Homelands Pt. 06 Ch. 06

When she'd had enough of that, he got nice and depraved. She soon found herself pinned between two of his bodies. Two glorious dicks fucked her pussy and her ass, slamming into her rapidly and with great force. Meanwhile, he slapped her ass and breasts til they stung beautifully. At one point, he tied her and Aunt Nina up and whipped them. As ever, though, after she took her punishment like a good little girl, she was rewarded. Generously.

Lying in a heap between her two lovers, both of whom now had but one body in bed with her, Annie smiled from ear to ear. She could get used to this whole life in exile thing. Even if the Hinterlands had some big, nasty secret that her father wouldn't divulge.

#

"I can't believe how small she is," Eric said, placing a hand on Debbie's back.

"She's gained three pounds since she was born," Gabriela said, trying not to sound disappointed or frustrated with her son.

Of course, he had no way of knowing that. He hadn't been there for her birth. Or the first few weeks of her life. Debbie wasn't yet a month old, and Eric was already set to be every bit as absent a father as Hank had been.

That wasn't fair.

It hadn't been his fault. He'd nearly died. Flori said that if Olivia hadn't found him right away, hadn't immediately thought to go and fetch the queen, her son would have died. He'd come within a few seconds of passing beyond even the immeasurable talents of House Hardt's matron. And even under the constant supervision and supernatural care of the most powerful woman Summer had ever known, it had taken him weeks to open his eyes again.

Gabriela knew that it was absurd to begrudge him for that. Yet between the lack of sleep, the lack of sex, and the overabundance of hormones, she couldn't think straight. Her emotions seemed to change with the tides, whether she consented or not.

He should have been there with her to welcome Debbie into the world. And after as well, to relieve her when she needed sleep, to comfort her when tears came for no reason at all, and to share her smiles when their little bundle of joy giggled at nothing whatsoever.

He should have been there to help her recharge.

Fuck, but it wasn't easy for their kind to go without sex for weeks on end. Sure, Olivia and Patty were around, and in her desperation, she'd availed herself of them more than a few times. But that wasn't the same. Taking them into her bed only served to whet her appetite. To remind her of precisely how empty her Libido was and how badly she needed to slake her thirst for real.

It wasn't just that she was horny, though that was part of it. She felt weak. Feeble. Things she used to be able to do without lifting a finger became a real chore, now that her Libido was perpetually empty and the hard way was generally the only way.

True, technically, her daughter and niece were not her only options. But Patty hardly ever let Mike come up for air. And even if the boy would have been up for it, it didn't seem right to Gabriela. Monogamy didn't come any more naturally to them than abstinence, but it was always just a little bit easier to imagine settling down and abandoning the ways of the Homelands, living as mortals do, after giving birth. Her body needed to be touched, but it didn't crave just any man. It called out for her child's father. Her beautiful son. Eric. To take another man into her bed would have been wrong, however safely it fell within the boundaries of what their kind considered acceptable.

And Patty no doubt would have felt the same. The girl had never been selfish, and she'd no doubt be comfortable sharing Mike again before too long. But for now, she likely wanted to keep him all to herself. And Gabriela couldn't blame her.

Hank had not lacked for flaws, either as a husband or a father. But one thing he'd done right was take care of her needs after she'd given birth to their children. They had some of the best sex of their entirely too brief marriage while first Eric then Patty were newborns.

And Eric had missed out on that. Had made her miss out on it.

"Three pounds, huh?" Eric said, giving his daughter a kiss on her soft shoulders. "Was that like half her birth weight?"

"Close enough," Gabriela said, bouncing Debbie lightly against her shoulder.

Her little girl gurgled gleefully. Little fingers tugged at Gabriela's hair.

"You can already tell that she's going to be shorter than her cousin," Gabriela said. How her little Patty had given birth to a girl who would grow up taller than Debbie, Gabriela didn't quite know. Both girls had the look of House Moody. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and skin that would soon be bronze. "Sandra's an inch longer, though they weigh the same."

"Bet Debbie's cuter," Eric said.

In spite of herself, Gabriela smiled at her son. They shared a fleeting, awkward kiss, with little Debbie squeezed delicately between them.

He didn't get it. Not one bit.

How could she stay mad at him, when he was so happy to finally see his baby girl? He was the proudest father the world had ever known. From the moment he'd awakened, he'd hardly taken his eyes off of their daughter. Gabriela was almost jealous of her already. Might well have been, if she wasn't so busy admiring her son and his strong paternal instincts.

Who was she kidding, comparing him to Hank? He'd be the best father Debbie could ask for. Except for the fact that he'd spoil her rotten, if Gabriela gave him half a chance.

Gabriela's mother had once told her that, sooner or later, every woman had to choose between the man who made a great lover and the one who'd be a good provider. Between passion and romance on the one hand and security and stability on the other. She'd then added the caveat that it was technically possible to have your cake and eat it to, but only if you could find a man to help you raise another man's child. In a way, she'd done just that. Hank had excited her, but he hadn't been there for her. Between Jennifer and Wes, she'd sort of found herself a man to take up Hank's slack.

Now, though, she would get both, and not because she'd tricked some beta into raising a child she'd conceived with an alpha male. Eric was everything she could ask for in a man, and then some. At least, when he wasn't lying in bed for weeks on end, slowly reattaching the two halves of his body while he slept.

"I was really out for that long?" he asked, as he had so many times already in the short time he'd been awake.

"You really were," Gabriela said.

"What the heck happened to me?" he asked.

"You're asking me?"

Little Debbie let out a little yawn and rested her little head against Gabriela's cheek. She was such a well-behaved little girl. Hardly ever cried, never seemed to stop smiling, and, best of all, slept without any trouble. Gabriela padded over to the crib and laid her daughter down, then tucked her in under her blanket.

"That was quick," Eric said, following behind her.

"You really don't remember anything?" Gabriela asked, ignoring his comment.

Her son shrugged. "Not anymore than I already told you. I refused her, thrice, then...I don't know what. She was getting ready to do something. But I'm not sure what."

"Probably did it with her bare hands," Gabriela said with a shiver.

The thought of another woman laying a hand on her son would have filled her with rage, if the image of Lady Winter cutting through Eric like tissue paper with freakishly long fingers didn't scare the shit out of her. Flori herself had said she'd found Daphne to be terrifying, and Gabriela had never met anyone as powerful, or as calm, as Jennifer's mother.

"Maybe," Eric said. "Or just ripped me apart with her mind. Who knows. She's...ma, you have no idea how powerful she is. It's...."

Neither his Libido nor his tone of voice suggested that he'd been about to finish that sentence with "scary" or any of the other words that might have been appropriate. The jerk actually sounded aroused! By the memory of the whom who very nearly tore him in two, then left him there to bleed to death!

A knife slipped into her heart.

That was no more his fault than the fact that he hadn't been there for her over the past few weeks. Even without having laid eyes on her, Gabriela knew that Daphne was as beautiful, as alluring, as a woman could be. Everything she knew about the woman pointed to it. Perhaps the most ancient immortals in the Eternal Garden and the Shadowed Glade would beg to differ, but Gabriela doubted that she or anyone else she knew would ever lay eyes on anyone as breathtaking as Lady Winter. For all intents and purposes, Daphne was the epitome of sex appeal. Desire made flesh. The greatest realization of their kind's vast potential. How could she expect her son to behold such a wondrous being and not feel anything? By rights, she ought to be proud that Eric had refused her. That he hadn't thrown himself at her and pledged to do anything she asked of him.

Still, she felt betrayed. And anyone who expected her not to would have been just as foolish as she herself was for wishing that Eric had been entirely unimpressed with Daphne.

"Is that Eric's voice I hear?" Patty called from the hallway.

"Hey, Pattycakes," her son replied.

Her daughter let out a high-pitch squeal and rushed into the room, launching herself at her brother like a linebacker. If Gabriela hadn't instinctively wrapped Debbie in a one-way dome of silence the moment she laid her down, Patty's shriek would have woken the baby.

A bare-chested and very tired Mike appeared in the doorway behind her. He smiled and waved at Eric, who was trying to draw breath through the vice grip his sister was passing off as a hug. Eric gave a feeble wave back.

Gabriela tried to frown, but her lips refused. A grin formed instead.

All her children were assembled in one room, safe and happy. For now.

Tough days lay ahead, she knew. Daphne had left them alone for some time. Or Flori had been handling her behind the scenes. But Lady Winter wasn't done with them yet. Gabriela felt it in her gut. And the other courts might yet try to stamp out their inbreeding before it spread too far. The Eternal Garden might seek vengeance for Zoey and Kurt, or might change their mind about condoning the practice of purebreeding among lesser immortals. Time flowed differently there, after all. The remaining members of the temple had only just returned home, from the perspective of the sunlit folk. That they hadn't yet been heard from meant next to nothing.

Yet, for the time being, all of those were distant concerns.

When Patty's greeting slowly shifted from affectionate to amorous, Gabriela felt a tinge of jealousy, but it was dwarfed by a surge of lust. Her daughter's Libido, like her own, remained starved. It would be weeks yet before her sex drive settled back to normal. She couldn't really expect Patty to react to Eric's recovery any other way.

Wasn't like she hadn't done the same, after all.

Eric had hardly spoken a few coherent words before she'd climbed into bed with him. You know, to make sure everything still worked. That the lines of communication between his lower body and upper body were still open.

Besides, the thought of sharing her son with her daughter, though less appealing than having Eric all to herself, sounded pretty good to her as-yet ravenous Libido.

"Ugh," Mike grunted. "Again? You're absolutely insatiable, woman."

"Says it like it's a bad thing," Eric mumbled to himself.

That made Gabriela smirk. Let her son see how relentlessly she'd put him to work, day and night, for the next few weeks, then he could mock his brother. He'd never waiver, never tire of her, she knew. Not her Eric. But he might find it a little easier to understand how a lesser man could, in a moment of weakness, express such a thought.

"What?" Patty said, after wrenching her lips free of Eric's, the picture of innocence.

Nevermind that she still had the palm of one hand pressed to her brother's crotch, gently massaging his erection through the fabric of his drawstring pants, or that his hands had hiked up the hem of her flimsy robe to grab her ass so tight that it looked as if her butt cheeks might pop. Nothing to see here, folks. Just a girl expressing her joy over seeing her brother out of his sick bed, walking about again.

Mike shook his head, grinning. "I'll go see if Sandra's awake. She probably needs to be fed. You left a bottle in the fridge, right?"

Patty nodded.

The moment her lover left, she turned back to Eric, a hungry look in her eyes. She went up on tiptoes and pressed her lips to his once more.

"Okay, okay," Gabriela said, laughing. She gave her daughter's exposed ass a playful smack. "I haven't finished with him myself. Was just giving him a break."

"That so?" Eric asked, pulling away from his sister's kiss.

The way his already excited Libido soared at her words earned him a few brownie points.

"It is," Gabriela said, taking one of Eric's hands off Patty's backside and leading him towards the bed. "I hope I left you with enough energy to service the both of us."

Because, if not, she wasn't the one who was going to have to go without.

The second Eric, the one who still stood by the crib, holding Patty, cleared his throat.

"Good," Gabriela said.

The three of them, who were sometimes four and sometimes five, couldn't get enough of each other. Gabriela even fooled around with Patty a bit, though it was her son she wanted most of all. She was so overwhelmed with lust that she grabbed at, kissed, and sucked everything she could, no matter whose body it belonged to.

When Olivia interrupted them with a sharp rap of her knuckles against the bedroom door, Gabriela didn't even mind. Let her join too. That meant there'd be even less of Eric to go around, but she was so worked up just then, she'd have been happy to hold her niece's head between her legs and then return the favor afterwards.

Only that didn't seem to be what she was after.

"The queen wants to see you," she said in a flat tone.

Eric stopped pumping at his sister's tight snatch. And that made Patty stop licking Gabriela's pussy. "What?" Eric asked his cousin, looking over his shoulder.

Olivia's lips formed a thin line.

"How's she know I'm awake?"

Liv raised an eyebrow.

It was a stupid question. There wasn't much that happened in her court without Flori knowing about it. The woman seemed to have eyes and ears everywhere.

"Right," he said, slipping out of bed.

Patty flopped onto her back with an exasperated sigh.

Gabriela conjured a robe and went to stand beside her son. "Probably should have told you to go see her straight away." She gave his hard ass a pinch. "Just couldn't help myself."

Olivia rolled her eyes. But then those blue orbs went right back to drinking in Eric's naked form. She was no less eager to welcome him back than anyone else was, Gabriela was sure. It only seemed like she was cold and humorless because she'd taken the job of filling in for Eric as Shadow more seriously than she had anything in her life, and Flori had showered her with praise for her dutiful service.

"You don't mind keeping an eye on Debbie, do you?" Gabriela asked Patty.

Her daughter shook her head. "Not at all."

"No need," Olivia said. "The queen wants to speak to Eric alone."

"Oh," Gabriela said. "Of course she does."

Eric turned to her, hugged her close, and gave her a sweet kiss. "I won't be long," he said, as if he had any say in the matter.

"Sure," she replied, before giving him a kiss of her own. "I'll be waiting," she added.

Eagerly.

"Well," Patty said after he left. "That sucks."

Gabriela burst out laughing.

"Maybe Mike will play with us," she said.

It was the first time she'd offered to share Mike with Gabriela since the two of them had given birth. Had she done so at point prior to now, Gabriela would have been all too grateful. But she couldn't imagine wanting another man inside her just now.

"No, that's okay," Gabriela said.

"You sure?" Patty asked. "Cause either way, I'm about to go remind him that he's not allowed to say `no' to me without my permission."

"Have fun," Gabriela said, smirking. Then she gave her daughter a kiss on the cheek.

Patty shrugged and headed down the hall.

Not long after that, Debbie awoke. Gabriela decided to take her for a walk. Her baby girl loved the sounds of the ocean. She strapped her daughter into her stroller and took her down to the beach. The waves breaking on the sand didn't sooth her worried mind quite as much as they did Debbie's, but she too found it quite peaceful.

What could Flori want with Eric that had to be said in private?

Nothing good.

The queen couldn't possibly believe that he'd keep secrets from his mother. Whatever they discussed, he'd tell Gabriela the moment he returned.

That meant she was going to ask him to do something Gabriela would want him to refuse to do. But what could that be? Step down as Shadow and let his cousin take over? Continue on as Shadow, in name as well as in practice? No, Gabriela would be only too pleased with that. Eric was uniquely suited for the job, but his cousin was quite capable in her own right. If there was anyone in Summer besides Flori who could give her son a run for his money, it was Olivia. And that would give her more time with her son.

It had to be something that was going to take Eric away from her.

Her heart stopped at the realization.

As she and Debbie watched the sun go down, bathing Summer in a rich array of reds and oranges, blues and yellows, Gabriela tried to find peace. Tried, and failed.

This couldn't he happening to her. Not now. Not when he'd just been returned to her. How could the queen do that? What had Gabriela done to deserve such torture?

Shortly after she returned to the villa and put Debbie back to sleep, her son returned.

With bad news.

He tried to break it to her easy, but it didn't matter. There was no way to say it that wouldn't hurt worse than a thousand violent deaths.

The queen had learned that one of the former kings of one of the Autumnal courts had traveled to the heart of Winter. His reason for doing so was unclear. Some reports held that he was avenging the death of his children by killing off Daphne's own progeny. Others said that he was collecting information, hoping to discover Lady Winter's true intent, or whether she had any weaknesses. Either way, this Frank Orwin was in desperate need of an ally, as the First Court of Summer itself was. Secrecy being of paramount concern, Flori could not go herself, nor send a large delegation. Eric and Nick alone would travel to Winter.

Olivia would indeed officially become the queen's Shadow, Gabriela noted ironically. Precisely what she'd hoped to hear. But what could that possibly mean to her now that Eric was to be sent away from her?

"Why you?" she asked. "Why doesn't she just send Nick?"

But she knew the answer.

Nick was a remarkably gifted young man. Of late, he seemed to be able to soothe emotions as well as read them. The few times he'd come to visit, the fear and sadness both Gabriela and Patty had felt every moment since Daphne had ambushed Eric receded. The darkness never left them, but Nick held it bay like a candle. He could move through the shadows as well, which would prove more than useful for infiltrating Winter. But, for all his talents, Nick had never proven himself particularly useful in a fight.

Should Lady Winter herself discover them, it wouldn't matter one way or the other. But she had many children, all of whom were believed to be fierce yet scarcely invincible warriors. If Nick was intercepted by them, having Eric along with him would make all the difference.

"I don't know," Eric said, smoothing her hair back.

"When?"

"As soon as possible," he replied.