Homelands Pt. 11 Ch. 03

Without awaiting word from his queen, Quincy struck up a tune. A lively one, more suitable for drinking and merrymaking. Which amused Yvette greatly.

Until Cahill turned and looked at him quizzically. Then her amusement turned to curiosity. "Do you know the tune my brother plays, fairy boy?"

He gave her a sad look but did not reply.

"No, not to the death," Daphne said. "Though should one of you end the other's life, there'll be no repercussions." The perfect sheets of black silk framing her gorgeous face stirred, particularly the longer one on her left side, though there was no wind to tease them. "You'll fight until my daughter is satisfied, at which time she'll name a champion."

"Who will go free?" Cahill asked, standing a little straighter and sounding almost as though he still wanted that. Good for him. The poor bastard.

Lady Winter's laughter was haunting, even to Yvette's ears. There was something of icicles clinking together to it, accompanied at the end by a dead man's last breath passing through his lips. "My dear. You're never leaving this palace. Would you even want to?"

For a moment, he looked as though he didn't know the answer to that question himself.

"The winner lives," Oberon said.

Yvette wouldn't quite say he was growing impatient, but he was only a few small steps shy of it. His eyes kept flitting back and forth from Cahill to Daphne and his slender fingers tightened then loosened then tightened once again their grip on the knife. If they didn't get on with it soon, he'd spill the other man's guts before he had a chance to ready his weapon. Then maybe launch himself at the queen in hopes of doing the same.

And were she any other woman, Yvette figured, he might even succeed. Pretty though the hairless man might be, there was a deadly air about him. A quiet confidence. He was no wolf, but he was every bit as dangerous. She was sure of it.

"You are both mine, and will be forever," Daphne said. "No man dies while I still have use of him." She said it so casually, Yvette almost forgot that it didn't work that way most of the time. Neither man seemed surprised to learn that even death did the queen's bidding.

And why should they be? Yvette was beginning to wonder if there was any force in existence that was not loyal to her most wondrous mother.

Except she remembered Zach saying something about the seasonals all being in danger. That their mother was, in his estimation, doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Who or what could possibly threaten so many courts? And why would they not back down the moment they learned of her intent to stand in their way?

She almost wished he was there with her. Though she did not lament Lena's absence, which she could only assume was related to her brother's. Later, she'd worry about whether that was worth getting jealous over. But for the time being, she was just glad that her sister wasn't there to ruin her moment. Hell, she could have Zach, so long as she stayed out of Yvette's way when it came to Lance. That was more than a fair trade.

"Suppose I should have gone a little easier on them, though, huh?" she asked Yvette, speaking too softly for the fey to hear. "The one's proving so hard to break, I sort of figured they might both be. But I guess not."

Oh. So it wasn't that he was weak. Just too doped up on her mother's scent.

"It'll wear off. In time," Daphne added. "Probably."

"Probably?"

The queen shrugged. "Some men never manage to pull themselves back together again." She gave the sort of grin that was equal parts guilty and bemused. That girls Yvette's age followed up with, "Sorrynotsorry," all as one word.

Yvette's head spun, seeing her frozen queen look for just a moment like every bitchy girl in high school. But unlike them, Lady Winter really was all that. And it wasn't too hard to believe that men lost their minds over her when she but meant to enchant them for a short period of time. Heck, Yvette would never be the same herself, and she could only attribute so much of that to Lance. Or even the darkness that had always been within her.

The need to please Lady Winter was a powerful thing.

Daphne turned back to the combatants. "The winner gets to share my daughter's bed."

Her cheeks colored. They were fighting over her?

The remnants of the girl she'd once been started to protest. There was no need for bloodshed on her behalf. She'd gladly take both of them as lovers and be done with it. But the ice in her veins kept her from speaking. After all, it wasn't every day a girl had two unnaturally handsome immortal men duel over the right to have sex with her.

And she fucking deserved it.

The shy U-Dub student would never have told herself as much. But she was. And false modesty was unbecoming for a proud daughter of Winter.

Just to keep things interesting, Yvette gave Cahill a smile and a wave. And she made sure it was her best smile, putting a little energy into the effort so her teeth would sparkle and her eyes glow. She might not have her mother's charm. No one did, after all. But she had some of her own. And she was getting more comfortable admitting that.

He noticed, alright. The cocked eyebrow made that clear. But whether she'd had the effect she'd been aiming for, Yvette couldn't have said.

Well, fuck him sideways then. The other one was just as hot anyway. Maybe even more attractive in some respects. Confidence, for one thing. Deadly grace for another.

"Shall we get started?" Lady Winter asked, as though it was a request they had even the slightest ability to deny. She gathered her skirts up beneath her as she settled back down atop her velvet seat cushion. Though she needn't have. The black silk did precisely what she wanted it to whether she helped it along with her hands or not. As did everyone and everything that was fortunate enough to come into her presence.

Hardly a moment later, Cahill was flat on his back.

It was hard to tell if Oberon had even moved, though Yvette supposed he must have. Or maybe not. Maybe he'd delivered a powerful blow with an unseen hand, the sort Lance used to such great effect whenever he fucked her. She really wasn't sure. All she knew was that the younger man lay buried in the snow almost the very instant Daphne sat down.

"Stay down," Oberon said.

Cahill sat up.

The older man sighed. Then delivered his second blow.

This time, Yvette saw it. But just barely. It would be more accurate to say she saw the snow clouds he kicked up as he zipped across the courtyard. When he stopped moving, Oberon stood before a portcullis, two stone daggers in his hands.

For his part, Cahill was supine once more.

"Stay down," Oberon repeated.

Cahill rolled onto all fours, making Yvette wonder if maybe her mother hadn't thoroughly ruined his mind after all. She felt a stirring in her loins.

The kick to his ribs, however, could have split the mountain in two. It sent poor Cahill a good ten feet into the air, spinning like a top before he landed with a loud, "Oof!"

"What, are you trying to put on a show for them?" Oberon asked, walking slowly towards his fellow fey. "You know you can make this a lot easier on both of us."

Cahill coughed blood into his fist. "Why are you doing this?" he eventually managed. "Don't tell me it's because you've got a thing for the daughter."

"Hey!" Yvette snapped. Then instantly covered her mouth in shame. Though the comment only seemed to amuse her mother, which made her giggle.

"Fine," Oberon said. "Your turn then." He tossed both daggers contemptuously. They landed in the snow near Cahill. "But one of us needs to end this." He held his arms out wide, exposing his torso. "Come and get me."

"He can't do that, can he?" Yvette asked her mother. "They have to fight, don't they?"

From the other side of the queen, Lance gave her a cold look. She couldn't tell if it was reproachful or mocking, but either way, she didn't like it.

This wasn't how it was supposed to work. By making a mockery of the duel, they were insulting the queen. And Yvette, though that was less important.

But the queen didn't seem to care. All she did was shrug.

"Come on," Oberon said to Cahill as he rose unsteadily to his feet.

"You're just going to let me?" Cahill asked.

The white-haired man gestured for the dark-haired one to retrieve the weapons. As he did, he said, "Nothing I haven't done before."

Yvette didn't catch the significance of that, but she didn't need to. One thing was certain---the one she'd thought defiant was even more so than she'd realized. He didn't even care if he died, though whether that was because he knew Lady Winter would bring him back or in spite of it was not clear. Either way, he was telling them all that there was nothing anyone could do to him that he would count as defeat. Nothing. Not even Daphne.

That filled Yvette with unspeakable rage.

And yet seemed to amuse the queen.

She was still tempted to shout out that she chose Oberon, if only because she knew he wouldn't want that. But that would only make her look weak. Unable to control her emotions. Besides, she no longer had any desire whatsoever to take him inside of her. Perhaps, then, she ought to have declared Cahill her champion. But that too would reveal that Oberon had gotten under her skin. And while it would be bad enough to give him the satisfaction, it'd be worse still to have her mother think that she was easy to manipulate.

So Yvette did her best to overcome her frustration. She pictured cold wind blowing over snowcapped mountains. Saw herself lying abed in her frozen tower, surrounded by ice. Those images and thoughts cooled her off, drawing out the heat of her anger.

Quincy's music helped. Under different circumstances, and with a few more drinks in her, she'd get up and dance to it. Maybe pretend she knew what the heck a jig was until some sweaty guy came over and spared her further embarrassment.

"You're serious?" Cahill asked Oberon, apparently having realized there'd be no intercession from the pavilion. He bent down and picked up one of the daggers.

The older man nodded. His long hair whipped about him like a cloak. Aside from that, though, he was perfectly still. And incredibly vulnerable. It'd be so easy to strike a vital organ, even with rough hewn stone. But the prospect apparently did not bother him at all.

Cahill hesitated a moment, then charged.

And buried the knife deep in the other man's abdomen.

"Again," Oberon coughed, taking a half step back. One could almost think he'd suffered no more than a shoulder bump at moderate speed. "Give them what they want."

Except that wasn't what Yvette wanted. She wanted a real fight. With some uncertainty over the outcome. But, sure, if she must, she'd settle for a little blood and brutality instead.

"Do it," Daphne whispered.

Her words were like a thunderclap.

Cahill drew the bloody knife back slowly then thrust it forward sharply. Again and again and again, a little faster each time. His grip soon grew slippery and Yvette suspected at least some of the blood falling onto the snow with a steaming hiss was his own. But he didn't let up, nor did Oberon ask him to. Before long, the one was crouched atop the other, screaming in rage as he bashed the other man's chest in, shattering ribs and puncturing organs.

"Enough," Yvette finally said. "My champion."

She looked not to Cahill but to her mother as she said this. Daphne gave her a small nod of approval. As did Lance, for what that was worth. Meanwhile, Quincy played on, filling the courtyard with a chipper tune utterly at odds with the carnage they'd just witnessed.

The knife fell limply from Cahill's hand, landing in the bloody snow beside Oberon's corpse. The victor rose slowly. As he turned to face the pavilion, he nearly fell over. Tears streamed down his cheeks but he did not sob. He looked too numb for that.

Lady Winter snapped her fingers. A second thunderclap.

A rough cough followed on its heels. It came, of course, from Oberon, who then sat up with no more effort than a man who'd slept too long after a night of drinking.

That he hadn't really killed his friend apparently gave Cahill no consolation. He looked worse than Oberon. The color was gone from his face.

Yvette tried her best to feel something other than shock, but failed.

#

The most wicked idea occurred to Yvette as she was leading Cahill up to her tower.

The tiniest little part of her felt bad for what she was about to do, but mostly she just wanted to laugh aloud at her own deviousness. The poor fairy had no idea who he was dealing with. She might be the youngest of her mother's favored children, but it was only a matter of time before she was occupied a primo position.

She tightened her grip on Cahill's hand, the way she might have Zach's not too long ago, and forced herself back into that same frame of mind. Daphne was not her role model, she told herself, but a loathsome tyrant she couldn't wait to escape. It took some effort to convince herself to take such nonsense seriously, but she wanted to be convincing.

"I'm so sorry about what happened back there," she said.

Cahill looked around, unsure if they were alone.

Yvette gasped like a frightened sparrow. "You're right!" She wrapped them in a cloak of silence before even realizing she knew how.

The ways of their kind came so naturally to her. More so than they did her elder siblings before her, she was certain. That made her wonder if Lena knew that her position at the top of the pack was in jeopardy. Probably not. The poor thing.

"If she heard us...," Yvette added, allowing the thought to trail off. She then feigned a shudder for good measure.

Her fairy knight gave a wary nod.

"How long ago did you discover this place?" he asked.

"Mmmph," she groaned in protest. "Only a few days ago. But it feels like it's been longer than that. Everything's been so crazy. You've no idea!"

She caught his frown over her shoulder before she started up the steps. "You'd be surprised," he said in such a solemn tone Yvette almost laughed.

"No, you're right," she rushed to add. Her outfit changed, growing more casual. And colorful. Let him think it was all a show. Where there'd been a black gown, black boots, and black accessories, she now wore a loose white peasant skirt embroidered with pink flowers, strappy pink sandals, and a sheer pink top that clung to her like cellophane. A few pink bows tied themselves in her hair and the dark shade of blue she'd worked so hard to grace her lips with faded back to candy pink. Yvette even removed her tattoos and piercings, the better to look like a scared teenager playing at fearsome for the sake of avoiding her mother's suspicion. Though that was probably unnecessary. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't presume-"

"It's okay," he said.

"When did you find out?" she asked, genuinely curious.

His weary sigh told her that it had either been a long time ago or was a long story. They nearly reached the top of the stairs before he spoke again. Granted, her tower wasn't as tall as Quincy's, but that still left them in awkward silence for longer than she'd have liked.

"I don't know," he said at last. "I left the Dreaming for Faerie a few years ago. But I think, on some level, I knew what I was many years before that. I just refused to believe."

Yvette spun around after entering her room, dragging Cahill gently by both hands towards her bed. She stared at him with the most innocent, trusting look as she slowly backpedaled. At least, she was pretty sure she pulled that off. His reaction was certainly along the lines of what she'd been hoping for, at any rate.

"Is that like a Lodge?" Yvette asked. "The Dreaming?"

Cahill shrugged. "I guess. That what you guys call the fake world you grow up in?"

Yvette nodded as she planted first one leg then the other on the bed behind her. She hoped the graceful move didn't give the lie to her act. Could he tell how many men she'd welcomed to her bed before? No. He didn't seem to. Or, if he did, it didn't occur to him that she was toying with him as a cat does a mouse, for no other reason than because she could and it amused her. Perhaps her fairy boy figured that being sexual experienced and being ultra-sadistic were two very different things.

His reasoning might even have been sound. Were she not born of Winter. But she was Daphne's own daughter, and she meant to make her mother proud.

"Is it nice there? Or is it like here?" he asked.

"Are you kidding?" Yvette asked. "I wish I could go back."

The idiot still hadn't gotten into bed with her. So Yvette slid back, allowing her legs to unfold out to the sides and then scissor back together until she was sitting flat on her bottom, skirt stretched out daintily before her. She wiggled her sandaled feet at him playfully.

Cahill finally took the hint, climbing awkwardly up onto the mattress. He had the look of a man who'd bedded more than his share of women. Why was he so shy? Did he not trust her, despite the act? Or was there someone back in Faerie he felt he was betraying?

Perhaps a mother? Or a sister? That was the way of things throughout the Homelands, wasn't it? Or maybe it was a daughter. He was old enough. Assuming that the Faerie courts and their Dreamings had the same sort of time differences Winter and its Lodges did.

Once he sat facing her, her fairy friend said, "But she won't let you."

"No indeed," she said. That had been one of the first things Lance had told her that first night. After they'd fucked each other silly. Several times over. "She's got this, I don't know, semi-permeable membrane around all of Winter. Or whatever. Anyone foolish enough to want to can come right in, but no one can get out." She sighed with what she hoped sounded like resignation. "I was starting to think that maybe I should just throw myself out that window over there, but after what she did to your friend earlier, I have a feeling she'd just bring me back to suffer some more."

Cahill had nothing to say to that. Because what could he say? That was exactly how her mother operated. Neither he nor Oberon would ever find any sort of escape, whether in life or in death. Yvette would never suffer that fate, of course, but if she was half as disloyal to her mother as she was letting on, she just might. And she'd deserve it.

"Have you tried to escape?" he asked.

Yvette frowned. "What do you think this is, a B-rate horror film?"

She'd seen entirely too many movies where the creep eventually reveals to his captor that the door had never been locked or some such. Like assuming the evil mastermind was somewhat competent was the same as secretly wanting the torture to continue. Ridiculous.

That, and movies that ended with the big twist that the protagonist was the killer the whole time. If she ever saw another one of those as long as she lived, she'd go on a murderous rampage that no one in Hollywood would survive. But that was besides the point.

Cahill shrugged. "I just figured-"

Yvette sighed. "She's into head games. But she's even more into control. There's no way she'd risk even one of her precious subjects escaping, as some brave soul would be bound to sooner or later if there was no actual barrier. She doesn't even like letting people die."

He looked like he was going to ask again if she'd actually tried, but eventually he gave in and nodded. Granted, if Yvette really ever had wanted to escape, rather than simply toying with the idea so as to keep from admitting to herself that she'd known deep in her Libido from the moment she'd arrived that she belonged here, she might give it a shot. But she was no less confident that her mother would know if she did than that it wouldn't work. And what sense would there be in giving her the impression that Yvette wanted out?