Homelands Pt. 07 Ch. 02

He had known what she was. He'd refused to believe it, but the knowledge had been there from the very beginning. How could he not have?

"It's probably time to have that conversation then," she said. Even as she did, though, she climbed to her knees and straddled his hips.

"Probably," Cahill said, allowing his hands to explore her unnatural body.

If he was most people, he'd have insisted on having her answer some questions. There was so much he needed to know, about both her and himself. But he couldn't have resisted her if he tried. And it wouldn't be fair to say that he did.

It wasn't really his fault, though. Just who he was. Who they were. Slaves to their whims, powerless before their appetites.

#

"She really said that?" Liadan asked as she reached across the bed to grab the carton of fried rice from between his legs.

Cahill shrugged, ashamed on his sister's behalf.

"What's your family got against Dreamsmyths?"

"Not sure it's that," he said. "My aunt is a Dreamsmyth, as you well know."

"Exactly!" she said, snapping the spoon that had been headed for her mouth towards him as she made her point. Rice and peas and bits of fried egg flew across the bed.

Cahill tried frowning, but the way she dropped the spoon as if it were a snake and clapped her hand over her mouth was so cute that he couldn't help but smile.

Besides, she only needed to bat an eye for the mess to clean itself up.

That was going to take some getting used to. He'd been using glamours himself for a long, long time. In that other world. But only now was he finally waking up to the idea that he could do the same things here. That Faerie wasn't a dream world, or a figment of his imagination, but his birthplace. His true home.

There were other names than Faerie for that place. In other parts of the Homelands, they referred to it as either Spring or the Vernal Courts. That had made more sense to Cahill after Liadan explained that other parts of the Homelands were called Summer, Winter, and Autumn. And there were several courts within Faerie, all of which seemed to experience the same weather all year round. He'd only seen the one, but he'd noticed that no matter how snowy it was in Boston or how hot it was in Savannah, it was always pleasant and cool in his dreams. The flowers were always in bloom, and the leaves never changed color. Just as they were never green in the first place in Autumn, and the trees were always bare or covered in snowdrifts in Winter. Or so Liadan claimed.

There was something wrong about that. He'd never quite known whether he believed his dreams to be real or not, but he'd never considered that the land he visited each night was but one court in one corner of a large expanse of fantasy worlds. That the Walker clan belonged to Faerie, yes, but only the Emerald Court.

Liadan herself hailed from another. The Sapphire Court, where she was not only the Puck but a Princess. Well, the Princess, of Mischief, to be precise.

And there inlay the rub.

"It's more who you are than who your mother is," he said.

He still couldn't believe that Queen Titania was her mother. That meant that she was Macha's sister. Still not a blood relative of his. Macha was only his aunt because, for a time, she'd been wedded to an uncle he'd never met. But it made Liadan seem less of a stranger. Like they were both part of one big extended family.

A family of fucking fairies.

"The Puck," she said with a sigh, as if it was no less unjust for his family to be concerned about that than the color of her skin.

He nodded.

"I didn't ask to be, you know," Liadan said. "Me mum tells me what to do and who to be, and that's what I do and who I be. Same as the rest o' the clan. But unlike most of me brothers and sisters, I haven't much time to get used to it yet. Believe it or not, this is all more new to me than it is to you, even though you've yet to wake up."

That was what they called it when you left the Dreaming for good, he now knew. Had nothing to do with whether you were lying in bed with your eyes closed. The Dreaming was the Dreaming because it was a world most of them never saw again after waking, and soon forgot after leaving. A world whose only interaction with their own was through their children, after the latter came of age but before they woke up. Children who were placed in the care of mortal families that had recently lost a child of their own.

The queen and her clan, of course, were allowed to reenter the Dreaming. To interact with those still sleeping there. To do as they pleased in the Dreaming, whenever they pleased.

"How new?"

Liadan shrugged. "I was a bit of a late bloomer, yeah? Though not half as bad as you. Was twenty-four when I woke up. I take it you're a wee bit older than that?"

"Safe to say," Cahill said.

She gave him an impatient look. "Listen, you look damn good. And you know it. Some of us don't like our men too young and pretty anyways. So if you're getting all coy on my account, you can stop." Then, with a more neutral tone, Liadan added, "Besides, if you're really insecure about the way you look, just change it."

"A glamour," he said.

"Sort of." She speared a chunk of sesame chicken with her fork and popped it in her mouth. After chewing it down, she said, "Lately, we use that term to refer to all the shite we do with our powers. But, of old, it's more narrow of a term, yeah? Illusions and whatnot. Point is, you can change yourself for true. Not just play tricks with people's minds. Be as young and fit and handsome as ye like. Change the color of your hair or your eyes. Give yourself a tattoo. Grow a few inches." With an impish smile, she added, "Or fiddle with your height, while you're at it."

Cahill drew a deep breath. He wasn't sure whether he was more disoriented by her patchwork accent or the things she was telling him in the broken way of speaking she had.

"Where are you actually from, anyway?" he asked.

"For real or for true?"

That damned distinction again. "For true," Cahill said.

"Faerie."

He smacked his forehead. "For real."

She shrugged. "If it's me accent you're wonderin' over, it's a long story. Da was a Scouser, Ma a lousy Mick with shite taste in men. Spent most of me childhood in the Pool. But you know how it is. Once you set foot in Faerie, you never belong anywhere else. Your sense o' who you are is always moving about on ye. Sometimes I wonder if I ever talked like this, or if it's just some part of me trying to remind meself of who I was last time I was here." Liadan cleared her throat. "But I can talk just like a damn Yankee if I want to. Bloody horror what you lot have done to the queen's tongue, but I can do it."

"Not while calling it the queen's tongue, you can't."

Liadan laughed. "Aye, but it's that other queen we care about now, innit? And we're both her subjects."

True enough. Strange to hear her speak of her own mother that way, but then it couldn't have been easy having Queen Titania for a mother.

"How old are you, anyway?" Cahill asked.

"The more interestin' question is how long ago I woke up," she said.

"Isn't it the same question?" he asked. "Or near as much as makes no difference?"

With a shake of her head, Liadan replied, "Not at all." She snatched the bottle of beer he'd all but forgotten from his hand and took a swig before answering. "Time flows differently here. I've not been in Faerie for a year, and only been the Puck for a few weeks. But by the reckonin' of this world, I've been gone for about twenny years."

Twenty years ago. That meant she was several years old than him. Closer to his mother's age, in fact. Mary Donovan's age, that was. Who was not, in fact, his mother.

Nevermind all this business about what was real versus what was true. The woman who'd raised him as if he was her own was no more than his legal guardian. His mother was Caronwyn. For real and for true.

That made his heart flutter. Caronwyn was not only his mother, but the woman of his dreams. Literally and figuratively.

Perhaps now they could be together.

Not right away, maybe. For all he knew, she didn't yet feel the same way about him. But she would. Cahill would be damned if he'd give up. He and his mother had to be together.

He knew that wasn't how it worked, of course. Had known since before he'd met Liadan that the fey didn't do relationships, not as humans understood them. Not officially, anyway. Yet Fiona and Seamus sure seemed to be an item. Sure, they took other lovers from time to time, but still. Everyone knew the truth of the matter, whether they admitted it or not.

Why couldn't he and his mother be the same?

Liadan smiled and patted him on the knee. "Here's a tip. You're supposed to ask what I want from you. That's easier than relying on your sister's speculation, innit?"

He let out a nervous chuckle before saying, "Right. So, um, what do you want?"

"Exactly the opposite of what she thinks I want," Liadan said matter-of-factly. "For you to join your family in Faerie."

Cahill studied her. He grabbed his bottle back from her and finished it off. "Why?"

"I have my reasons."

"And if you tell me what they are," Cahill said, "I might trust you."

She didn't reply.

"You expect me to join the Sapphire Court instead of Emerald? Is that it?"

"Not at all," Liadan replied without hesitation. "There's no place for you there."

Partly because Liadan hadn't been finished with it, and partly just because he could, Cahill refilled the bottle. A little energy from his Libido, a little belief in the impossible, and there were twelve ounces of fresh, cold beer where before there'd been only dregs.

"What then?" he asked after taking a swig. It tasted just as it should have. A guy could get definitely used to that.

Liadan frowned as she took the bottle from him. "It's me brother."

That really didn't help. He stared at her blankly.

She sighed. "Do you even know who your father is?"

"No," Cahill said.

Neither his real one nor Mary Donovan's husband, for that matter. But at least he had a name for the man he'd thought to be his father up until just a few hours ago. Kevin Donovan had been career firefighter, like so many of his brothers and cousins. He'd died in a car crash only a day before his widow, Mary Donovan, had Cahill given to her by the matriarch of Clan Walker. Cahill didn't know much about him, but he knew the man's name. That was more than he could say of the one who'd sired him.

"His name is Arawn."

Cahill knew that name. He wasn't sure why, but he did.

Then it came to him.

"Arawn Dreamsmyth?"

Liadan nodded.

His father was the Prince of the Emerald Court. The Piper of Dawn. The Lord of Remembrance. Most of those titles meant nothing to Cahill, but he'd heard them often enough for them to make an impression. And that meant that he was a Dreamsmyth. Well, sort of. Faerie courts were matrilineal, but still. The blood of both clans coursed through his veins. And that meant that he and Liadan were related by blood after all.

"I could look like me ma, if I wanted," Liadan said. "If you're wonderin' about that."

"I wasn't," Cahill replied truthfully.

She studied him carefully through squinted eyes. "Don't even have to be a woman, if I do na want," she added. "I look the way I do because I grew up looking this way, and it's how I see meself in me mind's eye."

Cahill smiled. Confusing as his aunt's manner of speech could be, it was also pretty damn cute. He wanted nothing so much as to toss the beer aside, forget his history lesson, and rain kisses on her. He didn't, but it wasn't easy to keep from doing so.

"So, wait," he said. "How does this whole changeling thing work exactly? They -- er, I guess I mean we -- choose families who've recently lost a child, right? Drop a little one off, and let them think their kid got better. Yeah?"

She nodded.

"Do our fey parents, our true parents, choose our names for us?"

"Did you know many Cahills in Boston?"

"But Mary Donovan's little boy was named Cahill. Her real son. The one who died in the crash, along with his father."

"Sure, he was," Liadan said. "After she took you home."

That made no sense.

Not that any of this did, in a certain respect. But still. Once Cahill suspended his disbelief, accepted that the stories he'd read as a child all contained some grain of truth to them, most of it what he was hearing was easy enough to accept. There was a certain resonance to it. But how could the newspapers have named the Donovan baby Cahill? They'd have run the obits before Caronwyn had brought him to the Dreaming.

"Do you want to talk about the names of dead mortal children, or do you want to hear about your father?" Liadan asked.

Cahill grabbed his aunt then and gave her a good, long kiss. Not the kind that was likely to restart her engine. Just a little token of his affection.

"I think I like you," she said, blushing, after he withdrew. Then she tucked a lock of hair that he'd dislodged back behind her ear. In an altogether more levelheaded voice, she said, "Anyway, your da's a decent enough chap, in a way."

In a way? What a ringing endorsement. And that from his sister!

"Watches over your ma, though she don't realize it," Liadan continued, making old Arawn sound pretty decent indeed. "As much as he dares, in fact."

"What's that mean?"

"Her majesty is somewhat less than fond of you Walkers. Of any of the older, larger clans, truth be told, but yours especially."

Cahill snuck a another kiss before asking, "And why is that?"

Liadan grabbed his hand and held it in hers. "You ask too many questions."

He nodded. It wasn't Liadan's fault that his family had been too busy trying to get him to come home to get around to the history lessons. If he'd listened to them when they'd told him the truth about who he was, or to Mary, maybe he'd know all this already.

"Point is, your clan is not looked upon all that favorably. My mother ordered two of me brothers to take Walker women to wife, to keep tabs on you lot. And they do. Just not the way her majesty would have of them."

So Oona's children were also part Dreamsmyth?

"Okay," Cahill said, letting that sink in. "So what's my father got to do with you wanting me to return to Faerie?"

The grin Liadan gave him reminded him of her titles.

"Come on," he said.

"The flute really is for him," she said. "That was no lie." She grabbed his beer and took a swig. "Well, of course it wasn't. You know about fey and lying, yeah?"

"Yeah," Cahill said, a bit curtly.

And that was all his aunt would tell him about his father. Try as he might, Cahill couldn't get any more out of her on that topic.

Which was probably just as well. He'd grown tired of talking anyway.

He probably should have been tired, period. But his body was telling him that it had honored its part of the bargain by keeping quiet while they ate and talked, and it was now his turn to reward that cooperation by giving it more of what it craved.

They'd had great sex to begin with. But now that he knew that she was his aunt, he enjoyed it even more. The thrill of committing incest, for real and for true, drove him insane with lust. Guilt too, but mostly lust.

And it didn't hurt that she continued his lessons by showing him some of the more exotic, and erotic, glamours. They changed shapes, manipulated one another's senses, and defied gravity. She taught him how to control how much ejaculate he produced, how to stimulate a woman's Libido as he did the same for her body, and much else besides.

"Will I ever see you again?" he asked at one point, between sessions.

"Oh, aye," she said. "Gotta collect that flute, after all."

That wasn't quite the answer he was looking for.

But he couldn't let himself forget that she was the Lady of Mischief. She hadn't exactly said that he'd never see her after that. Just implied it. And though the fey couldn't tell outright lies, they sure could deceive.

"Promise me one thing," she said, echoing Fiona's words.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Don't tell your family that I had anything to do with you waking up."

"Why not?"

Liadan pressed a slender finger to his lips. "Just promise me."

Cahill hesitated. Promises had power among the fey, at least according to the old tales. It was as impossible to break them as it supposedly was to tell an outright lie.

She bent down and her glorious lips hovered over his swollen member, ready to engulf him. "Promise me, Cahill."

Fuck. How was he to refuse, with a mouth to his head like that? Even if he wasn't a complete and total sex addict, as he felt more comfortable admitting to himself that he was now that he realized it was in his blood, he'd buckle under that pressure.

"I promise," he said, hoping he didn't come to regret it.

Her lips didn't make good on their promise. Not at first. A warm tongue flicked against his sensitive tip, but that was it. "When we sleep, as we will soon, pretend nothing's different at first." Another lick, this one slower and more tantalizing. "Then, sometime before you leave, give the impression that something one of them said finally got through to you. After you wake, by light of day, you can leave the Dreaming behind." Finally, her lips slowly wrapped around him. She bobbed up and down a few times, descending no further than his foreskin. Then she stopped abruptly. "Okay?"

"Got it," he said, with a groan of protest.

"Good," she said, before finished what she'd started.

They fooled around for some time after that. But eventually they did indeed drift off to sleep. Cahill tried not to focus on the irony of the fact that he'd lose the first woman to share a bed with him because of his nightly visits to Faerie, rather than in spite of them, even more quickly than he lost most women. Soon enough, he'd be with the only women that mattered, anyway. The woman of Clan Walker.

#

Oona awaited him deep in the heart of the forest. Cahill was not surprised by that. Had the floral nymph not been the one to greet him, that would have made three nights running. Only one more after that would be required to set a record.

His aunt wore white. She almost always wore white, just as his sister favored forest green and his mother reds and browns. That made her skin seem just a little less pale in comparison. Perhaps she thought that was a good thing, but Cahill wouldn't have minded if she were a bit fairer still, truth be told. Like Fiona. Or, especially, his mother. Caronwyn had skin as white as driven snow, and it took his breath away.

If her dress made her skin seem a little less fair than it was, it made her black hair seem even darker. And that, Cahill liked very much.

Her affinity for wearing white also ensured that no one would overlook her dark red lips. They were always the only source of color to be found on her. And colorful, they were. Soft pinks did not do for this one. Her lips were always the color of bricks.

The simple dress hung to her mid-thigh. The way it flowed about her could almost allow it to be called modest, save for the fact that the fabric was so thin as to border on translucent. A makeshift belt of woven flowers, too loose to actually cling to her waist, hung over her hips. As ever, her feet were bare. Fey women always went barefoot.

"Hey, you," the busty beauty said as she planted an innocent kiss on his cheek. "Everything alright? I expected you sooner."

"Fine," Cahill said. "Just went a little while without sleep."

Oona narrowed her chestnut brown eyes at him. But she said no more.

His aunt wasn't one for stern warnings and lectures. He had Fiona for that. The floral nymph never wanted to do anything but have fun.