin color.

It was strange, seeing her like that. Her skin was the lightest baby blue, her hair the darkest indigo that failed to qualify as black. Just like Lily. And a lot like Rose.

That gave me a slight shudder. I didn't want to admit it, but Rose was Val's aunt, and there was more than a passing resemblance between the two. In the face, at least. Val's figure was more similar to that of her mother or even her grandmother. But, yes, from the neck up, she and Rose looked quite a bit alike.

"Is it gonna freak you out if I start beating off?" Josh asked. "I don't think I can hold out much longer. This is too fucking perfect."

I laughed awkwardly and told him to help himself.

He waited a little longer before breaking down, but not much.

Myself, I wasn't quite at that point yet. But I couldn't say it was doing nothing for me.

It probably would have been even better to see Val with Josh, rather than my mother. The idea that my children had found in one another what I'd never quite found in my mother, no matter how much I'd hoped that I would, was just about the most satisfying thing in the world. I'd never have guessed that would have been true, back before I knew them. When Lily and I had planned to have children, fatherhood was just an abstract idea to me. But now, I understood why it had freaked Lily out so much when I'd proposed making them our vassals. The very idea of using my children to build myself up, rather than giving of myself for their happiness, seemed nothing short of monstrous.

As much fun as the two women were having, though, and as beautiful as they were, it was definitely a sight to behold. They each had such luscious curves. Such inhuman proportions.

By the time my mother had my sweet, innocent little girl muttering every swear word known to man, I'd followed my son's lead and started jerking off. It was impossible not to.

Josh and I had each blown our loads by the time the women invited us to join them.

I split myself in two, so that Josh and I could give my mother all the attention she demanded even while I gently seduced my daughter.

There was no need to look at my mother's Libido to know that she was plenty warmed up, and was ready to have a stiff dick inside her. So without wasting any time, I started fucking her doggystyle. Meanwhile, she hungrily swallowed her grandson's cock.

Josh's eyes rolled back inside his head. That made me smile. My son might not be getting her best, but he was still in for a treat. Mom knew how to please.

Meanwhile, with Val, I started at square one. She was shy, and it took some coaxing to get her to open her legs or to take her hands away from her breasts. But, in time, I had her thrashing about, moaning and swearing, as I guided her through one orgasm after another after another.

She either wasn't as comfortable with her sexuality yet as other women in the family, or wasn't comfortable letting her father know that she was. One way or another, it took more effort to satisfy her than I was used to. But I didn't mind. I just wanted her to enjoy herself, at whatever pace worked for her, no matter how slow.

And, maybe, I liked the challenge.

For that matter, I was enjoying the slow treatment myself. It made a nice contrast to the furious pounding I was giving my mother with my other body. Besides, my daughter had an absolutely divine. Like her grandmother. I couldn't get enough of her delicious curves.

She tasted sweeter than most of the women of our kind, all of whom had at least a hint of sweetness to them. Maybe not quite as sweet as Holly and her peppermint candy cane aftertaste, but certainly more so than my mother or Brianna or the other women I was most accustomed to pleasuring. There was a hint of raspberry, as there was with my mother. But it was mixed with white chocolate rather than blackberries

An hour or so later, after Josh and I fucked each of the women in each of their holes many times over, the two younger Orwins got to the point that they needed a break.

But my mother and I were just getting started.

Josh and Val crawled out of bed, summoned a bottle of wine, and sat cross-legged beside one another in front of the fire. They held hands and sipped their wine slowly as they watched me and Mom go at it.

We started off slow this time. I kissed my way up from her feet to her hips before looking up to meet her eyes.

"She's not you," I said, daring not even name my cousin. "Will never be you. I won't lie and say my feelings for her haven't evolved, and in a direction you'd prefer they hadn't. But there will only ever be one woman who makes me feel like it would be better for the world to end than for her to know even a moment's sadness."

"That's just a little hyperbolic, don't you think?"

"I suppose," I said.

My mother laid a finger over my lips. "I get it. But we can talk later."

There was no other way to respond than to kiss her.

I'd teased my mother before. But not in a way that could have prepared her for how I took my sweet time worshipping her just then.

I didn't make it torturous. At least I hoped not. The point was just that I needed, for me as much as for her, to savor every flick of the tongue, every kiss, every caress. I refrained from using my powers too much. A little brush of her Libido here, a brief heightening of her sensitivity there, but no additional hands or mouths assisted me in pleasuring her. Not yet.

Working as slowly and deliberately as I was, I not only had the chance to savor the feel of her, but also her taste, her smell, and the delightful sounds she made. The delicate bumps of her spine, her gently protruding hip bones, and the backs of her knees received just as much attention as her huge breasts, her stiff nipples, and her round ass cheeks.

When, at long last, I made my way between her legs, I thought she was going to snap my head off. Her thighs wrapped around my head and squeezed tight. Apparently afraid I might not have gotten the message, she pressed both hands against the back of my head and bucked her hips up against my face.

Dimly, I was aware that my son was fingering Val while she slowly jerked him off. Their soft whispers offered further encouragement to bring the act to a close.

But they couldn't break my concentration. I'd resolved to enjoy this as much as I could, and that was what I was going to do. My mother's powerful thighs might have been able to pop my skull like a grape, but it was I who was in control.

Ever so slowly, I guided my mother to a monster orgasm. The kind that had her ejaculating halfway across the room.

"On your stomach," I said to her as her orgasm faded. It took no small measure of will to resist licking her stiff clitoris one more time as the final reverberation passed through her Libido, but I behaved myself.

Chest heaving, my mother nodded. But it was only after she'd taken a few more deep breaths that she rolled over. She started to raise her hips up, but I smacked her fat ass hard enough to send her back down onto the bed. Mom whimpered and gave her hips a little wiggle, making those beautiful white orbs jiggle for me. After that, she lay still and waited for me to take her as I would.

"Do it," Val whispered from by the fireplace.

"Fuck her. Fuck her good," Josh said.

I did exactly that.

I wasn't rough. Didn't bite or scratch or call her names or anything like that. But I held her legs tight with mine own pressed against hers and jackhammered her pussy like no other man could have. Even among our kind, it would have taken great power to manage the speed I achieved. And those rapid strokes were anything but faint. Her fat ass offered the sweetest resistance, and my hands dug into them, kneaded them, squeezed them together while my cock surged back and forth. I wasn't sure whose moans were louder, hers or mine.

"That's it, baby, show Mommy how badly you need her," my mother panted. Soon enough, though, he words turned into indecipherable grunts and moans.

I didn't need her to tell me not to hold back. I'd opened the cage, and the beast that had escaped wasn't going to be tamed again anytime soon.




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 08



Josh and Val might have hit a second wind at that point. I wasn't sure. I no longer had the ability to care. My entire universe consisted of me and my mother.

When her walls seized up, gripping my cock so tight it almost felt like an assault, she launched another attack on me besides. The latter was purely metaphysical, though.

The energy she poured directly into my Libido hit me so hard that it felt like a physical blow. Much as I'd hoped to hold out longer, that was all I could take. The way her thick ass cheeks pressed against the base of my shaft, relaxed, then clapped against me again, combined with her quivering lips, relentless inner walls, and supernatural stimulation, pushed me over the edge. The muscles in my back, thighs, and ass went wild. My balls leapt up and down as I poured cum inside my mother's womb.

Being inside her felt so good, I didn't want to pull out. But the sight of my cum glistening atop her pale skin was always worth seeing. So I prolonged my orgasm. After filling her womb to overflowing, I slid out and jerked a few more ropes onto her back. Assisted by the furious pumping of my fist, some of it reached all the way up into her black hair. With each jet that landed, my mother purred in delight.

"Oh my," my daughter whispered.

I grunted something along the lines of acknowledgment.

"It's like you're using her back as a canvas," my daughter continued. "And the way you're both glowing in the firelight. It's so beautiful." She drew a deep breath. "How are you still cumming? It's...I feel like I should think it's gross, but it's really turning me on." She hesitated, then turned to her brother. "I want you to cum on my face like that."

"You sure?" he asked.

"Mmm-hmm," she said. "Abso-fucking-lutely."

"I'll see what I can do, then," he said, laughing.

Lying flat on my back, I asked my mother to mount me.

"What's that, dear?" Mom asked.

I groaned. "Please?"

"Can't hear you."

"I need you," I said.

"You just had me. And you seemed to enjoy yourself." Mom cleaned herself up before getting up on all fours and crawling over to me. "Are you sure you can handle more?"

"I don't know if I can handle it, but I'm damn sure that I can't handle you saying no."

My mother straddled my hips and guided my hands up to her huge breasts. My fingers brushed lightly over her nipples once, twice, thrice, then pinched them lightly and rolled them back and forth. Meanwhile, my mother descended slowly, letting her smooth, pink lips approach my cock. Just as she touched against me, she whimpered and pulled back up. Her breasts stayed in my hands, but my cock was suddenly very lonely.

"Please," I said.

"Mommy's tired, honey. Maybe you should ask Brianna to help you out."

"Fuck Brianna!"

Mom giggled. This time, when her swollen lips came into contact with me, she took me with her hand and slapped my cock against her a few times before guiding me in.

I gasped.

You'd think I hadn't just been inside her a moment ago. But she felt that good. Her warm embrace was something I couldn't live without.

While she worked those amazing hips that couldn't have belonged to a woman with that waist, I groped her ass. It was getting to be time to bring a few bells and whistles out. Another pair of hands appeared. Then another. Soon, we were going all out.

Not long after, we climaxed together, screaming and cursing and shaking. My mother's fists pounded my chest before opening so she could squeeze my shoulders. Myself, I thought I might pull a muscle, so intense was my orgasm.

When the world stopped spinning, I saw that Val and Josh had indeed found some extra energy after all. They must have, since they climbed back into bed with us.

This time, both my mother and I wore extra bodies.

We wore my kids out a second time. But they lasted a lot longer than I expected.

Naturally enough, Mom and I kept at it for a while after Val and Josh left.

Eventually, though, even we needed to stop.

Once we did, she gave me a tour of the manor house. It was indeed quite impressive. But I was too lost in a euphoric fog to take much of it in. When we went back out onto the balcony, drinking tequila instead of coffee, and watching the sunset paint her garden a dozen different colors, the fog started to lift. Slowly, the ability to form actual thoughts returned.

"So, how are things with Bobby?" I asked.

"Frank."

"Do I sound upset? I'm just asking. Honestly. Are you happy?"

My mother sighed. "Well, here's what I told your daughter earlier, when she asked the same thing." She knocked back the rest of her tequila and poured another couple of fingers' worth into the glass of ice. "With you, I get to climb to the highest heights. When it's good, it's so good. No one knows how to please me the way you do. But no one knows how to hurt me the way you do either." With an outstretched hand, she preemptively silenced me. "I know you don't mean to. And with how we used to fight about the way I'd let guys hurt me, that must be hard for you to hear. But physical pain is nothing, sweetie. Especially not for our kind. It only lasts as long as you let it. Emotional pain? That refuses to go away. And whether it's intentional or not, you've inflicted more than a little of that kind on me."

I nodded. I didn't like hearing it, but I knew it was true.

"With Bobby, things are always good. Not great. But good. And that's something."

"So. What do we do now?" I asked.

Mom shrugged. "Nothing, I guess. We've both got good things going. She makes you happy. Bobby makes me happy. Why rock the boat?"

"She does," I said.

"Of course, if she happens to fall off a cliff, I might not shed too many tears."

Part of me wanted to take offense at that. But she didn't really mean it. And if she did feel some hostility towards my cousin, well, did I feel any different about Bobby? And was he any more deserving of it? As far as I could tell, he was just about the nicest guy ever. A little boring, perhaps, but if that was the worst you could say about someone, it said a lot.

"We can still see each other. But I think we should stick to a physical relationship."

"You're probably right," I said. A little bit of me died as I did.

"On a different note," Mom said, "I've been talking to your sister a lot. About the past. Stuff I never felt comfortable talking to you about, because I was afraid of how jealous you'd get of your grandfather."

I started to protest, but thought better of it. It didn't seem all that important anymore. And it clearly wasn't the point she was trying to make at the moment.

When she saw that I was going to hold my tongue, she continued. "Your sister's trying to figure out how much she can trust Iva, which obviously means that she needs to know how to feel about Kaitlin."

I nodded. True enough, unfortunately.

"Anyway, it turns out that I don't remember everything I thought I did. I think I can feel that something in there is locked away. I have no idea what it is that I'm not remembering, but there's a memory that's been sealed up in a vault. Like your father and I did to you. I'd like you to help me unlock it."

"I'm not sure I know how, but I'd be glad to try."

"You're going to relive whatever it is. At least, I think you are. I did, when your cousin and I unlocked your memory. That might just be because I was there, but I was remembering it from your point of view. It was weird. Exciting, of course, but also disorienting."

"I can imagine," I said.

"You might not like what you see. Like I said, I don't know what it is, but if my father's involved, it could be tough for you. Especially seeing it from my point of view. I haven't made a secret of the fact that he was important to me, but it could be hard feeling what I felt. Do you think you can handle that?"

"I don't know how I'm supposed to know whether I will or not. But if it's something that Nat might need to know, then I guess I'm going to have to."

My mother frowned, took another sip of tequila, then nodded. "Okay. I hope it isn't too bad. But, like you said, it could be something your sister needs to know."

We did another shot each then decided to give it a go.

At first, it felt no different than the time I'd gone inside my cousin's head. But after a minute or so, I found the vault. I couldn't make any sense of anything else that was floating around in there, but that much at least was unmistakeable.

It took a great deal of energy, but very little time, to unlock it.

#

I stood in the garden behind the royal palace with my two sister.

"What do you suppose he wants to tell us?" Liz asked us.

"Nothing good," Tara said.

I was afraid she was right. Before I could respond, though, our father appeared beside us. And the look on his face said it all.

Liz burst into tears immediately.

I was too shocked to do the same, though I was vaguely aware that I should have.

Tara simply stammered, "No, no, no," over and over again.

Daddy gathered all three of his daughters up in a group hug. "We need to discuss how we're going to respond," he said.

He didn't even say it. Didn't need to. We all knew.

Our mother was dead, and Kaitlin had seized the throne. It was a moment we'd been dreading for months. Years, even, though it was only recently that it had begun to feel inevitable. Yet, now that it was here, I had no idea how to react.

My mother, a woman who'd lived for nearly two centuries, was dead.

"We need to get revenge," Tara said.

"I agree," Daddy said. "But now that she's Devoured both your mother and your uncle, I don't know that I'm a match for her. And I won't risk leaving you girls orphaned."

"Oh, god," Liz wailed, burying her face into Daddy's chest.

"She has a daughter," Daddy continued.

"Cindy?" Tara asked.

"No, another one. A younger one. Who isn't even of age yet," Daddy said. "Not only wouldn't she stand a chance, but I think that might hit Kaitlin harder. The question is whether we can live with ourselves if that's how we decide to strike back."

"Absolutely," I said, before I even realized that my tongue was working again.

Liz stared at me aghast. Then she turned to our father. "No, Daddy. No. It isn't worth it. An innocent young girl?"

"Innocent? She's a Farrier," Tara snapped.

"But she doesn't even know what that means yet," Liz said.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "Just because our parents kept everything secret from us until we were of age doesn't mean Kaitlin has done the same."

"So what if she hasn't?" Liz asked, stepping back from the rest of us. "We're not really having this conversation, are we? It was Kaitlin that wronged us. Kaitlin who took our mother away, and our uncle to boot. Kaitlin. Not her underage daughter!"

"True enough." His voice suggested that hers was just one way of looking at it.

Tara crossed her arms under her breasts. "Let's put it to a vote. I say yes. El?"

I nodded.

"No," Liz said. "No, no, no. A thousand times no."

"No," our father said.

"What?" Tara asked, whirling on him. Her blood-red hair flared out behind her. "I thought you were...why'd you even ask then?"

"I was willing to do it," he said. "If we all agreed. But this can't be a majority decision. It has to be unanimous. I won't ask any of my daughters to live with this otherwise."

Tara stomped her foot and thrust her hands out before her. "Then make Liz see reason!"

"You all are the ones being unreasonable," Liz said.

"Think about Mom," I said.

"I am. She wouldn't want this." Liz turned to our father. "You know she wouldn't."

Our father sighed. "You're probably right."

"Then we go to war," Tara said. "However strong Kaitlin is, she can't take all of us."

"No," our father said again, turning his back to us. He kicked a pebble, which soared several dozen yards before landing in the lake out at the edge of the palace grounds. "I won't risk any of your lives. This family has lost too much to the Farriers already. We get our revenge safely or we don't get it at all."

"Fuck! Liz, come on. You can't just let her get away with it," Tara said.

"I can get behind a group attack on Kaitlin," Liz said. "It's not like I'm trying to protect her. I just don't think we should punish an innocent child for her mother's crimes."

I pressed up against my father's back and ran my hands over his shoulders. They were so tense. I wished I could take all the stress and the pain away. I hated seeing him like this.

"It's got to be peace then," he said.

"What?" Tara asked. "Is that a fucking joke?"

How would he react if I went and killed this younger daughter myself? Liz wouldn't have to know. Wouldn't have to feel like she'd allowed it to happen.

Could I do that?

What if it upset him though? What if he thought it was unfair to Liz, even if she didn't know about it? I wasn't sure if I could live with actually doing it, but there was no question that I absolutely couldn't live with my father being mad at me.

He turned around and pressed me against his chest. His hands ran through my hair. They were such strong hands. Everything about him was strong. He was the perfect man.

Was some small part of me glad that Mom was gone? He'd been in love with her, after all. Truly in love. Now maybe he could finally be mine.

I hated myself for thinking it. But I knew straight away that it was true. I was hurt, and upset, and devastated. But, yes, I was also a little relieved.

"He's right," Liz said. "If we're going to leave Kaitlin on the throne, we'd better make peace, and do it quick. Before she guesses, correctly, that we'd be willing to hurt her family."

"This is insane," Tara said. "We're not only going to let her get away with taking Mom from us, we're going to bend the knee, swear fealty, and beg for mercy?"

"No one's talking about begging," Daddy said.

Maybe I wasn't actually relieved that Mom was dead. I was just too stunned to think straight. That had to be it. I couldn't really be that kind of woman. Could I?

"So what are we talking about?" Tara asked.

"One of you is going to have to marry her son."

Tara howled with laugher.

"I'd do it. In a heartbeat. If I wasn't already married," Liz said.

"So divorce that loser!" Tara said. "He's just a mortal. Would you even miss him?"

"What do you say, sweetie?" Daddy asked me.

Me.

The man of my dreams was finally single, and he was asking me if I'd marry another man. A man whose mother had killed my mother.

"Better you than me, I'll tell you that much," Tara said.

"If that's what you want me to do," I told my father.

"I know it's asking a lot," he said. "Too much, probably. But it might mean the difference between Kaitlin seeing us as a threat and not."

I stared up into my father's handsome face. Those gray eyes, that red-brown beard, those deep wrinkles etched into his otherwise tight skin that made him look like he was carved from stone. Was there anything he could ask me to do to which I wouldn't say yes?

"It's okay. I'll do it," I said.

"I knew one of my sisters was sane," Liz said.

"Fuck you," Tara said. "She wouldn't have to, if you'd said yes to the first proposal."

"How would that have convinced Kaitlin not to go after the rest of us? Where does that spiral of hate and revenge end? With all of us dead?"

"All of the Farriers, at least," Tara said.

I ran my hands up and down my father's torso. His hard body, rippling with muscle, made my skin tingle. Made my juices flow. Maybe it was just the grief needing a distraction, a release, but I suddenly wanted him inside me worse than I ever had before. 

"Then it's settled," he said, eyes locked on mine. "Girls, come give your father a hug," he added, looking up at my sisters. "We need to set this ugly episode behind us."

And then, he was inside me. But not in that way. His fingers were in my head.

#

I nearly fell over.

"Frank? Baby? Are you okay?"

Why was I asking myself if I was okay? And why did I think my name was Frank?

No, wait, I was Frank. And that voice wasn't mine, though it was the voice with which I'd spoken just a moment ago. That was my mother. I'd been her, for just a few moments. Had relived a memory of hers. A memory Grandpa Dick had sealed it away.

So that she wouldn't remember what she'd agreed to do.

To Iva.

Back when Iva was a child.

All this time, I'd thought it had been my mother's idea to marry my father.

To be fair, she had agreed to it readily enough. But still. It had been Grandpa's idea. He hadn't been itching for war, like she'd once told me.

What had happened when she'd Devoured him then?

Was it possible that my mother had lied to me?

Was it possible to think that she hadn't?

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" she asked. "I mean, some of that is a little embarrassing. But I wasn't really glad my mother died, you know. When I finally came to terms with it, I cried my eyes out. And besides that, it was pretty okay, right?"

I drew a deep breath.

She didn't think it looked bad that she'd considered killing an innocent child.

But she'd been in shock. Hadn't been thinking straight. And in the end, she came around to Liz's way of thinking. I couldn't really blame her for that.

No, there were no real bombs dropped there. I'd always suspected Liz was the good one and Tara the bad one, with my mother in the middle. Perhaps I felt even worse about what had happened to Liz now. Wished that I'd gotten to know her better. That she was still alive. That if I wasn't going to be with my mother, I could be with her, instead of her daughter. But Mom? No reason to see her differently.

Besides the fact that it seemed obvious that she'd lied about the circumstances under which she'd Devoured her father, that is.

But no. I didn't actually know that. Maybe Grandpa had wanted to kill Grandma Kaitlin that time, even if he hadn't after she'd Devoured Grandma Noreen. After all, the only reason he objected that first time was because he didn't think he was strong enough. He could've grown stronger in the years to follow.

"Of course, if I'd known then what I know now, I might have been more inclined to help Tara try to convince Liz to let my father go after Iva," Mom said. "Would have saved us all a lot of trouble, for one thing. On the other hand, you'd never have been born. So I guess I can forgive myself."

"What?" I asked.

She laughed. "You think it's weird that your mother is glad you were born?"

"No," I said, stepping back from her. "That you regret not killing a child."

"Well, I didn't really mean it, baby. And, besides, you have to admit, she showed her true colors in the end. Look at what she's done to us."

"Yeah, that whole giving us our own court thing was pretty horrible."

"Sweetie. Don't tell me you still have feelings for her?"

I covered my eyes with my hands. "Is that the only reason you can imagine for me thinking it's a bit extreme to wish you'd killed her before she'd even come of age?"

My mother gestured for me to sit down. I hesitated before doing as she bid. "Not the only one, no," she said. "Tell me it isn't the reason, and I'll believe you."

"It's not," I said.

She drew a deep breath, then tossed back a fresh shot of tequila. "Sure, there are worse things than what we've endured so far. But don't go making the mistake of thinking she's done with us yet. You might be wishing you'd Devoured her yourself before she is."

"Maybe," I said. "And maybe you'll end up wishing you'd Devoured me. Who knows? What I can tell you is that taking a life because you're afraid of what that person might do someday in the distant future is pretty fucked up." I downed my own shot. "If, for some reason, I do someday find myself wishing Iva was dead, I still won't think it was unfortunate that you didn't kill her when she was a child."




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 08



"Well. I was wondering if your sanctimonious side had died when you fell in love with Brianna. Or if maybe you'd finally realized that you've made enough bad decisions in your time to think twice about passing judgment on others. Neither one, apparently."

I stood up.

"Sit back down, young man. I'll tell you when I'm done with you."

I sat back down.

Why did I do that? What made me let her order me around so?

My mother jabbed her finger at me like it was a knife. "You've got no damn right looking down on me. Would I go to lengths you might not in order to protect my family? Yes. Yes, I would. And you know what? I'd call that one of my better traits. One I got from your grandfather. Who, by the way, was twice the man you'll ever be. You? You offered your nephew to Iva so she'd agree to be your Shadow, and offered my sister to Silas so he'd let you marry a woman you barely knew. A woman who disappeared not long after, though no one but you seems to know why. Did you trade her away too? Or just get tired of her?"

It was a wonder that none of my bones snapped, that my teeth didn't crack one another in half, so tightly were my muscles contracting and my jaw clenching.

Had I felt guilty up until that point about not telling my mother the truth about Lily? Damn, had that been a good call.

Brianna had been right. I could never tell my mother the truth about what had happened with Lily. She wouldn't understand. She'd only throw it in my face.

"Are you done now?" I asked.

She smacked her shot glass off the table. "Yes. Get the fuck out of my sight, Frank."

I was all too glad to do just that.

#

A few days had gone by, and I still hadn't been to see my sister.

The experience with Mom had shaken my confidence in my ability to repair damaged ties. Which wasn't a good excuse, I knew. And to hear Todd tell it, it wouldn't have taken a great deal of diplomatic acumen to make peace with Nat anyway. But the idea of having another blowup like the one I'd experienced with Mom was more than I could handle.

Well, and, truth be told, Brianna was giving me very little incentive to leave the house. Since I'd told her about the fight I'd had with my mother, we'd been having incredible sex. Without any of the kink that she usually got me to agree to.

It wasn't healthy. I was starting to have an easier time recognizing that very little about our relationship was. She'd convinced me that she was the one for me by reminding me of all the terrible things I'd done. By driving home that no one besides her would be give me a pass for what I'd done to Lily.

She'd made me dependent on her.

Then she'd exploited that dependency to make me go along with things that I'd probably never have consented to otherwise. It would be unfair to say I derived no pleasure from the kinkier stuff. But it wasn't really my style.

I was becoming someone I didn't really want to be.

Someone who was less likely to hurt those he cared about, yes. Which was, obviously, a good thing. But someone who was too willing to allow himself to be hurt, too. And that wasn't so good. Someone who was afraid of his romantic partner.

Why couldn't I pull myself away, then?

Partly because that's the very nature of dependency, of course. But also partly because she was damn good at knowing when to use the carrot and when to use the stick. Or riding crop. Or whip. Or paddle. Or whatever it might be.

In the days following my fight with Mom, though, it was only the carrot.

That didn't make it okay. But it did make it a whole lot harder to remember why I needed to start pulling away from her. For a few days, she was everything I wanted.

It wasn't just the sex either. We spent just as much time doing puzzles together, or playing video games, or watching movies, as we did in bed. In their own way, those things were just as intoxicating. Though I'd come realize that I was genuinely afraid of my cousin, I'd also realized that she was not just my lover, but my best friend.

Pathetic as it was, when I finally went to go see my sister, it wasn't because I'd finally worked up the willpower to give up time with Brianna. It was because Todd had informed us the day before that Her Majesty had declared that Todd, Brianna, and I were to start patrolling the court in six hour shifts, to both prevent and investigate crimes against or within our growing refugee population. So, whether I liked it or not, I was going to have to be away from Brianna for twelve hours a day anyway.

It was during Brianna's first shift that I went to see Natalie.

She held court outside the palace, in the front garden. Amidst the flower beds, trellises, and fruit trees, I found a tiled square and a makeshift throne. The latter was no more than the stump of a felled great oak. To be sure, a place for her to sit had been carved into it, and she had an embroidered cushion to sit upon. But other than that, it couldn't have looked less like a traditional throne. I did note, though, that the stump was tall enough that she'd look down upon anyone who came before her, even with her sitting and them standing.

Similarly, my sister's garb was far more modest than anything I'd seen Iva wear since my aunt had assumed the throne. She wore a brown dress that revealed only a modest amount of cleavage up top and reached all the way to her ankles at the bottom. True, it was tight enough to leave little doubt about how incredible her figure was, and the richly embroidered red, orange and gold leaves along the hem and bust were getting close to extravagant. But only a little. And though she wore a circlet of interlocking golden leaves, it was relatively thin, entirely free of precious stones, and overall a lot less ostentatious than Iva's tiara.

My breath caught in my throat. This beautiful woman, who managed to come across as dignified yet modest, was my kid sister?

The former cheerleader and queen bitch?

I went down on one knee, head bowed. "Your Majesty."

"Frank," she said in a tone that suggested she was rolling her eyes, "Get up."

"Sorry," I said, rising back to my feet.

Natalie slipped down from the throne. As she descended, her dress billowed up around her, giving me a brief glimpse of her shapely legs. Not too brief either, since she fell no faster than a feather would. It was like gravity itself knelt before her.

"Sorry I waited as long as I did," I said.

My sister waved the comment away. "It hasn't even been a week."

I shrugged. "Shouldn't even have been that long."

"I've had plenty to keep me busy, don't you worry," she said, taking me by the hand. She led me towards the palace.

"I can imagine."

She glanced over her shoulder at me, eyebrow raised slightly. "Do you ever miss it?"

"Not at all," I said. "In fact, I wish I'd stayed away from politics to begin with."

With a flick of her wrist, Natalie made the huge double doors open themselves. "Do you mean that? You're not just telling me what I want to hear?"

Why do people ask that? If I was, would I tell her as much? She wouldn't want to hear that, after all, would she?

"Well, I wish I could take back all the pain and suffering I caused," I said. "If I'd never gotten involved in politics, I'd never have met Lily, and Josh and Val would never have been born. That, I wouldn't want to undo. But besides that? I'm not sure anything good came of it all. Maybe this court? I don't even know about that."

She led me past the antechamber to a sitting room. There was a shallow pool in the corner, a fireplace against the far wall, and a chaise lounge in the middle of the room. Natalie settled down upon it slowly, crossing her delightful legs after she did. A slit formed in her dress, giving her the room to do so comfortably.

But even as a pleasant expanse of leg came into view, that wasn't where my eyes went.

I wasn't really into feet. Grandma Kaitlin had made me appreciate the reason why some men were, perhaps. But, as a general rule, it just wasn't something I tended to notice. Let alone get aroused by. But suddenly, I noticed that Nat had really pretty feet. Slender, delicate, and with nicely defined ankles. They looked damn good in those heels too.

Of course, everything about her was pretty. So, in some sense, it wasn't surprising. But it wasn't the part of her I'd have expected my eyes to gravitate towards.

Maybe it was a power thing. Foot fetishists tended to be into submission, to find powerful and authoritative women arousing. Grandma Kaitlin certainly fit that bill.

And, I supposed, so too did Natalie. Now. Which would explain why I'd never really taken notice of her feet until now.

"I feel like I'm supposed to grill you instead of just taking that confession at face value," my sister said. "But for some reason, I don't feel like it." She arched her back and ran her hands through her medium-brown hair. The gesture demanded that I shift my attention from her feet to her other assets.  Damn, but she had nice, full breasts. Not huge ones, like our mother, or Iva, or Valerie. But definitely not modest. "Maybe it's because it's not as hard to believe you when you say that now as it once would have been. I've got to say, I did not expect you to step aside and let someone else ascend the throne. And when you did, I figured it was a ploy of some kind. But you haven't made a single move to take power since. Haven't even been keeping up with affairs of court, if I'm not mistaken."

"You're not," I said.

She nodded. "That's almost unfortunate, because I could actually use some advice. But all things considered, I think I'd call it a pleasant surprise."

I took a tentative step towards her. When she didn't react, I took another. And another. Then sat at the foot of the lounge and wrapped my arms around one of her legs. Her thighs were perfect. Well-muscled, and shapely, but still soft and smooth.

"I'd still be glad to offer what advice I can," I said. "But, yeah, I honestly don't have any idea what's been going on. I assume it's Iva you're worried about, but that's just a guess."

"Certainly one of the things on my mind. And the one I'm most interested in hearing your thoughts on. If it's all the same to you, I think I'd rather not tell you too much about what else is giving me headaches."

I nodded.

For a moment there, it had seemed like she'd already forgiven me, completely. But of course she hadn't. Yes, Todd had said she was hoping to reconcile. But even so, it couldn't be that easy. Nor should it be. If I were in her shoes, I wouldn't want to divulge too many details either. On the off chance that I was still plotting to retake the throne, anything she shared with me was a potential arrow in my quiver.

"So. You basically want to know if you can trust her, right?"

That's what Mom had said, anyway.

My sister nodded. One hand traveled up her thigh and found mine. Her delicate fingers slid over my hand, ever so gently. The tiniest little blue spark of ecstasy arced from her hand to mine. I shuddered, and it was a wonder I didn't cum.

"I guess the short answer is that I don't know," I said. "I want to say yes. But I wonder if I'm just trying to see the best in her because I still have some feelings for her. That's what Brianna would say, at any rate." You should be anyfuckingway. "Seems like she could have done a lot worse to us already, if that was her goal. But maybe that's not saying much. It's not like you're asking me if she's Hitler."

Nat snickered. "No. I'm not." She gave my hand a gentle squeeze. "And for the record, you're not the only one who wants to think the best of her."

I raised an eyebrow at that.

My sister sighed. "When I first met her, I think I pretty much fell in love with her."

I remembered that wonderful night and the threesome I'd had with Nat and Iva.

"I never would have thought I'd fall in love with a woman," she continued. "I mean, threesomes are fun and all. But I can't say I'm that into girls. But she's just...you know? It's like no one understands you the way she does."

Wasn't that the truth.

But it was a supernatural gift of hers. Not kismet.

"Not even Todd," Natalie added. "And he's known me my whole life. Gone through a lot of the same shit I've gone through. Experienced first hand the things that I'm carrying around with me. That make me who I am. Still, a few hours with Iva, who might as well have been a complete stranger for all that she's family, and I found myself amazed that it was possible for someone to understand me so well."

"What did you and Todd go through?" I asked.

My sister glowered at me. With her head lowered, so she could stare at me over the rims of the glasses she wasn't wearing.

When had she started to look so much like our mother?

"Frank," she said. "Don't be dense. And don't change the subject."

"I'm not trying to. We can talk more about Iva. We should talk more about Iva. But I honestly don't know what you mean."

"Really." It was technically a question, but it sounded nothing like one.

"Really."

"It never occurred to you that Todd and I had a hard time figuring out who we were, where we fit in, following in the footsteps of not one but two legends?"

"Legends?" I asked.

"All the bad kids knew who Dom was. What he'd gotten away with, and what he hand't. And all the teachers knew me as 'Frank's sister' and Todd as your brother. Half the kids in our classes had older siblings that loved or hated either you or Dom, all for different reasons. But one way or another, an awful lot of them knew who you guys were."

"Oh," I said.

What else could I say?

She was probably right. It should have occurred to me.

And I guess that hadn't changed much even after we left the mortal world behind.

My sister might be queen, but Dom had been Brianna's Shadow, and I'd been king. So she was still following in our footsteps.

"Anywho," Nat said, with a faint smile. Was she amused that this all came as a surprise to me? "Back to Iva. I was a stupid teenager, with all these feelings, aching for someone to notice me. And she did. She made me feel special."

Where had I heard that before.

"So I get where you're coming from. Wanting to believe her heart is in the right place. That she's just doing what her mother tells her so she can gain the power to do what she believes needs to be done, blah blah blah. Myself, I find it harder to see it that way, given what she did to Dom, then Patrick. But I get why you still see her the way I used to. She never took anyone from you who you really cared about."

Ouch.

I wanted to protest, but I wasn't sure I had any right to.

"But what if you're wrong, Frank? What if the Iva we both fell for is an illusion? What if she's just another self-deluded power-monger?"

"I don't know," I said.

"That's it?" Natalie asked, her voice bordering on squeaky. "Some help you are."

So I told her everything I could remember about the two interactions I'd had with Iva since handing power over to her. Whether there was anything in there that would be of help to her, I wasn't sure. But it was all I had to offer.

"Wait, what?" Nat said, interrupting me when I got to the part about Iva's invitation for me and Brianna to have dinner with her. "Why you?"

"Guess she too expected me to take the throne," I said.

"Hmm," Nat said. "Well, obviously, you're still going. And you're going to tell me everything she says."

"Of course," I said with a laugh.

My sister wasn't smiling.

"No, seriously," I said, voice flat. "Why wouldn't I?"

Perhaps because I'd once thought I might be in love with Iva, and had never thought that about Natalie?

But a lot had changed since then.

"This could be big," Nat said.

"Maybe. Or maybe since I'm not the king and Brie's not the queen and neither of us really knows anything, it'll just be dinner."

"Then she needs to think that one of you is planning a coup," Nat said.

"Are you serious? You're telling me to start planning to overthrow you?"

"No," she said, firmly, "I'm telling you to let Iva think that you are."

I sighed. "Fine. I can handle that."

"What about Brianna? Will she play along?"

"Yeah." I gave her fingers a kiss. "At least, I think so. But if I'm a potentially biased judge of Iva's trustworthiness, I'm absolutely not credible at all when it comes to Brianna."

"Right. About that," Nat said. "When we first figured out what we were, I think I liked her a whole lot more than you did."

"You could say that."

"Granted, after what she did to Aunt Liz and Uncle Jim...well, that was why I retired. The first time. But from what I hear, she does seem to be different now. Haven't had the chance to spend any real time with her myself, but it sounds like she's gone from being obsessed with power to being obsessed with you. I'm not sure if that's healthy. Sounds like I should either be really happy for you, or really concerned that she's going to make you miserable. Make you push away everyone else you care about. But, to be perfectly honest, that's your problem. What I was worried about was whether she was planning a triumphant return to politics. And it doesn't sound like it. So if you say we can trust her not to get in the way when I ask you to do something for the good of the realm, I believe you."

"Can't see that she would."

"Good," Nat said. Her face softened. "I didn't mean what I said about it being your problem. Of course I hope she doesn't end up hurting you. But I just have too fucking much to worry about as it is. I'm sorry, Frank. I hope it works out. I do. I just can't be the one to give you a advice about whether she's good for you or not."

"That's okay," I said, kissing her fingertips again. "Wasn't asking."

"And, for the record, I'm sorry about what happened with you and Mom."

I shrugged.

"I probably shouldn't tell you this, but Skye has been seeing a lot of Uncle Bobby."

"Skye?"

But, then, it actually made a lot of sense. They were the two nicest, shyest, most modest, most boring people I'd ever met.

"I don't know if that means there's still hope for you with Mom or not. And if you end up trying to drive them apart, I'll deny ever having said anything to you. Because it really is none of my business. But I still thought you should know."

"Thanks. Appreciate it."

My sister gave me a sad, almost apologetic smile.

That made my heart ache. How could I have been so blind to what a beautiful person my sister was, on the inside as well as the out?

"Long as we're switching from politics to personal stuff," I said. "How's Todd?"

One of my sister's feet slid down between my legs and started to gently play with my cock and balls. Even with her heel still on, it felt pretty damn good.

"I don't know. Haven't really seen him much lately. He and Holly went through a rough time. And now they're pretty focused on trying to figure out how they feel about Troy and Rose. They need some space. But hopefully, after things calm down a bit...well, we'll see."

"There was a time I didn't think he'd stay interested in Holly too long after their kids grew up," I said. "But I guess you have me to thank for the fact that they still seem pretty crazy about each other. If not for me, Holly would never have become one of us."

"Oh, I've got nothing against her," Natalie said. "That was something you did right, by the way. Earlier, when you were talking about reasons why you don't regret getting involved in politics? You can add her to the list."

I shrugged. "Yeah, that's true. But I'm surprised to hear that you think so."

"I can see why you'd expect me to be jealous of her. I'm definitely in love him. To be sure, there are guys who are better in bed than him," she gave my cock a good twirl as she said that, "but I feel like I can be myself around him. Can sing along with songs I don't know the words to. Can quote Spongebob as often as I want. Can be as goofy, stupid, bratty, and immature as I want. But that doesn't mean I have to have him all to myself. In fact, I have this fantasy of the two of them moving in here with me. I mean, who says relationships have to be one man and one woman?"




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 09



When I finally left the palace to start my shift patrolling the court, I was so full of energy that I had trouble forcing myself to walk on the ground rather than thin air. Nat and I had fed each other insane amounts of energy as we made love again and again and again.

After the tenth interview with someone who'd heard a lot of rumors, but hadn't themselves actually seen anything, the smile my sister had put on my face began to fade. Refugees had been disappearing, at a rate of one or two a night. But no one knew what was happening. Well, they all knew that they were being preyed upon by someone looking to jump up in power by Devouring immortals whose families didn't care enough about them to retaliate. But none of them knew what this mysterious serial Devourer looked like.

After the twentieth such interview, I decided I was wasting my time.

I was about to turn invisible and start walking through the crowded streets of Safe Haven haphazardly in the wild hope of seeing something when Mel showed up.

"Hey Uncle Frank!" she said, bouncing up and down on her heels.

"Mel," I said, looking her up and down. That pink t-shirt was insanely tight. If her nipples got hard, it might rip. Her jeans weren't any better. I had no idea how she even got them on. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I swung by your cottage, but Brie said you were out on patrol."

"You...went by...how'd that go?"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say she doesn't like me." She shrugged. "You know, usually, when I'm talking to someone and they won't look me in the eyes because they're too busy staring at my girls," she gave her big breasts a gentle squeeze with both hands, in case I didn't know what she meant by that, "it's because I'm talking to a guy. But your cousin is seriously obsessed with them."

"Not in the way you think," I said.

"Actually, I kinda picked up on that when she did her best to tenderize them like a bad cut of meat, thank you very much," she said. "Anyways, how goes the patrolling?"

If it were me, would I be able to take Brianna's behavior in stride like that?

"Not well," I said. "Everyone is convinced that there's a serial Devourer. But no one's seen anything. Really isn't very helpful. Not like there are any bodies or crime scenes or anything either. I don't know that I'd know what to do with one if there was, but still. I wish I had something to work with."

"Can't you summon a floating eyes? The way you sometimes do hands and mouths?"

For a moment, I was too dumbfounded to respond. Eventually, I said, "Huh. Yeah. I totally can." Why hadn't I thought of that? "Good idea."

Melanie twirled a ringlet of red hair around one of her fingers. "Sooooo, as payment, I'd like to pick your brain for a few minutes. Think you can shirk your duties for a bit?"

I laughed. "I'm not sure what I'm accomplishing as it is."

So we went to a coffee shop around the corner.

"Amazing, isn't it?" Mel asked as we made our way there. "Safe Haven looks like a city from the mortal world. Except that it doesn't."

"That's about right," I said.

In many ways, it did indeed. But every single person who lived there was gorgeous. Every one. You didn't get that in the mortal world. And while some, including Mel and I, were dressed more or less the way people you'd cross on the streets of a typical mortal city would dress, others looked like they just came from a photo shoot for a lingerie catalogue. Or a fetish magazine. Still others were dressed like they'd stepped out of a bad fantasy novel. Some looked like faeries of various kinds, indicating they were from the lands of Spring. And, surprisingly enough, I even saw a couple of people with the telltale blue skin of the Shadowed Glade or the gold skin of the Eternal Garden.

"And it's growing so fast," she added. "Do you think Nat made the right move by-"

"Stop right there," I said. "I don't know what my sister's doing, and I think both she and I would prefer to keep it that way."

"Right," Mel said. "Sorry." She fretted at her lower lip while her fingers drummed against the plastic lid of her coffee cup. "Maybe I shouldn't ask you this after all."

"Ask me what?"

She looked out the window at the cars driving by. That was another thing that made it seem less like we were in the Homelands than the mortal world. Though mortal cars didn't look quite like these. The streets were filled with vehicles that made the concept cars auto makers unveiled at auto shows seem unimaginative. And you couldn't find a gas station anywhere in the Fourth Autumnal Court. Like just about everything here, the cars worked because the people using them wanted them to, and that was that. 

I took a sip of my coffee while I waited for her to reply.

"Well," she said, at last, "it's about Troy."

"Okay," I said, in a tone that invited her to elaborate.

"Actually, it's not about Troy, so much as his father."

"Is he hurting you?"

"No," she said. "He doesn't really hurt anyone, actually. But they're all terrified of him."

"They?"

"His children."

"Really? Didn't seem that way."

"I shouldn't say all of them. Sebastian and Tulip aren't. In fact, they couldn't be more loyal. Course, he's good to those two, unlike everyone else, so it's no wonder they don't feel the same way as the rest of the kids."

"And Rose?" I asked.

"She fakes it well enough," Mel said. "And that earns her better treatment than most of the rest. But if Sean doesn't get accepted to the Brotherhood, the way she's promised her father that he will, she's going to fall out of favor again."

"I see," I said. "Have you told your father this?"

"Of course not," she said. "He'd try to stop us from going back."

"Well, yeah."

"Then none of us would be safe," Mel said.

She had a point. Shit.

"But I've got a plan," she added.

"And that is?"

She tasted her coffee. "You're not going to like it."

"Try me," I said.

"I'm going to Devour Lord Furcas."

"You're right. I don't like it."

"Hear me out," she said.

I gestured for her to continue.

She dropped her voice, though it seemed to me like it was the last statement that had really called for a hushed tone. "I know how strong he is. I'm not stupid. The plan is to turn invisible, hide out in his room, and do it while he's asleep."

It suddenly struck me as completely absurd that we were sitting at a squat little table in a crowded coffee shop, discussing how to assassinate a demon lord. It was all just too surreal. That was the first time in a long time that I thought, even for a moment, that maybe none of this was real. Maybe I was just an ordinary mortal, living an ordinary life, daydreaming about a world where all my fantasies, sexual and otherwise, could come true. Maybe not daydreaming. More like tripping balls.

Then the moment passed. My niece really had just told me she was going to Devour Lord Furcas. Crazy as that sounded.

I reached across the table and placed a hand atop hers. "Mel, sweetie, that won't work. I already tried the whole invisibility thing. Doesn't work with him."

"Did you try it the same way you would here?" she asked.

"Um," I said. There was no way to answer that without sounding stupid. I washed the rest of the sentence down with more coffee.

"They don't see the same way we do," Mel explained.

Of course. Why would they? Where they lived, it was always night.

Fucking idiot.

"Night vision?" I asked.

"Not sure it's quite that," she said. "Maybe something like it. Better though. At any rate, it took a lot of practice, but after I snuck up on Troy a few times, I finally tried it out. Just walked around the palace, minding my on business. If Lord Furcas noticed me, he didn't say anything. And he always does. So I'd say it works."

"Color me impressed," I said.

Mel blushed, averting her eyes. "Stop."

"Seriously."

"Anyway, that's the plan."

"And then what?" I asked. "Troy becomes the Lord of House Furcas?"

"No. Sebastian, I'd imagine. He's not as strong as their father, but he's still stronger than Troy. And older. Reasonably well respected within the court too. Besides, Troy doesn't want to rule. He just doesn't want to be scared of his father anymore. And, more importantly, doesn't want his wife and sisters to be either."

That was pretty hard to argue with.

"What will happen to Sean?"

"What do you mean what will happen to him? Nothing. Why would it?"

"What if you fail?"

"Sean won't have had anything to do with it," Mel said.

"Will Lord Furcas believe that? Or care?"

"It won't come to that," Mel said.

I felt like I should have had more to say. Should try to talk her out of it. But she wouldn't listen anyway. No more than I would have, once upon a time. She had something to prove, and anyone who told her that she didn't know what she was doing would only further motivate her to prove it.

"Here," I said, reaching inside my chest.

"What's that?" she asked.

The leaf pendant came into view, passing through my skin like tissue paper. The hole in my chest bled a little, but sealed itself back up a moment later.

A few people gave me strange looks, but I ignored them.

Placing the pendant down on the formica tabletop, I slid it across to Melanie. "A gift. It'll help keep you safe."

Mel stared at me, eyes wide. Waiting for an explanation. Or maybe a punchline.

"All the major families in Autumn have them," I explained, echoing my mother's words. "It marks you as Autumn's favorite daughter."

"And how many does House Orwin have?" she asked, regarding the pendant warily.

To the best of my knowledge, just the one. But I didn't say anything.

Mel's nod told I didn't need to. "You should keep it. Give it to Val."

"If she were going to the Shadowed Glade of the Moon, with the intention of assassinating Lord Furcas, perhaps I would."

My niece shook her head and pushed my hands away. "I know what I'm doing."

I pushed back. Gently. "Then call it my attempt to make sure you remember where you came from. Something you can keep close to your heart to remind you that no matter how successful you are in scaling the ranks of power there, and I'm sure that you will be, Autumn will always be a part of you."

This time, Mel sighed, then nodded.

Unlike me, she didn't let the pendant sink into her chest. She simply slid it down the front of her shirt, allowing it to nestle between her breasts.

"Promise me you'll watch out for Sean."

She offered me a faint grin. "I will. Don't worry."

"And...when you do it, could you whisper in his ear that Lily sends her regards?"

Mel's grin grew fainter still. After a fashion, she said, "Sure thing, Uncle Frank."

#

It was just after midnight when I got back to our cottage. Brianna answered the door, wearing a pair of baggy sweatpants and an oversized, threadbare t-shirt. She looked me up and down, muttered, "humph," then turned her back on me and returned to the couch.

"And how was your day, dear?" I asked as I closed the door.

She had one of those wretched reality TV shows on. I came up behind her, leaned over, kissed the top of her head, and asked what the couple on screen was fighting about.

"Don't know. Maybe his mistress came to the house looking for him, and she answered the door. Or maybe I'm getting confused with another show. Or something."

Right. My mistress.

I kept my face buried in her hair. I loved the way it smelled. Meanwhile, I started to give her a gentle back rub. "Baby, we talked about this. You said that as long as it wasn't just for sex, it was fine."

"And that's what you heard? Exactly what I said, and nothing more?"

I sighed. "Fair enough," I said, then kissed her hair again. "You might be interested to know, we didn't even have sex. Just coffee."

My cousin had yet to take her eyes off the screen. "Really?"

"Really. She wanted to talk politics. Has some crazy plan for maneuvering her husband into higher position. Wanted my feedback. That's it."

Close enough to true. I didn't think I should be telling anyone exactly what Mel had in mind. All Brianna cared about anyway was whether we'd gotten physical.

"Well, then, I guess it's unfortunate that she's going to wake up bald tomorrow."

"What?"

Panicked thoughts rushed through my mind.

"Now there's really only one redhead in your life," my cousin explained. She was going for deadpan, I think, but a hint of a snicker broke through her facade.

Before I could find my tongue again, she added, "Oh, stop. You know she can just grow it back. I haven't done anything worse than what your brother used to do to you and Todd."

I covered my face with my hands. I should have been more upset, because it was still cruel and immature, but she was right. Mel would freak out, shriek, then calm down, snap her fingers, and the problem would be solved.

She was also right that it was exactly the kind of thing Dom used to do to us. I'd hated it when he had done so, but it seemed so silly to have gotten upset about now.

Without wanting to, I found myself laughing.

It was just so ridiculous. As was the fact that, for a brief moment, I'd started thinking that this meant the old Brianna was back. The Brianna who had Devoured her parents and threatened to rape my mother and generally terrorized the whole family. Just because she'd played a sophomoric prank on my niece? How was that even remotely comparable?

Perhaps most ridiculous of all was that the way it made me miss Dom.

Not that I should be cursing his name and spitting on his grave. But of all the reasons to be sad that he was gone, the fact that he used to draw cocks on my forehead or write curses across my chest while I slept wasn't particularly high on the list.

As I laughed, I shook my head at my cousin. Unsurprisingly, the gesture didn't seem to have the humbling effect it might have otherwise have had, had I not been so clearly amused.

Brie smirked. "Sorry. I know I shouldn't have, even if you did fuck her. But I've been so good up til now. It's just one little indiscretion." She paused. "Besides. It is funny."

"No, it's not," I said.

But I was still grinning.

"Okay, okay." Brianna giggled. Then, in a more sober voice, she said, "I guess I just really miss you. We hardly spend any time together anymore, what with the pointless patrolling."

"I know," I said, wiping a tear from the corner of my eye.

A little part of me twitched at that. There were plenty of couples that spent even less time together. Some would even consider it healthy. People need their space, after all.

What did it say about our relationship that she was having such a hard time not being able to spend all her time with me?

Or was I making too much of this? Was it only in my head that this was an unhealthy, perhaps even abusive, relationship?

I thought back to what Nat had said about why she was in love with Todd. Because she could be herself with him. That didn't mean he was trying to trap her, or blackmail her. Why did I think that it was any different with Brianna? So what if she liked to remind me that my mother wouldn't react well to the truth about what had happened with Lily?

She wasn't wrong about that.

"I'm gonna fix myself something to eat real quick. You want anything?"

Brianna patted my hand. "No, thanks. I already ate."

"Of course you did. It's late. You're probably about ready for sleep."

"Not exactly," she said, sounding almost hurt. "Thought maybe it'd be nice to spend some time together. My shift doesn't start til noon anyway."

"Thank goodness Todd is such an early riser." I kissed her hair once more.

I padded over to the kitchenette adjoining our living room. If you could even call it a living room. Besides the bathroom, the interior of the cottage was all just one room.

After making a quick grilled cheese sandwich and warming up a bowl of soup, I returned to the couch. While we watched her trashy show, and I tried my best feign interest, Brie stole a few bites of both the soup and sandwich, and slid her cold feet under my legs.

She could be dressed like crap, wearing no makeup, and acting bratty, and I still thought she was the cutest thing ever.

Why couldn't I make up my mind about how I felt about her? About our relationship? Was I just looking for reasons to convince myself that things weren't working, so I could pursue my mother without guilt?

But that was silly. There was something powerful between me and my mother, to be sure. Could I ever really have anything remotely a resembling a healthy relationship with her either though? Could she offer me companionship? Friendship? Wouldn't she always talk to me like she wasn't sure if I knew how to tie my shoes?

Nevermind the fact that she'd made it pretty clear that she wasn't interested anymore. She was happy enough with Boring Bobby.

"That tat on his arm is so lame," Brianna said.

I must have been too slow to reply, because she quickly added, "I guess it's okay."

"What? No, I agree, it's lame." I focused my attention on the flatscreen TV. The guy's tattoo really was quite cheesy. Not that it mattered. "Sorry. I just zoned out."

"Is everything all right?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. I finished the last bit of my sandwich and added, "I'll be right back." Then I went back into the kitchenette and washed my dishes real quick.

"Was your shift any more productive than mine?"

Brianna then told me about what had happened when she went into Safe Haven.

"Same here, I'm afraid," I said.

"How're we supposed to catch this guy?" she asked with a sigh. "If it is a guy."

I started to say that of course it was a guy, but stopped myself. I didn't know that. Most of the supposed victims were women, but some were men. Of course, there were no bodies, so it was hard to know who was actually a victim and who had simply decided to go back to where they'd come from. But still. There did seem to be a pattern.

"I don't know."

Brianna draped her legs across my lap. I took the hint and started massaging her feet.

That reminded me of the way I'd noticed my sister's feet earlier. If that was really my thing, I suppose I'd have thought my cousin's feet were every bit as arousing as my sister's. But as I worked my hands against her soles, I felt precisely zero arousal.

Did that just mean that what had happened with Natalie had been a weird, one-time thing? Or did it say something about my feelings for Brianna?

"Maybe we wouldn't be driving ourselves crazy trying to catch a serial Devourer if we didn't throw the gates wide open and tell every loser whose family would be glad to be rid of them that they're welcome here."

"Probably not," I agreed.

"Isn't your sister worried that maybe the court's growing a little too fast?"

"I don't know what she's worried about," I said. "And I'm okay with that."

My cousin rolled her eyes. "You make it sound like you're an alcoholic trying to keep dry. I get that you don't want to get too involved, and I don't either. But if she's going to tell us we have to do these stupid patrols, don't you think we have a right to be a little curious? Maybe even critical?"

"No one's saying you don't have the right."

"You just don't think I should exercise it."

I assume it was only by accident that, as she shifted her weight, the heel of her foot jabbed downwards and barely missed colliding with my testicles.

With a sigh, I said, "No, I didn't mean that. It's just that we don't have any context. What pressure is Iva putting on her? How seriously will the other courts take us if our population remains as tiny as it is? Or if Nat doesn't get more powerful? How many vassals is she taking on, and how few would she have if we didn't let in so many people?"

"Maybe someone a little more powerful should be on the throne then," Brianna said.




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 09



"You don't mean that."

She threw her head back against the arm rest. "Of course I don't. It's just so frustrating. Can't you just agree with me? I'm obviously only venting."

I smiled. "You're right. It's stupid. And she's a poopy-head."

"Now you're just making fun of me."

My cousin sat up, pulled her feet back, and tucked them under her. "What's going on, Frank? You feel cold. And I don't mean your skin."

Perhaps I should have masked my Libido.

"I don't know. It's nothing."

"If there's an `it', I'd say it's something."

"Brie," I said, reaching to take one of her hands in mine.

She yanked her hand away. "Just spit it out. You don't need to butter me up first. That's just making me more anxious."

"Do you ever wonder if we're together for the wrong reasons?"

Her beautiful green eyes widened. "What exactly are the wrong reasons? Better yet, can you tell me what the right reasons would be? Cuz I'd love to know."

I got up from the couch. Started toward the kitchen. Stopped.

I didn't need a drink. I was just stalling. And that would only upset her more.

"It just feels like maybe you need someone who will let you do...certain things to them. So that you won't be tempted to channel that impulse in other directions. And I need to let you do them to me, because I'm so wracked with guilt over some of the shit I've done. Like I think I deserve to be punished or something."

"I see." She folded her arms under her breasts. "Well, I don't know what you need, but I can tell you this. I don't need to do anything to you. If some of the things we do make you uncomfortable, all you have to do is say so."

"Really?"

"Yes, Frank! What do you thi-" she cut herself off, drew a deep breath, and continued in a softer voice. "I like to experiment. There aren't many things I haven't tried. But most of them did nothing for me. Yeah, maybe I do enjoy some stuff that's a little outside the mainstream. I won't deny that. But as long as we do something to spice things up now and then, I'm good. Doesn't even have to be kinky. Just different."

I focused on her Libido. Going past superficial impressions was still hard for me, but with some effort I got a decent read. There was more darkness there than I'd ever found in my mother's Libido, but it wasn't exactly pervasive.

"I thought you liked it," Brianna continued. "Of course I noticed that you mostly refuse to talk about it, and when you do, you won't actually say the words. But I thought you were just having a hard time admitting to yourself that you're actually into some kinky stuff. If that's not the case, though, we can stop. It's not that big a deal."

"Okay."

"Okay, what? You want to stop?"

I frowned. For someone who didn't care one way or the other, you'd think that question was a bit unnecessary. "Yeah."

"Cuz it really did seem like...nevermind. Yeah, that's fine. No more kink."

I sat back down. This time, when I reached for her hand, she let me take it. "I don't know. Maybe I did. But I want to try going without for a while."

Brianna nodded. "Okay. We can do that."

I lifted her hand up and kissed the back of it. "I'm sorry for freaking out like that."

"Gave me a bit of a scare," she said.

It didn't take long from that point for us to make our way to bed.

Unfortunately, the makeup sex was a bit disappointing.

That was my fault, though. Brianna was far more reserved than usual. Maybe even say scared. It took a lot more to get her off than it usually did, and the simple fact that she was so guarded wasn't making it any easier for me to enjoy myself.

What did I expect though? I'd basically just told her that I thought she was a bit of a freak, and that she'd been forcing me to do things I didn't want to do, whether she'd realized it or not. Of course she was going to be a little reserved after that. 

I almost told her to forget what I'd said, that it would be fine if she wanted to get out the handcuffs and leather hood, or if she wanted to peg me for that matter. Wanted to tell her that just knowing that she could go without that stuff, if I asked, was enough.

But I wasn't sure I'd really have meant it. And it would only make me look more neurotic than I already did.

So I kept my mouth shut.

We stopped after Brianna got off. Once. Neither of us said anything after that. We just rolled away from each other and tried our best to go to sleep.

#

Over the course of the next week, things slowly got a little better. But not much. We'd somehow fallen into a routine that left both of us frustrated, but of which neither of us seemed able or willing to do anything to break us out.

We'd stay up late each night, watching TV or playing games before making our way to bed. The shoeboxes helped spice things up a bit, but we'd tossed out half of what was in the red one, and there was invariably a look of disappointment on Brianna's face whenever one of us drew something relatively tame from it. She tried to hide that disappointment, and I tried my best not to notice it, but we both failed miserably.

Then we'd sleep late. Usually so late that we didn't get to spend much of any time together before Brianna had to start her patrol.

While she was gone, I'd spend the afternoon visiting my other family members. But I made a point of mostly only seeing the women of which my cousin was least jealous.

That meant I still hadn't been back to see my mother, and had only visited Natalie once and my daughter twice. Most days, I went over to Todd and Holly's place. And if either Mel and Troy or Sean and Rose were around, I tried to keep the visit social. One time, an orgy broke out, and Mel got more of my attention that Brianna would have been happy to know that she had. But for the most part, those visits meant either no sex, or only with Holly.

One pleasant side to that routine was that Todd and I were starting to get pretty close again. We had been while growing up, then we'd drifted apart after discovering the Homelands. I hadn't realized how much I missed goofing around with my kid brother. Who was now in fact my older brother. A fact he never missed an opportunity to remind me of.

I was also genuinely glad to see that he and Holly were getting along again. Better than, really. They seemed like the closest thing to a perfect, happily married couple that you could find among our kind. And though I couldn't say that there wasn't a tiny little part of me that was jealous of them for that, overall, seeing the giddy smiles that they didn't realize everyone noticed was a highlight of those visits.

Sadly, the patrol shifts didn't get any less tedious.

We'd each of us finally started to find eyewitnesses, for all the good it did us. The suspect was indeed male. Average height and build, at least by the standards of the Homelands. Dark hair. No distinguishing features. At least, not that anyone saw. 

Man, did that narrow it down.

Watching Safe Haven grow by the day was something of a fringe benefit, I guess. The Third Autumnal Court didn't have any proper cities. Not even small ones. The first one I'd ever seen in the Homelands was in the Shadowed Glade. It was both weird and somehow comforting to see one developing here. It made me feel that maybe the first immortals weren't so very different from us after all.

When I got home, Brianna and I would tell each other about our day. When we did, we'd devote no more time to detailing our sexual exploits than to briefing one another on the lack of progress in our Serial Devourer investigation.

Then the whole cycle would start over again.

After a week of that, I proposed something that might help get us out of our rut.

"What do you say we take a vacation?" I asked.

"And let the hopeless case of our Serial Devourer go unsolved?"

"To the mortal world," I said. "The new one. Your shift doesn't start for twelve hours. That's five days there."

My cousin sank her impossibly white teeth into her lower lip. Her deep green eyes widened a bit. "I have been curious to see if it's any different than the old one," she said, in a tone that made it sound like there was another half to the sentence. If so, it never showed up.

It was bound to be at least a little different, not least because it was currently the 1990s there. But also because any time you made a copy of a copy, you got something just a little further away from the original. And none of us had ever been to the real mortal world. When Natalie and Iva and whoever else made the world, they'd been working off of memories of the echo we'd all grown up in.

"Me too," I said, though that was hardly the primary reason I'd suggested it.

"Okay, let's do it," Brianna said, bouncing on her heels.

"Great. Just let me grab something to eat first. I'm starved."

"Wait, you mean now?" she asked, laughing.

"When were you thinking?"

She slapped my arm playfully. I felt her Libido swell the way it used to all the time, at the slightest little thing. That had become all too rare an occurrence recently. "Now's good. I just didn't know you could be so impulsive."

"Thought you had a monopoly on that, did you?"

My cousin gave my ass a slap as I walked away from her and towards the kitchen.

Most nights, I made myself dinner the hard way. For the same reason that I usually went through the morning ritual when I woke up, even though I could have just as easily used my powers to care of grooming and hygiene. In the back of my mind, it seemed like my relationship with Brianna was just a little more real, a little more intimate, if I allowed myself to experience every moment.

But tonight, I didn't bother. Instead, I conjured up a platter of marinated steak, spicy sausage, and waffle fries. And a pint of the hoppiest of hoppy IPAs to wash it all down.

Brianna sat on the kitchen counter and watched me eat, stealing the occasion fry or five. The energy radiating from her Libido almost made me decide to skip my dinner altogether.

As soon as I finished, she hopped down off the counter and, without a word, offered me her hand. I kissed the top of her head and teleported us to the Fourth Autumnal Court's very own echo of the mortal world.

We appeared in the lobby of a luxury hotel in downtown Manhattan.

That first night, we didn't leave our room. And the sex was about as good as we'd had since I'd told my cousin that I wasn't into kink anymore. Brianna was still a little reserved, but definitely not like she had been.

After that, we settled into a routine. Which, on some level, seemed like it defeated the whole purpose. Except we both liked this routine.

We'd sleep late, same as in the Homelands. But when we woke up, we'd be in no hurry to get out of bed. That was already a nice change. By the time we finally left the room, it would be mid-afternoon. We'd spend a few hours sight-seeing. Or shopping for things that Brie could have summoned out of thin air if she'd really wanted them so bad. Then we'd go out to a nice dinner, and afterwards see a Broadway show or a concert or a Yankee game. That would be followed by a few hours of drinks in some dive bar or dance club before we'd go back to the room to fuck until the sun came up.

One night, before going to the bar, we agreed to arrive separately, disguised as ordinary mortals. Then we were each of us to take as many partners into the bathroom for quickies as we could, and see whether we wound up fucking each other any of those times.

When we got back to the room, I asked Brianna, "So. How many guys' lives did you forever change tonight?"

She grinned and gave my cock a good squeeze through my jeans. "I like the way you put that." A quick kiss on the lips, then she added, "Eleven. And you?"

"Eleven?" I laughed. "I figured you'd have me beat. It's easier find guys who'll say yes than it is women. But damn."

"Are you sure about that?" she asked, between nibbles at my earlobe.

"Um, I'm guessing the right answer is no?"

"Well, I haven't done any surveys or anything, and I only spent a year at college, but in just that one year, I knew a lot of girls who hooked up with random guys. Most of them were the type you'd have thought would never do something like that. A lot of them had boyfriends too. I think most guys just don't have any game, so they think it's impossible to pick a girl up at a bar."

"If you say so," I said.

I wanted to tell her that I doubted very much that her friends were representative of most women. But, then, the kinds of women who hung out at the kinds of bars and clubs we'd been frequenting probably weren't either. So maybe she had a point.

"Anyway," I sad. "Just three for me."

"Three? You were trying, weren't you?"

"Yes, dear, I was trying," I said with a chuckle.

"Just checking." She leaned up and kissed my cheek then pulled away and went over to the table by the window. "What are we drinking tonight?" she asked.

With some effort, I forced my eyes to drift away from her ass. The black mini-skirt she had on made it hard to do so, however. The sheer black thigh highs weren't helping either.

"Wine?" I guessed.

"Good answer," she said. A moment later, a bottle and two glasses were on the table, and she busied herself with opening it.

I went and took a seat at the table, waiting patiently for her to pour out two glasses.

"At first, I thought you might be the blonde with the thick-rimmed glasses," I said. "But you were obviously the brunette with the silver tank-top."

"I was," she confirmed.

It was hard to tell just by talking to a woman. There was so much sexual desire in the place, reading Libidos was like having fifteen radios playing different songs and trying to make out the lyrics to one of them. But the brunette was the obvious choice. Particularly since Brianna had given her black hair, ultra pale skin, and an extreme hourglass figure. Everything she knew I tended to go for.

And once we got inside a bathroom stall, there was no question.

Brianna handed me my glass and raised hers. We clinked them together then took our first sips. Sweeter than I'd have thought she liked, but not bad.

"So. How many of those other guys did you actually think might be me?"

"Two," she said. "Well, one, right up until he dropped his pants. When I saw that pathetic little thing he called a penis, I knew it couldn't be you. There was also another that I thought might be you, when we first started talking, but, well, he was actually funny."

"Ha ha," I said. "Very clever." I took another sip of wine. "So. Did you enjoy yourself?"

Brianna shrugged. "I'm glad you suggested it. But mortal guys are so disappointing that once is enough for that little game." She kicked off her shoes. "Not to be a complete size queen, but even the guys who I'm pretty sure I was supposed to think were well-hung were unimpressive," she said. "And, what's worse, they didn't really know what they were doing either. I mean, size isn't everything. But if the motion of the ocean isn't there either?"

"The women weren't any better," I said. "Besides the blonde, that is."

"Watch it, mister."

"Oh, you know blondes aren't even my type."

She frowned. "Trust me, I know plenty well what your type is."

Whoops.

"Baby, lately, you're-"

One of her hands shot up. "Don't." It fell back into her lap. "A, we both know that's bullshit, and B, even you have enough shame not to say something that cheesy."

"Fine. I'm just saying that even though, as a general rule, I tend to go for certain things, it's not like I can't be attracted to a woman who doesn't fit that mold."

She sighed. "I know. I know." Half of her wine disappeared in one gulp. "Forget it. I probably should have made myself a blonde anyway."

I rose from my chair, growing an extra foot in height as I did. Brianna wasn't as obsessed with height as my mother was, but I was pretty sure she had a fascination with the moonlit folk, even though she'd never actually said anything to that effect. Completing the transformation, I turned my skin midnight blue, my hair purple, and covered myself from head to toe in silver tattoos.

"Well, hello there, tall, dark and handsome," Brianna said, eyeing me up and down.

The wine sat abandoned on the table a minute later.

She soon turned into a moonlit version of herself too. One with more than a few tattoos of her own. A star over one eye, another over one nipple, and one on each hip. A comet on the back of one hand, and a crescent moon on her lower back.

I was pretty sure their tattoos were more complex than stars and moons and so forth. They were some elaborate means of marking status, I thought. Which was why Lily had had none. But I liked the way they looked on her all the same.

After a few intense orgasms each, I cuffed myself to the bed, summoned a leather hood, and told Brianna my safe word.

She looked at me, incredulous, for just a moment. But the question she wanted to ask remained unspoken. A leather whip appeared in one hand and a steel device whose use I could only guess in the other.

It did indeed do what I feared it would.

But the reaction in my cousin's Libido was worth it. And, anyway, it wasn't that hard to numb myself to the pain even while pretending to be suffering every bit as much as she'd want to believe that I was.

Strangely enough, it wasn't my decision to offer to let her go there that made things awkward. It was later, when I turned into Dom.

"I thought we talked about this," she said. "I don't want you to do that."

"Don't want me to, or don't want me to think you want me to?" I asked.

"If it was the second one, would I tell you that?" she asked.

Good point.

"What I'm trying to say then is that I don't care if that would turn you on," I said. "Really, I don't. I can't blame you for missing him. Hell, sometimes I miss him, though obviously in a somewhat different way."

"You say that now. Imagine how you would feel if I turned into my mother again, though. Remember how you reacted the one time I did?" She shook her head. "Better yet, what if I suggested turning into your mother? Wouldn't it hurt to think I thought you needed that? That you'd made me think I wasn't good enough for you?"

I drew a deep breath. "It's not about need. You know that."

"So you'd be fine if I turned into her?"

I hesitated. "Would you be comfortable with it if I said that would be okay? I mean, she's still alive. Little bit different."

It took her a while to respond, but she eventually said, "Maybe. If it's only once in a while. I could probably deal with it."

"Are you sure?"

"I don't know," she admitted.

I waved my hand at the corner of the room, and a hot tub appeared. I climbed in and gestured for my cousin to join me.

She hesitated a moment before doing so. Unlike me, she slipped in gracefully, as if she wasn't even cognizant of the sharp change in temperature.

Just like she'd done that one time when we'd shared a hot tub with Todd, Dom and my mother. The very people we were now discussing. That had been back when I'd first realized who and what we were. Back before she'd taken the throne.

"It is different with actual people," she said.

Thank you, Captain Obvious. "That's the point, though, isn't it? If we can make pain fun, why can't jealousy be the same? It's just another kind of pain, isn't it?"

Brianna's eyes twinkled.

"Look, I won't deny that if things ended between us, really ended, so that I knew I couldn't get you back, I'd probably try to make things work with my mother again. But as long as you're around, that's not going to happen."

She stared at me silently, face expressionless.

"I understand why you're concerned. I don't want to be the guy who says you're being silly for getting jealous. Even if your concerns seemed misplaced to me, and I'm not even saying that they do, I want you to know that I will always want to do my best to understand where you're coming from. I'll never delegitimize-"




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 09



Brianna laughed. "Okay, I get it, you're Mister Sensitive. No news there. But, seriously, Frank, `delegitimize'? Is that even a word?"

I blushed.

"The sentiment is nice, though."

I leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips.

"I can't say I'm crazy about hearing that you still see your mother as Plan B. But I guess it's better than when I was the backup plan. Something to keep you occupied until you got a chance to chase after her again."

"Yeah, well," I began.

"You don't have to explain," she said. "It's actually kinda flattering. I feel like I won some big competition or something."

That didn't seem like the right way to think about it, but perhaps she had.

Exactly how she had done so still seemed like a mystery to me sometimes. Even when I managed not to think about how she'd been as queen, I still remembered what she'd been like as a kid. Remembered the time her family and mine had both been visiting our grandparents, and we played house, and she pretended to be my wife. When she'd taught me how to kiss, but later that same day, when I was finishing a Lego castle I'd been working on for nearly an hour, had smashed it apart just to impress Dom.

Shit, how young had I been then?

I didn't even remember. Young, though. That much was for certain. And it had been years before I'd told anyone about it. The one friend I had told had told me I'd committed incest, even though it was just a stupid kiss. That had stung. And encouraged me not to tell anyone else for years after that. Perhaps, as much as the kiss itself, the fact that I'd kept it secret for so long explained why it still came to mind so readily.

Yet here I was. Madly in love with that same girl.

Without another word, she climbed into my lap.

It was awkward enough. But before the night was through, Brianna had fucked Dom and I'd fucked my mother.

#

After that vacation, things were as good between us as they could have been. We settled back into the same old routine, but it didn't seem so bad anymore. Neither of us loved that we spent half the day apart, but we made the most of the time we had together.

With how good things were going between us, I found it easier and easier to forgive myself for not going to see my mother. On the one hand, the way we'd left things when we'd last seen each other was definitely eating away at me. But on the other, it seemed almost certain that there was another argument to be had before we got around to making up. And I just didn't feel like dealing with that. Not when I was on my way to setting a record for consecutive days without arguing with any of the women in my life.

Not only did I put off the visit that I knew I owed my mother, but when Brianna was on patrol, I again spent most of my time with Todd and Holly. Val, Mel, and Nat, I saw only sparingly. Just like before Brianna and I had our little getaway. And I never made plans to see any of those three without letting Brianna know first. When I did so, I tried to avoid making it sound like I was asking permission. That wouldn't have gone over well. My cousin wouldn't want to feel like she was preventing me from doing anything. Rather, I did my best to give the impression that I was just letting her know. Even if we both knew that I would in fact change my plans if Brianna raised much of an objection.

She never did though.

"Have fun with Nat," she'd said as she leaned down to kiss me goodbye one afternoon.

And it hadn't even seemed like she'd forced herself to say it.

I felt no more jealous about her recreational activities. Of course, there weren't really any men around that I could consider real competition. If Dom was still with us, that would have been a lot harder for me to say. But, as it was, we managed to avoid fighting about each other's sexual exploits.

So it was that I arrived at the royal palace feeling excited and yet not the least bit guilty. Though I was about to spend the better part of the afternoon fucking my sister every which way, and Brianna knew it, she simply didn't care. Had in fact given me her blessing.

What more could I ask for?

Well, for Natalie to be alone, for starters.

At first, I only noticed Skye. But then I saw the twins and realized that my sister had overbooked her afternoon. Maybe even forgotten that we'd arranged to meet today.

"Oh! Frank. I, um-" she started.

"It's okay," I said, with an awkward laugh. "I'll come back some other time."

"No, no, don't be ridiculous," Nat said.

"We should go. Not you," Ismail said. "Right?" he added, giving his brother a gentle poke in the ribs with his elbow.

Vince shrugged.

"No need for that either," my sister added.

The five of us regarded each other. We were all still fully clothed. If not for the fact that we were in my sister's bedroom, one could almost say that it wasn't even clear what we were talking about. But of course we all knew. The air was heavy with desire.

Well, for the most part.

The look Skye gave me out of the corner of her eyes was somewhat less than libidinous.

But I couldn't really blame her. Not after what I'd done to her mother.

That was a real shame though. Because she was looking good.

Not as good as Natalie, whose remarkable beauty I'd really started to appreciate. My cousin didn't have the balanced proportions my sister had. Nor was she as pretty. But there was no denying that Skye was smoking hot all the same.

Her lacy black mini-skirt didn't cover much more than her hips. That glorious ass of hers was on full display, and it had my mouth watering. Her bra was equally flimsy. I could see her nipples through the thin fabric. Granted, Skye didn't have much to work with up top. Maybe a little more than Brianna. Which wasn't saying much. But with an ass like that, she didn't really need much in the way of breasts to nonetheless take my breath away.

If her brothers were going to enjoy my sister's many charms, I'd sure like to explore hers.

Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be in the cards.

As the twins started to slowly undress Natalie, Skye took a seat at my sister's desk. She crossed her legs and eyed me up and down, evidently unimpressed. An oversized mug of coffee appeared in her hands.

She rather pointedly did not ask me if I wanted any.

Not that I couldn't just as well summon my own, the same way she had. But it would have only been polite to ask.

"So, um, how do you like being the Shadow?"

Skye snorted before taking a sip of coffee. "Fine."

"Can be a little overwhelming, can't it?"

She furrowed her brow. Apparently deciding it wasn't a trap, she sighed and said, "You can say that again." The edge to her voice dulled a bit. "Sometimes I find it really rewarding. Feels like we're really making a difference. But other times, I'd like nothing more than to walk away and pretend I never even heard of the Homelands."

I glanced at the bed, where my cousins were busy worshipping my sister with their hands and mouths. Lucky bastards.

"I know what you mean," I said.

Though, really, I didn't.

I had my regrets, sure. More than Kaitlin's two. And I had basically walked away. For a time. But only from Autumn. Not from the Homelands. In fact, I'd spent that time exploring the rest of our world. That had proven less exciting than I thought it might be, if only because I'd taken such care to keep a low profile. All things considered, though, the desire to leave the Homelands behind just wasn't something I could relate to.

My cousin and I both glanced at my sister, whose moans were growing louder and louder. And we both looked away just as quickly, blushing.

"She seems to enjoy it," Skye said. Then her blush deepened. "Running the court."

I forced myself not to snicker. "It can be a real ego trip."

Skye stared up at me through a fan of thick lashes while pretending to be focused on her coffee. She couldn't love hearing that from me, but, aside from the not-so-subtle glare, she didn't show much reaction. "I suppose," she eventually added.

In spite of myself, I found my blood rushing to my member. I'd forgotten how hot Skye was. What an amazing lower body she had. She wasn't my usual type, to be sure. But still.

Of course, the sounds of passion coming from the bed behind us perhaps had a little something to do with my arousal. As did the fact that my cousin and I were trying so hard to pretend we were unaware of it. Something about that was driving me crazy.

"And how are you coping with being out of power? Going through withdrawal?"

"Not at all," I said. "In fact, I wish I'd never held power in the first place."

Skye raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

I shrugged. She wasn't going to believe me no matter what I said, and I wasn't in the mood to bend over backwards trying to convince her.

My cousin tipped back her mug. After a particularly long swig, she said, "You'll of course forgive me for sharing that sentiment."

After a slight wince, I nodded.

We glanced again at the bed, where Skye's two brothers were now spit-roasting my sister. Their skin was so dark. Much darker than Skye's. And they looked darker still in comparison to Natalie. The sharp contrast of their tall, hard, ebony figures against her short, soft, pale form was almost hypnotizing.

Recalling how, long ago, when I'd accused her of having a thing for black guys, she'd said that she herself had no such preference but Natalie definitely did, I found myself suddenly feeling torn between arousal, jealousy, disgust, and guilt.

So what if Nat got more turned on by black guys? These were our cousins. Not random strangers she picked up just because of the color of their skin. And, even if they were, what business was that of mine? How would that be any more objectionable than the other wanton acts of depravity we all committed each and every day?

It was absurd. And, as Aunt Tara had once pointed out, quaintly American.

It didn't even matter that much to me. Nonetheless, there was some part of me that found the idea that my sister might be moaning just a little less enthusiastically if Vince and Ismail were white to be both titillating and discomfiting.

Could Skye sense that reaction?

I looked back over at my cousin and realized that she was too preoccupied to notice my reaction. She unfolded her legs then crossed them again. The one that had been on bottom went on top this time. Her cheeks were flushed, her pupils dilated, and her nipples hard.

I could smell her excitement. The hint of cinnamon sent a shiver down my spine.

She put her coffee down. "Look this doesn't mean-"

"I know," I cut in.

She nodded.

A moment later, I had her bent over the desk, skirt hiked up around her waist, while I fucked both her holes from behind. The way her ass rippled gently with each thrust was simultaneously exciting and disappointing. An ass that big should have more jiggle to it. It barely shook any more than Brianna's did, even though it was quite a bit larger. But it was so round, so perfectly shaped, that I couldn't stop staring at it all the same.

That said, I fairly quickly found myself wishing I could take either Vince or Ismail's place in my sister's bed. Skye was beautiful, and her body was definitely more than a little appealing, even given my usual preference for bustier women. But she wasn't particularly powerful, talented, or enthusiastic. Or at least wasn't enthusiastic about being with me.

Though it wasn't my favorite, angry sex could be really good. With the right woman. Like Brianna or my mother. But with Skye, the resentment I still sensed that she felt for me was strictly detracting from the both her enjoyment and mine.

Unfortunately, by the time Natalie remembered I was there, it was time for me to go. Hours had gone passed, yet she'd hardly taken her eyes off the twins more than a few times.

#

Brianna and I were lying on the couch, watching a horror movie, when a knock came at the door. The sudden noise startled my cousin, and she almost fell off the couch. When I laughed at that, she rained slaps down on me. But I noticed that she was giggling even as she told me what a jerk I was. In fact, she looked about ready to switch over from slapping me to kissing me when whoever it was rapped on the door again.

My cousin gave me an apologetic shrug before slipping away to get the door.

I stared at her as she crossed the floor. Even in relatively loose-fitting sweatpants, her ass was hard not to appreciate. I wouldn't have minded it being bigger, but relative to her slight frame, it was actually more than generous.

Brianna was exactly not my type, in lots of ways. But even so, I found myself wondering why I hadn't been more impressed by her in the past. Hers was a different type of sexy than my mother's, but she definitely had it going on.

"Oh, hey, Nat," Brianna said. "I mean, good evening, Your Highness."

I heard my sister snort. "Please. `Nat' will do just fine."

"Well, whatever I'm calling you, come on in," my cousin replied, stepping back from the door. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"Sure," Natalie said. "Whatever you're having."

Brianna nodded and skipped into the kitchen.

"Hey there," I called from the couch as I rose to my feet. "Didn't expect to see you again until next week. To what do we owe the pleasure?"

My sister shrugged. "Guess I just felt guilty about earlier."

"Why's that?" Brianna asked as she set up the blender.

I came over and gave my sister a hug. Then I stepped back to have a proper look at her. She wore red heels, fishnet stockings, a skin-tight red babydoll. Natalie had exactly the right body, and exactly the right complexion, to realize the full potential of that outfit. The contrast of red and black against white skin was exquisite. The black silk ribbon tied around her throat rounded things out perfectly.

My sister ran her hand up and down my abs, staring at them as she did. Eyes focused on the peaks and valleys of my midsection, she said to our cousin, "I got a little carried away with Vince and Ishy. Kinda forgot about Frank."

"Oh, was the poor baby neglected?" Brianna asked.

Nat and I stared into each other's eyes while the blender whirred.

When it stopped, Natalie said, "Well, Skye took care of him, but I still felt bad."

"You shouldn't have," Brianna said as she poured out three cocktails.

Peach margaritas, to judge by the color and the salt-rimmed glasses. Whether you were talking alcohol or sex, it was always something new with Brianna.

Nat snickered. "Good point. Wouldn't want to spoil him."

"Exactly," Brianna replied.

"So I guess the truth is I feel like I'd missed out," Nat said. "`Didn't want to wait a week to make up for it." Turning to look at our cousin, she added, "Hope you don't mind."

Brianna came around the island counter with the three drinks. "Not at all. I'm not sure you made the wrong decision, to be honest. Those boys are fucking gorgeous. But if you think Frank's worth a special trip, far be it from me to stop you."

My cousin gave me a gentle hip check and a warm smile before setting in on her drink.

"Brianna just likes to try to convince other women that I'm not very good so she can keep me to herself," I said.

Natalie smirked at that.

For her part, Brianna coughed up a mouthful of margarita. After cleaning up the mess, she eyed Nat up and down and said, "That is a positively delicious outfit, my dear. You look good enough to eat."

"Thank you," my sister said. "Have you done something with your hair? It looks thicker. And redder too."

Brie smiled and flicked a lock of her beautiful mane over her shoulder. "Exactly right." With an amused grin, she looked up at me. "Nice to know some people notice such things."

I shrugged. "Sorry."

"He's hopeless," Brianna told my sister.

"Oh, I don't know about hopeless. But he definitely needs work. Bless you for having the patience to work with him. I know I couldn't."

Ha freaking ha. They were just too witty.

"Seriously, though," Brianna said, running her nails lightly up and down my back. "I can't blame you for missing his dick. I'm not sure what the hell is going on upstairs sometimes, but our Frank has a gorgeous cock. And if there's a man alive who's got a better idea of what he's doing, I'd love to meet him."

"Thank you, dear," I said, before kissing the top of her head.

Natalie licked some salt off the rim of her glass, took a healthy sip of the cocktail, then said, "True enough, but to be honest, it's not even his dick I spent the day beating myself up for missing out on. It's his tongue."

Brianna raised an eyebrow.

"She wouldn't know," I explained. "I keep trying to get her to let me seduce her properly, but our cousin is not what you'd call a patient woman."

"That's not true," she said. "It's just that my idea of foreplay doesn't involve me lying flat on my back. Patient, I can do. Passive? Not so much."

True enough. That was indeed a better description.

But I didn't feel like telling Natalie that. I still had a hard enough time admitting to myself that I let her do those things to me. And do so regularly.

"Well," Natalie said, averting her eyes, "One of these days, you've simply got to let him. And not just for a little while. Let him do the full routine. You'll thank me. I promise."

Brianna stared up at me. "Okay. I'll do that."

I smiled at her. And, inside my own head, thanked my sister.

I simply loved eating Brianna's pussy. If I got to seduce her properly, heaping praise on every part of her body before making my way to her altar, so much the better.

Natalie walked towards the living room, staring at the TV about as intently as I was staring at her ass. With a groan, she said, "Are those subtitles? It's not bad enough you're making the poor woman watch horror, you've got to make her watch foreign horror? Frank, Frank, Frank," she said, shaking her head. "And to think, here I was afraid I might be interrupting a trip to Happytown. Looks like I rescued Brianna."

Part of me resented the nearly relentless heckling that had been directed towards me since my sister showed up. But part of me wanted to give Natalie a bear hug.

There were few things in life that turned Brianna on as much as teasing me. Being the center of attention was one of them. The way Natalie managed to do both at the same time was getting my cousin really worked up. Her Libido felt like a dam that was about to burst.

Which not only meant that all three of us were in for some real fun that night, but also meant that what little jealousy Brianna might have felt towards my sister before was likely to be gone come morning. And that meant that if I wanted to see Natalie again without waiting a week to do so, it would probably be just fine with Brianna.

"He's picked out worse," Brianna said. "I'll take weird, trippy Spanish horror over trashy American torture porn any day of the week."

And she wasn't kidding about that. Given her taste in bedroom activities, and the fact that they'd slowly made a return into our lives even after I'd said that I wasn't all that into kink, you wouldn't think she'd be so squeamish. But, then, every time I thought I had my cousin figured out, she found a way to prove me wrong.

"What a set of choices," Nat said.

"You should see the shit she makes me suffer through," I said. "Now that's scary."

"Watch it, mister," Brianna said.

Nat smiled at the two of us wistfully. Then she downed the rest of her drink in one gulp. "So. Do you guys want to finish this movie? Or does someone maybe have another idea about how we might entertain ourselves?"

Brianna and I looked at each other.

Unlike my sister, we didn't bother finishing our drinks.

As Brianna slid up alongside my sister's right flank, I approached her left, thinking we'd each nibble one of her earlobes. But Brianna reached over, put a slender hand on my chest, and shoved me back with more force than she could have managed naturally.




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 10



"Frank!"

"What, what?" I asked, rubbing the sleep away from my eyes.

It was my mother.

What was she doing here?

Natalie and Brianna were just behind her. Both look terrified. And pained.

I sat up. "What is it?"

"Oh, sweetie," my mother said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. She reached out, grabbed my shoulders, and pulled me to her, cradling my face against her chest.

A brief moment of relief passed over me. She wasn't mad at me. It had sounded like she was, but she wasn't.

But as my neurons slowly started firing again, I realized what that meant. Picked up on her tone of voice.

My kids.

It had to be. Why else did they all look like they felt so sorry for me?

"What happened?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"You're not going to like this," my mother said.

You don't say.

Brianna burst into tears and pressed herself against Natalie. My sister held our cousin close and ran her hands through her hair.

Oh fuck. It was even worse than I'd feared.

That's when they told me that both Val and Josh were gone.

We had to assume they'd been Devoured, for they were nowhere to be found. And trying to locate them supernaturally offered no help at all. Mom had even thought to go to the echo of the mortal world to check for them there too. Again, nothing. If they were alive, she'd have felt something.

When I told them about my early morning encounter, and the way the fox had stared at me when licking my blood, they all agreed that there was only one conclusion to be drawn.

He'd used my blood to track down my blood. My children. And taken them from me.

When I burst into tears, Brianna asked my mother and sister to leave the two of us alone.

I was glad she did. But then, if my mother had said the same thing, I'd have been glad too. Maybe even if Nat had. At just that moment, sorting out the mess of my love life was not a high priority. I wasn't sure who I wanted to be alone with. All I knew was that I did want to be alone with one of them. I just couldn't bear having three pairs of eyes staring down at me in pity like that.

We didn't talk. My cousin just held me in her arms while I alternated back and forth between sobbing gently, demanding of no one in particular that they tell me why, and moaning in anguish. She didn't whisper soothing sounds, or tell me it would be okay, or anything. Which was good, because it wouldn't be. But I was glad to have her there, holding me. The pain would have been even worse without that.

Eventually, I couldn't cry anymore. I don't want to say I got control of myself, because I think I went into shock. But the sobbing and wailing and moaning was done, and the way people looked at me suddenly seemed like the silliest thing in the world to be concerned about. So I told Brianna to let the others back in.

As numb as I was, I wasn't entirely cognitively impaired. When my mother said that the thing I'd described sounded like a white fox, and explained what that meant, it more or less sank in. I'd thought of an arctic fox, which was of course just another name for the same animal. But I should have made the connection.

Our killer belonged to one of the great houses of Winter. He was one of Daphne's brood. Whether he was a son, a grandson, a nephew, or what have you, made no difference. He was her creature. Her fault. Her responsibility.

"We have to kill her," I said.

"Frank," Natalie said, laying a hand on my arm.

"No, I'm serious. In a few days, Brianna and I are supposed to have dinner with Iva. She'll know where we can find the bitch. If she doesn't want to tell us, we'll make her."

"You don't mean that," Brianna said.

"Why not?" I snapped.

Much more harshly than I'd meant to.

It wasn't Brianna I was mad at.

She recoiled. Then pursed her lips, and looked away.

"I'm sorry," I said, pulling her in for a hug . "I shouldn't have snapped at you. But I don't see why we shouldn't try to squeeze Iva."

"We don't stand a chance against Daphne," Brianna said.

"She's right, Frank," Natalie said.

"Be sensible, dear," my mother added.

That one burned. The others were being patient. Trying to talk sense into me. Because, well, I wasn't being sensible. But did my mother have to say it like that?

"We don't even know that Daphne ordered him to do it," Natalie said. "I think the best thing to do is find this guy, do what you have to with him, and pretend we never knew who he was or where he came from until we know more."

"If you don't trust yourself with him, I can interrogate him for you," Brianna said. Then promptly added, "Of course, I'll let you have him when I'm finished."

Damn, I loved that woman. Thinking about what she'd do to get information out of him gave me goose bumps.

"We'll go to that dinner,see what information we can get from Iva, and figure out our next move after that," she added.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my mother giving Brianna a cool nod of approval. Which actually angered me. I wanted to tell her it was Bobby's fault as much as Daphne's. But I knew that was just guilt by association. What reason did I have to be mad at Bobby anyway? Things would have fallen apart between me and Mom anyway.

I agreed to Brianna's proposal then asked Mom and Nat to leave again.

#

The next day, I finally decided to go and see my mother. It was long overdue. And I'd been cold towards her the day before. She'd come to comfort me in my hour of grieving. I should have been grateful.

I found a rather unexpected scene unfolding in her living room.

By the oversized fireplace, Uncle Bobby was tied to a chair, a ball-gag in his mouth. On the leather sofa, my mother was locked in the early stages of foreplay with...my father.

"What's he doing here?" I asked.

Dad looked up. "Well whaddaya know. Speak of the fucking devil."

I heard my mother sigh exasperatedly. "Hello, Frank."

Walking further into the room, I saw that they still had all their clothes on. Mom was wearing a simple sundress, and underneath it, there was still a pair of panties. For his part, my father wore a T-shirt and a pair of jeans that were, as yet, not even unbuckled.

"My sister sent me to treat with your queen," my father said.

"You mean your daughter."

He shrugged. "Long as I was in town, I figured I'd pay a visit to my wife."

"Isn't he romantic?" I asked my mother.

The two of them exchanged a look, and I felt like we'd been struck by an earthquake.

It was the kind of look they'd have shared when I was a child and asked how my letters got to the North Pole. Like they each thought it was cute that I simply didn't get it, and wanted to make sure the other thought so as well.

There was no mistaking it. There was genuine love in that look. On both sides.

Maybe not the kind of love there had once been. It wasn't like I suddenly expected them to get back together. But there were stronger remnants of something that had once been there than I'd have thought, given all that had happened.

Mom stood up, wiggling her hips as she pulled her dress back down. "Frank, honey, why don't pick your jaw back up and come join us. You did come here to fuck your dear old mother, didn't you?" Then she looked at her brother. "Would you like to see that, Bobby?"

I thought a saw a tear dribble down his cheek. But he nodded assent all the same.

My mother planted a hand on a hip and tapped her finger against her chin. "Actually," she declared, holding the finger straight up now, "I have a better idea."

The rope that had bound my uncle to the wooden chair fell away, as if it had suddenly grown twice as large. The ball gag dropped into his lap.

"Frank, I want you to get in that chair."

My father laughed.

I just stood there, stunned.

"You heard me, young man," she said.

"Do as your mother says," Dad added, grinning ear to ear.

My uncle offered me an apologetic shrug.

I wanted to scream. At all of them. At my mother for letting my father touch her. At my father for abandoning us, and for being such a smug ass. At Bobby for being so polite.

"Now," my mother said, with a stamp of her foot.

I did as I was told.

To say I hated every minute of it would be a lie. I wished I did. But I didn't. It was definitely uncomfortable, in more than one sense, to sit there with those ropes biting into my skin and the ball-gag holding my jaw wide open for so long, all the while watching my uncle make sweet, tender love to my mother and my father using her like a cheap whore.

But it was arousing as well. More than a little, in fact.

If I'd been free to do so, I'd have jerked off furiously. Several times over.

After Bobby passed out, my mother decided to include me.

I nearly cried tears of joy at that.

The fact that she did so in such a limited way, that she didn't untie me or remove the ball-gag, just whipped my dick out and sucked me off while my father fucked her from behind, should have upset me. But the pleasure of being inside her warm mouth after being forced to watch passively for so long left no room in my mind for resentment.

My mother had never been the most talented in that department. But that was just a function of how stiff the competition was. Her skills were far from modest. So it hardly surprised me that, even distracted as she was by the furious pounding she was receiving, she had me melting in her mouth in less than a minute.

Actually, maybe it was at least partly because of the furious pounding.

Watching my father piston in and out of her more rapidly than any ordinary mortal could have evoked a complex set of reactions. Jealousy was foremost among them. There was also anger, confusion, disbelief, and shame. The latter was felt vicariously for my mother, who didn't seem to be aware that she ought to be feeling it herself.

But, lurking beneath all of that, there was intense excitement.

I'd tried telling myself that the reason I'd been so aroused before was because of Bobby. He was tender and caring and affectionate. If I had to watch my mother with another man, it felt like I should want to see her with him. Now, though, I was forced to admit how much I liked the raw aggression my father was displaying. How much I liked knowing that my mother liked that.

A few times, my mother rode me reverse cow-girl while my father alternately fucked her face or slid between her huge breasts. But for the most part, I had to settle for her mouth while my father had his way with her other holes.

An hour or so later, my father finally jerked off onto my mother's back for the last time. He'd apparently learned the trick to prolonging one's orgasm, because he absolutely coated her, from her ass to her neck, in glistening white jizz. When he was done, she scooped up a few globs of it, swallowed them, then cleaned herself up.

At that point, my father helped her to her feet, gingerly. Then he kissed her on the cheek, and said, "It really was nice to see you again, Ellen."

"Same here," she said, running her hand up and down his arm.

They kissed each other, long and soft, hugged, then stared into each other's eyes silently for several awkward moments.

Awkward for me, at least.

The fact that they were still in love with one another, on some level, probably should have struck me as endearing. Reassuring, even. It should have given me hope that the divide between House Farrier and House Orwin wasn't so vast after all.

But it mostly just made me feel like I'd been kicked in the gut.

The next thing I knew, my father was gone.

Mom let out a heavy sigh. "There goes a good man."

Was she serious? Couldn't she see the way he'd treated her? And her kids?

"You probably don't think so, do you?" she said, as she approached me.

I didn't respond. Not that I had any way of doing so, really.

"You know what I think is funny?" my mother asked. "That you feel so comfortable judging me for the way I feel about Iva, yet you think there's something wrong with me agreeing to have a little fun, for old times' sake, with the man I was married to for more than twenty five years." She shook her head softly. "Now, I'm sure that in your mind it makes sense to think that he's responsible for the injustices we've endured. I could remind you that Iva is the queen. I might even point out that the injustices we've endured seem to strike you as intolerable whenever you feel like getting mad at House Farrier, but fairly modest whenever someone wants to criticize your precious Iva. I won't even bother though, because you're pretty much immune to logic when your emotions get involved."

That wasn't fair.

Not entirely, anyway. Perhaps she had a point about my father. But she conveniently forgot to mention that one of the reasons I found her attitude towards Iva horrifying was that she'd expressed regret over the decision not to kill an innocent child.

Mom's nostrils were flaring and her chest heaving. Her hands were balled into fists.

"Forget it. This is just getting me upset. You came here to apologize, I assume?"

I nodded.

"Well, you know what, Frank?"

She never used my name this often. Except, of course, when she was furious with me.

"I don't give a flying fuck. You can take that apology and shove it up your ass." She stopped for a moment, gathering her breath. "I'm sorry. I know I should hear you out. Should take pity on you, if only for the sake of the children you recently lost. But I really just don't want to hear it. You think I couldn't see in your eyes, feel in your Libido, that you were sitting there thinking that you were better than me? Feeling sorry for me? God, that just makes me want to smack you."

I hadn't thought I was better than her. But, yes, I had been feeling ashamed for her.

Didn't a little part of me still love Lily, though? Even though she'd tried to Devour me? Hadn't I told Mel that if and when she Devoured Lord Furcas, she should tell him that Lily sends her regards? Was it so strange that my mother would still have some kind of feelings for my father? She'd been married to him much longer than I'd known Lily, after all.

And what did I know about the business my father was conducting here? How did I know that he hadn't persuaded his mother to refrain from doing far worse than she had?

I needed to admit to myself that, for all I knew, the only Farrier worth hating was Kaitlin. It wasn't right to blame the whole house.

"Do you still think he," she pointed at my uncle, snoring softly on the couch, "is the reason you and I are not together?"

No. At this point, that would be Brianna.

"Or, let me guess," she said, straddling my hips. "Do you think it's because of that stupid cousin of yours?" Her huge breasts pressed against my face, blocking my vision. "Do you think I couldn't have stolen you back from her at any moment, if I'd wanted to?"

Well, now.

The moment she said it, I knew it was true.

Suddenly, my mother slipped out of my lap again. She rested one hand atop my head. Her nails dug into my scalp. "You know why I haven't?"

If not for her nails, I might have shook my head no.

"It's not because of my brother," she said. "Truth be told, things have been unraveling between us for some time now. He's madly in love with Skye, you see. He thinks I don't know. But a woman always knows."

That didn't surprise me nearly as much as she apparently thought it would. Somewhat, yes. But after what Natalie had said, some weeks ago, it was far from shocking.

"The reason we still haven't gotten back together, Frank, is the way you treat me. It's gotten worse over time. Or seems like it has, now that I've known the love of a man who truly respects me. Because whatever else your uncle may be, such as dreadfully boring, he always has respected me. But anyway, whether you've actually gotten worse or not doesn't matter. I see it more clearly now. The point is, it was always there. From the way you judged me for letting other men be rough with me to the way you assumed I have a thing for black men just because I enjoyed fucking my nephews, who just so happen to have a black father. As if I wouldn't do the same if they weren't multiracial. As if there's anyone in our family who hasn't fucked every single blood relative they have."

The anger started to flush from my system. Tense muscles relaxed. Shoulders slouched.

And tears welled up in my eyes.

She was right. As always.

What a rotten shit I'd been.

The ropes fell away. But the ball-gag remained.

"I don't want your apologies," my mother said. "I don't want to hear anything you have to say. But I do want you to fuck me. As hard, or as soft, as you like. I can't stand you sometimes, Frank, but damn if I don't miss your touch." She tapped the ball-gag with a finger tip. "And I've missed your mouth. So I'm going to get rid of this silly thing. But don't take that as a sign that I want to hear whatever you have to say. There's only one thing I want that tongue of yours to do right now. Got it?"

I nodded.

The ball-gag disappeared.

We kissed. Hungrily. Like we hadn't kissed in a very long time.

I wanted to taste her. To properly worship every part of my goddess. But I knew that the part about wanting me to use my tongue for only one thing was figurative. Just at the moment, she wasn't in the mood for oral sex.

For that matter, I guess I wasn't either.

I might have wanted to taste her, but I needed to be inside her.

Without using my hands or anything, I guided my cock into its rightful home. It took a little effort, but I'd done far more complicated things with my supernatural powers before.

"Oh!" Mom exclaimed. "Neat trick."

As much as I enjoyed having her on top of me though, at just that moment, I needed a position that didn't force me into such a passive role. I'd been passive enough as it was, tied to that damn chair. So I picked my mother up, stumbled over to the nearest wall, and rested one hand against it for support. My mother's thighs wrapped tight around my waist and her arms did the same for my neck.

"That's it, baby, use Mommy however you want me," she whispered.

That wasn't good enough either, I decided. After a few furious pumps, I let her down and instructed her to get on all fours. With eyes wide as saucers and glistening white teeth digging into her full lower lip, she nodded and then quickly did as I'd asked.

I fucked her as hard as I'd ever fucked her. At first, she egged me on, but soon enough, she lost the ability to formulate actual words.

Her great white orbs were soon pink and red. Discernible palm prints marred her perfect ass. She could have undone that with a mere thought, of course. Which would also dismiss whatever stinging she might have felt from the slaps. But she chose not to.

Perhaps it was that as much as her trademark trick of pulling her legs together at the exact right moment, turning her already tight sheath into a perfect vice, that sent me over the edge. I wasn't sure. But one way or another, I found myself filling the very womb that had sheltered me before birth with my own seed.

"Damn, honey," Mom gasped. "That was something."

"Far from done," I panted.

"Mmm. That's what Mommy likes to hear," she said, as she rolled over and sat up.

Those were just about the only words we spoke during our brief intermission.

A mix of anger, jealousy, frustration, humiliation, and desire burned inside me still, only slightly relieved by the furious assault I'd just launched on my mother's pussy. But I managed to gain control of my emotions and switch gears.

My mother's emotions seemed to be a good deal further from the boiling point. She'd been angry with me earlier, yes. And she hadn't forgiven me for any of what we'd fought about. But, at the present moment, she was more amused than anything. It was like this was a game to her. If so, she was definitely winning.




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 10



In part because I wanted to anyway, but also in part to wipe the smug look off her face, I put the animal back in his cage. When we started back up, I took my time seducing my mother. As I did, I teased her relentlessly. Every time she thought I'd finally finished the buildup and was ready to start really going to work on her little lady, I went back to kissing her hips or playing with her breasts, and she'd throw her head back, sigh in exasperation, and slam her heel against the floor.

"Please, please, baby, Mommy's begging you," she whimpered at one point.

Still, I did not relent.

When I did eventually pour everything I had into eating her pussy, she exploded.

Not to be outdone though, she then showed me what a tease she could be. And I quickly came to regret torturing her the way I had. She made me suffer, in the best possible way, before she finally set to work giving me a blow-job I'd never forget.

After that, we seemed to implicitly call a truce. We didn't make love. There was still an angry edge to it all. But we'd stopped trying to prove who was in charge.

Because there was no question that she was.

#

The evening I'd been both dreading and eagerly awaiting finally arrived.

Brianna and I strode into the banquet hall, arm in arm.

My father was the first to greet us. I found myself thinking that he looked about as good in a tux as any man ever had. Even now that I wasn't sure how much I should trust him, I remained somewhat in awe of him. Perhaps because I'd recently learned that my mother still hadn't entirely gotten over him. For good or for ill, my very conception of masculinity was largely defined by this man.

"Frank," he said, shaking my hand. "You look good. Should wear French cuffs with that suit though." As I busied myself with the correction, he turned to my cousin and held his hands out for a hug. "Brianna, don't you look smashing."

She certainly did. Her glittering emerald gown matched her eyes perfectly. Its modest cut hid what little curves she had, but that only made her look that much classier. Her hair had never looked better. And she wore a little more makeup than she'd gotten in the habit of wearing. I wanted to say I hadn't missed it, but it transformed her already gorgeous face into a wonder that was almost painful to behold.

My cousin gave my father a hug and the exchanged kisses on the cheek.

"I didn't think you could get any more handsome, Uncle Gus," Brianna said.

We found Kaitlin, Cindy, and Mark at the bar. They stood in a semi-circle, nursing drinks and nibbling at fancy hors d'oeuvres. Like me, Mark wore a nice dark suit rather than a tux. Kaitlin wore a black evening gown, Cindy a creamy cocktail dress that did nothing to hide the fact that she was pregnant.

That should have repulsed me. Indeed, would have at one time. But seeing the swell of her midsection, heavy with either her brother's or her son's child, only made me think that it was getting to be time to ask Brianna how serious she'd been all those times that she'd said she didn't want to have children. While the thought of grieving over the death of another child was almost unbearable, the idea of going through life without ever again knowing the love and the pride I'd briefly felt for Josh and Val was even worse.

I told Cindy how beautiful she looked, flashing a suggestive glance at Brianna.

She raised a quizzical brow. But I felt her Libido swell.

My heart raced. She'd caught my drift. And was receptive to the idea. Damn, why hadn't it ever occurred to me to suggest it before? After all the time I'd spent fantasizing about crossing the last line of taboo with my mother, I'd not once thought that maybe I should broach the subject with my cousin.

"Where's our beloved Matriarch?" I asked Kaitlin, after we finished with the greetings.

"A queen's work is never done," she said. "I can hardly keep up with her."

Right. That was believable.

"Bourbon," Dad said, handing me a glass.

I smiled as I thanked him. He was always trying to get me to convert from Scotch.

"And amaretto sour for the lady."

"Thank you kindly," Brie said as she took her drink from him.

"Since when do you drink those?" I asked her.

"Since when do you drink bourbon?" she replied. "Figured I'd try something new."

That was Brianna for you. If I ever figured out what her favorite anything was, it would be a day worth commemorating.

My cousin held her glass up, inviting me to join her in a silent toast. After the first sip, she plucked the cherry up from her drink, popped it in her mouth, and yanked the stem away. For a moment, I thought she might take the stem in her mouth and tie it in a knot. But she let the opportunity to be thoroughly clich\'{e slip by.

"I hear you've got some sort of democracy going over there," Mark said.

"Yes. Tell us. How is that going?" Kaitlin asked.

Had her characteristic perpetual sneer gotten worse since I'd last seen her? Become less cute and more bitchy? Or was it just my opinion of her that had changed?

Aunt Cindy gave her mother's elbow a playful slap. But if Grandma noticed, she didn't give any indication. Just stared at me with those hazel eyes.

"Fine, actually," I said, though it was news to me.

Was Natalie a wide-eyed reformer? I suppose that shouldn't have surprised me. What little I knew seemed consistent enough with that. But how was it that this was be the first I'd heard that I was living in a democracy?

Of course, I had done my best to remain as ignorant as possible.

"Hmm," Kaitlin said.

Dad snickered as he sipped his drink.

"And where are all the little ones?" I asked. "I hear I've got lots of new cousins. Or brothers and sisters. Or whatever they'd be."

"They'd be none of your business," Kaitlin said. "My dear."

Cindy rolled her eyes at her mother. "They're doing well, thank you. Three little boys and two little girls. I have a feeling this one's going to be another boy," she said. "Sometimes you just know."

"What about you guys? Have you thought about having kids?" Mark asked.

Brianna looked a question at me.

"Not yet," I said.

"You have children of your own, though, right?" Mark asked.

I cleared my throat.

"What's it like trying to be Shadow while living in Daphne's shadow?" Brie asked Kaitlin.

Mark probably hadn't meant anything by it, but I was still more than glad to see the subject changed. Which, no doubt, had been the point. For just a moment, I thought about grabbing her and kissing her. But I managed to behave myself.

My father snickered at that just as he had his mother's dig at me a few moments ago.

I'd forgotten how much like Todd he was. Except, of course, it was Todd who was like him. In both of their eyes, a good zing was a good zing. It didn't matter who was on the giving end anymore than it did who was on the receiving end.

Damn, but I actually did miss the bastard.

Kaitlin flashed her pearly whites. "Delightful, actually. That girl doesn't listen when I talk sense. But she does when it comes from Daphne."

"Have you met Lady Winter?" Mark asked. "She's amazing. In so many ways."

"Haven't had...the pleasure," I said.

I actually really wanted to ask more about Daphne and her big plans, but I knew what kind of answer I'd get if I did. So there was no real point. The more often her name got casually dropped into the conversation, though, the more I grew irritated. With Mark, it might have simply been tactlessness. But that was harder to believe of the others. They wanted me driving myself nuts, wondering what she was up to.

I was quickly growing tired of the reunion. Yes, I now realized just how much I'd actually missed my father. And it was getting easier to realize that I had no reason to hate Mark or Cindy. But Kaitlin alone was getting to be more than I could take. If I had to smile through another of her barbs, I just might start poking her with the little plastic cocktail swords that came with the hors d'oeuvres.

Or worse.

Thankfully, Iva arrived shortly thereafter.

She apologized for being late, but wouldn't tell us where she'd been.

I wanted to be frustrated with her. For that, and for so much more. But as hard as I tried to be, I only partially succeeded.

She was genuinely excited to see us, and it showed. She'd masked her Libido so well that she was utterly inscrutable to my metaphysical senses, but the warm smile on her face alone made that clear. Some people could fake smiles like that, but I'd never gotten the sense that my aunt was among them.

And, damn, did she look good.

She wore a red gown with diamonds studding the hips and bust, black leather gloves with diamonds along the knuckles, a pearl necklace, a hooded half-cape trimmed with ermine, and the tiara she'd worn the last time I'd seen her. She carried the scepter as well.

In the back of my mind, I knew that this was the same aunt who liked to pinch my nose and tease me about how little I knew about the Homelands, a young woman with a playful sense of humor and a nerdy side that she didn't always hide all that well. But when I looked at her, all I saw was a majestic being of great beauty, with power that was greater still.

What I should have been seeing was a tyrant. A woman who was in league with a monster. I should feel some kind of animosity towards her.

Yet, here we were. One look at her, and I was weak in the knees.

A quick glance at my cousin confirmed that she was struggling with the same thoughts.

There was a wariness there. Fear even.

You should be anyfuckingway.

But anger or frustration? No. She too was far too much in awe of the Matriarch for that.

I remembered that when Iva had first told me that she was going to put Brianna in the same prison with me, she'd said that she wanted the two of us to get to know each other better. And it had sounded like she was going to say something about the three of us. Was Iva dreaming of some day getting away from politics and moving in with us? Was that the idea? The three of us living as one happy trio?

Even with everything that had happened, would I have said no to that?

We didn't chat long. Her late arrival had already held up dinner. But she assured us we'd talk more after we ate.

Once she'd said that, three tables appeared. Each was draped in white linen and had fine china and silverware laid out upon them. Brianna and I took one. My father, Aunt Cindy, and Mark sat at another. The Matriarch and her Shadow claimed the last.

White envelopes lay on our salad plate. Our names had been written on them in golden ink. I looked at Brianna, who shrugged, and then opened mine.

Inside, I found nothing but a business card bearing a single word, also in gold. "Iva," I read aloud. "You?" I asked my cousin.

"Kaitlin," she said, with just a trace of disdain.

And, by "just a trace," I mean a healthy fucking dollop.

We set the cards aside as the first of five courses materialized out of nowhere. Salad with candied walnuts and apples. Next, we had a baked potato soup. Then a small bowl of pasta, followed by a choice of steak or salmon. Finally, an excellent tiramisu for dessert.

I scooped up a bit of mine and wiped it on my cousin's nose.

"You little," Brianna started. Then she broke into a laugh. "Come here." She grabbed my neck and pulled me close to her. "Lick it off."

I happily did as instructed. We then kissed, long and slow. I stared into her emerald eyes as I pulled back.

There had been a time I found it hard to believe that I could fall for her. Now it seemed strange to believe that it had taken so long to happen. And it seemed even stranger than I needed to see Cindy, pregnant, to finally think that I wanted Brianna to bear my children.

"So. What do you think?"

"About?" she asked, smiling lazily back at me.

The waves of warmth rolling off her Libido were intoxicating. Far more so than the bourbon I'd been drinking. "About the little suggestion I made earlier."

She frowned.

"What I'm asking, Brie, is if you'll have-"

For an instant, there was only pain. As it subsided, I gained enough presence of mind to notice the black spots swimming across my vision.

"Fuck you, Frank."

"What?" I asked. "I thought you knew what I was getting at."

"I did, you jerk. And when you left it as a subtle suggestion, it was hot. But you're really going to ask me now? Does this really strike you as a good time to talk about it?"

"Oh."

She snorted. "`Oh,' he says. How can you be so smart, so sensitive, and yet so stupid?"

I stared at my empty plate. "I don't know. Look if you don't want to-"

Her voice went from its usual high pitch to truly shrill. "Ohmyfuckinggod, that is sooooo not the point! Of course I want to. But-"

"Wait, what?" I asked, interrupting her. "Was I supposed to know that? After you said so many times that you don't want kids?"

"How could you take me seriously? That was obviously a defense mechanism, you idiot." She fixed her hair, which had fallen out of place when she smacked me. "I've been wanting you to ask me that for a long ass time. When Josh and Val died, I hoped you'd want to have kids again. Then I hated myself for thinking that. I cried for an hour, wondering what kind of monster I could be to let myself think about that while you were suffering. Fuck, yes, Frank, I want to have your kids. But you really should have waited and asked me back at home. Without any fucking Farriers around."

Just at that moment, Iva stood up, clapped her hands, and the tables cleared themselves. The Matriarch then announced that it was time for the next stage of the evening's festivities. She snapped her fingers and the tables all turned into chaise lounges.

"Sorry. We'll talk more later," I said.

Brianna glowered at me before offering the barest hint of a nod.

My father, Cindy, and Mark stayed where they were, while my grandmother and I switched places. Part of me thought the timing couldn't be worse. And part of me thought it couldn't be better. The last thing I wanted just then was to fight with my cousin. There was too much on my mind already.

I didn't bother undressing. With a three piece suit, that would take too much effort. I just willed the clothes to melt away, and suddenly they were sliding down over my hard muscles as though they'd been made of water in the first place.

"Been awhile," I said to Iva.

"Too long," she replied, unfastening her cape. "Look at you," she added, eyeing me up and down. "Where's the confused, overeager young man I once knew?"

"Still confused," I said.

Back then, I'd known next to nothing about our kind, about what I could do with my powers. What I knew for sure was that I trusted the aunt I'd never met before. Completely.

Now it was pretty much the exact opposite.

She laughed, and gave up fumbling with her clothes. Instead, she did as I had and made them all disappear at once. Except her stockings and heels.

"You know, this is exactly how you've looked lately. When you come to me, at night."

"Is that so?" I asked.

Iva ignored the question. "Tall, sleek, and without all that bulk your mother favors. The air shimmering around you, like the air above an open fire. Do you even see that? It's like reality itself is bending its knee in homage at your passing. Your Libido is so bright, so hot, so intense, I can barely stand it. And yet, you've got this expressionless look on your face. Confident would be too strong a word. Just completely unimpressed by everything you see. Fuck, Frank, it makes me weak in the knees. I don't even know if that's from fear or desire. I haven't been able to figure out whether I've been having dreams about you, or nightmares."

What was I supposed to say to that?

"You're something of the mystery woman yourself, these days," I said.

"I suppose," she said, frowning. "I don't know what to say. There's so many things I want to tell you. But I don't know if I can trust you."

"You don't know if you can trust me?"

"There's just too much on the line to roll the dice," she said. "I'm sorry. It seems like every time our paths cross, they diverge again. I wish things could turn out differently. I wish I could ask you, the both of you, to...but it's just not in the cards."

"Maybe someday," I said, and started to kneel before her.

But something wasn't right.

Perhaps it was the way she didn't acknowledge what I'd said.

Or maybe the fact that she was staring across the room.

To where Kaitlin and Brianna were.

I spun around.

"I'm sorry, Frank," Iva whispered.

My grandmother was standing up from the chaise lounge that had been the table Brianna and I had shared during dinner. The way her skin glowed, like a thousand candles burned beneath its surface, left no doubt about what she'd just done.

A split second later, I stood behind her, reaching between her legs.

And then Kaitlin, like Brianna, was no more.

It was not the first time I'd Devoured a woman. But it felt like it. A powerful orgasm passed over me. Intense, but brief.

What lingered was the newfound sense of power. Had I thought I was strong before?

I could level mountains. Boil oceans. Create and destroy entire worlds.

With a mere glance, I could end my aunt's life.

As she could mine.

There could be no doubt about that. I was far stronger now than I'd been a mere moment before, but I'd be a fool to think that gave me anything but the slightest edge. If any.

We stared at each other from across the room.

Cindy shrieked. My father gestured for Mark to lead her out of the banquet hall. He trailed behind his sister and his nephew, suddenly wearing a full suit of glistening lacquered armor and holding a broadsword in his hands.

His eyes were locked on mine. But he was threatening me. Just looking to protect Cindy.

For fuck's sake. Was that really how my father saw himself? The knight if shining fucking armor? Did he even know what Kaitlin and Iva had planned for this evening?

"I'm sorry," Iva said again. "I couldn't."

"Couldn't...Devour me?"

What a strange thing to apologize for.

She nodded. Then disappeared.

#

My sister was waiting for me. Her cheeks were puffy, her eyes red, and she was shaking.

"What's wrong, Nat?"

My sister gave a start then looked up. After a few deep breaths, she said, "Everyone. Everyone who comes near me dies!"

You and me, both.

But there'd be time for hating myself, and for grieving for Brianna, later.

Right now, I needed to focus on what my sister had to say.

"Tell me what happened," I said, going to stand by the edge of my bed, where she sat. I pressed her face against me, felt her warm tears against my abdomen, and stroked her hair.

"I was with Vince and Ismail," she explained. "And this thing-"

She started sobbing again.

It took her nearly five minutes to finish saying what I'd already guessed.

"And then I did to him what he did to them," she eventually managed. "I don't even know how I did it. How I knew how to do it. I just did it."

She recounted the gruesome details for me. In stunning detail. Not that I needed them. But she apparently needed to let go of them. So I listened patiently.

When she came to the end of her tale, and seemed too numb to say anything else, I told her what happened to Brianna. What Iva had apparently planned to do to me. And what I'd done to our grandmother.

We cried together for a while.

But eventually, we decided we had to figure out what to do next.

"We only have one option," I said.

"They're too strong, Frank," Nat insisted.

"That's why we need an ally. Like House Furcas."

Then I explained to her what Mel had planned.

"I'll gather everyone up," she said when I was done. "We make this decision as a court."




Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 10



#

Two days had gone by. The entire time, I'd felt the way you do when storm clouds gather and there's a light rumble that is sure to be followed soon thereafter by a thunderclap.

But the thunderclap hadn't come. Just rumbles, and then waiting.

Melanie, Sean, Troy and Rose had gone back to the Shadowed Glade. Mel had promised us that House Furcas, which would soon have a new Lord, would stand with us. And she seemed to think she could persuade another house or two to do the same, though I wasn't sure where that optimism came from.

Wasn't sure I wanted to know, really. Part of me almost felt sorry for unleashing my niece on their world, however inadvertently I might have done so.

Skye had left the court. And sworn that she was done with the Homelands for good.

Of course, if she was anything like Nat, that probably just meant she'd be queen one day.

Uncle Bobby had gone with her.

Part of me wanted to rejoice at that, since it meant that my mother was single again. But when I saw the way that had devastated her, no matter that she'd already suspected that he might leave her for Skye, I found myself wishing he'd stayed. Unlike me, he'd actually made her happy. And she deserved to be happy.

Because, apparently, life was still going to go on.

I felt sure Iva, or perhaps even Daphne herself, would show up and destroy the entire Fourth Autumnal Court and everyone in it. But they didn't. And then they'd didn't. And yet again, they didn't. They just kept right on not destroying us.

What game they were playing, I couldn't have begun to guess. They couldn't have needed time to prepare an attack, could they? From all we'd heard about Daphne, she could kill us all without so much as lifting a finger. We'd never even see it coming.

Why were we still here then?

For a while, I flirted with the idea of moving in with Natalie instead of trying to patch things up with Mom. I felt like maybe Natalie and I understood each other better now. That maybe we needed each other.

But Todd and Holly moved into the Royal Palace, and I was sure that my sister was happier with that outcome than she'd have been with me anyway.

Besides, how long had I dreamed of having another chance with my mother? How could I seriously consider not taking it now that it lay before me?

That night, I went to see her.

I thought we'd fight for a while first. Or go through some awkward apologies. Maybe even cry a little. About what we'd done to each other. About the people we'd lost.

Instead, before either of us had spoken a word, we'd ripped each other's clothes off. And we didn't really stop until well after the sun came up.

Try as we did to recapture what we'd once felt, though, there was something missing. Not passion, surely. In fact, we broke her bed. Much like we had once before. And, if not for our supernatural powers, we'd have left more than a few marks on each other. So, no, it definitely wasn't passion that was missing. But something was.

The emotional connection, I eventually forced myself to realize.

We needed each other. Needed to let the tension that had built up between us escape. To get our minds off all the depressing shit that was going on around us. But if there was any love in that room, it was sitting quietly in the corner.

In fact, the best parts had been when we hadn't been ourselves at all.

For a while, I turned into a moonlit version of myself, as I had with Brianna. I grew another six inches in height, packed on even more muscle than I usually did, even though I always packed on muscle when I was with my mother, and turned my skin midnight blue. To top it all off, I covered myself in elaborate silvery tattoos that looked like runes.

That didn't do much for either of us though.

My mother didn't seem to be as fascinated with the moonlit folk as Brianna was. Perhaps she'd already scratched that item off her bucket list. I had to assume that she'd had Mel and Troy over at some point during their stay in Autumn, after all.

For that matter, she might well have been with a moonlit man in the past.

I had to remember that she'd been initiated a great many years before I had. I might never know what all she'd seen and done.

So, next, I turned into Grandpa Dick.

To top things off, I poured a part of myself into a second body, this one an exact replica of Dom. That got Mom even more worked up. I'd probably never seen her cum the way she did for me when I spit-roasted her while wearing the bodies of her father and her eldest son.

It was an ego trip and a kick in the balls at the same time. And I liked that particular combination more than I wanted to. Nothing got my blood pumping like a little jealousy.

Later, she'd turned into Brianna for me. Which was exactly what I needed, but was also a total mindfuck. For most of the time that I'd been with my cousin, I'd wished I was with my mother. Now, I was with my mother, and I found myself pleased to see her turn into my cousin. It didn't seem right.

At the same time, the process of watching my mother change into my cousin before my very eyes, of having my hands on her hips and ass and breasts while they shrank, really drove home just how inadequate Brianna's figure had been. How had I ever considered her ass round? How had I convinced myself that her breasts weren't too small, but were just right for her frame?

My cousin had been awfully damn beautiful. There was no question about that. I might never again meet another woman with a face like hers. But she wasn't built enough like a woman. It seemed strange to me now that I'd been okay with that.

For a while after that, I was Josh, and she was Val. With both of us wearing different forms at the same time, it felt less like letting the other person fulfill a fantasy than some entirely different game altogether. It was strange, but somehow felt right too.

I also realized that Val looked a lot like her grandmother. My sister bore more than a passing resemblance to our mother. But with my daughter, it was more than just a passing resemblance. In fact, I found myself wondering whether Valerie might not have looked more or less exactly as my mother had when she'd been that young.

Even Val didn't have quite the extreme hourglass Mom did, of course. No one did. But my daughter had come closer than any of the other women in the family. And though there was perhaps slightly less similarity from the neck up, as I watched my mother turn into my daughter, it struck me that the differences might largely be due to what passed for aging among our kind. No one would every say that Mom looked old. Not the way mortals thought of it, at any rate. But her facial features were broader and harder, her skin less firm and soft. She had the slightest little wrinkles. Perhaps she'd always had a broader, harder face than Val, but it seemed like the better explanation was the difference in their ages.

For a brief instant, that made me wonder why Kaitlin's face hadn't looked older. There had been signs of maturity in her face, to be sure, but she'd still somehow managed to look younger than just about every other woman in the family.

I pushed the thought away though.

The very last woman I wanted to think about just then was my late grandmother. I wasn't even sure I wanted to be thinking about my daughter while I was with my mother. I certainly didn't want to have Kaitlin on my mind.

No, the only woman I wanted to be with was my mother.

The fact that I needed help realizing that filled me with shame. But somehow, watching her turn into first Brianna then Val helped me see it.

I hoped that my turning into Grandpa Dick and Dom had done the same for her.

After we turned back into ourselves, things were awkward again. Or still. Depending on how you looked at it. But something had changed. We might at last have put some serious cracks in the wall that had sprung up between us.

Maybe I should have been depressed, knowing that it took turning into her father and letting her turn into my cousin to convince us that whatever we felt for those we had lost, it could never substitute for what we'd once had with one another, and could have again. But at that moment, all that mattered was that we had found each other again.

#

Mom was the first to broach the topic, nearly a week later.

"So. None of you have any children anymore. Not in Autumn anyway."

"Yeah," I said, staring out across her balcony at the endless sea of colorful foliage.

"Meanwhile, House Farrier is churning out kids like a damn factory."

"Yup," I said.

"Can't really expect House Orwin to win a war if our population keeps shrinking."

Way to put a romantic spin on things.

"Look," I said. "I want to have more kids. Because I want to. For me. Not for any other reason. Fuck what's right for House Orwin. Sorry if that seems harsh, but I just can't bring myself to care about the political implications of, well, anything, right now."

Mom licked her lips and nodded.

A bottle of tequila appeared and she poured each of us a shot.

"That's as good a reason as any, I suppose," she said.

She slid one of the glasses across the table towards me. I took it.

"To a new generation of Orwins," I said.

"May you never have to mourn the loss of another child," Mom said.

We clinked our glasses together and downed the shots.

She kept beating around the bush, but I knew it wasn't just idle talk. We both did. We were finally talking about having kids together.

That was something I wanted. Wasn't it?

I certainly had at one point. Probably still did. But it felt awful early. I'd prefer to take some time to rekindle the old flame first.

"What about you?" I asked. "Could you ever see yourself having children again?"

"I don't think your father wants any more children," she said, refusing to meet my gaze.

"Well, I guess you're shit out of luck then."

My mother regarded me out of the corner of her eye. "Guess I am."

"Or," I said, "we could talk to Nat. Get permission to do what we're both thinking."

"Sure. Why not," she said. "Autumn's already following in Winter's footsteps. Might as well join the party."

But her Libido betrayed her.

I poured us another round, hand shaking. A few splashes made their way onto the table.

Part of me wanted to profess my undying love for her. To give some impassioned and romantic speech about how we it would be the perfect way to start our new life together. But, at the same time, I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of keeping the charade up longer than me. If she wanted to act all detached and uninterested, I'd do the same.

"You think your sister will approve?" she asked as she reached for her glass. "The Farriers have Daphne's protection. They can get away with things the rest of us can't. Especially those of us that don't even have a reputation yet. What if some of the other courts decide that now would be a great time to draw a line in the sand rather than watch the last norm that our people have fade away?"

I shrugged. "Is that really a concern?"

My mother's Libido started to cool. Only faintly. Not in a way that suggested she was mad at me. Only that she wasn't strictly playing devil's advocate anymore. Wasn't feigning disinterest. "There's got to be a reason why all of the courts consider it taboo."

I'd never really thought about it that way. Without even really believing it myself, I asked, "You don't think it's just a holdover from the mortal world?"

Mom downed her second shot. "Maybe."

"But probably not," I finished for her. Then I tossed back my own shot. "You're right. Some of the courts don't even raise their children as mortals, the way we do." A couple from the Vernal Courts, who I'd met while wandering the Homelands after Devouring Lily, sprang to mind. "I'm pretty sure they all proscribe inbreeding though."

My mother nodded.

"Even so," I said. "House Orwin is indeed dwindling away. I man, I suppose I could go find myself another wife. But...."

I wasn't sure how to finish. Was there really any point to be made other than the fact that we both wanted it, and we'd suffered enough that it would be really nice if Natalie decided to let us have our way?

What about Todd and Holly? Couldn't Nat order Skye to take a husband?

There were options. Maybe not attractive ones, but there were. If openly flouting the norm against inbreeding would be a political liability, of course my sister would have no choice but to refuse our request. As removed as I'd been from politics of late, I knew enough to know that my sister had some idea of what she was doing.

"Worth asking, at least, right?" I said. "Worst that can happen is Nat says no."

"True," Mom said.

"If you want to, that is," I said. "I mean, if not, that's fine. Maybe I'll see if I can't do a better job of picking out a wife the second time around."

"You've done nothing to convince me your taste in women is improving," Mom said.

I drew a deep breath. Not quite the response I'd been looking for.

"It only makes sense for us to have a child together," she added. "Without my help, you're going to fuck your poor kids up something terrible anyway. Only makes things easier if you don't have a wife to get upset at her mother interfering."

I laughed. "Right. So it's just in the name of efficiency."

She shrugged. "Something like that."

"Well, I certainly can't argue with that," I replied. "Not with all the time I spent pretending to be an economist."

"Good. Then it's settled," she said, pouring a third round.

"Absolutely. I say we go see Nat right now. After this shot."

Mom raised an eyebrow at me. When I didn't so much as flinch, she said, "Okay, sure. Why the heck not." Like we were talking about planting flowers in the front yard.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to laugh or to scream.

#

My mother and I held hands as we stood before my sister, who sat atop the tree stump that passed for a throne.

Our request had thus far met with nothing but silence. Natalie just sat there, tapping a finger against her lips while she stared down at us.

"On one condition," the queen said at last.

Mom and I breathed a sigh of relief at the exact same time.

"I want to you to impregnate me too," Nat finished.

My jaw went slack.

For her part, my mother did a better job containing her reaction. But it didn't escape my notice that her lips tightened and her back stiffened a bit.

Doubtless, it hadn't escaped Nat's either.

"I've been thinking it's time for me to have more children as it is," she said. "And it seems only fitting that the man who took my son away from me should give me another."

Somehow, I didn't think that was how most women would see it.

Did I owe it to her to point out that it could be dangerous for us to start down this path? Or could I assume that if she was not only willing to grant her permission, but to resort to inbreeding herself, that she'd already made the determination that any political implications would be acceptable? Surely she knew the threats the court faced better than I did?

Maybe. Maybe not.

If she was aware of what she was getting into, there'd be no harm in saying anything. If she wasn't, I had an obligation to inform her. So, regardless of how you looked at it, there was no good argument for holding my tongue.

Except that I was afraid that she'd change her mind. And I didn't want her to do that.

For that reason, I really did consider keeping my mouth shut. But I had to say something. What good would all my attempts at atoning for the past be if let my sister stumble into a catastrophe just so our mother and I could have a child together?

So I forced myself to ask my sister if it was really wise to embrace inbreeding.

She snickered. "Well, see, that's the funny thing."

Mom gave me a look that said, "I haven't got a damn clue either."

With a smirk, Natalie said, "It's actually good that you want to do this, because I've been trying to figure out whether to command you to do so."

She explained that Iva had come to her the day after Brianna and I had gone there for our fateful dinner, and she'd brought with her a list of demands. Nat had three days to decide whether to concede or find out whether Iva had been bluffing when she'd said that she was prepared to depose Natalie and install our father as king. Foremost on the Matriarch's list of demands was that two Orwin children be conceived through inbreeding. Thus, by impregnating my mother and my sister, I'd actually be helping the court.

"So it's a win-win," Nat said. "I was going to let you think I was saying yes as a favor, but since you asked\ldots," she finished with a shrug.

I sighed. "Well now I'm not so sure it's a good idea."

"Why not?" our mother asked.

I could tell by the look on her face the she'd already guessed though.

"If Iva's demanding that we do this, it must benefit her somehow. Her, or Daphne. And I'm not inclined to do either of them any favors."

Nat's lips tightened. "It'll also benefit me. Since, you know, I'd rather not be deposed."

"You said you were trying to figure out whether to give in."

She raised a finger in objection. "No, what I said is that I was trying to figure out whether to command you two to have a child. There's always Skye and Bobby. And I might ask Todd to knock me up after you do anyway."

Interesting. But not so surprising, really. I'd fantasized about having children with our mother for some time now. Of course Nat had been having the same thoughts about Todd.

"So what was there to think about?" I asked.

"Don't be dense, Frank," Mom said, smacking my arm.

"I don't want to command anyone to do anything, if I can help it," Natalie explained.

I nodded. Of course she didn't. And if she were going to do so, she wouldn't want to start with Skye. Our cousin deserved to be left alone. As for Todd, she had to be concerned about how Holly would react. Maybe after the three of them had been living together for a while first, Holly would be less inclined to get jealous about Todd and Natalie having a child together. But my sister wouldn't want to propose that just yet.

Given all of that, though, it seemed like the obvious thing to do would indeed have been to command me to do what I'd just asked her to let me to do. That, no matter what she said, she was in fact considering calling Iva's bluff rather than giving in. Or maybe she didn't think it was a bluff, and simply didn't care.

Either way, she wasn't going to admit it to me.

"Okay, fine," I said. "I'm not crazy about the fact that we're giving Iva what she wants. But I don't love the idea of cutting off my nose to spite my face either. So I guess I'll just have to try to pretend that I don't know this means we're giving in."

Mom gave my hand a firm squeeze.

Natalie offered an emphatic nod of approval. "Good. It's official then."

So why did we all suddenly go silent?

And where'd the somber masks come from?

My sister adjusted her gown. "Well, I've got to stay here for a while. Hardly a day goes by that I don't see a dozen petitioners from Safe Haven. Even without a Serial Devourer plaguing them, they've got plenty of problems that need my attention. But I don't have any plans this evening. If that works for you two."

Mom and I exchanged glances. I shrugged.

"Yeah," Mom said. "Tonight works."

"Sounds good," I said.

"Great," Natalie said. "I'll see you then."

Which, apparently, meant that we were dismissed.

#

When we arrived, Natalie greeted us at the door and promptly led us to the dining room. The table was large enough for two dozen guests, making it seem comical that there were only three of us. And though each of the seven courses was small enough that the overall meal was far less gluttonous than I'd expected when my sister first told us how many courses there would be, that too made me feel out of place.