Defiance
Quite satisfied with Darin's fellatio, Kael sought to repay her by pressing his lips to her lower body.
She refused again and again, insisting she was fine—but a son who only took and never gave was no proper son at all, Kael declared, and he dove swiftly between his mother's thighs.
For a man who had never held any woman but his own mother, Kael worked her with the skill of a practiced libertine. He licked and probed the shyly peeping clitoris and the entrance beneath it until, before long, Darin was driven to a shallow climax.
Each time her son's hands stirred her, Darin felt torment far more than pleasure. The knowledge that her own flesh and blood could make her cunt spill water filled her with crushing self-loathing.
And so, whenever her son suckled at her below, she would flush and moan—only for tears to well up from sheer grief.
Next time, we ought to take a carriage outing alone. There will be no servants then—so you'll let me have you inside the carriage as well, won't you?
Just as she was thanking her luck that she had at least been spared having to beg her son for sex in a carriage, he had spoken those words with open regret. Darin said nothing for a long moment—then, under the blue-eyed stare fixed upon her, she was forced to nod.
So the mother and son's strange day passed, and at last the carriage entered Bayorn Territory.
Madam. Viscountess. Young master. Little lord—on and on the people of Bayorn raised both hands in welcome at the pair's return. In this generation the Bayorn house had become something so noble that the common folk would gladly throw their lives down in loyalty. Their joy was only natural.
Yet the Viscountess, who had always answered such fervent greetings with a broad smile, did not lean her head out the window this time. The people felt a twinge of disappointment, but decided simply that the lady of the house must be unwell, and thought little more of it.
"Ka—Kael, aren't you too close?"
"Why do you ask? We have already spent the night together, have we not?"
"No, th-that's…"
At every opportunity Kael toyed with his mother's pale thighs and pressed kisses to her cheek. For the first time in his life he had a lover, and he was thoroughly giddy. That the woman in question was the one he had pined after for decades only made the joy need no further explanation.
"Mother, when shall we hold the wedding banquet?"
"Have you lost your mind!? And I am not your lover—don't decide such things on your own!"
That a clever child could spew such nonsense without the least sense of before or after was truly lamentable. Darin was appalled that her son already treated her as his woman outright. Even if he loved her as a woman, that remark had crossed the line.
"Your father is a Bayorn barbarian with a fierce sense of possession. The moment he learns his mate has been taken from him, son or no son, he will draw his sword!"
If that happened, patricide would follow, and the Bayorn family tree would become a disgrace. More than anything, Darin wanted no such clash. Nothing was more foolish than family turning blades on one another.
Kael only answered with lazy calm.
"Haven't I told you already? You need not worry on that account."
"What am I not supposed to worry about? Your father will be beside himself with rage!"
Kael did not answer her retort. He quietly opened the window, checked their surroundings, then shut the window, the curtains, and even the wooden door.
"What you ought to be worrying about right this moment is something else entirely."
"…?"
"Be wary of Baron Doston, who will soon return to Bayorn Territory."
Darin blinked both eyes and tilted her head, wondering what on earth he meant. Suddenly she was to be careful of Baron Doston…?
Parchen Doston.
He was the leader of the Bayorn family's elite troops—the Huscarls—and a long-serving vassal of her husband, the Viscount of Bayorn.
In any other territory the Huscarls would have been the equivalent of knights. The Bayorn house had been barbarians from ancient times, and so had never adopted the Empire's feudal system, running their forces in this fashion instead. Put simply, he was the knight-commander of Bayorn Territory—and something like her husband's right hand.
And she was to be wary of such a man? If anyone needed watching, wasn't it Kael himself, the one raising the subject? Darin's face went blank with confusion.
Reading his mother's thoughts, Kael gave a bitter smile. Of course. Digesting the despair of having recently shared her body with him was already more than she could bear. Even so, this much he had to say. When the Huscarls returned, a storm would break over the Bayorn house.
"The truth is, Baron Doston is in love with you, Mother."
"Wh…?"
"That man pretends otherwise while he eyes you."
"W-wait, Kael. I can't follow this. What are you suddenly talking about?"
"Exactly what I said. Well—I'll deal with him myself—but it won't hurt for you to stay alert as well."
"Th-that's absurd. He's already a married man!"
"Does being married mean a man feels no pull toward other women? Every man of the Bayorn house would take you as his bride if he could. They simply keep quiet because of their station."
"Don't talk such rubbish!"
Darin shouted, rejecting her son's claim. Kael was dearest to her, yes—but the vassals and people of Bayorn were precious too. Live more than thirty years in one place and affection takes root of its own accord.
So even if he was the young lord and the person she loved most, she could not tolerate baseless slander against the people and the retainers. She was a mother—but she was also the lady of the Bayorn house.
"Why would I lie to you, Mother?"
"Lie…? How can you even say that word? You deceived your own mother and toyed with her!"
"Deceived? Are you calling it deception that I hid my feelings for you? Come now—your son never deceived you from the start."
"What…?"
"Haven't I made my affection plain for a very long time? It was you who chose to look away and deny it."
"No…"
Darin's mouth snapped shut. Thinking back, Kael had indeed carried the air of a boy who adored his mother from earliest childhood. But how could a parent take that as genuine romantic love? One simply assumed a son was showing filial affection.
"I don't fail to understand your position. Still—I would like you to acknowledge that your son has always been sincere."
He had looked at her that way since he was small? By now she had roughly sensed it, though she still did not know exactly when it had begun. But Darin shook her head hard and cast the thought aside. It was nothing she wished to know—and it was not what mattered now.
"For now… I understand your feelings well enough. Even so, Kael, I still can't grasp this claim that Sir Doston is after me."
"So you are saying I am jumping to conclusions?"
"That's how it looks to me. Your obsession with your mother has grown so severe that you're fantasizing every man as an enemy! Do you know how many years he and I have known each other? Not as long as your father, but more than twenty years!"
"I grant that you have known Baron Doston longer than you have known me. But the one who knows his true nature better is me."
"…Parchen has always been kind to me. And though he came from common stock, he never looked down on me—he served me with perfect courtesy as his lady. I don't want to suspect a man who has shown me kindness without any grounds."
"Haha. Mother. Clever as you are—must you be this naive?"
"What? Are you calling your mother a fool?"
"Please don't misunderstand—that is not what I mean at all. But you claim you were a man in your previous life. How can you know so little of men?"
"…What is it you think I don't know? I can tell the difference in the way men look at me!"
Faced with that girlish defiance, Kael sighed and shook his head. This youthful woman was endlessly generous toward those she loved—so generous she could not see reality.
Kael was not ignorant of it. Had he not himself exploited that soft heart to satisfy his own desires? Precisely because he knew the weakness so well, he had to make her face the truth.
"Why would a young baron have been kind from the very first to a little noblewoman with no backing? If he did not love her, he would have no reason to offer gentleness. And Mother…"
The man's gaze turned bitter. He worried whether a mother so weak to affection could cut the man off cleanly. She almost certainly could not—so the one who would have to swing the blade would be himself.
"Human beings are more cunning than one expects. Just like your son."
"……"
Darin went rigid, struck dumb. The words just like your son made everything snap into place at once. The flesh and blood she had loved and trusted most in this world had betrayed her. There was no law that said Baron Doston could not do the same.
"Even an impatient, selfish man can cultivate patience if it means seizing the woman he desires. And should such a chance ever arrive, he will not let it slip."
"A chance? What do you mean by that?"
"…You'll understand soon enough without my telling you. In any case, Mother."
Kael gently pushed the precious woman he had so long craved back toward the sofa. He always wanted to treat her with nothing but tenderness—yet when he looked into those tear-brimming eyes of the vermilion-haired woman, he also wanted to torment her. Other men must feel the same impulse.
"You are a married woman with two children, and still you are beautiful and lovely. And small, like a little girl. So I would like you to stay vigilant at all times."
The tone of a man soothing a child made Darin's amber eyes fly wide. Lately he had violated her—and now he was trying to lecture her as he pleased. Even the always-obedient Darin felt heat rise to her head at this.
Her pride scraped raw, the woman thought: I only endured because you are my son. I am not nearly so easy as you think.
"Don't treat me like a child. Your mother will handle it herself!"
The moment she roughly shook off her son's hands, the carriage jolted to a halt. They had arrived before the Bayorn manor. Sensing the servants outside about to open the door, Darin sprang to her feet. She no longer wished to be alone with Kael.
"Mother, you must not take your son's words lightly. In the end the vassals are Bayorn barbarians as well—there will be many who look at you with the same eyes as Father."
"Shut your mouth!"
Eyes lowered in fury, she fixed her son with a hate-filled stare. The emotion that rose once resignation had settled was rage toward her own flesh and blood.
Tears brimming full, Darin glared at the beast and cried out.
"You're just like your father!"