Homelands Pt. 06 Ch. 03

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Author's note

As ever, if you have questions feel free to email me or leave a comment. Either way, I'll try to respond in a timely manner.

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 and anal.

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

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Sweat coated Eric from head to toe. With every rapid strike of graceful slice of his sword, he watered the grass below.

The rays of the midday sun were not obstructed by a single cloud. But, then, each and every day in Summer brought warm sun and clear skies. His immortal body had more or less grown accustomed to it. He hardly even felt the heat anymore.

The reason he was drenched in perspiration was that he was pushing himself harder than he ever had before. Most afternoons, Eric worked on building his strength, physically and metaphysically, while improving his swordsmanship. And most afternoons, he pushed himself just a little harder than the day before. But today, he wasn't going for a little harder.

Some immortals were blessed with extraordinary endowments. Even if they didn't work at it, they'd be more powerful than most of the rest of their kind. Eric was not so fortunate. Though he'd inherited more raw power than some of his siblings had, there was still a lot of room for growth. And his mother made sure that he knew that. She seemed to think that he'd one day rival his father. He didn't know if she was right about that, but whatever his potential was, he intended to achieve it. No matter how much suffering it took.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw it. The look of bliss on her face. The glow of her skin. The steady thrum of her Libido.

True, she hadn't said anything. When he'd asked, she'd simply said that she didn't want to know how things had gone with Nina, so it didn't make sense for her to tell him about Hank. Which was reasonable enough. But her body and her Libido told him what her words had not. Told him that the day when he'd eclipse his father was yet a long ways off.

It did no good to let his jealousy eat him up, though. There was only one thing to do. Channel it constructively. Use it to push him to new heights, so that one day he too could make his mother smile uncontrollably for hours after they'd coupled.

So there he was, floating a dozen feet up off the ground, feet dancing air. He whipped his sword through one stroke after another, moving impossibly fast, muscles burning and screaming in protest.

It might not have been so bad, except that he was doing it while wearing two bodies. And he'd doubled the sword's weight, just for the hell of it. Not to mention the fact that he'd done five laps around the island that morning, in lion form. Lions made great sprinters, but they when it came to distance running, men had the clear biological advantage. Which was why it was so much less interesting to train in that form.

The back door to the villa slid open.

"Eric," his mother called out. "Come inside."

His concentration broken, he fell clean out of the sky. One body landed flat on its back, the other did a belly flop. The instant they hit the ground, the air went out of his lungs and his bodies collapsed back into one breathless, aching form.

It wasn't his first tumble, nor even the most painful. Each and every time he'd eaten dirt, he got right back up in the air and started putting himself through the motions again.

This time, though, he was glad for the excuse to call it a day. Left to his own devices, he'd have kept going. Allowed the session to grow so strenuous that it would ultimately be self-defeating, seeing as he'd end up having to take the day off tomorrow in order to recover. If he let it, the manic determination that had possessed him since he'd rolled out of bed that morning might not consume him, but it would come close. Even trying his best to redirect it in the healthiest way possible.

"Oh, honey, I'm sorry," she said.

"S'okay," Eric grunted as he rose to his feet.

"Yeah?" his mother asked, looking him up and down.

He nodded.

And gave her the same visual inspection she was giving him. Only not out of concern for her wellbeing. Just because he couldn't possibly keep himself from doing so.

She wore a loose blue sundress. It wasn't even close to the most revealing thing she had in her wardrobe, but it had the same effect on him as it might have had if it was.

Fuck, that woman looked good.

"Doesn't look like you're okay," she said, the beginnings of a naughty grin spreading across her face. "In fact, looks like you've got some real swelling going on."

Eric blushed and tucked his erection up into the waistband of his drawstring pants. Then he remembered that he wasn't wearing a shirt, so that didn't exactly offer much by way of propriety. He pushed his cock back into his pants and cooled his Libido.

That was one of the toughest tricks he'd learned, though it didn't take much energy. Of course, neither did making bricks of dry water or drawing square circles. Though he understood that the energy that fueled all of their wondrous powers was not actually sexual energy, it was tempting to think of it that way, given the one tried and true method for harvesting it. Using that energy to suppress one's own sexual appetites was not, strictly speaking, a contradiction in terms. But it sure felt like it.

With that one part of his body under control, he focused on the next step towards making himself presentable. Sweat and dirt and grass fell away from him, carried off on a cool breeze.

"What's up?" he asked his mother.

"Your sister and...brother...are here."

Eric raised an eyebrow. Did Nick do something to upset her?

Then he saw the two figures behind his mother and understood. Patty held the hand of one of the king's inbred sons. The little dragon. Mike, if Eric recalled correctly.

That was interesting.

He wasn't sure how he felt about their new brothers yet. Had hardly spoken to either of them yet. If they'd been raised by Aunt Nina, though, it wouldn't surprise him in the least if they turned out to be ambitious, manipulative, and deceitful.

On the other hand, the fact that Patty was interested in him suggested otherwise. His sister tended to see the best in everyone, even when there wasn't much to be seen. But that wasn't to say that she was a bad judge of character. She'd never brought home a guy that Eric had felt he couldn't leave her alone with. Most of them had been goofy, awkward, and boring as hell. But they hadn't been assholes. That was more Annie's thing.

Perhaps the real concern then wasn't that Mike would prove to be manipulate, but that he was a mama's boy. That he'd do what Kurt did and choose his mother over Patty.

Hell, with that tigress for a mother, it would be hard to blame the kid if he did. Eric didn't like his aunt much personally. Didn't trust her. But it wasn't hard to see how any son of hers might have a hard time letting go of her apron strings.

"Did you guys actually meet?" Patty asked Eric as he stepped inside.

"Think we shook hands," he said, reaching out to do so again.

"You'd remembered if we had," Mike said, without offering his hand.

Eric raised an eyebrow.

"Eric," his mother whispered. She gave him a soft tap on the behind before she closed the sliding glass door that he'd left open.

Mike laughed nervously. "That came out wrong." He looked at Patty apologetically before turning back to Eric. "I've heard that it can be unpleasant to, ah," he rubbed a hand over his forearm. "You know. The scales."

Looking a bit closer, Eric saw the truth of it. Mike's palms, chest, and abs were smooth and silver, the same color as his eyes and the row of spines beginning on his forehead and running down his back. But the rest of him was covered in tiny emerald scales. They couldn't have offered much in the way of protection, but Eric suspected that his brother had been right to say that he'd remember shaking his hand.

"So how do you...," Eric said to his sister. "No, nevermind. None of my business."

Patty blushed and stared at her feet.

"With care," Mike said.

Eric laughed. "I bet."

"Can I get anyone something to eat?" Gabby cut in. "Or drink?"

Mike started to refuse politely but when Eric admitted that he was famished, Patty and Mike said that they could eat. So they went into the kitchen and sat at the booth while Gabby fixed up a round of sandwiches.

"So, did I see two of you out there? Levitating?" Mike asked.

"You could call it that, I guess."

"This one, not so much with the big words," Patty said.

"True," their mother said with a grin.

"So what would you call it?" Mike asked politely.

"Falling," Eric said around a mouthful of food.

Both women giggled at that.

"You're too modest," Mike said, as if he hadn't even noticed. "We should spar sometime. Bet I could learn a lot from you."

Eric put his sandwich down.

Was this kid for real?

He was tempted to tell him to turn the charm down a few notches. But Patty wouldn't appreciate that. And it wouldn't kill him to give the guy a chance to make more of an impression before rushing to judgment. But his ass felt a little cramped, what with Mike trying so hard to crawl up it.

"You'd be better off asking your father," Eric said. "Our father," he corrected himself. "Unless you've already learned everything he has to teach?"

Mike's silver eyes widened for a moment. Then he looked down, as if just remembering what he looked like. "Because of this? He didn't teach me that. It just sort of happened."

"I see," Eric said. "How Oedipal."

"Eric!" Patty said, throwing a tomato at him.

Their brother only chuckled. "It's fine. I figured he'd think that," he said to Patty. Then, to Eric, he added, "Sometimes, I think my parents think so too." He shrugged. "Obviously it's my subconscious expressing itself in some way. But I don't think it's about me wanting to be his replacement so much as my sense that everyone expects me to. I've never been good about putting what I want ahead of what others want from me."

Right. So mama's boy it was.

"It was harder for Troy," he continued. "I didn't change until after Mom told us who we were. For him, it came with puberty."

Eric's eyes went wide.

"You mean, he was white as a kid?" Gabby asked.

"Yup," Mike said.

"Didn't people...ask questions?"

"We'd just moved to a new town," Mike said. "That was probably what did it, in fact. Though he'll never tell you that."

"What do you mean?" Eric asked.

Mike shrugged. "It's a form of rebellion. Not so different from the rich white girls whose daddies tried to make up for never being around by giving them sports cars for their sixteenth birthdays. God, those girls loved Troy," he said with a laugh. "Not that I'd have wanted to be in his shoes," he added, noticing the way Patty glowered at him. After clearing his throat, he continued. "He likes to say it's an expression of who he really is inside, but if so, he's a nothing more than a collection of bad stereotypes. I'd hate to see what would happen if he ever spent any time with real black folk."

"Bet they'd kick his ass," Eric said.

Patty shot him a disapproving glare.

"Maybe," Mike said, a bit defensively. "Maybe not. I don't see the need to assume black men are violent thugs."

"I didn't mean-"

"Anyway," his brother continued, "who cares. I'm not interested in arguing about race. All I'm trying to say is, I'd give my left nut to shift all the expectations they put on me onto Troy. To let him be the favorite child. God knows he wouldn't complain about that."

Both Patty and their mother gave Eric meaningful looks, willing him to apologize.

Did they not notice that he'd just tried doing that?

"That sucks, man," Eric said.

Mike snickered. "Yeah. That it does."

He really wished Troy was their mother's favorite? Eric chewed on that as he did the same with the remains of his sandwich. So much for the mama's boy theory. Nor was he a bad boy crying out for attention or an alpha trying to break out of his father's shadow. Just what sort of guy was he, then?

"So you're not preparing to take over for your father?" Eric asked, though he knew what the answer would be.

"Nah, just wanted to spar with you 'cause I thought it'd be fun," he said. "From what I hear, you'd make a better successor anyway."

"Don't know about that," Eric said, trying to ignore the look his mother gave him.

"Besides, it's not like taking over the family business in the mortal world," Mike said. "Sorry, Playground."

"Takes a while to get used to that one," Patty said, wrapping an arm around his.

"Not like he's going to get old and have to retire," Mike continued. "Far as I can tell, he's liable to still be sitting on that damn throne a thousand years from now."

Eric could almost hear the "Since it's all he seems to care about" his brother hadn't tacked on to the end of that sentence.

"That's perhaps a little bit of an exaggeration," Eric's mother said.

"Probably," Mike agreed. "Myself, I'd be content to life a quiet kind of life, with a kind-hearted wife." With that last, he stared into Patty's eyes.

They were not talking that kind of talk already, were they?

For fuck's sake.

Patty smiled demurely back at the romantic sap, oblivious to the shocked looks on both Eric's face and their mother's. What the hell was she thinking?

And did she know his fucking skin was green and scaly?!

"You know our kind don't really get married," Gabby said tentatively, eyes on Eric as much as Patty. "Except when we want to have children."

"I know," Patty said.

Eric's throat went tight. He snatched up the glass of soda he'd been drinking. By the time it reached his lips, it was a strong beer.

"That's kinda why I wanted to stop by," Patty said, staring at her half-finished lunch.

"To ask for our blessing?" their mother asked.

She nodded.

What did she mean "stopped by" anyway? So long as she was a Moody, the villa was as much her home as it was theirs.

Eric stared at his mother, silently imploring her to give him a reason why he shouldn't talk some sense into Patty, since she herself evidently wasn't going to do so. But she gently shook his head at him. In case he might have somehow missed the message thus conveyed, she placed a hand atop his thigh, just above the knee.

Fucking madness.

He turned to regard his sister.

And saw the fear in her eyes. The pleading. "Don't take this away from me," she might as well have said. "You've got Mom. Nick's got Veronica. Annie's got our father. What about me? Where's my happy ending?"

Not a word was said aloud, but Eric got the point.

"We're rushing into things," Mike said.

Every looked around nervously, as if he'd pointed out that the emperor had no clothes.

"But sometimes, you just know," he added, wrapping an arm around Patty. `

Well, at least they weren't thinking about it the same way every other couple who got married too soon, too young, did. These two knew. That meant it would work out, right?

But Eric held his tongue.

"So?' Do we have it?" Patty asked. "Your blessing?"

"Of course you do, sweetie," their mother replied without hesitation.

#

"Morning, jerkface," Veronica said to Nick as she walked back into her room wearing one towel around her body and drying her hair with another.

Of course, it wasn't morning at all. But if he wanted to draw attention to the fact that she'd slept a whole later than she usually did, she'd have been glad to explain to him what had kept her up all night. Perhaps she could even point out some of the ways in which their grandfather put him to shame.

"Trust you...slept...well last night?" she added.

With that, she all but dared him to ask her about her own nocturnal activities. To point out that he wasn't the only one who'd spent the night in the arms of another. And wouldn't he just love to know how sorry she wasn't about that?

However, her brother didn't take the bait.

Of course he didn't.

In typical Nick fashion, he did the exact opposite and hung his head in shame. Or maybe it was defeat. In fact, for a moment, he looked as though he might even vacate the room. Just get up and walk away, without speaking another word. God, that would have been the very last thing he should do, if he wanted to keep this going. Whatever "this" was.

Didn't the asshole realize why she was so upset?

Perhaps he did, at that. To his credit, he neither retreated, nor went down the path towards which she'd tried to steer him. Instead, in a perfectly sweet tone of voice, he said, "I was thinking we'd go into the city today."

Veronica nearly dropped the towel from her head.

Was he really suggesting that they spend the day together? Here she was, taunting him, trying to get him to feel guilty about his infidelity and jealous of her own, if you could call it infidelity, and this was how he responded?

"What city?" she asked.

"LA," he said. "You know, go back to the Playground. Maybe spend the night."

"And why would we do that?" she asked, her heart racing.

She already had her answer, of course. Veronica wanted nothing more than to spend some time alone with her brother. That was more or less what this was all about, after all. And knowing that every other woman in his life would literally be a world away would make it that much better. She might even be able to forget about them, for a time.

But he deserved to squirm a little first.

She couldn't just give in like that. He might get the impression that she hadn't been all that upset in the first place. The last thing she wanted to do was to reinforce the impression that her moods came and went in the blink of an eye.

"To get away," he said.

Was that all she got? After he was off to such a good start?

He had to be kidding.

Veronica responded with a bemused snort. Turning her back to her brother, she went and stood before the standing mirror. All her attention turned to working the towel through her damp locks, as if her brother wasn't even there.

"I want to share something with you," he said as he slipped off the bed and came up behind her. He took the towel from her hands and took over the task of drying her hair.

Veronica tried not to let that melt the wall of ice she'd thrown up. Refused to think to herself that the warmth of his body, so perilously close to hers, was intoxicating. That there were few pleasures in life as sublime as having her brother play with her hair.

"And what would that be?" she asked, trying to sound disinterested.

"It's a surprise."

Now, that was just fighting dirty. He knew she loved surprises.

"Where's this sudden turn towards the romantic coming from?"

Nick kissed her hair, sending shivers down her spine. He lingered afterwards, smelling her shampoo. Guys never paid attention to how a girl's hair looked or smelled. Not the way Nick did. All they ever did was stare at her boobs.

Not that she minded when her girls got some attention from her brother, mind.

But it was nice to know that he appreciated other things about her.

Every now and then, just to test him, she'd switch up her shampoo. He never failed to notice, though. Not once. If she shortened her hair by so much as an inch, changed its color to a very similar hue, he'd notice that too. He knew what perfume she wore, which colors of lipstick looked best on her, and which ones she liked even though they didn't.

Yet, it was too easy to read something more into that. Something that wasn't there. Veronica wanted desperately to believe that her brother was hyper-attentive to such things because she was special in his eyes, when the uncomfortable truth was that Nick just had a freakish gift for noticing the little things.