Homelands Pt. 07 Ch. 05

"What?" he asked, studying her.

Those green eyes had never looked at him like that before. If he didn't know better, he could almost believe there was admiration there. But that couldn't be. Besides, what he sensed in her Libido was nearer to shock.

"That was...you didn't need my help."

"I appreciate it though," he said, touching a palm to her bare upper arm.

He didn't really think that she was offended that he'd made her expend energy unnecessarily. But he wasn't really sure what to say.

"No," she said, shaking her head and laughing softly to herself. "I don't mean that."

The laughter did it. Hard as it was to believe, his sister was impressed by him. Fiona, who was wise beyond her years and had taught him most everything he knew about Faerie, back when his mother was still playing hard to get. The future matriarch of Clan Walker. The powerful dryad, for whom the forest would shudder in sympathy, who could speak to trees and create life with a flick of her wrist.

Heck, she was more than just impressed. She was amazed. She'd not considered that he might be capable of performing that glamour by himself, new as he was to Faerie.

Cahill blushed.

To his mind, it wasn't all that impressive. Though it wasn't the simplest glamour he'd ever performed, neither was it the most complicated. Sometimes, though, he thought that it was just his mother being a mother when she told him that none of the others had progressed as rapidly as he was.

"Anyway," he said, feeling both flattered and uncomfortable, "it's our father."

Fiona listened patiently while he explained. Not that it took long. There wasn't much to tell. Not since he held back everything having to do with the flute.

"Oh, dear," she said when he finished.

"What?" he asked.

She didn't clarify though. Just gave him her best look of sisterly support.

"Why do you suppose he cares?" Cahill asked at last.

"Who knows?" she asked, as if she had absolutely no idea.

It wasn't a lie. She hadn't actually said that it was a complete mystery to her. But she'd looked away when saying it, and her Libido had gone cool.

"Fi," he said.

She gave him a coy look, staring up at him through a fan of thick eyelashes and pressing her white teeth against a full lower lip. She wasn't as breathtakingly beautiful as their mother, but it was easy to forget just how pretty she was. When she feigned innocence, she did it convincingly, and it wasn't because she was a good actress.

"Out with it," he said.

With a quick glance down at the miniature tree trunk stretching out from between his legs, she asked, "You sure you don't want me to suck your dick instead? Cause he looks like he'd appreciate that."

Cahill covered himself as best he could, though it would take more than two hands to fully conceal his member. "I'm sure."

But when his sister closed the slight distance between them in a few steps and pressed her soft palm against the underside of his helmet, Cahill's will to resist wavered. With the slight friction she generated by gently working her hand back and forth, he began to question whether he'd even make a token effort at resisting. By the time she was on her knees, sliding her lips down the tip of his cock so slowly that he thought he might cry, all hope was lost.

Cahill had long considered Fiona to be more or less without peer when it came to sucking dick. His sister held strong views about oral sex and those who opted not to hone their skills. Even before he'd woken from the Dreaming, when some part of him had detached itself from his sleeping form and visited a shadow of Faerie, and he'd correspondingly only experienced a shadow of his sister's talent, he'd been amazed by her. He'd come to realize that their mother, who'd long withheld her full talents from him, was even better. But even so, there was no denying that Fiona knew what she was doing.

"Stop," he said limply. Even as he did, his hips bucked gently, feeding her more of his cock, and he ran his hands through her green hair. "Please."

His pleas fell on deaf ears. And he was glad that they did.

Just how many tongues his sister was putting to work, Cahill couldn't have said. But it didn't matter. Whatever she was doing, however she was doing it, it felt better than good.

He tried pulling away, but his heart wasn't in it. When a pair of thick vines rose up to grab his shoulders and slowly guide him down to the ground, he didn't bother to resist. His sister didn't let him out of her mouth for so much as a second. Not long after he was flat on her back, she maneuvered around to place her beautiful pussy a few inches from his face, inviting him to reciprocate. He couldn't possibly refuse.

She tasted unlike any other woman. All of the fey had a unique taste, but most were sweeter than Fiona. Years ago, when Cahill had first performed cunnilingus on a fey woman, that had struck him as odd, but he'd long since come to think that mortal women tasted terrible in comparison. Nonetheless, he enjoyed his sister's juices a good deal. It was hard to say which he enjoyed more -- eating her pussy or having her suck his dick.

Brother and sister pleasured one another several times over. They swapped energy back and forth, generating surplus all the while. By the time they finally finished, each of their Libidos was filled to bursting. That hadn't been the point, but it was a happy side effect.

"So," Cahill said when his sister finally crawled off him and plopped down on her perfect behind, facing him. "Why is Dad afraid of me and Mom getting too close?"

He'd asked his mother a few times. All she'd ever said was that their father knew that theirs was a passion so intense that it could set the world on fire.

"Isn't it obvious?" Fiona asked.

If it was, she wouldn't have tried to keep him from asking by giving him a blowjob.

He assumed it had something to do with the possibility of him getting his mother with child. But didn't he know that fear of Queen Titania was deterrent enough? And if he doubted that, why not try to keep any of the other couples apart?

Because no child of Fiona and Seamus, or Brittany and Finnegan, or Oona and Reilly, would be as powerful as the progeny he and his mother might produce? That seemed answer enough. But if it was that simple, why couldn't Fiona or Caronwyn just say that?

"Is he still in love with her?" Cahill asked, feeling hopelessly naive for even letting the words past his lips. When his sister replied with a shrug, he said, "Come on, Fi."

Her green eyes regarded him silently.

"I know about purebreds, if that's what this is about," he said.

"That's part of it," she said. "At least, I'd assume so."

"He's got to know we wouldn't do that, though," Cahill said. "The queen would never allow it. Mom said that she only lets-"

"Titania's been overthrown before. By a Walker."

Cahill frowned. "So, what, Dad thinks that Mom has royal ambitions?"

"Well, I bet he thinks she'd do anything to be able to be with you. To be able to give you anything and everything." In a soft voice, she added, "If so, he'd be right."

He was too stunned to speak.

"Mom's never wanted power for the sake of being in power. She didn't even want to be matriarch. Her sister talked her into it," Fiona continued. "She knew from the first time she laid eyes on you that you had the potential to make her do things she'd never consider otherwise. That's why she tried keeping you at a distance for so long."

Was this open knowledge? Something she discussed with everyone? No, of course not. That wouldn't make any sense. But he still felt stupid for not having seen it.

Apparently, his mother had more or less told him the truth after all.

"Don't let her, Kay," Fiona said. "Whatever you have to do. Titania always wins in the end. Always. Don't let Mom throw her life away for nothing."

After what Seamus had told him back before he'd left the Dreaming, that really shouldn't have surprised Cahill. But it did. It left him speechless.

#

"He's left?" Seamus asked. Not that he needed her to confirm it. He'd felt his sister collapse back into one body. She wouldn't have done that if Kay was still around. So before his sister even had the chance to nod in the affirmative, he added, "That's too bad. You were probably looking forward to taking us both at once, huh?"

Fi looked down at her feet, but he caught the grin on his sister's face all the same.

He felt like that should have bothered him. He'd done his best of late to convince Kay that it did. But he knew his sister well enough not to read anything into the fact that she never let anyone suggest that the two of them had something special. That she never used the "l" word, and probably never would.

Besides, he really got off on seeing her with other men.

Strange though he knew it was, Seamus had long wished that his sister would take other lovers, or ask him to share her with other men, more often. He'd never said as much to her of course. That was a strange request for any man to make, and he had no idea how Fi would react to it, given how prickly she could be about such things. But it was never far from his thoughts. He wouldn't have wanted her to be as indiscriminate in her choice of partners as Oona, but every time Brittany brought Finnegan around, Seamus found himself wishing their kid sister would go away and let him and his cousin double-team Fi. And it bothered him more than he cared to admit that she had essentially no interest whatsoever in Reilly or Duncan, and little more in Gallech. Seamus didn't much care for their cousins either, but he'd have liked to watch them fuck his sister. It had been months since she'd let that happen. Gallech was a little more fortunate, but not much.

The thing she had with Kay was completely different. Though Seamus knew that his brother wasn't in love with Fi, he wasn't at all sure that it would have bothered her if he was. Which should have bothered Seamus. Should have meant that his younger brother was the one person he didn't want to share the love of his life with. But nothing, nothing, turned him on more than watching his sister suck Kay's cock or get fucked by his monster. That she enjoyed doing so as much as she evidently did only fanned the flames of his desire.

Seamus had few memories of the Dreaming, but one thing he remembered was that he'd been a runner. And he'd been good. The best races weren't the ones where he crushed the competition, but the ones where he squeaked out a victory against worthy opponents.

He hated the thought that he enjoyed watching Fi with Kay for a similar reason, but he strongly suspected that to be the case. His sister wasn't a competition to be won. She was a beautiful, wise, caring, kind, thoughtful, talented, noble, and intelligent person. She was everything he'd ever aspired to be, and everything he'd ever desired from a lover. On her bad days, she put gods and goddesses to shame.

Still, shameful though it might be, there it was. When she had Kay inside her, Seamus would think to himself that it was still he who would warm her that night while she slept, and chills would run down his spine.

"Maybe I was," Fi said in that sexy voice of hers, running a finger up through the groove between his abdominals. "And maybe I wasn't."

"Right," Seamus said with a laugh. He kissed his sister's hair. Those thick, lustrous green locks would have been his favorite thing about her, if there was actually anything about her that he thought less than perfect. If there was anything he could point to as not being his favorite. "So what did you tell him?"

"That Mom might be willing to try and overthrow Queen Titania if that's what it takes to have his children," she said casually.

"Oh dear," Seamus said.

They never talked about purebreeding. It didn't do to dwell on such things. Besides, his sister would probably only deny that she wanted to have his children, then get mad at him if he said that he didn't want any anyway. Which he didn't.

At least, he tried really hard to convince himself of that, since he knew Fi would never give birth to them. The mere thought of hearing his children call some other woman their mother made his throat tight and his stomach queasy.

"You know she would," Fi said.

Seamus nodded. There wasn't really anything that Caron wouldn't do for the ones she loved, and though she cared deeply about her family, there was no one she loved half so much as she did Kay. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that their mother would be willing to take on the Queen of Faerie herself if Titania stood in the way of her love.

He could relate.

"That's why he left," Seamus said. "Needs some time to think. Alone."

It wasn't a question, but his sister said, "Yup," all the same.

He loved the way she said that word. The soft little pop she added to end of the word was damn sexy. He could listen to her say it all day long.

"I told him he can't let her," Fi continued. "Of course, we can't either."

Seamus didn't reply.

"Boo," she said, using a term of endearment never spoken in earshot of another living soul. "I don't have to tell you that, right?"

"No, of course not," he said. She was right. They couldn't. Nothing good would come of it. Not even if they all came together as a clan. Titania was too powerful. "But if you think we're going to be able to talk her out of it, you're crazy. There's only one person who has any hope of doing that, and I'm not even sure he can."

His sister sighed and slumped her head against his chest. "I know."

He stroked her hair, now brown, in silence. A soft breeze blew through the forest, stirring the leaves and vines. Somewhere, a lone wolf howled.

It took some effort for Seamus to notice the sense of foreboding that had settled over them. With Fi pressed against him, her body warming his and her scent filling his nose, he could hardly think about anything but her. As long as she was in his arms, everything was right as rain. Nothing else mattered, not even a little.

If only it was that simple.

"I guess that means the first step is for me to talk to Kay," he said.

"Would you?" Fi asked, feigning surprise. Poorly. "Oh, boo, that would be great."

Seamus smiled faintly to himself. "Sure, baby."

He was tempted to add that he had no idea what he would say to his brother. That he had no reason to doubt that Kay would quickly come to see that their sister was right, nor did he have any advice to give about how to talk sense into their mother. That he'd probably just end up promising Kay that the two of them could count on his support, should it actually come to that. But he knew better than to say any of these things to Fi.

"For the record, you were right," he said.

"Hmm? About what?" Fi asked innocently.

He snickered. She was so cute when she played dumb. Her big, green eyes were as beautiful as eyes could be. The way she fluttered those thick lashes at him was so clumsy that he just wanted to kiss her.

"The night you first met him, you said Mom would go crazy for him."

"I was speaking figuratively," his sister said.

But she hadn't been. There had been genuine concern in her voice. And now it was clear that it had been well-warranted.

Sometimes Seamus thought that his sister knew what each and every one of them would do before they did it. That their mother might be the clan's druidess, but it was his sister who had a gift for soothsaying. Only he knew that there was nothing supernatural about it.

"Wasn't until tonight that I realize how bad it is," Fi said. "She's already floated the idea to him. Probably in a really roundabout way, but she has."

He had no idea what had brought her to that conclusion, but Seamus didn't doubt his sister. Ever. If she thought their mother had planted the seed in Kay's mind, then said seed had been planted. No question about it.

"Tell me it's going to be okay," she said, pressing her face against his chest again.

That he could not do so made Seamus terribly sad.

"I know," Fi said. "I know."