Homelands Pt. 12

Author's note

Part Twelve concludes the portion of the story set in Winter, and the series itself (at least for now). Be forewarned that a lot of questions are deliberately left unanswered, though the conflict with Daphne is not among them. I haven't yet decided whether I want to write about what comes next or whether I'd prefer to let you fill that in for yourself.

This is primarily an incest story, but it is also sci-fi/fantasy, and supernatural elements are not incidental to the plot. In fact, there is very little sex in this volume.

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.

*****

When she first stretched out on the dead man's bed, Yvette's intention was merely to revel in the moment. To bask in how cold and powerful she'd become. But then she remembered that the fucker hadn't given her any information before pushing her to take extreme measures. Her body tightened up and she began to shake as she fought to hold her rage inside. Blood ran down her palms, headed for her wrists.

She was stronger than him. Didn't the fact that she was still alive while he was melting into puddles on the floor prove as much? Yet, for all intents and purposes, he'd won.

Inside Yvette, a wave built and built and built then fell away without cresting. The violent outburst she'd thought inevitable didn't come and release her from all the toxic energy inside her. Instead, her eyes watered and she began to sob.

She wasn't strong. At all.

No, in fact, she was quite weak. Shamefully so. Would her mother ever let her temper get the best of her like that? Had Lady Winter ever even felt white hot rage? Of course not. Nor would any true daughter of hers. So long as she remained a slave to her emotions, Yvette had no right to those trademark blue lips. In her mind, she watched them turn black. And the tears that soon rolled down her cheeks were the same color. As was only fitting.

Did it help anything to lay there and cry, when she ought to be out looking for her brother? Or at least informing someone of her massive fuck-up? No. It did not. But she was capable of nothing else. Once she started, she couldn't stop. Emotions she'd thought buried so deep as to be nearly fossilized came back to the surface, and she began to hate herself for things she'd herself no longer capable of feeling guilt for.

Yvette had become an unstable, frightful, sadistic monster. On top of that, she wasn't even any good at it. Which a better person might have been proud of, if her failings at least stemmed from an inability to set aside her conscience. But no, it was worse than that. She desperately wanted to be as horrible as her mother, she just lacked the self-control.

But a girl could only cry for so long.

After hours that might have been ten or fifteen minutes, Yvette climbed out of bed. Or, part of her did. All that was weak and sad and pitiful remained, lying still as the mountain beneath her. The rest of her moved weightlessly out into the hall.

Where she found Oberon, accompanied by the strangest little woman.

The fairy prince, like she herself, was made of mist. His form was wispy and insubstantial. Colorless. But his companion was cast in sharp relief. And hoarding all the color in all the worlds. She wore it in streaks through her pale blonde hair, and it danced in her mercurial eyes. Her lips were red then purple, green then orange, even an unearned blue, though only for a brief instant. Her nails flashed neon this and pastel that, darker shades appearing here and there for good measure. Strangely, though, her translucent chemise was plain white.

"Who are you?" Yvette demanded.

But the woman did not respond. She just looked at Oberon then jerked her head ever so slightly towards Yvette in a gesture that was instantly recognizable as a mother giving her son permission to go after the girl. That was when Yvette realized she was sharing his dream, and that the woman beside him had to be Titania, Queen of Faerie. Or, rather, his recollection thereof, conjured up by his subconscious to tell him it was okay for him to let her go. It was almost sweet, but mostly amusing. In a pathetic sort of way.

Had her mother finally broke him? Or had she?

Perhaps he'd heard what happened in Cahill's cell. And figured he might be next. Terrifying as her mother might be, she was also rational. But Yvette?

There was a reason Lex Luthor looked as pathetic when compared to the Joker as Superman was to Batman. That, and Kevin Spacey had nothing on Heath Ledger. But the point was, she was unpredictable.

Maybe that scared the little fairy. As it should.

Who said she was a failure? She wasn't her mother, no, but that was okay. It took all sorts. Daphne had her style, and Yvette had hers, which was different but no less effective.

"I understand my nephew made you a promise," Oberon said.

Beside him, Titania smiled with metallic silver lips. Though why that should amuse her so, Yvette had no idea. Especially since she wasn't even there, but a figment of Oberon's subconscious, and he himself seemed anything but amused.

There was less charm in his surprisingly deep voice than she expected. But no matter. She understood what was happening. He was going to offer to save her now, in hopes that she might spare him. If for no other reason than his fey nature, he'd even do his best to follow through on that. If she gave him half the chance.

Somehow, Yvette managed not to snicker.

"He did," she replied. "Are you going to fulfill it for him?"

He nodded. Because of course.

Damn, it was a good thing children of Winter weren't bond to honor their promises the way the fey were. Yvette couldn't even begin to imagine how restrictive that must be.

Granted, since they all played by the same rules, it might not be so bad for them most of the time. When they stayed in Faerie. But here in the big leagues, they were crippled by their childish code. The sad, pretty little things.

"You're so gallant and noble," she said, trying to sound the way young women always did in fairy tales. Like she had no reason for existing other than to reward whatever brave young man might rescue her from her distress. "But first, if we could just-"

A sword larger than the man who wielded it appeared.

Yvette shrieked.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she gave the order to run. But her body refused to execute it. She was frozen in place. Staring in shock as the steel rushed towards her.

The bed was cold.

Of course it was cold. She was in Winter. Beneath the mountain's surface.

But wait. No.

That might all be true, but she was the queen's own blood. Cold was not something she could feel, except at the hands of a trusted lover. She had to want to be cold.

And why was she so wet?

It felt like someone had thrown a bucket of warm water on her abdomen. Only water wasn't that heavy and sticky. Molasses? Would somebody throw-

Then she saw her insides giving off steam, and she knew.

Panic set in, and was promptly pushed aside. She poured every drop of energy from her Libido into her midsection, trying to mend the wound. Except it felt like she was trying to fill a sieve. Something, or someone, was siphoning it off.

Yvette screamed. For all the good it did her.

"Yes, it was a dream," a woman said.

The wall rippled like the surface of a pond, swelled, and became Titania. She stepped away from it as smoothly as if her body and the cold stone had never been one.

"I-" Yvette said. She couldn't finish the sentence. There was no strength left in her. Every word cost her another few precious seconds. What was there to say anyway?

That she was sorry?

That she didn't understand? What? Could it be more obvious?

"That Frozen Cunt's not the only one who knows how to hit a mother where it hurts," Titania said, purple lips contorted into what nearly passed for a smile. "Nor is she any more a queen than I. She thinks I'm one of her subjects. But she's wrong."

"Is this necessary?" Oberon asked, from right beside Yvette.

How had she not noticed him? How had he gotten free?

Was his mother really there? In the flesh?

"Please!" Yvette gasped. If the woman would just stop disrupting her attempts to heal herself, Yvette would forswear her mother and all of Winter.

Titania laughed.

Yvette's last thought, as the black spots rushed in, was that it was strange how a sound so cruel and so mocking could still be so beautiful.

*****

The shadow-master wasn't the weak link after all, Lena soon realized. At least, not in all the ways she'd assumed. The wolf, who could almost have passed for Lance if he'd been a little leaner and a lot lighter in the fur, had initially seemed like the dangerous one. But it wasn't his idea to make Lena talk by torturing Zach while she watched. That was shadow-boy's idea, and his doing. And once the questioning started, the wolf fell silent. He didn't turn his back, like the blonde one did, but he seemed to take no pleasure from it, the way her son's persecutor did. That one truly enjoyed his work, almost as much as Lena would when the tables were turned. As, of course, they would be, in time. The cruel delight she saw occasionally flash across his face made her want to rip his entrails out.

Or throw him down and ride him cowgirl til he made her cum at least a dozen times.

She was, after all, her mother's daughter.

But that second impulse was surprisingly weak. Ordinarily, the sight of a man inflicting pain upon another would have driven her wild with lust. Even if his subject was her blood kin. Had it been Lance whose limbs were being stretched so hard that bones would soon pop out of sockets, she'd have felt almost indifferent. Enraged, yes, but amused and aroused as well. But the need to protect her son was something altogether different. Her motherly instincts refused to cede ground to her womanly desires and Wintry sadism.

Especially because of the way he took it. Zach stared defiantly at their captors, the pain she sensed in his Libido, which was increasing at an increasing rate, almost completely absent from his face. And it was because of her, she knew. More or less. He certainly had no particular desire to give shadow-boy the satisfaction of seeing him in agony, but the icy ball in doing its best to absorb his pain was, at core, his desire to impress his mother.

It was working too.

Had she thought him weak? Feared that she might yet have to bare her throat to her mother? Well, then she'd been mistaken. No, he was no wolf. The queen was right about, as she always was about everything. But he was a proud and strong bear, who'd protect his kin with his life. Her, especially. Even though she'd done nothing to earn that.

"Stop," Lena said.

The shadow-worker and his wolfish overseer, who'd long since returned to the form of a man, regarded her quietly. Even blondie looked over a broad shoulder at her, though he went right back to ignoring them a moment later.

"Don't," Zach said. "I can handle anything they've got." He stared directly into one pair of brown eyes then another. "And then some."

Shit. No. No, no, no.

She appreciated the testicular fortitude, but the last thing Zach needed to do was provoke them. And if he made the same mistake she did, they'd start working her over while he watched. Which she had no doubts she could handle better than her son could, but she feared that he'd offer them anything they wanted to make them stop. Or, worse, launch a surprise attack that would end very poorly for her only son.

A snicker came from the wolfish one. Shadow-lover grinned, but didn't make a sound. That was worse, because the look on his tanned face told Lena that he at least wasn't all that eager to draw out the information they thought she and Zach could provide. Information that they probably thought was all that stood between them and returning to the pathetic courts they ought to be grateful her mother was trying to save. The bronze-skinned one was clearly itching to complete their mission and get gone, but the one sitting comfortably on the floor of the dark cave, using the shadows to slowly ratchet up the pain her poor son felt, was enjoying himself. The dial hadn't yet passed four, if she had to guess, and he looked like he intended to take his sweet fucking time turning it up to ten.

Lena wanted to scream.

At herself for letting them know just how hard it was for her to see her son suffer. At her son for tempting them to try something new, something that might actually work, without even realizing he'd done so. Most of all, at the three bastards who'd dared trespass on Lady Winter's court, let alone kidnap two of her children.

Actually, what really made her want to scream was how powerless she felt.

That was not something Lena was used to. Once upon a time, yes. Back in the Lodge. She'd nearly drowned one summer, and the feeling of helplessness she'd experienced that day would probably always be with her, no matter how long she lived. From that day forth, she'd hated the water. And warm weather. And, to some extent, her parents, who'd made her go in despite knowing that she was a terrible swimmer and all-around klutz. At the end of a week-long vacation in California, most of which had been spent in fancy hotels, shops, and restaurants, they'd driven out to the beach. "This'll be your last chance to say you've swum in the ocean," her mother had said. That hadn't convinced Lena, so her father threatened not to let her on the plane the next day if she didn't.

That was not her favorite memory.

Since arriving in Winter, though, she'd never feared anything or anyone. Well, except her mother. As anyone with any sense did, even those who did their best to please her.

Yet here she was, watching a boy she ought not care quite so much about endure what was probably only a modest amount suffering and she was ready to fucking explode. What if he wasn't even her son? She didn't know that he was. Would that make a difference?

Some. But maybe not that much.

He was though. He had to be.

The irony of it all was that there wasn't even much she could tell them. They hadn't believed Lena when she'd told them that a war was coming and that her mother intended to protect them all from the Garden and the Glade. And they might even have been right to call bullshit! But if that wasn't the truth, Lena sure as shit didn't know what was. Her mother never confided in anyone, after all. Except maybe Quincy, who hardly ever spoke.

"What are you going to do when you've broken us and we still don't have another story to tell?" Lena asked, with just a touch of condescension. "Please tell me you've got some sort of plan for that. Because that's really, truly all I've got."

"If nothing else, your mother will negotiate for your-" shadow-master began.

Her laughter drowned out the rest of his sentence.

"You'll be our battery then," he continued, speaking now through gritted teeth.

She didn't need to ask what they meant by that.

But Zach did. "Battery?"

The shadowy one nodded. "When we get low on energy, we'll spread her legs-"

"And I'll Devour you," she said. "That's a promise."

"If I don't kill them first," her son added.

"Guess we can't afford to wait until we're too low then," the little shit said with a sneer. "We'll have to top ourselves off a couple times a day."

Did he think that would save him? That she wasn't far stronger than he was even at full strength? The three of them would be dead already, if it weren't for Zach.

Probably.

She had to admit, the wolf gave her pause. And not just because he almost looked like he belonged in Winter, what with that fair complexion, black hair, and thick fur. If his skin had been just a little paler, and his eyes blue rather than brown, he could have fooled Lady Winter herself into thinking he was one of them. None of which really mattered, but the time it had taken him to decide he didn't want to face six of her kitties at once had made an impression on her. Especially now that she saw he wasn't a rabid dog.

Still, if the shadow-worker tried to take her energy, she'd take his life. He, at least, was far beneath her. If one of them knew how to seal someone off from their Libido, the way her mother did, then Lena would be in trouble, but if they did, they'd have done so already. And she'd never gotten the impression that many immortals knew how to do that.

The wolfish one stared at her with those dark brown eyes.

"You realize you've made a big mistake," she gambled. "You can't control me. Even through him." She jerked her head towards Zach as she said that last part. "In the end, I'm going to eat every one of you alive." The line came out so perfectly, she almost gave herself the chills. Too bad she only half-believed it. "Assuming my mother doesn't find you first, in which case you'll only wish I had."

"All you have to do is tell us what your mother is really planning," the one sitting on floor said, as if anyone in that cave believed he'd be anything but disappointed if they did so before he'd had a chance to have his fun. "That, and open a way out of here."

So they did know.

Sort of.

"I couldn't if I wanted to," she said.

"You expect us to believe you're low in the pecking order?" the wolf asked. "I've killed enough of your brothers and sisters to know the difference."

He said this so casually that Lena would have liked nothing better than tear his throat out. Maybe even before that of his dark-skinned, shadow-loving companion.

"Maybe I am," she allowed. It made no difference if they knew that. "But you seem to think the queen entrusts her favorites with a whole lot more than she does. We're still kept in the dark. And are no freer to leave than you are."

Why had she said it like that? It almost sounded like she wanted to. Which she didn't.

Did she?

If the three of them would let her go-her and Zach-and it was actually possible to leave Winter, wouldn't she? This was the only life she'd ever known, but the feelings her son was awakening both frightened and excited her.

Could a snow leopard change her spots? Become a house cat?

"Let him down," the wolf suddenly told his companion.

"What?" came the reply.

"Why?" asked the blonde tending the fire.

"You believe her?" the shadow-worker asked.

"No," the wolf replied. "At least, not yet."

There it was. An admission that she just might be telling the truth. Or at least didn't know what her mother was really up to, if preparing the seasonals for a war against the ancients wasn't it. In this form at least, that one was pretty sensible.

"But it doesn't matter," he continued. "This isn't going to get her to talk." He regarded Zach silently for a time, brown eyes traveling up and down the boy's form. "He's aching to prove himself to her. She'll squirm, sure, but she won't deny him that. And the whole ordeal will probably just strengthen the bond between them."

"And as long as they've got that, they're going to hold out that much longer," shadow-boy finished for him, adding a sigh of resignation.

Fuck. Neither one of them was stupid.

The dumb ones were so much easier to deal with.

They were going to work her instead. And then Zach would get himself killed. Lena almost summoned up her kitties then and there, but that would do her son no good.

A moment later, he fell the cave floor, and still Lena didn't act.

But she couldn't have said why. It certainly wasn't because she wanted to see where this would go. Because she held out some hope that this might end up being the start of a new life for her, somehow. One where she left all the cold and killing behind and went to sleep each night snuggled up against her son inside a warm house.