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Author's note
Part Seven moves the story to Spring. It is not necessary for you to have read earlier parts of the story, though things may make more sense if you have.
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.
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.
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It was springtime in Savannah, and the annual music festival was underway. For eighteen consecutive days, musicians from around the world would flock to the pride of the South. Jazz, bluegrass, Americana, folk music, and other traditions would blend seamlessly together.
Through most of the fall, and all of what passed for winter in this part of the country, Cahill had looked forward to the festival. For some reason, it always made him miss Boston, a city that grew harder and harder to remember with each passing year. And this year, he'd been looking forward to it even more than usual. The woman he'd been dating, who'd only recently moved to Savannah herself, was a big fan of live music, and the two of them had been talking about the festival since they'd started dating. They'd have had a great time together. If she hadn't dumped him a week before the festival began.
She hadn't explained why she was leaving him, but she hadn't needed to. He'd expected it. The longer a woman went without bolting for the exit, the more Cahill would allow himself to hope that this time would be different. But it never was. In the end, everything always turned out the same. Always would. This latest attempt was no different.
It almost,
almost
, came as a relief. If nothing else, it meant that it wasn't out of paranoia or insecurity that he'd thought he'd spotted a few of the warning signs. They'd been a bit more well disguised this time than usual, but they'd been there.
At the age of thirty-two, Cahill had never been in a relationship that had lasted more than seven months. And until that record had been set by his latest pathetic failure, it had stood at a mere two months.
The trouble always began the first time they spent the night together at his place. For that reason, he never took a woman home until he had to. Once he'd been with the same woman for a while, though, she'd eventually start to think it weird that she'd never seen his place. At that point, he could no longer put it off without things getting awkward. Without sabotaging the relationship through his refusal to do something that would also sabotage it.
All his life, Cahill had had troubled dreams. He talked in his sleep, and in the past would even get up and walk around too, though that had stopped years ago. The doctors had all said that he wasn't suffering from narcolepsy or insomnia or anything like that. Just uncommonly vivid dreams. And what could they do for that? Nothing. He hadn't even found better living through chemistry, though he'd tried every sleep aid on the market.
For a while, he'd struggled to understand why his problem was such an issue for women. But it wasn't that, truth be told. That was just what he told himself when he wanted to feel that he'd been treated unfairly.
No, it wasn't that he had trouble sleeping, and that he accordingly disturbed the sleep of whomever was unfortunate enough to share his bed, though that couldn't have been pleasant. It was what happened while he was asleep. What he said.
They'd all insisted that they knew the things he talked about in his sleep weren't real. But he could tell that they didn't mean it. Sooner or later, every woman he'd ever been with began to doubt. To believe that maybe, just maybe, the things he dreamed weren't just dreams. That he was hiding something from them.
"This one for sale?" a voice asked, tearing him away from his thoughts.
Cahill looked up.
A stunningly beautiful woman hovered over him. She had flawless skin, the color of deep mahogany. Her lips were so full and red, they had to be in violation of some local ordinance. Her big brown eyes were gateways to another world. A man who looked into them for too long would lose himself and never find his way back. Her bone structure was exquisite. Her round little nose was cuter than cute. Even without the makeup that expertly magnified her beauty, she'd have taken his breath away. He'd never seen such a specimen.
Not in this world, anyway. Not outside his dreams.
A quick glance downward revealed that she had an unbelievable figure as well. Her waist was too thin to belong on a woman with breasts, or
hips
, like that. She was absolutely impossibly proportioned. Thin in all the right places, with generous curves elsewhere. Thighs that he would love to feel wrapped around his head, or his waist. Breasts that simply needed to be squeezed. Yet despite her softer curves, she some serious muscle too. Those legs looked powerful enough to kick through concrete. The worn jeans and loose crop top she wore didn't give too much away, but they didn't need to. Only a blind man would fail to notice her ample charms, or the improbable combination of voluptuous, athletic, and petite features.
Yet, as amazing as her face and figure were, and they
were
amazing, it was the otherworldly vibe coming off her that really got Cahill's attention. She was remarkable to behold, yet the foot traffic in the square flowed around her seamlessly, and no one so much as snuck a backwards glance at her after passing her by. Not one damn guy in the whole place did a double-take. In a sane world, they'd all have been staring blatantly at her. It was like she was invisible to everyone but him. And yet, her powerful presence must have made itself known somehow, because no one was bumping into her either.
If he didn't know better, he'd say she was one of the fey.
But that was impossible. Sure, those proportions were reminiscent of the women he encountered every night in his dreams. And, yes, the otherworldly creatures he encountered each night seemed to be able to choose not to let the world around them take notice of their passing. But what of it?
He wasn't dreaming. And the fey weren't real.
The shamrocks dangling from her wrists, the Claddagh ring worn on the hand holding the flute she'd asked him about, and the gentle lilt in her accent all suggested an Irish ancestry. He himself hailed from Ireland, but his ancestors had left the Emerald Isle a long time ago. These days, the Donovans all spoke with Boston accents. From the sound of it, she might have grown up there. There weren't a lot of black women in Ireland, but if she was wrong about her nationality, he'd boil his shoes and dine on their leather.
So the notion that she was fey must have been the product of his overactive imagination. He'd picked up on her accent and ran with it. Saw what wasn't there. Nothing more.
"Um, excuse me?" she asked, laughing to herself softly. She gave the flute she was holding a little jiggle. "Is it for sale?"
"Oh, yeah," Cahill said, rising to his feet. "I mean, yes. It is."
"There's no price on it," she said.
"Well, no," Cahill replied, scratching the back of his neck.
"So...?" the woman said.
Her nervous smile gave him an excuse to focus on those lips. Damn, but you just didn't see lips like that every day. Eminently kissable. And he could only imagine what they'd feel like... he cleared his throat and banished the thought. For now.
"It's not quite ready," he said.
"Then it's
not
for sale?"
Cahill drew a deep breath. There was something different about that flute. He felt it every time he held it in his hands. Probably because he'd used silver. Generally, he worked with wood. Even when he didn't, he rarely worked with precious metals. When working with metal, the particular type wasn't supposed to make much difference. Not compared to the difference between metal of
any
kind and wood. But, on a whim, he'd decided to try something more extravagant. And the result was unlike any instrument he'd ever crafted.
Part of him, the part that freaked all his girlfriends out, thought that it wasn't the silver that was responsible for that though. Rather, it was that he'd succeeded into tapping into something deeper, older, and more powerful. Something from the Faerie world he visited each night. That the flute somehow allowed the world of his dreams and the world of reality to come into contact, to overlap with one another in some small way.
Supernatural or not, though, the flute
was
