Homelands Pt. 07 Ch. 01

Nor would she be the first to do so. "C'mon," she said, grabbing his hand. "I'm bored. Let's go have some fun."

His heart raced as she pulled him up out of his seat.

His sister hadn't warned him of anything. His subconscious had. In his dreams, he'd drawn a connection between the woman's self-proclaimed capriciousness and the old mythical figure. That was all that was happening here.

Most young women fancied themselves unpredictable. There was nothing especially fey or otherworldly about that. Women in their thirties were different. They tended to be more interested in convincing him that they were healthy, active, well-educated, and that they had a deep commitment to the right sort of values. Here in the south, that generally meant that they were good baptists, but it was basically the same up north, even if the values were different. But college girls, and those fresh out, were strangely obsessed with convincing guys that they were unique. One of a kind. A precious little snowflake. They apparently didn't care much if guys thought that they were smarter, funnier, and more engaging than other women. Just that they were different, in whatever random way.

He'd once made the mistake of telling a girl he was dating that he enjoyed her company because she didn't play head games. That he always knew exactly what she meant by what she said and he valued that. The girl had taken it as a huge insult, because all she heard was that he thought she was predictable. She actually didn't want him to think she made sense, for fuck's sake. She wanted to believe that she was some great mystery, perhaps because she'd seen too many Hollywood movies where shit like that actually turned guys on instead of making them think that they'd be in for nothing but drama.

Cahill didn't know how old Liadan was, but she certainly looked to be young enough to think that way. God help him.

Still. She was too damn hot. He might be the one to end things prematurely this time, but he had to at least see the first date through.

Hell, if he was lucky, she might not mind his difficulty sleeping. The vague sense that he wandered off to be with some other woman while he was sound asleep beside her might strike this one as intriguing rather than creepy.

"Wanna catch some music?" he asked once they got outside.

"Nah," she said. "Let's hit Forsyth Park."

It was a beautiful park. He'd been in love with it for a long time after he'd first moved here, and it was to be expected that anyone from out of town would want to see it. During the day. The sun would be setting soon though. Still, it hadn't gone down yet, and the park was arguably even more beautiful at sunset. And the time between night and day was a special time, a voice in the back of mind insisted. An ideal time to be surrounded by nature. To be alone with another of his kind.

That was ridiculous. But it was a good enough reason to skip the music festival.

"What do you do, Cahill?" Liadan asked as they strolled beneath the boughs of the trees, on their way towards the fountain. "Don't tell me you get by selling flutes?"

"Nah, that's just a hobby," he said. "A passion even. But not a living."

"Passions are good," she replied, taking his hand in hers.

There was that spark of ecstasy again. And ecstasy was what it was, not electricity.

"Truth is," he said, "I don't really work."

"Oh boy," Liadan said.

"It's not what you think," he rushed to add. "I'm not exactly hurting for money." Damn, he sounded like a drug-dealer or something. "I used to play poker. And I was good at it. Made a killing and decided I didn't find sitting at a cubicle fall that rewarding."

"Really," Liadan said hesitantly, as if unsure whether to believe his story.

But it wasn't a story. It was true. Except for the part about him begin good at poker. It wasn't skill that brought him his millions. It was luck, plain and simple.

"Well, okay, it was luck," Cahill said. He wasn't sure why he was doing so. What he was about to tell her, he'd never told anyone. But he thought she might take him more seriously than anyone else would have. Or should have. "But I don't mean luck in the sense that I caught the right cards at the right time every now and then, the way everyone does."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"The laws of probability took some time off whenever I sat at the felt," he went on, remembering the delirious state he'd slip into whenever he played. "I hardly ever lost. Got beat up a few times for staying in hands I had no business being in and then sucking out on the river. After awhile, I felt dirty taking other people's money."

The gorgeous woman beside him remained silent.

"Just didn't seem right. I wasn't winning fair and square."

"So, in your guilt, you dumped all your winnings in an offshore account and have been living comfortably off them ever since?"

"I should have stopped a lot sooner," he said. "Last time I played was the World Series of Poker. Main event. You might even have seen me on TV."

"Not likely," she said.

"I made it to the final table," he said.

Would've come in first too, but that would have been too conspicuous.

"Nothing personal," Liadan said.

He nodded. "Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, obviously I'd have to have done things differently to be free of guilt. But I gave most of it away to charity. I won so damn much that I could afford to donate millions to worthy causes and still never work another day in my life. I live pretty modestly though."

"You bull-shitting me?" she asked, sounding genuinely surprised. He hadn't expected that. Not from her. "Cause this sounds like a bunch of bollocks."

Cahill grinned at her choice of words. "It's the truth. But, like I said, I gave most of it away. So I hope you don't think you just landed yourself a sugar daddy."

"Getting a bit ahead yourself there, ain't ya?" she asked with a smirk. "Jury's still out on whether you're even getting a kiss goodnight. Don't you worry none about that pot o' gold you got hiding on the other side of the rainbow. It's safe where it is."

With that, Cahill stopped abruptly. When Liadan did the same, he grabbed her and pulled her against him. She didn't have enough time to keep him from doing so, but he paused long enough for her to give him her cheek or tug away or otherwise express her reluctance if she really didn't want to be kissed. She took no advantage of said opportunity.

As their lips pressed together, a thousand little bolts of ecstasy danced across his body. His nerve endings lit up like a pinball machine. His lips tingled and euphoria settled slowly over him. All his aches and pains bled slowly out into the ether.

"Now that was a kiss," Liadan said after their lips parted.

Indeed it was. Unlike any he'd ever experienced in the real world.

"Tell the jury their services are no longer needed," he said.

Liadan smiled.

Then kissed him again. Rather aggressively.

"For the record, there's no pot of gold," Cahill said after she left him breathless for a second time. "Just a slow-growing investment account."

"Well, shucks," Liadan replied. "Was really hoping you were a leprechaun."

"The height didn't tip you off?"

"Are you supposed to be tall?" she asked, grinning mischievously.

Cahill pinched her bottom. Mostly because she was being a smartass and thus thoroughly deserved it. He was no giant, but men of his height rarely had to argue about whether they were tall enough to be considered "tall." But also because that wonderful thing begged to be touched. It wasn't what he really wanted to do to her ass, but it was a start.

And, unfortunately for him, an end. Not long after that, she said goodnight.

He didn't think it would be the last he'd see of her though.

#

"That was only the first wave," his brother said in a rumbling voice. "They'll be coming at us again soon. In full force. Be prepared!"

Cahill blinked as he looked down at himself.

He had the upper body of a man, but the lower body of a horse. He'd become a centaur. A heavy double-bladed battle axe hung over one of his four hips, and he held a spear the size of a tractor trailer in his hands.

So it was one of those dreams.

Gallech, also in the form of a centaur, stood beside him. Their usual height disparity was even more pronounced now, though his brother retained his superior musculature. The great sword in Gallech's hands looked fit for doing battle with giants, and his green eyes sparkled with battle lust.

"We're ready," Seamus said, cantering up beside them.

His other brother held a kite shield in one hand and a spiked morning star in the other. Fiona sat astride his back, wearing that green dress of hers and holding a shillelagh. Her free hand was surrounded by a soft green nimbus.

"They won't harm a hair on your mother's head," Oona said from Reilly's back, just off to his side. She carried a riding bow, and a quiver of arrows was slung across her back.

His cousin had also become a centaur. The equine portion of his body had a blood-red coat, whereas Cahill's and Gallech's were black and Seamus' was brown. That was only fitting, as the hair Reilly never allowed to grow much longer than peach fuzz was red, as was his chin beard. But while it might not have been surprising, it was definitely striking. A bold decision, since he'd be that much easier to spot across the field of battle with that coloring, and thus in more danger. His cousin was prepared, though. Alone among them, he wore armor. His tattooed torso was protected by a chain mail shirt and a thick breastplate. He carried both a wickedly curved axe and a sharp short sword.

Glancing around, Cahill found the one member of Clan Walker as yet unaccounted for. Their mother wasn't there either, but he'd already gathered that they were to rescue her.

Finnegan lounged against an oak tree, a wide-brimmed black hat pulled down low over his forehead. A toothpick stuck out of the corner of his mouth and he wore a black leather duster. Six-shooters were strapped to his hips and he held a long rifle in one hand as though it were a walking stick. His boots had shiny steel spurs on them. If the rest of them looked like they'd stepped out of an unimaginative game of Dungeons and Dragons, his eldest cousin was ready to step onto the set of a spaghetti western. The sort where his black hat would clearly mark him as a villain.

"What's with him?" Cahill asked no one in particular.

"He's only playing along because Oona threatened not to sleep with him for a week if he didn't," Seamus clarified with a whisper. Then Fiona smacked the back of his head and told him, "You know you're not supposed to break the illusion."

Seamus rolled his eyes. "You don't really think this is going to change his mind, do you?"

"Mom does," Fiona replied.

"She should just let me go into the Dreaming and speak to him there. Then he'd believe," Seamus replied, as if Cahill was not even there.

"You know the rules as well as I do," their sister said.

It took Cahill a moment to pick up on her meaning. The Dreamsmyths were allowed to come and go as they pleased, but no one else was. Or so his supposed sister claimed.

Then, all of a sudden, he had no idea what either of them had said. Though he felt sure that his brother had answered his question about Finnegan, the words had already escaped Cahill's mind. Like they'd gone in one ear and out the other.

Or like someone had used glamour on him.

It no longer seemed important though. All he knew was that they had to get his mother back. Nothing could be more more important than that. How they did so wasn't of concern. If Finnegan had to garb himself differently than the rest, good for him.

Wait, what was this about a rescue mission? Just a moment ago, Gallech had said that they were under attack. At least, Cahill thought he had.

But, then, that was dream logic for you.

Next thing he knew, they were descending upon a giant encampment. Not a very large gathering of men, but a gathering of very large men. They stood half again as tall as Cahill and his brothers did even in their centaur form.

The battle was fierce, but horribly one-sided. Clubs the size of football players whacked at them, and, if not for Fiona, some of them wouldn't have been able to get back up again. But the ranks of the giant forces steadily thinned. They fell to the ground with small red holes between their eyes as Finnegan worked his rifle. They howled as he and his brothers stabbed, hacked, and slashed at their limbs and torsos with their steel. Arrows peppered them, here and there claiming an eye, as Oona worked her bow. Despite his woefully undersized weapons, Reilly somehow managed to disembowel and behead his foes, to chop their legs out from under them as easily as a bowling ball knocks over pins. Soon, the remaining giants fled from the bald red terror and the fell archer mounted on his back.

If Cahill had thought their foes real, he'd have been sick. He and his fellow Walkers hadn't defeated the giants so much as butchered them.

"Where is she?" Gallech shouted at a wounded giant who lay atop the remains of the extinguished fire. A soft hiss filled the night air as hot coals singed thick hide. Cahill's brother held his axe at the ready, poised to lop the poor guy's head off. "Where?"

The giant pointed a finger up to the top of the hill. The one they'd just rode down from. Which made all sorts of sense. Then, just as reasonably, he faded away, leaving behind nothing but smoke that soon intermingled with the wisps rising up from the dying fire.

Reilly and Finnegan had already lost interest in the whole ordeal. And why not? If the giants were nothing but glamours, then the clan matriarch wasn't in any danger.

It did strike Cahill as a bit unseemly, though, that his cousins were already having a go at their mother. And that Oona was very much into it. Her younger son was practically splitting her open with his giant horse cock, yet that didn't keep her from enthusiastically gobbling down on her older son's large, if man-sized, dick.

Cahill felt short of breath. The carnal display both horrified and excited him. The dream woman who he sometimes truly believed to be his aunt was on all fours, practically being assaulted by her two sons, and she loving every second of it. It was so wrong. So depraved.

And so fucking hot.

Gallech stared in both fascination and horror as well. But Cahill knew that his brother was used to these things, as he himself should have been. His brother's jaw was likely slack because he couldn't believe that he was being forced to choose between rescuing Caronwyn, thereby making Cahill look ineffectual in the eyes of the woman he so desperately longed for, and claiming the woman he himself desired above all others.

Cahill resolved his brother's dilemma for him. Breaking off at a gallup the shorter man could never match, he made for the hill. Tonight, at least, he would have Caronwyn to himself. Let his brother focus on competing with their cousins for Oona's attention.

He spared only a quick glance back to confirm that Gallech was not giving chase. Indeed he was not. He'd taken mortal form and was pushing Finnegan away from Oona's hungry mouth. Cahill noted that Seamus and Fiona had given up the pretext that their mother was in mortal danger as well, and like the others had succumbed to their baser urges.

Good for them.

Cahill turned his attention back to his quest. Moving at a full gallop, he quickly topped the low hill, and there he found his quarry.

Her beauty stunned him. His mind stopped working, though his body kept going. It was a wonder he didn't trip over a stray root or break his fool neck.

Like her sons, Caronwyn had become a centaur. Her magnificent breasts swung freely, unencumbered by any clothing. Long auburn hair fell halfway down her back, and her skin was so white that it glowed in the moonlight.

Weren't there supposed to be more giants? Holding her captive?

Cahill didn't know. Or care. His mother, his true mother, was there, looking every bit as beautiful as a centaur as she ever did. Nothing else mattered.

When she saw him, she smiled, and then bolted. He didn't know why she ran from him, but he wasted no time in giving chase.

For hours, days, lifetimes, he pursued his mother. She was fast, and clever. Every time he thought she was going to zig, she zagged. If he expected her to go around an obstacle, she jumped over it. When he thought to head her off by leaping a ravine, she span around and headed back in the other direction. He could not, would not, give up. The fate of the world might not depend upon him catching his mother, but damn if it didn't feel like it did.

In the end, Cahill prevailed.

Perhaps his mother had mother was growing tired. Or perhaps he'd just gotten lucky, finally guessing that she'd go left when she in fact intended to go left. More likely, though, she'd let him. Decided that she'd put him through enough of a test to know for sure that he was completely determined to have her.

All he knew for sure was that she didn't resist when he mounted her. And that was good.

For a while, she remained in centaur form. After a time, though, she let the glamour go. Just as her sister had done before, Caronwyn knelt in the dirt while her son fucked her from behind with a humongous horse cock.

He'd waited so long to have her all to himself. Not nearly half as long as he would have been willing to wait, if need be, but long enough that it had hurt, and hurt bad. Now that he had her, he was going to enjoy her as much as possible.

"That's it, honey, give it to Mommy," she cooed. "Give me that big dick!"

Cahill was eager to wear a man's body once more. He was getting tired of not being able to slide all the way inside her. Of standing over her on four legs, unable to either see or hold her. But, knowing that his mother, the object of his deepest desires, was nearing climax, Cahill kept going as he was. He had to please her.

When a powerful orgasm seized her, her body started to shudder and a string of obscenities passed through her lips. That was to be expected. What wasn't was that Cahill felt something within him open up, the better to receive her offering.

Then he rediscovered what their kind called Libidos, and the energy that passed between them during the act of coitus. It was a familiar feeling, instantly remembered. At least, the general idea of it was. But he'd never experienced a deluge quite like the one his mother unleashed on him just then. She was incredibly strong. When her floodgates opened, the hunger within him came close to being satiated, if only for the briefest of moments.

His insanely gorgeous mother collapsed with a soft thud. Cahill released his centaur form and climbed down to the ground beside her, laying on his side next to the beautiful druidess.

How was it even possible for a woman to look as good? Nevermind that she only existed in his dreams. Her beauty still defied belief.

"You're not done, are you?" she asked, with a hopeful tone that made his heart sing.

"Not even close," Cahill replied, laying a hand on her bottom. It was big and round, with just the right amount of muscle underneath to give it shape. Despite that strong foundation, it was pleasantly soft and cool to the touch. He'd never met a woman with a finer ass. Fiona's was perhaps as appealing, but no more so. And no one else he'd ever been had a backside that could even compare. "Just thought you needed a moment to recover."

She smiled at him as she wiped a lock of damp red hair back from her face. Damn, but Cahill loved that hair. In this light, she could easily pass for a brunette. But other times, it looked like blood. Whatever its hue, though, it contrasted so starkly with her remarkably fair skin that he couldn't look upon it without finding it hard to breathe.