Homelands Pt. 09 Ch. 01

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Author's note

Part Nine concludes the portion of the series set in Spring. It is not necessary for you to have read the first six parts of the story, but this may be hard to follow if you haven't read Parts Seven and Eight. Part Ten will take us to Winter, and pull all the previous threads together.

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

All sexual acts are consensual and involve parties who are at least eighteen years of age.

As ever, if you have questions feel free to email me or leave a comment. I'll try to respond promptly.

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Cahill sat in the great oak tree at the center of town, his bare back against the trunk and his legs crossed in front of him. Though he was perched atop one of the lowest boughs, the ground nonetheless lay two hundred feet below him. From that high vantage point, he could feel all the glamours they had placed over the city once known as Savannah. He had but to spin out a few filaments, letting the resulting reverberations inform him that the protective web was still perfectly intact. As it had been yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. As he'd known it would be.

Still, he raised his flute to his lips. And as he began to play, his music pulled energy from his Libido. Shaped it. Forged it into something light and strong and resilient. Gave greater strength than was strictly necessary to the web he, his mother, and Aeife had first crafted so many years ago. A polychromatic lattice filled the sky, casting beautiful light onto the city below. It hummed softly, harmonizing with the sounds birthed by his instrument.

Shortly after he began playing, however, Niall wandered into the park. The teen shielded his eyes from the bright display his father had created with a hand pressed to his brow as he looked up into the tree.

With a sigh, Cahill tucked the flute into his belt. There might be no need to reinforce the glamours, but doing so temporarily alleviated the crackling of his nerves. Tamped down the flow of electricity that kept his body on edge from dusk til dawn.

He tried his best not to let his kids see that though. They worried more than they should as it was. They couldn't know that he did too.

Forcing a smile he didn't quite feel, Cahill dropped out of the tree. He fell no faster than a leaf would have, landing softly on the hard asphalt despite a great drop.

"Sorry to interrupt," his son said.

Cahill waved the comment away. "They're strong enough as it is. I just do it for the peace of mind." As his son well knew. "What's up?"

The boy looked like he suddenly wished he was somewhere else. Of course, Niall almost always looked like he wished he was somewhere else. Shy as he'd been as a boy, he'd gotten even worse after entering his teens. Puberty was never easy on their kind, and Niall wasn't coping as well Ty had at that age. It was bad enough that they had to undergo all those physical changes so quickly, the way mortals did. Add the sudden possession of an ability to sense and shape glamour and it was a wonder any of them made it to adulthood without going mad. Though it had to help that his sons knew who and what they were, that they were spared the worst of what he'd gone through, they were both much stronger than he'd been at that age. Their powers were developing fast and he couldn't even begin to imagine what it must be like to cope with that. Worst of all, while Niall wasn't necessarily any stronger than Ty, he had an incredible gift for reading Libidos. That made him especially sensitive to people's reactions. Uniquely prone to being overwhelmed by them.

"You weren't interrupting," Cahill said, deliberately infusing his voice with warmth and patience. "Really." He clapped his son on the shoulder for emphasis.

Niall smiled awkwardly, one side of his face remaining still. "I had that dream again." He scratched the back of his head. "Worse than usual."

He hadn't quite grown into his body yet either. Over the course of the past year, his son had added two inches in height, leaving him nearly as tall as his father. His shoulders were every bit as broad as Cahill's, but his frame was as yet wiry and lacking in muscle. He'd fill out in time, to be sure, but for now he was a bit ungainly.

"Doesn't mean anything," Cahill said. The boy should try having the dreams his father had suffered with for so many years. The sort that had made him question his sanity, his parentage, and his very nature. Dreams that sabotaged every attempt he'd made at forming meaningful bonds with other living things. What were a few nightmares about the Wild Hunt beside that? "We're safe as can be here."

"I know," his son said. "I know," he repeated, more softly.

They were as loosely connected to the Dreaming here as the Dreaming itself was to Faerie. True, in a sense, all three were of a whole. But one had to travel far, along paths no mortal could walk, to reach their fair city. And time flowed as differently here as it did in the Dreaming relative to Faerie. Perhaps more so. He wasn't even sure anymore, since he'd not left the place in a long time. Nor had anyone from Faerie or the Dreaming entered.

The only Dreamsmyth who'd set foot in Savannah was Oberon. And he hardly even counted as one of them anymore, now that he'd fathered two children by Aeife. His mother and her Wild Hunt had not reached this place, and that wasn't about to change any time soon. Not if he had anything to say about it.

"What did your mother say?" he asked.

"Not to worry about it," Niall confessed. "But that I should tell you all the same." He looked up at Cahill with his mother's eyes. Big, brown, and arresting. In a few years, his sisters would be in serious trouble. "If they ever find a way through...."

"They won't," Cahill said.

Niall stared at him incredulously.

He pulled his flute back out and held it up for his son to see. Though the great oak cast an even greater shadow, the silver acorn charm Liadan had given him gleamed brightly. It endowed the flute with even greater power than it would have otherwise had, and it was his finest yet. The silver beauty he'd given his father so many years ago paled in comparison. Any glamour Cahill crafted through the instrument would be twice as strong as it otherwise would be. Even more so if that glamour was protective in nature. "Trust me."

"I'd feel safer if you hadn't told me who gave you that charm."

Niall had never met Liadan, but the boy's mother had filled his head with tales about the Puck. None of which were flattering, of course. Granted, Caronwyn didn't need to distort the truth to cast his aunt in a bad light. The Lady of Mischief did that all herself. But his mother conveniently failed to mention any of Liadan's redeeming qualities.

He'd tried to fill that gap himself. But, like Caronwyn, Niall considered him an untrustworthy source on all matters Liadan.

"Grandma says my dreams don't do the Hunt justice," Niall said.

Cahill frowned.

Aeife sure had a way of spooking her grandchildren. Sometimes, Cahill suspected she did it for that very reason, though he knew that she'd say she was just trying to prepare them for a world they'd likely face one day. If he had his way, that day would never come, but he couldn't deny the wisdom of preparing them for it just in case.

"Have you ever witnessed it?" his son asked.

Cahill snorted. "Ever been told you're rather precocious?" Though every account of the Hunt differed, none painted a pretty picture. If he was less alarmed than his son, it certainly wasn't because he was under any illusions about what would happen if their glamours failed. And though Niall didn't realize it, his father wasn't feeling all too sanguine about that either. Still, before his son could get another word in, Cahill asked, "Would you feel better if I let you help me reinforce the glamours?"

That got a smile out of him. "A little, yeah."

So he took Niall by the hand and flew them back up into the tree. Together, they surveyed the city. Cahill hardly recognized it as the place where he'd first awakened. The population had more than tripled since that time. Yet, even as the mortal population swelled, the city had grown more and more fey. Everywhere Cahill looked, he saw majestic oak, ash, and thorn trees. Here and there, carriages were drawn by unicorns. At night, will o' the wisps guided people home safely. Streets constantly shifted, subtly altering the layout of the city.

"Dad?"

"Sorry," Cahill said, shaking himself out of his reverie.

He produced a fine fiddle from nowhere and handed it to his son, who nodded gratefully. Without further ado, the two them began to play.

#

When he returned home, Cahill found his mother out back, overseeing a scavenger hunt. There was something deeply incongruous, in the best possible way, about the image of her in her druidess robes, casually tossing glamour about here and there, surrounded by children. She looked as powerful and fearsome as ever, and the sheer presence of her vast Libido had his knees trembling, but the smile on her face was one of pure delight.

He'd never been more in love with her than he was at that moment. Except that was couldn't be true, because he felt that way a dozen times a day.

As he ran past at breakneck speed, little Regan loudly informed his father that the girls were winning again. Even before Cahill caught Caronwyn adding a fourth leaf to a clover Cori was about to inspect, he surmised what the boys' problem was.

"You're gonna get caught one of these days," he informed her.

"At what?" the gorgeous redhead asked, giving him a look so innocent it screamed of guilt. "I've no idea what you're talking about."

"Mmm-hmm. None whatsoever," he said, planting a kiss on her cheek.

At least his mother didn't seem to be favoring her own children. Cori was his daughter by Fiona, and he sometimes feared that Caronwyn wouldn't treat her the same as the other Walkers because of it. Nevermind that she'd approved it beforehand, or that she'd had Seamus plant a child in her the very night Cahill had impregnated his sister. His mother still leveraged Cori's existence to win arguments whenever it suited her, Aengus notwithstanding. Of course, not once in the eight years since the girl had been born had Caronwyn let anyone but him see the least sign of any disapproval. For all he knew, she didn't even hold anything against the girl, or him for that matter. She might just have liked having another arrow in her quiver. But he just couldn't help feeling a little apprehensive whenever Cori was with her, or deriving greater pleasure than made any sense from seeing her treat the girl kindly. Which, in truth, was all she ever really did.

He might not even have worried so much if his daughter didn't already have reason to feel like the black sheep of the family.

Just as Liadan had somehow been born with a different ethnicity than her mother, so had little Cori. Her red hair could almost have been seen as a Walker trait, but it was closer to copper than auburn. Granted, Maeve was a strawberry blonde, and that was pretty unusual in its own right. But it wasn't just that Cori's locks were the wrong shade of red. Her skin had heavy olive undertones and her facial features were distinctly East Asian, especially her monolidded eyes. To Cahill's eye, she was every bit as pretty as his other daughters. She'd grow up to be a total knockout, he was sure. But the other kids sometimes teased her just because she was different. The last thing the girl needed was for Clan Walker's Matriarch to treat her like an outcast.

"Where are the others?" he asked Caronwyn.

"My mother's giving Ty a glamour lesson," she said as her eyes found Aeife's eldest.

Morgan was so quiet one could almost believe him mute, but the boy had a sharp mind. And he was developing an impressive ability to wield glamours despite being a few years shy of puberty and thus entirely too young to possess any talent. He reached under a rock and produced a silver triquetra pendant that hadn't existed a moment ago. Caronwyn frowned, but didn't call him on it. That was good, because he'd have been quick to point out that, at best, the boy had leveled the playing field.

"Wynne and Uaid went fishing with Kegan and Aileen," she continued, her little cousin's cheat already forgotten. With a scowl, she added, "Who knows what Padraig and Blaire are up to. Probably burning something down."

Cahill snickered. Brittany's children were a bit wild. At just twelve years old, Blaire already had her nose and lip pierced, and Padraig never tired of picking fights with his older cousins, no matter how often he lost them. But the two were hardly arsonists. And his mother knew that full well.

Before Cahill could say anything, Aeife's youngest let out a squeal. It seemed that, without any help from Caronwyn or powers she ought not yet possess, Maisie had discovered a golden unicorn horn. She ran right over to Maeve to show her.

As quiet and introverted as Morgan was, his younger sister couldn't have been more boisterous. Or bossy. Though they both had jet black hair, ivory skin, striking violet eyes, bushy eyebrows, and scrawny builds, they couldn't have been more different. Heck, if not for the fact that they looked so much alike as to occasionally be mistaken for twins, Cahill might almost have doubted that they'd come from the same womb. Or even the same clan.

Of course, he and his brothers were all quite different. And Fiona and Brittany were hardly interchangeable with one another. Why did he continually find himself struck by the stark differences in the next generation?

"Did Niall find you?" his mother asked.

"He did," Cahill replied. "And he told me about his dream. But I let him help reinforce the glamours, and he didn't seem so worried after that."

His mother gave an approving nod. "Didn't see him come in with you. He's taking a nap right now, isn't he?" she asked with a knowing grin.

"Might have worn him out a little," Cahill confirmed. "That boy can play."

His mother slipped a hand around his waist and leaned her head against him. His heartbeat accelerated. "Somehow I don't think the music's responsible."

Right. He sometimes forgot that his children had limits. Sometimes, it almost seemed like they didn't. Niall and Ty, anyway. At their age, he certainly wouldn't have been capable of the half things they did without even realizing it. But they were still young an inexperienced. And he'd done nothing but grow stronger and stronger since he'd awakened.

"Probably not, no," he allowed, before planting a kiss atop his mother's head. He lingered a moment to smell her hair. The slight scent of strawberries made his eyelids flutter. If it was possible for a woman to be more desirable than his mother, he had no idea how. "He's going to put me to shame in a few years."

"In what sense?"

"I think just about every."

"Well, hopefully Fiona won't forget about you."

He gave her ass a playful smack before asking, "And where is my darling sister?"

"On top of Seamus somewhere, I imagine."

"You shouldn't talk like that with the kids around," Cahill admonished her.

She looked up at him, eyes glowing. The hand on his waist reached up to stroke his antlers. "You know, they can probably finish up on their own. Don't really need me anymore."

"Stop it, you," he said, though he knew she was only toying with him anyway. How long had it been since they'd done it in the middle of the day? "Don't need you to supervise, or don't need you to interfere?"

"Speaking of things one shouldn't talk about with the kids around," she chided.

"Maybe I should give you a time out."

She kissed his cheek softly, sending shivers down his spine. Those luscious lips were deadly weapons, as capable of paralyzing a man as any toxin. And that was when she didn't even bother putting anything extra into the effort. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she asked. "Bend me over you knee and show me what a bad girl I've been."

His poor dick was so engorged it ached. "I...think I'm gonna go take a cold shower."

Caronwyn laughed. "You do that. We'll pick this back up tonight."

"Are we not on duty?" he asked.

Each night, two of them would remain available in case any of the children woke up and wouldn't go back to sleep while another two would patrol the city. As the children got older, fewer glasses of water needed fetching, and fewer bedtime stories needed telling, but they still stood watch. The rest of them, however, would be free to do what their kind did best. And apparently, they'd fall into the latter group that night. He probably should have known that, but he could never remember when Caronwyn scheduled them for what.

"No fair, no fair!" Regan yelled out suddenly. "I saw it first!"

"Did not!" Maeve countered.

"That's my cue," Caronwyn said. "Enjoy your shower."

#

After a long shower, which hadn't been cold but had taken care of his problem in a different way, he went to fetch some whiskey from his liquor cabinet. Along the way, he ran into Aeife and Oberon. His grandmother was lying on his bed, the one he shared with Caronwyn, flipping through the pages of a magazine. Her lover sat quietly beside her, staring admiringly at his buxom beauty while running fingers through her black hair. Until Cahill walked in wearing nothing at all, that is. Then the former prince of Faerie turned to stare at his nephew, amusement written plainly across his pale face.

"You run out of towels or something?" Aeife asked, her green eyes trying, and failing, to focus on his face. That was no fair. He was soft at the moment. Not small, of course. Even limp, his cock was quite big. But still. "What if one of your children had snuck into your room instead of your grandmother?"

"The door was locked," Cahill said.

"Was it?" she asked, green eyes twinkling. Literally.

Oberon gave her a shrug. If Cahill was looking for an eyewitness to testify against her, he'd have to look elsewhere.

For the most part, Cahill loved having the whole clan, all twenty four of them, living together under one roof. It gave him a powerful sense of security. Of belonging. But sometimes, he wondered what it might be like to have some privacy. He almost remembered what that was like. How thoroughly he'd taken it for granted in his days as a bachelor.

"How'd the lesson go?" Cahill asked, deciding to pretend that he wasn't the least bit bothered by the invasion. He walked over to the liquor cabinet, recovered a bottle of the Dew, and poured himself a few fingers' worth before turning to face his grandmother again. Bare ass propped against the hard wood, he asked, "Ty listening to you any better?"

They'd nearly discontinued his lessons a while back. In the end, Ty convinced them that he was trying his best. That he was having trouble focusing, but wasn't deliberately trying to irritate her. Cahill still had his doubts though.

Of course, he wasn't sure she didn't deserve it.

"That boy is mighty willful," Aeife replied. "He's got serious potential, but getting him to realize it won't be easy." A wicked grin spread across her face. "At least, not until he's old enough for me to motivate him properly."

Her white-haired prince gave her a flat look, his pale gray eyes very nearly expressing something akin to an actual emotion. But not quite.

With a huff, she closed the magazine and sat up. Too-slender legs folded beneath a top-heavy body. His grandmother was a beautiful woman. Gorgeous, even. Every bit as pretty as Brittany, if not his mother, who was utterly without peer. But her body didn't do much for him. Aside from her huge breasts, anyway. Those swollen melons were absolutely amazing, and the ultra-tight tank top that barely contained them made sure everyone would notice. The rest of her left something to be desired though. It probably should have excited him to see her wearing shorts so skimpy they could almost pass for underwear, but from the waist down, she really didn't have much to reveal. And whenever she went out of her way to get under his skin, which she did with some regularity, he reminded himself of that. And allowed himself to feel okay about thinking such thoughts.