Chapter Fourteen #2
He wished Lumi had come to his room that night and not for sex.
He could have stayed there, and if he’d told the truth, Jaki would have made sure he was taken care of every day of his pregnancy.
He’d be in a proper room then and resting.
No one would have spent the past months abusing him yet again.
He’d been so lost in his thoughts, the fisherman had to grunt to get his attention as he held out two bowls.
“Oh, thanks.”
“For your cousin too.”
“I have a little more money.”
“You already paid me. I don’t like seeing people go hungry. There’s enough of that lately.”
Jaki took the bowls into the cabin where Lumi was huddled on the bed with Jacqueline in his arms.
“The timing is right.” Jaki set the bowls on the bed and pressed the glamor to shift back while he tried to think of what else to say.
“She’s yours,” whispered Lumi. “Not Tivar’s. I knew a month after we fucked, and it was too soon for it to be his. The cramps came one night, and Tivar was too dumb to figure it out.”
“She has my eyes too. No one else had pink, right?”
“No.” Lumi stared down at her. “She looks like you and me.”
Jaki couldn’t deny her. “Okay. She’s not my niece.” He told himself he could get used to it.
“If you don’t want anything to do with her, I get it…”
Jaki sat on the narrow bed next to him. “If you let me, I can be a Father to her. I was thinking you might not want anything to do with me in that regard. I’m sorry for what I did that morning.”
“I wanted it.”
“The heat said so for you. Technically, I forced you.”
“I wanted you even without the heat. I wanted in your trousers for three years, and I wasn’t always pushing my heat. You didn’t rape me.”
“If you can’t have sex without the heat, then I did even though you never said no and you begged for it. I should have had control instead of…hate fucking you.”
“I still wanted you,” said Lumi.
“You wouldn’t let me prep and fuck you without it.”
Lumi shifted a little against him. “That’s different. Even though I wanted you for so long, I couldn’t do the action without the heat. I've been using it for years. You didn’t force me.”
He was too lost in the act he’d maintained to survive. Tivar had probably loved seeing him all “eager” every time he raped him. To show otherwise would have brought punishment.
“If I had said to stop, would you have stopped?” asked Lumi.
“Yes, but-”
“Tivar would have punished me for daring to utter the word.”
But what if he was too scared to say the word no with Jaki with Tivar’s expectations so firmly mortared in his mind? Jaki still didn’t like it no matter how much Lumi argued.
“I can still think on the heat, you know? The begging wasn’t fake.”
It sounded like he wanted to drop it. “Since she’s mine, I want to be her Father. If any man has a kid and knows of it, he should take care of it. Sex has consequences. I’m proof since I'm an accidental child too.”
“You’d really stay? I mean, as her Father?”
“We’re family, and while I didn’t intend to have a child like this, yes. I…I don’t know how to be a Father.”
Lumi finally looked at him.
“I thought I’d get married to a man because women aren’t my thing. If my husband weren't an abundant male, I’d get a consort and have nine months to mentally prepare for parenthood. That’s about as far as my thoughts on having children went.”
Lumi leaned on him and suddenly giggled although it was quick and rough. “I don’t think it’s that hard, Jaki.”
“The second she cries, you seem to know whether to feed or check her nappy. I wouldn't know what to do.”
“You’ll get used to it…if you want.”
“I do. I don’t want to pretend she doesn’t exist like Father did to me.”
Lumi held out the baby. “Father was quite loving.”
Jaki took her. Holding her now seemed especially awkward, and he cocked an ear. “To you.”
“And Tivar.” Lumi leaned forward to drag the bowls closer.
“You can eat first while I hold her,” said Jaki. “And I don’t care about Tivar.”
“Father loved him because he didn't know the future or what would happen. He loved me. He would have loved you too, and honestly, I think he did even though he didn’t keep you and pretended like you never existed. He gave you to Elswere. He thought you’d have a good home and good parents. Didn't you?”
“I did.”
“He couldn't admit what he'd done to Aisi.” Lumi leaned back with his bowl and the wooden spoon and didn’t start eating right away. “Mother would have been heartbroken if she knew he’d been with another. He didn’t want to hurt her either.”
Cat fairies tended to dislike sharing, and they were often more likely to stay true to their spouse since they were possessive, but not always.
Father’s straying had resulted in Jaki. Perhaps Reesing hadn’t simply viewed him as a pesky problem to hide.
He’d had to choose between hurting his wife or giving his youngest son to someone who would take good care of him.
Jaki had felt loved by Elswere and Preti. To him, they were Mother and Father.
Lumi ate and grew quiet. Jaki glanced at him and caught the hint of the past in his eyes that he didn’t like to see. If he could take it all away, he would. He tried to focus on his daughter.
Dear Elira, those words were strange in his head. It was hard to imagine her in a few years when she could walk and talk. Her personality would be apparent, and if things were better later, she’d have no memory of where she’d been born or a time when the Kingdom was dying.
As soon as Lumi finished, he wanted Jacqueline back.
Jaki didn’t know how to feel the same sort of utter enthrallment to his child.
Maybe he was already failing at the Father business because while Lumi appeared soothed when he had her in his arms again, Jaki didn’t feel sad or desperate to have her again. He could see she was safe and fine.
He took the bowls back to the fisherman and thanked him for the meal. He was asked to conserve the oil in their lamp since the fisherman didn't have a crystal lantern anymore.
Lumi said they had the brazier, and the dark wouldn’t hurt them. Of course, he wouldn’t be scared of the dark. Far worse lurked in the world. Once Jacqueline was changed and the light was out, Jaki took the floor, and she fussed. Lumi started to sing to her in a soft voice.
Jaki had never heard him actually sing. Sometimes, he’d done little ditties or bawdy tunes to court, but they were usually done in a jokey, sing-song voice.
His voice was quite smooth, and Jaki listened until Lumi trailed off.
Their daughter seemed to sleep, and quiet settled over the cabin for a few minutes.
Until he heard Lumi fidgeting like he was rearranging the blankets or something. The small brazier flickered, and his shadow shifted.
And then he was getting on the floor with Jaki.
“What are you doing?”
Lumi crawled on top of him. “You almost kissed me once. I want a real one.”
Jaki had gotten as far as brushing his lips on Lumi’s before the dagger slid in. Before, Lumi had barely touched his lips before Jaki had pushed him away and tossed him out in the hall naked after they’d screwed on the floor.
“We shouldn’t.”
“Yeah, I know. We’re brothers. It didn’t matter because I wanted you from the day I first saw you.”
Jaki had too even though he’d tried to stuff his unspeakable lust down. Lumi’s hand sliding under his shirts and coat threatened to stiffen his cock.
“Brothers shouldn’t fuck.”
“I’m sore,” whispered Lumi. “But you could kiss me.”
The shape of his ear twitched in the near dark, and Lumi reached for Jaki’s to play with the tufts. Dear Elira. He had a way of fanning the embers on the burning coal of lust that never, ever fully went away even though he’d told himself no more of that. So it was said, so it shall be done.
Wrong.
“I’ve always wanted to do this,” breathed Lumi.
Jaki grabbed the back of his head to meet his lips.
Lumi threaded the fingers of his other hand into his hair while he played with that one tuft, and Jaki had to make an effort not to buck his hips since his cock had no interest in behaving.
It was even harder to pull back on the kiss and not be his usual demanding self.
He was used to taking control in sex. Maybe Lumi needed a taste of sweetness and not just control. Both of Lumi’s hands were on his ears now, and the tufts being stroked had made his dick rock hard.
“It’s wrong,” he mumbled as a part of his brain told him to stop it.
“My whole life has been wrong,” Lumi said as he paused, although his fingers didn’t stop teasing. “What we made isn’t wrong.”
Jaki played with his ears to stroke the fur before he wrapped his arms around Lumi who kissed him again more softly.
“This feels right.”
Dear Elira, Jaki wanted it. To take him away forever where nothing could hurt any of them again. To feel him forever and have those soft fingers on him.
Lumi broke it off to lay his head on Jaki’s shoulder, and he started trembling.
“If you want, I could give you a blowjob-”
“No,” said Jaki.
“I’ve thought about it before. Like how you’d look if I were on my knees for you.”
Jaki had to turn them so they were on their side but still hugging. As if he hadn’t also imagined what Lumi would look like with his lips wrapped around his cock.
“I don’t want a blowjob,” said Jaki. It was lust making his cock painfully hard.
It was something else that made him stroke Lumi’s hair.
“You’re worth more than sex, and you don’t have to be a court whore, or anyone’s whore.
Sex isn’t required from you anymore, and you’re not a thing to use, or someone to get a baby off of. That’s done now.”
“But you’re being sweet, and I like it. I like this side of you too.”
“You’re shaking, and I would never expect sex after…everything. You need time and rest.”
Lumi was silent for a moment. “Will you stay with me?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“No, I mean, will you really stay with me and Jacqueline? Nobody ever held me like this. I don’t want it to end.”
Surely, not all of the courtiers had treated him as merely a hole to cum in? Then again, any affection must have only come because sex was imminent. Probably nobody had even been simply nice and sweet to him without an ulterior motive.
“I’ll stay,” said Jaki. “You’re mine.”
Consequences be damned.
Lumi held onto him as his shivering finally stopped. He grew limp, and his breathing evened out.
Jaki could only imagine everything Tivar had done to him, but it was over. He wasn’t sure how it would heal, or if it would, but he’d stay.
Lumi had disappeared by morning, and Jaki sat up in a panic. Lumi was in bed with Jacqueline. Jaki didn’t remember hearing her cry, but he figured Lumi couldn’t bear to be more than a foot away from her for too long. He’d already lost her once, so Jaki couldn’t blame him.