Homelands Pt. 06 Ch. 01

"Take that back," Veronica snapped.

For her part, Patty was putting as much distance as she could between herself and her black brother. And Nick, being Nick, wasted no time in following after her.

She wanted to help. To roll back time and undo the last sixty seconds. To do something. But she was still paralyzed by the overwhelming sense of disbelief.

For the past hour, she'd been having visions of Patty and Troy hitting it off. Mike was sweet, but her vanilla sister would be totally creeped out by his appearance. She'd probably never dated a guy with piercings, let alone scales and claws. Herself, Annie thought the whole dragonman thing was kinda hot, but to each their own. At any rate, mister tall, very dark, and extremely handsome had Patty written all over him.

Until he'd gone and said the most obnoxious thing possible, anyway.

Troy held up his hands defensively. "Whoa, calm down there, big 'ums."

"Excuuse me?" Veronica said, her dark eyes going wide.

"There's been some misunderstanding," Annie managed to get out at the same time.

Meanwhile, Mike stepped forward and stretched an arm out across the space dividing his brother from his two new sisters. He glanced first at Veronica then Annie, as if to confirm that neither would resort to violence, then turned to Troy.

"What the fuck are you doing?" the draconic brother asked.

"You hear what the little bitch said to me?" Troy said. "Questioning my blackness?"

"She did no such thing!" Annie said.

Veronica looked ready to explode. "And so what if she did? That makes it okay for you-"

When Mike stared at her, the words died in her throat. It wasn't an angry look. But it wasn't one to be ignored either. At that moment, he couldn't have looked more like his father, no matter that Annie had never seen the king wear green skin.

"They don't know what it was like for you," Mike told his brother calmly.

Troy started to protest, but when his brother's lips tightened, he shut right up.

"All his life," Mike explained to Annie and Veronica, "Troy has struggled to fit in. With a white mother, a white brother, and a big house in the suburbs, he never had any chance of fitting in with the black kids. Yet he didn't look like the other kids in Rolling Hills."

"That's all well and good," Veronica said, her voice a little softer and her body language a little less menacing. "But he still didn't have to-"

"No, he didn't," Mike said, glaring at his brother once more. "That's why he's going to go find her and apologize. Aren't you, Troy?"

"Fuck you, man," he said. Looking over Mike's shoulder at Veronica, he said, "Her, I'll apologize to." Then, addressing Veronica, "Was your sister who set me off, not you."

"She was so proud of that dress," Annie mumbled. She wasn't sure if she was talking to herself or if she meant for Troy to hear her. It just had to be said, either way. "Understandably, too. I'd never wear it, but she looks positively adorable in it."

"That she does. Pink is definitely her color," Mike agreed. "I'm sure my brother thinks so too. He was just lashing out. Something of a recurring theme."

Troy gritted his teeth but didn't say anything.

"If you won't do it because it's the right thing to do, at least consider that you'll win some real brownie points with Mom," Mike said.

"What would Mom care?"

"Un-fucking-believable," Veronica muttered under her breath.

Annie put a hand on her sister's shoulder, though the palpable anger radiating off of her made it tempting to shy away instead. She wasn't finding Troy's utter lack of remorse particularly satisfying either, but the little dragon seemed to have a decent handle on things.

"Fine," Mike said. "I'll go apologize on your behalf. But if these two decide to string you up by your thumbs while I'm gone, don't be surprised."

Troy regarded Annie and her sister. "I didn't mean to upset her," he said. "Just wasn't thinking. Like my brother said."

"Why are you apologizing to us?" Veronica asked.

Their new brother didn't respond.

Mike heaved a weary sigh and headed into the palace.

"He thinks he's a prince or something," Troy said, staring at his brother's retreating back. "I've tried telling him that just because our father's king doesn't mean shit. Especially since he's the youngest son. But does he listen? Course not."

Veronica glowered at him silently. Annie was tempted to excuse herself, claim she needed another drink, just to see what her sister would do to him if left alone. But her father wouldn't appreciate losing a son the day he joined the court.

"He's always been like this," Troy continued. "Even before he went green."

"It was nice seeing you again," Veronica said to Annie, as if their brother wasn't even there. "You really ought to come by sometime. We're all living in the castle now, rather than that old cabin. You've got to see it to believe it."

Annie gave her sister a hug. "I'll do that."

"Promise?"

She smiled. "Count on it."

They kissed each other on the cheek. Troy cleared his throat loudly as they did, but they both ignored him. Veronica looked into Annie's eyes, apparently struggling with whether or not to say what came next. After a moment of hesitation, she went ahead and said, "If you happen to see our brother, tell him I'll wait up for him."

There was no question which brother she meant.

"I will," Annie said.

Veronica nodded then vanished.

"Whoa," Troy said. "You guys can do that too?"

Well, Annie wasn't entirely sure that she could. Her father kept trying to give her lessons in using her powers outside the bedroom, but she had little patience for it.

`My head about exploded when Mom brought us here that way," her brother continued.

"Thought your mother was special, huh?"

"She is," Troy replied without hesitation.

With a smirk, Annie said, "I'm sure that's true, and for all sorts of reasons. The fact that she can teleport ain't one of 'em though."

"I really didn't mean to upset her," Troy said. "Your sister."

"You mean our sister."

"Right," Troy said, smacking the side of his head. "It's just so much to keep track of, you know?" He sighed heavily. "Mike's good at this. Taking everything in stride. Like some part of him knew all along that this was what the future held for us. But I'm still waiting to wake up in my bed and realize I'm gonna be late for school again."

Annie gave him a sympathetic look. "Why don't you buy me another drink?"

He grinned, revealing his impossibly white teeth. Everyone in Summer had perfect teeth, of course. But with that deliciously dark skin, his seemed that much more so. And though she'd yet to see his eyes glow, the emeralds in her brother's eyes almost seemed greener and brighter than those of their father, if only because they seemed so out of place.

They walked, hand in hand, over to the drink table their father had conjured up earlier. Troy had no idea how to make a mojito, so she settled for a rum and coke. She could have fixed the drink herself, but she wanted him to make it for her.

"Rolling Hills, huh?" Annie asked as he poured.

"What?" he asked, nearly spilling the rum. "Oh, yeah."

For a time, Annie's life goal was to marry a rich guy. Not necessarily a millionaire, she'd always told herself, just someone whose salary was comfortably into the six digits. She'd even gone so far as to look up the median household incomes for each of LA's suburbs so she'd know which high schools her future husband was most likely to be currently attending. Rolling Hills came in at the top of the list.

God, that felt so silly now.

Why aspire to marrying a doctor or a lawyer when you could share your bed with a king?

"So you're a silver spoon," she said. "With a single mom."

"Something like that," he mumbled as he twisted off the cap to a tiny bottle of soda and topped off her drink. "Or I was, anyway."

"Lotta white people in that town, huh?"

"Fuckin' A," he said.

Annie put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry. About earlier."

He met her eyes. "Me too." After an awkward pause, he cleared his throat and handed her drink over. "Might be a little strong. But I am trying to get you in bed, after all."

"How's that going?"

"You tell me," he said.

"Wrong answer."

He stepped closer to her. "Got off to a rocky start, but things are looking up now."

"Better," she said softly.

The hand that had been on his arm went to his midsection. His abs made her want to whimper, even though she wasn't feeling them through his tank top. There weren't a lot of beer guts in the lands of Summer, but even by that absurd standard, her brother had an amazing body. And, of course, a well-built black guy was always better than an equally ripped white guy. It had been entirely too long since she'd had a nice BBC inside her.

Too bad he was a fucking asshole.

Troy started to lean down, as if to kiss her. Before he could, Annie raised her drink to her lips. She moved quickly enough to allow him to save face. He pulled back up quickly and they both pretended not to notice what had almost happened.

It was a long time before he tried again, the poor thing. Perhaps Annie should have gone a little easier on him after that, then. But she was having too much fun torturing him. She'd belittle or emasculate him one moment and make harmless small talk that was heavily laden with illicit promises the next. She was in rare form that evening.

But, shy as he was, he eventually rose to the bait.

They were the only ones left in the garden by that point. Her father, Aunt Nina, Eric, and Gabriela had headed inside together some time ago. It wouldn't really have mattered if the others were around, of course. But, somehow, Annie had a brief flashback to all the times she'd made out with boys in her backyard or while parked in the guy's car in her driveway, hoping all the while that her mothers wouldn't catch them.

For that reason, and because she'd gotten herself all worked up teasing the hell out of him, she let him have some fun before putting him in his place. She lost interest pretty soon after they found an unoccupied bedroom though. He was big, alright. And beautiful, from head to toe. She could even sense that he had a lot of raw power. But until he learned how to use it, he'd be nothing but a big disappointment.

So, after riding his huge pony for a little bit, Annie shackled her dark-skinned brother to the wall. He stared up at her in both horror and excitement as she did. Annie told him to get ready to have his world shaken to its core then she climbed out of bed and started to put her clothes back on.

It took him a while to realize that it wasn't part of the game.

"What are you doing?" he demanded. "Get back over here and suck this dick!"

"Tempting," Annie said. "But I'm gonna pass."

"You fucking cunt. Who do you think you are?"

"The king's Shadow," she replied. "Ask your mother what that means."

"Let me go," he said, voice shrill. "I'll tell your sister I'm sorry!"

"It's our sister," she reminded him. "And it's too late for that. Your brother gave you a chance already." In a flat voice, she added, "Several, in fact." Then, as she slipped her shoes back on, she added, "For the record, it's not what you said to Patty itself that's got you in this position. That was pretty fucked up, but we all do stupid shit when people push our buttons. It's what came after. And what didn't."

With that, she turned out the light and used her powers to seal the door shut.

#

"I do believe she's warming up to me," Hank said after Jennifer and her parents left without saying goodbye to any of them.

Gabriela giggled.

She wished she hadn't. Wished she could say that she didn't find the king to be the least bit charming. Didn't feel the torch she'd once carried for the father of her children flickering back to life. Not that she'd want to be crippled by her hatred for him, the way her former wife was. Just capable of being in his presence without swooning.

How was she to keep herself from falling for another of his lies if she couldn't even look him in the eye without feeling dizzy and short of breath?

Worst of all, her son was standing right beside her. And though Eric lacked Nick's talent for reading Libidos, he'd have to be dumb, deaf, and blind not to notice that she was quite taken with their king. True, there was more than a little chemistry between him and Nina. But that was more on her end than her son's, so it only helped so much with the guilt she felt over making eyes at Hank and laughing at everything he said.

On the one hand, she felt like it wasn't quite her fault. He was the father of her children, after all. There was a history there. The same could not be said of Eric and the aunt he hadn't even known he'd had until a few months ago. And Hank had apparently grown tired of amusing himself by making women yearn for an old man with a haggard face, perhaps thanks to some prodding from Annie.

When he'd ascended the throne, his mane had been entirely silver, and starting to thin. Now, the chestnut brown she'd once been so fond of had returned, and he once more had a full head of hair. The silver wasn't entirely gone, mind. But aside from the wing tips above his temples, there were only a few streaks of it here and there. It made look distinguished rather than simply old. And though his skin was not as smooth and youthful and beautiful as Eric's, some of the lines that had been etched in his face were gone, and the deepest crevasses were now less prominent. He'd even shorn his beard, which really got Gabriela's attention. She'd never seen him clean-shaven, though that not for lack of trying.

Put simply, though the man she'd married had been a good deal younger and more handsome than the one who'd recently declared himself king, even that man had not looked quite as good as the one standing before her now. Hank would never be considered the best looking man in the Homelands, but any woman who could say that he did nothing for her was either lying to herself or a lesbian.

Yet, on the other hand, that didn't really excuse her behavior.

Handsome as the king was, good as he looked in his silk suit, he still had nothing on Eric. Her son radiated youth and vitality and masculinity and virility. His dirty blonde hair, deep blue eyes, and perfectly bronzed skin made for a powerful combination. He had the better body too. By a fair margin. Even if Eric hadn't been her son, had never made her heart soar and her Libido sing, she'd have considered him the better looking of the two. And, of course, he had done those things. She had but to stand in his presence, whether she looked at him or not, to feel warm and safe and cared for. If they stood even a few inches closer, their Libidos would begin to vibrate in unison, feeding off one another, creating a tension within them that there was but one way to resolve.

She'd even talked Eric into dressing up for a change. At least, by his standards, he was dressed up. Gabriela couldn't convince her son not to wear jeans, but at least she'd gotten him into a silk dress shirt that couldn't have fit him better and a glossy black tie. He was even wearing the platinum watch she'd given him a few weeks ago. It looked good on him.

Her boy was all grown up. Still a little rough around the edges, but she liked that. It made her feel needed. Whether he actually required her help tying his tie or had just been pretending for her sake made no difference. It was believable enough, and gave her an excuse to stand close to him, to smell him, to stare into his eyes.

Next to her gorgeous son, of whom the Greeks had dreamed when they carved their statues and worshipped their gods, Hank seemed downright ordinary. Except for his eyes, of course. But a man was more than his eyes. That could only make up for so much.

Yet she found her former husband irresistible. She wasn't sure why she did, but she did.

It could have been how powerful he was. She'd like to think she didn't care about that, but the way her heart raced whenever she pictured her son as king argued otherwise. There were other types of power besides political as well. And Hank possessed those too in abundance. He was confident, in control, strong both physically and with the powers that set them apart from mere mortals. What Hank Fisher wanted, Hank Fisher got. Something about that turned Gabriela's spine to jelly. Awakened something primal in her.

"I don't think `warm' is a word that has ever been used to describe her," Eric said.

It took Gabriela a moment to remember that they were discussing Jennifer.

Nina gave her son a coy smile.

Gabriela frowned. Not just because of Nina's blatant attempts to get in her son's good favor, though she still blamed the bitch more than she perhaps should have for Wes' death. The comment itself struck her as inappropriate. It was unfair to Jennifer, who Gabriela had missed a lot more than she'd realized, if only as a friend, and it wasn't anything he should have said in front of the king and his sister.

"Heck of a thing to say about a woman who raised you as her own," she said to Eric. "She treated you the same way she did Nick right up until we initiated the two of you."

"No, I know," he said, sounding duly chastised. "I was just making a joke."

"Mmm hmm."

Hank gave Nina an impassive look. She replied with a bemused grin.

Gabriela started to ask herself when her son had decided that he cared about making a good impression on the king anyway when she realized that the joke hadn't been for Hank's benefit. Her son was jealous of the attention she giving to his father. He'd made a joke about Jennifer because she'd just laughed at one that Hank had made. Of course, she'd been laughing at the implication that Jennifer's disdain for him was anything less than infinite, but still.

She placed a hand on her son's back, smiled at him, and then asked the king, "So, did my son give you some good pointers?"

Hank raised an eyebrow at her.

"Earlier," Gabriela said. "When you took him back in the hedge maze. You were asking him for bedroom advice, weren't you?" She paused a moment before adding, "There's no shame in that. Even a guy as experienced as you could learn thing or two from my Eric."

Nina covered her mouth with her hand as she giggled. Just this once, Gabriela decided that the woman's giggling wasn't all that annoying.

More importantly, though, the wounded look disappeared instantly from her son's face. He stood up a little straighter and beamed at his father, almost gloating.

"Was it that obvious?" Hank asked, playing along so deftly that she almost thought that the two of them actually had been discussing the art of seduction. "He described a few techniques I'd never heard of before, but I have to admit they were kind of hard to picture. Might need a demonstration."

Gabriela nearly choked on her drink.

"Unless that's asking too much," the king added.

Eric looked a question at her.

"Now?" she asked.

"Did you have other plans this evening?" Nina asked.

Gabriela's heart raced. Was Hank trying to embarrass her son? Trying to prove that he couldn't teach this old dog any new tricks, that there weren't any her son might know that Hank hadn't mastered long ago? Or was this just the pretense they were going to use to kick off the foursome that they'd all known was coming from the moment they started chatting?

"Why not," Eric said. "It'll be fun to give him a tutorial."

Oh, dear god. Did the poor boy have any idea what he was saying?

Her son was an incredible lover. He had an intensity about him that would have made the sun feel cold and inert. And he'd learned to control that intensity as well. These days, he was every bit as good at tender and affectionate seduction as he was passionate and wild love-making. He was spontaneous yet patient, disciplined yet creative.