XXX: Savage Wishes
An eternity of dread leeching into my blood. Time slowed. Seconds turned to hours as I laid there with the blood of a life I'd created moved from me.
It was a mercy. That was what I thought. A mercy to spare it from this life demented beyond recognition.
Yet, as I placed my hand upon my stomach not yet fully expanded from its growth, despair was all I felt. Another thing, stolen from me. A fleeting joy that I was not privileged to meet on my own accord.
The feeling was made worse by Feyd's reaction. He'd placed all humanity he had in this venture. He'd chosen me as a safe place to make a family he'd dreamed of. And I'd failed. My body rejected his hopes in spite of what it felt for him.
This would break him. It was not the Baron that broke him. But me.
The doctor was rushed inside the chambers. His overshirt finally pulled onto his shoulders.
"She's bleeding," Feyd relayed. He pushed the doctor toward the bed. "What does it mean? Speak!"
The doctor appraised the size. "We need to check on the heir, my lord na-Baron."
"Do what you must!" Feyd said. "Save her. Do not let her die."
A heavy belt settled against the mattress. It was filled with the doctor's many gadgets that he typically wore around his midsection. Every health check featured that compartmentalized belt.
The doctor frowned and shook his head. "It is too soon to know the gender."
A growl rumbled from deep in Feyd's chest. A palm snapped at the doctor's throat. It lifted the man off his feet as a snarl deepened upon the young heir's face.
Somehow the black torturous deep of his dark eyes leeched darker still.
"If my lady dies under your watch, you'll hope it was you who died instead. Ensure that does not happen."
The doctor dropped from Feyd's hold. He adjusted his shirt, kept his eyes low as he moved toward the bed.
"You know what I need, Lady Witch," the doctor said.
The robe was not in two pieces. My flesh hidden below the fabric.
I rose to my elbows. "He needs to see my stomach. Without clothes."
"What?" Feyd tensed.
"Just the stomach, my lord na-Baron," the doctor murmured. "Nothing else."
"For the life of your heir, na-Baron," I relayed gently. "He needs to do what he must."
The young na-Baron scowled. His face set deeper with indecision over checking on his spawn or keeping my decency. He yanked a dagger from his side. The blade dragged across the back panel of the robe that covered my stomach. It sliced through the silk until my flesh exposed.
"There." He grunted. "Fix her."
The doctor fumbled with the instrument. He trembled as he unlatched the wand from its device. A gaze threatened his every motion. Feyd stayed fixed at my side, watching, dagger in hand as he watched the doctor work.
Just as the wand neared my stomach, Feyd barked, "Guards."
Two armored bodies stepped inside.
"Close the door. Do not let a thing come through it," Feyd ordered. "Or it'll be your blood on the walls."
The doctor paused during Feyd's outburst. In fear. This mood was one of those that was easy to rile into murderous rage if not handled carefully.
"What are you doing?" Feyd growled. "Help her. Now. Or I'll kill you where you stand."
"Yes, na-Baron."
The doctor pushed the wand against the lower part of my abdomen. Feyd's eyes examined this very closely. His eyes jumped to mine, confirming that this was what was supposed to happen. Every motion was met with a quick survey of me before he settled in acceptance.
A round smooth metal wand sailed the length of my stomach. Round droplets beaded at the doctor's forehead. He pressed harder into my body. I shifted. Feyd caught the difference and stepped threateningly closer toward the doctor.
A whooshing sound amplified from the stopped him in his tracks.
"Wha-what's that?" Feyd snipped.
"The mother's heartbeat."
"That is the speed of a thopter's wings."
His fingertips ghosted across my forehead. His own furrowed. It beheld me with intense care. I felt guilt rise venture mattered to secure his line. His plans for the future all vested in this heir.
I was failing to live up to his expectations. A strange fluttering in my heart changed my body. It moved through on strengthening waves. It rode down to the pit of my stomach where it turned to treacherous storms, souring and churning.
"That's normal." The doctor dismissed the worries. The wand neared another faster noise pulsating now through our ears. "There's the little thing. Hiding from me."
Feyd blinked. His face struggled. Expressions battled with others. None seemed to hold enough strength to change it completely.
Still, he tilted his head. "So. It's heart beats. That means…"
"It does not sound distressed," the doctor confirmed.
A breath of relief left my lips.
Both men startled at the noise. Like they'd forgotten I was there!
"There is an in-depth exam I can do. To be certain. It can be risky."
"Risk?" Feyd asked.
"To the infant, na-Baron. I wouldn't recommend -."
"Is her life in danger?" He pronounced slowly.
"That remains to be seen…"
His teeth gritted. Words seethed through blackened teeth. "Do it."
"Alright."
The doctor reached for his belt. He fumbled with the gadgets within the multiple compartments.
The rising pressure of my stomach now climbed to my throat.
He did not even ask what the exam was! It could be flaying my flesh off my bones for all he knew.
"Na-Baron. Shouldn't we -?" I began to ask.
"The lady of my house will not die in the middle of the night." Thick anger screeched from his lungs. "The blood of my veins will replace yours before I permit you to bleed out in my bed. Doctor!"
He held a large syringe filled with metallic silver liquid. The tip was aimed at my stomach.
Feyd ripped the man from the side of the bed. Doctor, large and slow, spun away from me. A fierce monster now roamed freely within the room. The tip of his blade led his assault against the doctor. It kept the man pinned against the far wall, trembling, as Feyd stormed closer with the dagger extended straight from his arm.
"Wait!" I yelped.
"You were going to poison her!"Feyd bayed.
The fearsome gravel of his tone did well to shake the foundations of the walls. Even mine.
"No," the doctor stammered. "The image, na-Baron. I must inject this into the site to render the images possible. It is safe. The risk is to your heir, my lord na-Baron. Not Lady Mintha."
The dagger lowered to Feyd's side. Then his eyes narrowed. It raised again in a pointed accusation at the doctor. "You best hope that is truth."
The doctor nodded, fully rattled by Feyd's threat. He approached the bedside with timid steps.
Feyd followed. His fingers trailed the length of my head and neck. A strained look filled his dark eyes.
"Deep breath, my lady." The doctor gulped. His panicked eyes shifted toward the possessive monster at his side. "This is going to hurt."
Hurt.
Pain.
An unfavorable fear sweat against the back of my neck. It filled me with more than just despair.
I'd be forced to endure pain, for Feyd's heir, whilst he watched. Savoring every ounce of it.
"How much?" I asked.
"It's doesn't matter," Feyd snipped. "If it will save her, do it."
The doctor nodded. Then he said to me, "much."
Burning ice injected into my abdomen. It was icy fire throughout my flesh. I hissed through my gritted teeth. My hands gripped the blankets of the bed to keep from kicking away.
Twitches laced beneath Feyd's skin. The barren expanse of his arms and chest showed the tension ascending. Knuckles loosened and re-gripped the dagger within his palm.
The absence of his enjoyment was a disbelief I did not intend to endure. His body did not prime and lengthen while the discomfort move through my veins. It brought no joy that I saw.
Not able to take anymore, I howled. "Fuck! How much do you need?"
"Just a bit more, Lady Mintha," the doctor assured me.
A bit more was agony. Incarnate.
I could not explain the sensation of death, but its chilling liquid venom throughout every muscle of my body felt close. It stole all my heat. All the effort I'd put into restoring tissues long since decayed from the Baron's dungeons, undone by the end of Harkonnen needle.
Finally, the needle was pulled. The molten silver seeped from the hole.
Feyd's gaze stayed focused on that spot. A rising pool of strange liquid.
Breath steadied through my nose. My lips stayed pressed together. They could not be trusted to keep silent.
I yearned to beg for Feyd to kill me now. I wished the thought of being denied a child to be gone from my mind forever. Vishiti said no blood. No blood. It was bad.
The desert thirsted for life's water. It called out to all whom dwelt this dune planet. The god's of Arrakis called out for a sacrifice for all the spice stolen from its lands. Done by Harkonnen hand.
Blood was the currency of this desert.
Now it was me given reason to bow to its power. The blood I held was a gift, a gift that had to be balanced.
Vishti was firm. There was no relent in their tone when they said no blood.
If there was blood, it only meant death.
Or mine.
Maybe it was my death faced before me.
It was the ultimate price for Feyd's ambition. A righting of so many wrongs. The monster's mate stolen from his comfort, to reach the ends he yearned to meet.
Was this the moment that all his wishes came true, but with a steep cost he'd not known he'd pay?
The taste of fear swept atop my tongue. What would become of Feyd without me?
It was stupid, in that moment still, I thought how broken he'd be without me.
Broken, ha.
He was a grown man. His life revolved with or without me. It would not change. Plans for the future would be shifted. That is all.
That was the difference between us: his death would break me. Mine would inconvenience him.
The doctor produced another device that was imposing technology I did not understand. I steadied my gaze, shutting away my fears in black corners they grew from, and watched the components be placed all around my body around the injection site. It was wrapped tight around me.
"Now what?" Feyd asked the moment it was secured.
"It will show the image of what's inside her here."
A small blank screen appeared in the doctors palm.
A wait of only moment began to bleed throughout the screen. "Her tissues are absorbing the material. They react and glow. That is how I will see." He explained. It was not a kindness to me. The explanation was purely for Feyd.
Soon enough the image of a muscled organ showed on the screen. A small bean attached with a cord attached to an outer wall. It was clear. The only sign of life was the flickering pulse within that small bean.
The doctor's finger pointed at it. "That is the child."
It did not resemble a child. It was a nothing. A speck with a thumping spasm.
"That?" Feyd asked with doubt.
"It will grow very fast," the doctor reassured.
Feyd sniffed. His hands went to his hips. "Is it…safe?"
"Yes. The heartbeat is good. It has a good blood supply. It will fare well."
Fare well? What a relief.
My head fell back against the pillow.
I remained a carrier of Feyd's heir. His favor for me would remain.
"Oh." The doctor pulled the screen close to his face. His eyes scanned back and forth.
"What is it?" Feyd snapped.
"There is a wound. On the other side." The doctor shook his head. "We have lost the other."
A sharp ringing in my ears surged. Like an explosion that cleared the air. Silence, before the sounds of horror came.
"Other?" I breathed. "What other?"
"It appears- There were two. One we did not see."
Two babies.
One was lost. Dead.
My fingers covered the dried surface of my lips. Shock, rampant beneath my skin.
"Will Mintha survive?" Feyd asked.
"The blood. It was from the other fetus dying, na-Baron."
"But is she hurt?"
He shook his head. "No, my lord na-Baron. The lady is safe. One heir remains."
As Feyd rushed the doctor out of the quarters with an urgency that bordered on psychotic, I remained still in the same position. The thought to move, to breathe, to think, did not occur.
Two heirs. He'd gifted me two heirs. And I'd killed one.
The numerous locks on the quarters were snapped in place. It was a chorus that was routine, familiar.
Feyd's face was a blur. I could not clear it from my eyes. His expression, a mystery to me. Was he devastated? Did he anger because I ruined the perfect view of his future plans?
He was slow as he approached the bed. Soundless were his once.
Fingers ran along the soft flesh of my stomach. It encircled the hole left from the doctor's needle.
His voice was soft like a whisper. "Do not do that again."
I did not purposely try to lose one of our fetuses.
Still, they were his. He gave them to me. Killing them did not serve his purpose.
"I'm sorry."
"I thought you were dead," he revealed lowly. "Your body shook like those on the verge of death. I've seen it enough. I know it well."
My eyes were wet once more. I sniffed back my growing sorrow.
His arms suddenly slipped underneath me, raggedly. I was shimmied into his arms against his chest. The pulse of my heart began to throb with burning ache.
Was this it? Has my end with Feyd finally reached me?
"What are you going to do, na-Baron?" I asked.
"You are covered in blood. I am going to wash it away."
Wash.
Not lick. Not suckle. Not savor the taste of the rich blood like it was a delicacy, as he always said he enjoyed more than any other in the Imperium.
Breath steadied in my chest. When I forced it to. I controlled every exhale and intake. Even when the touch of his savage hands was delicate upon me, like I'd become encased in glass, so fragile and breakable. He walked into the filled pool with me in his arms, not releasing me to float on my own accord within the water.
He held me close. A cloth washed the flesh of my thighs. A faint pink hue stained the cloth when it was shown to the light.
Feyd was silent as he worked. Once the blood was washed away from my flesh, then he lathered the cloth with luscious bubbly soap and slid it along my body. It was careful, gentle with strokes of tenderness. The washing paused as it neared my stomach.
I said not a word. A word was enough to betray the built emotions inside me.
A warm palm pressed against the slight swell.
"You are not permitted to leave me, Mintha." He said suddenly stern. A haunted darkness overtook his eyes. A strangeness filled them now. "I am the decider when we are done. You will not leave. Even in death. You cannot leave me."
"I did not try -."
"You are my only. There is no other in the Imperium or beyond its reaches that interests me. No other." He brought his forehead against mine. Wetness dribbled down my cheeks as his raised his hands to hold me there in his center focus. "I belong to no other. My entirety is yours, sweetness."
"Feyd," I murmured. The tops of my lips trembled against his. "I lost your heir. You trusted it to me, and I failed you."
"No." His fingers cinched tighter against my face. "Never. You could never fail me."
"You want an heir to secure your line. You need it to continue," I rambled.
"I will give you heirs over and over and over again. Trust that, Mintha. My seed will find its way to you. If this one dies, I will replace it. If it tries to kill you, I'll kill it first."
The bridge of our noses brushed against one anothers.
"Nothing can part us," he murmured.
I slid my fingers overtop the hands that held my face. My eyes filled with tears. "I do not want to be parted from you. Ever."
Feyd enveloped me in a warm wet hug. My body squished against his massive chest. I felt the hard muscles beneath the tips of my fingers. The lines between them were paths I'd memorized. The comfort of his body against mine, helped ease me lower into the water of the bathing pool.
The faint touch of fingertips along my spine tingled from the base of my body upward.
Silence filled the bathing room. The cool tile refracted a chill that otherwise lacked on Arrakis. A single broken tile on the wall shined like a distinct memory we could not forget. The light rising outside the window glass showed bright, until the sensors flicked the shades of the glass dark again.
"You said my name," he revealed low, in an utterance not loud enough to be a whisper. My eyes lifted from his pale skin up to his face. "Was it me who tortured you? In your dreams."
The warmth of the water lessened. It began its descent to tepid.
"No. It was not."
"Before you started shaking, you cried my name." His throat cleared. "Then a gush of blood. I tried to wake you, but you wouldn't. Your eyes. They stayed closed. I thought," he cleared his throat once more before he continued, "Dead. In my arms."
Did he feel guilt? Like a nightmare of him had frightened me enough to threaten my life.
I knew what animal lay next to me. His destruction was an intimate part of my life, as well as his monstrous record.
"I cried out for you. In my dreams I saw you in the Baron's castle, a young boy. It was time in reverse. I watched you become a small child in front of that sickly man, as he called you darling and made wounds that would never heal. I cried for what I saw. What I imagined happened to you as you grew up with that man as the only one to turn to." My hands gripped onto Feyd's body. "I thought I'd wake up to an empty bed. You, gone, back to him."
He blinked. His lips pressed in a thin line. A subtle tilt of his head beheld me as confusion filtered through his eyes.
"He has hurt you in unfathomable ways, Feyd. My soul aches when he is near. And I am filled with a fatal darkness when he draws closer to you. Should a blade expose itself, I often imagine I'd be the one to use it." I swallowed when an unsatisfied wrinkle formed on his forehead. "Just to make sure you'd never feel that way again."
The fullness of his lips pressed against my mouth, parting and clashing with my teeth, while he pulled the breath of my lungs. Desperation assumed control of his fingers. They pulled at my skin. Closer. There was not space left between us, and then some.
He pulled away. Each breath was a deep ragged pant. "As much as I want to watch you slaughter him, sweetness, I command you not to raise a blade against him."
"Yes, na-Baron."
"Swear." His lips murmured against the flesh of my cheek. "Swear it to me. You will not try."
"I won't," I said.
Lying.
The moment it came, I would not think of anything else.
His fingers tightened. Pain splintered across my face. It ripped me level with his gaze. "Swear on your love of me that thought of his demise will not cross your mind. Or I'll lock you in these chambers never to walk free again."
I said nothing.
He held me harder. "Swear to me, Mintha. I'll chain you to my bed. I'll never let you free of this place. Swear you will not."
"He could never hurt you again," I said.
"You would die before your stroke fell," he countered. His hands loosened. The tickle of fingers through my floating hair filled my scalp with sensation. "He is impervious to assassination. It is second nature to him."
Lips so smooth caressed lines across my cheeks underneath my jaw.
"When the time comes, you will be secured away so that you cannot be used against me."
"You'd kill him first, wouldn't you?" My gaze flicked up to his. "If the choice to save me or kill him came, you'd slay him."
To that, Feyd declared that I was clean enough. He did not allow me to walk on my own legs. Our bodies were dripping wet, dripping rivers across the floor, as he carried me to the bed.
"I can walk," I pointed out. "I'm not in pain."
"They said rest. You will rest." He set me on his side of the bed away from the large bloody stain. "Your weight is easy for me to carry. You are a small thing."
"I'm not that small, Feyd."
It was him that was large and long. He was the one of strange proportions, not I.
Our bodies remained naked that night. He stripped the bed of its stained linens. A spare blanket was fetched somewhere he knew. It was all that wrapped our bodies.
How difficult it became, in those late hours, for Feyd to remain conscious, I pondered the idea that he'd not slept at all.
His fingers did not lack strength at night. They stayed flexed against my body, holding me like an anchor in a dangerous sea, in his deepest sleep.
I drifted asleep with my hand rested against the throbbing pulse of his heart.
The next morn came too soon. Feyd awoke with a sudden start. Arms suffocated me against his chest enough that I awoke with a pounding anxiety.
"What-What is it?" I said.
"I don't know."
A subtle rattling filled the chambers. The locks of the front door moved enough to make the ting of metal against metal.
"Dress," he instructed. "Quickly."
He moved faster than I. His body was covered in clothes before mine was done up. Speed filled his fingers as he secured every clasp of my attire until I was properly settled inside it.
A large hand wrapped around mine as he approached the door. The hilt of his side sword caught the low light. He'd not forgone to adorn his own body in personal protection.
He pulled me behind his back when we neared. His fingers unlatched the many locks situated in the center of the massive doors. One last breath, he adjusted the sleeve that brushed his wrist. A small hint of a blade refracted in the low light.
The doors shifted. The soft change of the air of the corridor entered the room like the winds of change. It felt much like the pending doom they'd fought hard to avoid.
Feyd tensed. I grasped the edge of his shirt. It eased the rolling churn of my stomach. I'd not want him taken away without a piece of him to hold onto.
"My lady?" A small voice murmured.
Anxiety dropped to the floor. A short sweep of his wrist slipped the blade back up his sleeve.
Feyd sighed and pulled open the doors. "What are you doing here?"
Motya's eyes grew wide. They instantly fell to the ground. "My lord na-Baron."
He grew irritated. A short breath fled his nostrils in a weighted sound.
"Why do you ask after my lady?" He asked. "You should not be here."
Motya glanced at me. Help pleaded through her eyes.
The na-Baron was not a person they ever went against. His love of violence was too swift a reply than his cutting words.
The nobility as wicked as they were, feared him so.
They adored him as their champion. They feared him as their leader.
"I asked her to be my lady-in-waiting," left my throat with a strangled fear of being too absorbed in Feyd's assimilation back into the Baron's roles that I did not consider the path I'd taken.
A sharpness filled his eyes.
His arm slammed the door in Motya's face.
"A lady in waiting?" He growled.
"It is a standard in court, is it not?"
"There is risk in court. Risks I do not take. Not with you." He leaned forward. "We cannot trust any. Any except each other."
A gentle touch against his arm calmed the throbbing anxiety that had awoken him.
"They learn your weaknesses, Mintha. They are a quick study. Every shred of information is spread. Their enjoyment of betrayal is brutal and precise."
"I am not ignorant of the practice. I spent time in the Baron's court when you did not notice me there. Their work is not unknown to me."
He snarled. "I knew you were there. My favor could not be shown then."
"If I am going to be by your side, Feyd, I'll need my own allies in court. I am too vulnerable. I need people on my side." Feyd shook his head in dismay. I kept talking to stay his tongue. "Motya Bondar is a good choice. It will appease her father. He'll feel secure in his placement nearest you. His attempts will cease to intrude on our life. Motya can be controlled with the information we know. Her father's ignorance of the rejection can keep her loyal if she fears discovery."
He stared, gritted his teeth and shook his head.
I swallowed. "What? Have I got it wrong?"
"No." He sniffed, lessening in his fury. "No. You, think like my lady should." A hint of a smirk showed on his lips. "You will be my formidable Empress, sweetness."
"So, will you let me go?"
"No."
My mouth dropped open.
"You are on bedrest." He spread the large expanse of his hand atop my belly. "My girls need to be safe. Here. She may attend to you in here." He gestured toward the bed. "Someday."
"You'd command your Empress back to her bed?"
"If it meant she would stay be safe. Yes."
He guided me toward the stripped bed. The gentle pace infuriated every sense of my pride. I felt fine. The few hours of sleep claimed the pain as part of the night before. I no longer struggled to breathe.
Still, his hands pushed me on the top of the mattress intent to have me waste away atop the bed for the remainder of the pregnancy. "I have work-."
"I'm not interrupting, am I?" The Baron's voice carried through the quarters.
The locks were not done. Feyd cared too much for my health that he'd forgotten them.
The Baron's body suspended in the front sitting room just outside the double doors of the bed chambers. His eyes scanned throughout the rooms. It dawned on me that he probably recognized the quarters as his own. The bed was oversized. The decor was haunted and menacing.
How had I not noticed before?
My mouth went slick. Upheaval from my stomach wanted exit.
I'd fallen in love with Feyd in a realm that was his uncle's. It was the tainted touch of memory, of his, that he still controlled every aspect of Feyd's life.
Feyd was never free of the reminder.
Reminder of whom owned him first.
"No." Feyd approached swiftly.
He stepped over the bloody sheets of the bed still piled at the foot of the bed. Wet blood had leeched through the fabric. It's size grew in the night. As the liquid spread.
The Baron noticed. He frowned. "Your activities should not interfere with your work here, Feyd. I thought you'd learned that. Word is you've discovered a sietch. Why aren't you out there killing that Muad'dib to free the spice? The spice. It is the money we need. The more we gather, the richer we become. Soon that Emperor will be poorer than our house."
"It is not yet last light," he said. "My men will be ready to siege it then."
"You are not a princeling, Feyd. If you are to become Emperor, you need deny your carnal pleasures."
The lasting rumble of his words savored that word too much. It coiled my stomach. I latched my fingernails deep into the bed to hold me secure from flying in a disgusted rage.
"Those come later. When you are settled."
Funny. The Baron never denied his.
Not even his own blood.
"I have served my fief and my throne in tandem with my delights." Feyd commanded the deepest gravely rasp capable. "Rabban had no delights and still delivered less."
The Baron's eye twinkled. They coursed down to the plump lips that curled in their corners. "You are right, my darling. He's disappointed us both."
My body screamed internally. It's horror at the closeness of the Baron's haunted look near my mate - an animal more close in flesh to me than his own blood - would not calm. My fingers trembled within the stuffing of the mattress.
"I've come with a tithe of my own for your honoring," the Baron announced. "For my beloved nephew, I bring a new airship. The weapons aboard are one of a kind. They will melt rock with one single pulse."
It pricked Feyd's interest.
"To destroy a sietch, you need the command of air. Let those Fremen rats know who commands this land."
"I'll give my men the word," Feyd said.
"Make me proud, boy."
"Mintha," Feyd said suddenly.
My feet hit the floor with a sudden jolt. He did not move a muscle away from his uncle's broad obstruction.
"Your friend, the captain, awaits," Feyd called over his shoulder. He lifted his arm as a royal man would toward his the affectionate hand holding that he preferred.
My friend? The captain. Two things that were grossly untrue and bordered upon laughable.
I felt alive with tension as I walked toward the pair of frightening powerful men - both capable of gutting me, in different ways. It was calm-wrecking when I realized the two who held the most control over me were these two. The demented monster who crafted my mate and the mate who pushed boundaries of pleasure and pain because he was both - in my heart.
My knees buckled in once my arm looped over Feyd's. The weight of my body suddenly all rested on the strength of Feyd. If he left me to my own devices, I'd be crumpled upon the floor.
"Captain Rurik?"The Baron asked with a rolling grumble from deep inside his chest.
It revolted me. My ears felt poisoned by the sound of it inside their precious space.
"He is not known to be a popular solider. Even by our standards," The Baron continued, "I do not know why you idolize the man. He is insolent."
"The witch has solved his insolence."
Had the capacity to feel above the disgust and the rage been in my power, I'd have been in disbelief at Feyd's bold statement.
The only one who solved Captain Rurik's attitude was the humbling of his na-Baron dislocating his shoulder and suspending him in the air for an entire night.
"The witch's triumphs grow." The mirth did not reach this tone. His eyes glided down his large, suspended height to observe me yet another time. "This is the one you made a consort?"
Feyd expanded his chest beneath his shirt. "Yes."
"Hm." The Baron murmured. "I trust the consort's distraction has not caused me losses. Still, the time for distractions is not now. Your honor relies on spice. Spice we do not have in our possession."
"The consort's distraction is minimal. Her efforts are on Harkonnen production."
The Baron lifted his brow. "There is little necessity for a witch or a consort."
Said he, the lover of the vulnerable.
"What is the point of our family honor if there is no family to carry it on?"
"Do not tell me, Feyd darling, you've bred this woman."
There was subtle amusement in his tone. As if it was laughable that Feyd was capable of impregnating me.
Or amused that he would finally be granted reason to torture me?
I felt overcome all at once. Would the Baron strike me down right here? Would the child be so disgusting to him that he'd kill it within my belly?
I'd only thought he'd salivate at the prospect of Feyd's son being in his power. I did not consider displeasure in it.
"An heir is a distraction. Worse than a consort. You are young. There is time to enjoy the spoils of your position."
"It is done," Feyd said. "Our line is secured."
Our line.
The words moved through the Baron's body. An exciting tremble through the massive flesh.
"Our line." The Baron repeated. A smile curled on his face. "Another Harkonnen."
Another Harkonnen.
I would birth another Harkonnen.
It would share blood with Feyd, not only, but also the Baron and Glossu. Their blood would save the same vein. A pair of eyes like the Baron's when they lusted after the young boys nearest him, large hands like Glossu's to strangle others in anger, and Feyd's slick thrill when he inflicted pain. That was what I held in my body.
He swore he'd kill us. He swore.
The Baron changed his attitude. He became pleased with the idea of being continued. An honor that should be bled out of him through his throat.
His hands clapped together. "I wish for you, a mighty son. One worthy of the name."
My stomach turned into sour acid in a second.
Feyd nodded. He neither showed delight or disagreement. The cold withdrawn expression that was seldom seen anymore overtook his features.
His arm pressed me tighter to him.
"What of the princess?" The Baron couldn't help but ask. "I'd assumed she be your spoils. But with consort and heir, there is little point in keeping her."
"I'll keep her. Consorts come and go. As long as she manages to last…"