XXIII: Reunions and Delusions
The training session ended when Feyd was slick and sticky with a layer of perspiration so thick that it dripped off his forehead as he walked away from the arena.
Servants appeared to lead me down to the main floor where he awaited.
He breathed hard. His pale exposed chest heaved with each breath as he wiped the sweat away from his eyes and off his head.
Trickles ran through the steep riverbeds between his muscles.
"Na-Baron." My lips curled to a playful smile. My tone taunted his status. To tease him further, I bowed.
He rolled his eyes as he tossed the towel aside. "Lady Mintha. Did you enjoy the view?"
The view now was not disappointing.
"I did." I smiled. "It was a good reminder of your skill."
Feyd stood taller. He offered out his arm. Even though it was sticky from his workout, I took it gladly and allowed it to lead me toward the castle.
My skin began to stick against his as we walked.
"You should bathe," I said. "Before your next task."
"Is that an offer?" He teased.
I bit back my smile. "Are you ever satisfied?"
"If you recall, I have not been satisfied in days."
Whose fault was that? Oh, yeah. His.
If he hadn't gotten me pregnant.
Secretly.
"It took all my strength to not fuck you on that dirty arena floor. That look. It was torture to send you away."
Good. He deserved some torture.
"I have no idea what you mean, na-Baron," I feigned.
Feyd stopped suddenly. His tongue thrusted within my mouth. Hands touched all over my body, one finally lightly gripped the base of my throat.
"Sweetness," he groaned.
He removed his tongue and replaced it with his thumb. It swirled around inside my mouth. Salvia collected. It began to dribble down his hand as he watched my mouth redden, slobber dripping, and my eyes burning with all the desires I contained for him.
"You will not deny me," he said.
My chest fell heavier as I breathed again and again.
Was he asking, or telling me?
He stepped closer. The hold at my neck tightened slight. "You will not deny me."
My hand reached out to the center of his chest. Just above his beating heart, I placed my fingertips. "There is no other to whom I belong."
His pulse jolted higher.
"You will allow me to?"
I nodded.
The tips of my fingers felt the throbbing of his heartbeat as it steadily pumped.
We stood in the middle of the castle grounds between the barracks and the castle, in the dead of Arrakis night, with eyes out in that darkness watching us. The entire planet could have seen us. But Feyd was not shy about his lusts. Not for anyone. Not for me.
"Have I been forgiven?"
My eyes fluttered a surprised blinking. "What?"
"I only wondered if there was fury within you still."
"Who's to say that I may not fuck you with fury?"
A ravenous growl erupted from deep within him. Quivers of my insides sent waves of excitement throughout me. I was alive with fire and hot desire that forgot all about my betrayal and sought to reconnect with Feyd in the ways we fit best.
Feyd grew too eager to await the march back to his chambers. He reached for a nearby door. It happened to be a spiral staircase up the castle tower. Our lips locked as he pulled us inside the threshold without the addition of his personal guard behind us.
I was pushed up against a wall. He lifted my leg over his hip. His fingers danced through my skirts to find home in the welcoming waters of my own excitement. He breathed against the side of my face. Lips suckled at the tender soft divots of my neck.
The stairs were quiet. No excited steps interrupted.
Our breaths grew louder as our lust compounded.
His fingers ran through my pussy lips. It smeared my wetness all around me. The brush of his thumb against my throbbing clit sent an excited gasp from lungs.
"I will never tire of the way you feel under my hand, sweetness. You are a drug to me. All I think of is how to get this pussy wet. Make it mine."
My hand gripped his shoulder to steady me from falling down the stairs.
"Harder."
I hadn't realized my nails cut against his skin. My eyes bulged in horror.
"I can take your pain."
"I don't want to be your pain, Feyd." My voice was laced with lust and raw desire.
His eyes narrowed. The playful rubbing slowed.
I stared through half-lidded eyes up at that animal's tensed jaw, ready to bite at any time. His venom was deep enough in me now. He could do what he wished without reproach. I was his. One bite of his crimson bloodlust to my soul, I'd raise a blade for him.
"I only want pleasure," I breathed. "For you and I. It is all we need. And I want you to give it to me."
Three fingers shoved inside of me with a hiss. His eyes grew wide at the shudder of my resolve. I was filled to the brim. The thickness slid slowly up with the flooding of my own pussy.
My hand suddenly gripped his forearm, hard under my touch, as he pushed in and out of me. An ungodly crack came from my jaw as it fell from its socket.
"My good girl. You take it so well."
"It is nothing compared to you," slipped from my lips on the breath of a moan.
He groaned his delight. Fingers worked against me. They used my dripping lust to push further inside. It pushed my walls to their limit. A spot within my tissues that he reached with the tips of his fingers shook my legs as he rattled it around. Sudden sharp delights filled my chest. Delight touched the tips of my nipples to the ends of my toes with a violent need to escape the limits of my own body.
Feyd circled this spot inside me until I shrieked his name. My hands loosened against his shoulders. I lost all sense of myself with the rippling waves of ecstasy he brought me to.
My head lulled against the wall.
"No. no." He withdrew his fingers. A hand latched onto the back of my neck and pulled me onto him. "Your eyes. I need you to see me."
"Yes, na-Baron."
His nose brushed against the side of my face. The hot of his breath pushing at me. The clenching of his hold pulled harder. My flesh would peel away from my bones if another force tried to remove me from him.
"I love you, Mintha."
The pale monster buried against my face did not move.
Words were heavy and hard. Their cut through my bliss was intense.
His voice came through gritted teeth. "I understand if you do not feel it back. Still." He sniffed. "I needed you to know."
Clenching fingers let me go. I was loosened enough to stand on my own feet.
Feyd forced his jaw tense as he stepped away from me. His chin stayed level with the floor, but the shreds of emotion within his eyes said something different.
Very different.
My eyes filled with the same density. Their watery colors made him a white puddle in a haze black air.
I blinked them away. "You deserve love, Feyd."
"Good. Then tell me you love me so that I might fuck another baby in you."
My hands instantly went to my stomach in shock. Was that possible?
"Oh," I exhaled through my lips. "Right."
Feyd moved close, pinning me against the curved wall once more. My feet balanced atop a single step to keep me standing.
He placed an arm on either side of my head.
"Sweetness," he said slowly.
My tongue settled thick and heavy in the base of my jaw. It refused to move. Words bottled at the back of my throat, refused to dare enter a space where they might be breathed life.
Feyds eyes scanned the course of me. I felt the prickling sensation of their darkness peruse my length, up my neck, all around my face.
"You can say it, Mintha. Fear has no place here."
Fear.
Ha!
I was better than fear. I was better than that stupid pathetic emotion that ruined every moment of my life with its suffocating ice. Fear dulled me to life. It dulled me to everything. I was stolen of what it meant to be human by its perversion.
I could not lose Feyd to it. He mattered more.
"There is nothing in the whole Imperium I know better than you, Feyd." My fingers caressed the depth of his clavicle, ghosting lightly across the tendons and muscles around his neck. "A lone name is cut in my heart. It is Feyd-Rautha. My only love."
Though he prompted to me to say it aloud, the words rendered him changed when they fell from my lips.
The hardness in his pants dug against my belly. He lifted me with ease onto his waist, took the time to secure each of my legs around him, before pushed me back against the wall. The sharp slap of my back against the metal walls jolted me awake. My awareness of my sensations zapped quicker than electricity.
The skirts of my dress tore through the center at the ends of his fingers. My nakedness showed against the pale flesh of his torso. Bits of my skin glistened with a shimmer of cum. It, too, smeared against him. The glistening lines atop his chiseled muscles.
"You are so beautiful this way," he murmured in awe.
This was nothing.
"But I am perfect at the end of your cock," I moaned. My hips ground against him to smear my cum in a thicker sheen. "So, make me perfect, my love. It is the only time I am."
Feyd trembled with a shiver. Fingers ran across my cheekbone until it latched deep against the back of my neck.
"It is better this way," he growled, deep and low.
I echoed his tone. "It is better this way."
He pulled himself from his pants. The knobby head of his cock teasing the slick of my slit. When it hit my clit, my thighs clenched around his middle. His eyes stayed locked between our bodies with the sight of his cock against my pussy as his main focus.
He seldom blinked as he watched himself tease me.
A pressure touched at my hole. Just the tip nuzzled close. I mewled in want of more, since I was on fire with desire and seldom relief had come. The instant hardening pushed the head deeper inside.
Feyd aligned his hips. They moved upward as I lowered myself onto him. We met with equal force.
It was frantic and fast. I was thrust against the wall with no escape from his cock as he pushed deeper inside with each thrust. His arm laced behind my spine and held my shoulder to keep the pace as he drove himself into my warmth.
I yelped and shrieked with each harder thrust. My pleasure was to the point of pain.
"I'm not stopping until you can't fit any more cum inside you. You've kept this pussy away for days. I want to know every inch of it again."
Somehow his words turned on me. They built a sudden peak that I was desperate to surmount.
My hands clawed at him, pushing myself down onto him. "Don't stop, Feyd. Don't stop fucking talking."
His interest perked. "Oh. My sweetness likes my mouth to please her in more than one way. Is that what gets this pussy wet?"
My head vigorously nodded. The blush on my cheeks was covered by the heat of exertion so he did not see my mortification over being in dire need.
"Look at me, Mintha. I want your eyes on me when I fuck you. Watch me please you. Look at how hard you make me. My dick has never been bigger."
My lips trembled. A small, whine left my lips. "Feyd."
I was washed in the light of a hot star as climax burst through me. It was so intense that Feyd only withstood a moment longer before cum shot inside me.
The most intense feeling I'd experienced left me in shock, lost in my own mind.
I'd thought we were done.
But we were not.
He carried me to his chambers, tossed me to the bed, and asked that I ride him like an Empress would.
My body was worshipped. He called me his Empress, murmured his love into my ear and made me cum until I could not anymore. The time apart had made us needier. I did not tire in desire, only in body.
He laid aside me, naked, leaking sweat onto me as I leeched it onto the sheets. His fingers toyed with mine. His ring strung on my necklace was slipped on and off my finger as he laid there, mindlessly fidgeting.
I lost track of time. It felt near an hour of being quiet in the come down of our reunion that we laid together.
"You should go, Feyd. Before they come looking."
He shook his head. "They can wait for us as long as we need."
Us? I never attended his luncheons with his social circle - the harem. They all set me on edge. Their nastiness only encouraged Feyd's to surface.
"I do not intend to harm the child. I have said," I replied.
"I know." He breathed. "You carry our legacy. My responsibility for you is even greater now. It is better for me to know you are safe, near me. I will not calm otherwise."
All because I carried his child?
"There are more important things to tend to than my safety. Arrakis is a heavy burden. I do not wish to add to it."
He nuzzled closer. His hands slipped the ring on my finger once more.
A way he'd use to deny my request without angering me.
Comfort.
I knew what was coming, so I spoke as if they'd already been said. "My safety has not changed. No one knows that I carry an heir."
Feyd suckled my hands. He kissed every finger, crease, my wrist. Soft moist lips ran along the edges of my touch, toying with my sensations.
"They should assume as much," he murmured. "I spend every waking moment inside of you."
I rolled my eyes. "With your reputation, they probably think I am another pet of yours."
He scowled. The kissing stopped.
"A royal lady is no pet. They'd know well enough that any thought of you as one would be met with a swift swipe of my blade." He thought a moment. His temper cooled. "I would not share a pet, but I would not kill for one either."
That was not getting us anywhere. I wanted out of this lunch, not to rile his trigger-happy libido.
"Harun Faheem is the only one to guess my purpose in your house. That is not many. I believe, most everyone would be ignorant of it."
Feyd's eyes narrowed at the mention.
His hands dropped my hands away from his. "Harun Faheem," he snipped. "When did he say this?"
"At the party, when you were busy being distracted by Lord Bondar's daughter."
"It is the way of the court," he explained in a frustrated growl. "I did not want to dance. I'd been given a request from a lady. We have to keep these families happy if they are to support us when I overthrow my uncle."
"Just how far are you going to go to keep them happy?"
"As far as I need to," he said firmly.
I sat up. My nakedness did not hinder me from crossing my arms with tension built within my limbs.
"Would you sleep with one of them? Make them your concubine, give them an heir just to please them, my lord na-Baron? Is that why you've promoted that man to an advisor?"
Once it came out of my mouth, my heart beat at a frightening pace.
Lord Bondar's emergence as an advisor happened a short while after this party happened. Had an agreement happened when I was out of earshot? I was absent most of the talking the family exchanged with Feyd. Then there was no telling how much I missed when I was vomiting.
In fact, there was a space of time where the dance had to have ended, and Feyd had not yet rejoined me.
Was he securing more of his plot in place whilst I discovered my own part, alone?
"There was a vacancy, thanks to Rabban, and he is from an old rich family. His placement is fitting."
"And if they require she be made a consort?"
"That is too bold," he explained. "They do not operate that way. Court is subtle. If there is a visible request, it'd be my duty to show my strength and slaughter them for their disrespect to my position."
None of these answers were calming my frustration.
"Would you take another consort if it was subtly suggested then?" I snapped.
"No, Mintha. I would not." A sharp sudden firmness filled his tone. "Trust my words as truth. There is no other I seek to pleasure other than you."
It was my last intention to forget that suspicion, however I agreed with Feyd to not discuss it again. It pricked his ego to have me question him. Whether it was because he disliked not being trusted fully or that he was close to being caught within a lie, I was not sure.
Something was off about Lord Bondar. I did not know many Harkonnen's well, but he behaved in a way that triggered my distrust. Feyd's dismissal of it only intensified it. So much depended on his ability to tame Arrakis. To tame Muad'dib. To tame me.
I was not in the power. But what little I had depended upon his favor of me.
How could he not see that other women of court were better options than I, if he was given the chance to?
We bathed quickly. The harem apparently could not wait as we needed.
Our towels dropped to the floor. It took mere seconds to dry in the air of this planet. His stark pale body marched across his room. I followed, hiding the admiration of his muscles back and thighs. His fingers flicked open a latch. He exposed the contents of his wardrobe to dress, and a show of coppery silk and white linen caught my eye. Neither were his color.
I caressed the fabrics. "What is this?"
"I had some of your things moved in with mine. For instances such as this."
My dress skirts were ripped straight through the center. My thighs showed through their billowy fabric. It was not proper dress any longer.
The deflated wet lump of a dress was alongside the shower inside Feyd's bathing room.
A small smile slid across my lips.
"You think of everything, na-Baron."
"Please," he said roughly. His shirt was half pulled on. "Call me Feyd."
I nodded. "You think of everything, Feyd."
Maybe my mind played tricks on me. Maybe Feyd was not scheming.
The monster could be tamed…? Was he more animal now, like me?
He continued to dress himself in his casual garb. My hands landed upon a gown that exposed my shoulders and arms. The lining was thin and white, with an outer layer of simple pale beads draped overtop.
My under flesh was visible beneath the pale fabric. The outline of my aerolas was hidden only by the texture of the beads. Dark bruises on my hips from Feyd's rough hold showed when the fabric clung to my widened sides.
"I thought your things might be permanently moved here," he stated.
The size of his wardrobe and mine would fill the space. Along with his weapon collection. The kingly chambers would soon be stuffed with all our belongings shoved inside.
My face wrinkled. "Where would it all fit?"
"I can have things moved. This furniture here." He gestured to the small lounge area to the side of the bed that filled a back corner of his room. "We do not need it. It is useless." The chairs were things we used sometimes when we fucked. He liked to bend me over the sides of the seats. "The space will accommodate a crib. We will be able to see her. At night. They can hang something to obscure its sight from the door. For when the baby arrives."
My eyes flashed toward the bedroom double doors. "Will we be obscuring the birth of your heir?"
"It is uncommon for shared chambers." He looked longer at the space as he considered it. I suspected that it was a thought long ago thought of.
"What is the common Harkonnen practice?"
"Royal nursemaids and slaves care for the infant in a nursery somewhere."
"You don't care for your own spawn?"
"It is a collective effort, yes," he said. "But I want you both in my presence. Our child will stay in our sight at all times."
I swallowed. "Babies cry, don't they?"
He shrugged. "I suppose they do."
"How will you rest for your duties? If it cries all night, you will be exhausted."
"I've survived worse on less sleep."
Feyd had thought longer and harder about becoming a father than I expected. His concerns were the result of great thought.
I had yet to consider what it meant to be a mother. My life would change in unimaginable ways.
Aishti did things so difficult I did not understand it. It was so natural to her. She did not seem full of resentment and confusion. Not as I would be, in her shoes.
My journey would be different than hers in ways. Both stood on the same premise of being given no choice in the matter. I, only, would be cared for and lavished by the father's attentions while she had to fend for herself.
The more I traversed the idea of children, the less I discovered buried within my memory, same as when I searched for any other memory of my past.
My mind told me I had seen a baby before. Maybe even carried one. My arms knew the position how an infant laid within the arms. But an image of one could not be summoned. It was like I resided within a body of memory, but my mind was new.
A mother needed to be more than a blank slate. There was no hope for me. I could not care for an infant - one as important as an heir - if I did not know a thing.
I would fail worse than Feyd's mother!
A sudden intake of breath stopped my panic.
He promised. He'd kill us. I would not survive the entrance of motherhood. It would not matter if I was stupid or not. The baby would never know.
Except for my undying love for them.
My son.
We exited his chambers to be led to the Great Hall for the luncheon I dreaded, when the Harkonnen doctor with a tool belt around his waist approached. I recognized him as the man who administered my pregnancy test. And the sedative shot within my neck.
Feyd did, too. The arm that held mine tightened to his side.
Vishti hustled behind the doctor. Their eyes caught sight of me. They waved me toward the doctor.
Ugh.
"Na-Baron." The doctor bowed his head.
Feyd paused his pace, but did not respond.
"I was on my way to see Lady Mintha. She will need to be monitored now that we've confirmed a pregnancy. The baby's health must be assessed."
"I am awaited in the Great Hall," Feyd said.
"Yes." The doctor nodded. "I heard them. They are anxious for your arrival."
Tightness gripped at my throat. As much as I disliked this doctor, I disliked Feyd's harem more. They were disgusting disturbing creatures. I did not wish to see what kind of monster emerged from Feyd when he was near them. Arrakis allowed me to live in ignorance, under the pretense that he was changed.
I did not want evidence to the contrary.
Vishti, too, seemed insistent that I follow the doctor. Their eyes kept catching mine, saying so with their gesturing.
"Is this necessary?" Feyd asked.
"It is your heir, na-Baron." I found myself speaking in a tongue familiar to Feyd's own. Manipulating and smooth. "The doctor is here to ensure I am strong enough to carry it."
He looked down at me.
"I really should assess her. I've got pills here; she should be taking." The doctor touched his belt. "We will not detain you, my lord na-Baron. I can deposit her in the Great Hall when we are through."
After a long gaze onto my face, he relented. Feyd gave a slow nod. "Do your assessment. Leave her in her chambers. I'll see to it that she is fed. "
My hand released hold of his arm.
His face frowned as I walked after the doctor. Vishti offered their own arm out to me. I gladly took it. When I overlooked my shoulder, Feyd stayed in place, frowning.
"Enjoy your lunch, na-Baron." I smiled. "See you soon."
It eased him from his rigid stance. He nodded short and started a brisk pace toward the Great Hall.
Vishti helped me into a chair in the sitting room as the doctor unloaded a contraption from his belt. It unfolded itself. A small wand appeared with a black speaker box attached.
"Lift up your dress," the doctor said so matter-of-factly.
I blinked.
" Heh?" Vishti exclaimed.
There was no way I would lift up my dress to this man. Doctor or not. If Feyd ever heard the suggestion, he'd remove the man's head from his shoulders.
I did not move to do as he said. The doctor became frustrated. He roughly exhaled.
"This goes against your stomach. I need it to be on your skin. Lift up your dress."
The old crone shook their hands in disapproval. "It is dishonorable to speak to the lady that way. She is an honorable woman. I will change her clothes for her so you may have her flesh. You do not say such things to her in that way."
Vishti's eyes loathed the presence of that man. They carefully brought me to my own bed chambers, certain to lock the pocket doors behind us, before they went to the wardrobe.
"That man. Disgusting!" They rattled.
"The na-Baron's heir is important to them."
"There is no heir without its mother, yes? You do not get the child without the one who gives it life. They do well to remember that!"
Vishti slipped me into a simple pair of soft harem pants and a shirt that covered my belly. It was easily slipped up for the doctor, though I was advised not too much. It did not need to be said in the common tongue for me to understand what they meant.
"What did she say?" The doctor grumbled.
He came closer with the instrument. The intent to put it on my bare belly made me uncomfortable. I had no idea what its purpose was, and there was no power that I held that would convince him not to hurt me.
Except one.
"They said to not make the na-Baron angry. I'll have to tell him about this visit, so I have to keep that in mind."
Mention of Feyd did well to illicit some fear within the doctor. He sat further back in his seat, only reaching with his arm to touch me with the wand.
The speaker thrummed a sound. It was dull, but repetitive. It reminded me of the throated singing Harkonnens enjoyed.
Another faster, louder sound happened over top of it.
"There we are," the doctor murmured.
"What is that?"
"The baby's heartbeat. It is pumping good and strong. Your heart, too."
We listened to the sound of the heartbeat for a good long while. The doctor had to follow the swishing movement as it moved within my womb. The wand chased after, back and forth, as it did its best to avoid the doctor's instrument.
Eventually, the doctor was satisfied with what he found. He tucked the wand and speaker box back into his belt.
"It likes your iron rich blood. It's doing well."
I blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Harkonnens struggle in pregnancy. The babies are small and weak. They aren't active like this." He produced another gadget. It was placed against my stomach. Two laser lines extended from each side. The doctor used side-dials to adjust until the lines perfectly stretched the extent of my belly. "Our air is thick with coal dust and heavy metals. It produces smaller, sickly babies. Only the strong survive. Many pass away in their infancy. But this." He read the measurement across my belly. "This one will be built well. The na-Baron's DNA with your healthy body will make an impressive specimen. A very good heir. The Baron will be proud."
The Baron would have no part of Feyd's child. He'd never let that happen.
I did not say it aloud. I only repeated it for my own comfort.
The measuring tool was pulled out of my stomach. It was tucked away at the doctor's waist with his other tools.
Again, something else was produced from his belt. "These are important to take. You must be given one every day."
The bottle shook. It prompted Vishti to accept it into their grasp. Their eyes appraised the contents of the bottle before it was tucked away for safekeeping.
I shifted in my seat. "What are they?"
"Vitamins. Things your body needs to eat to keep the baby growing. It is important that you never forget to take them." He leaned back suddenly. His eyes appraised me with no regard for my confidence. "You look active enough. Keep it up. It will keep your figure nice for the na-Baron. You may have use after you deliver his heir."
My eyes shuttered a long blink. My figure?
I looked up at Vishti in disbelief. Was that something I had to also be concerned with as I grew another living being inside myself?
"Something to think about. The na-Baron appears to enjoy you. If you'd like it to stay that way, keeping active and not overeating will aid that. I can tell my other Harkonnen mothers to overeat. Their babies are underdeveloped. But you. You are too healthy. You will make a giant. Or worse, become one."
The doctor's words after that really became nothing but mumbling. My mind decided to close off their entrance. I simply sat there with no expression until he took the hint to leave.
Vishti slammed the door behind his back. "Stupid rajul."
They ordered that my lunch be brought to my chambers. I did not have to wait a handful of minutes before it arrived. There were lots of fruits and roasted meat, jerky and nuts. A single egg sat in a little fitting chalice.
My throat went tight. "I can't eat that."
"Is alright, lady. You eat other stuff, you do not need the egg." Vishti patted my shoulder. Their hands grasped a brown fuzzy fruit. They peeled the flesh away until a vibrant green inside exposed. "You must eat as much as your body wants, my lady. You trust what it says. If it says eat, you eat. Do not think of your body. Na-Baron like it either way."
I stopped chewing. "You really think so?"
Feyd's dislike of my body would be an experience that I'd like to avoid.
"He love you, Lady. He will not stop if you eat."
"He does want me to eat. Always says I'm too starved."
"See? He like a fuller woman."
Vishti then pulled the medicinal bottle from their pocket. It popped out a large red pill. Their hands handed it over to me.
The thought of putting that in my mouth pulled my lips down into a frown. "Do I have to?"
They forced an encouraging smile. "Is not so bad. Swallow quick. You won't taste."
Lies.
In apology for giving me a disgusting vitamin pill, they poured a full cup of steaming tea. Their hands placed it in my awaiting palm.
"Drink lots of tea. You will be very thirsty. Babies need lots of water."
"I'm always thirsty."
"It will be worse."
My old servant told me all the things that the doctor should have. They told me how to take care of myself. All my body changes, big and small, were told to me. No raw meats and old fruit. I should only eat the freshest things I could. Water was important. Even the Fremen knew that an expecting mother needed extra water rations to make a baby that could survive.
We changed my outfit back into my dress to avoid Feyd's fury. Vishti did not want him to kill the doctor - I begrudgingly agreed - for taking liberties. There was too much time until the birth that I would need care.
"You do not show too much." Vishti's old wrinkled hands held the base of my torso with a cupped palm.
"That is good," I stated. "The na-Baron does not seem to want to announce it yet. It must be hidden until it is safe enough, I suppose."
"Ah." They waved a hand dismissively. "If they do not see it by now, they are blind."
A knock at the door interrupted our moment.
Vishti looked up at me. "The na-Baron comes."
We hurried to finish making me look the exact same way I did when he left me here.
The sound of his feet hit the floor like a wave of pending thunder.
My heartbeat faster, like I'd done something wrong.
Vishti grabbed my chin and stopped my thoughts suddenly. "One last thing. Blood." I instantly tensed. Blood? What about it? "You tell me. You tell na-Baron. You tell doctor. Blood is no good."
They placed me atop the settee. With a few adjustments to my dress and hair, they melted into the background of the quarters like the Harkonnen servants did. their chin tucked to their chest, hands clasped in front of them.
The na-Baron unlocked the doors with his special code and strode right in the doors without a knock. He blinked away his surprise at my positioned body, in wait of him. His eyes glanced around; they noticed the pocket doors drawn within the quarters - something I never used when I resided in the rooms.
"Is he here?"
I shook my head. "He left a while ago. I've been lounging since lunch."
Feyd allowed a slow deflate of the tension stored in his shoulders. "That little of monitoring was not worth missing my luncheon for."
"Miscommunication," I deflected quickly.
It was a happenstance that I benefitted from. Telling Feyd that I disliked his friends was not on my list to daily to-dos.
"Well." Feyd tapped the tip of his boot against the floor. "What did he say?"
My hand fluttered along the stretch of fabric just above my stomach. "He likes my blood. The doctor said he'll be a big strong baby."
"She," Feyd corrected.
He only hoped it was a girl.
It would spare him the sacrifice of his firstborn heir.
"I heard the heartbeat," I told him lightheartedly to side-step an uncomfortable touch of reality as it stood between us.
A flicker of motion caught at the corner of my eye. As Feyd traveled further into my quarters, Vishti made their way toward the door out.
He helped himself to the seat beside me. A large hand caressed my stomach. It held my body like a protective shield.
"What did it sound like?" He asked, almost fascinated.
I let my thoughts run unchecked from my mouth. "Really fast. And it moved. The doctor had to chase after it to keep hearing the heartbeat. It made him work for it."
Feyd smirked. "A wild one."
"Yes. Wild and untamed. It will not ever listen to a word we say."
We shared a smile, enjoying the moment of imagination, as if we were somewhere else, in another life.
As if we would survive this- intact.
"Ah. Children are meant to be that way. I know I was," he said. "She will be allowed to be as wild as she wishes." He thought for moment. "As long as she minds her mother's wishes, I will be content with an untamed daughter."
I shook my head playfully. The smile could not have been snatched from my face.
A daughter with a man who so clearly enjoyed the prospect of a young daughter to adore, I almost wished it was my future, to see how much a daughter might save his humanity as I could not.
Still, I enjoyed the peaceful yearning in my chest. My mind followed the delusion.
"All her dresses are going to be torn and stained, aren't they? Her beautiful hand stitched dresses will be rags when she is done with them."
"I'd like to hear her adventures as we dine. It will be our entertainment, sweetness. What adventure our daughter has found in our absence."
Feyd was fixed upon the idea of having a daughter. He never breeched the subject of having a son.
Not once.
Perhaps he understood that he would not ever be the father to a male child from me, so why bother?
"Do you plan on allowing her such freedoms, na-Baron?"
He tilted his head in question.
"You do not let me out of your sight often. A daughter will be harder to release do you not think?"
"She will have her own guards, assistants that do not leave her side. Once I am crowned Emperor, I will have those loyal to others demoted or executed. My house will be safe for her to roam."
"Will it ever be truly safe?" I asked. "She will be your heir. Will the Bene Gesserit allow this child to be chosen over their own kind or the princess herself? People will always seek to harm her. Her very birth makes her an enemy."
"Those people will be slain before she is old enough to be known. I'll have my armies cull those unwilling to pander to our honor." The tips of his fingers dug slightly into the flesh of my body just above his unborn child. "Things will be safe for you both, Mintha. I swear to you."
I swallowed. My fears of the future were so severe that I seldom allowed my thoughts to think past the next day.
The Baron. His grotesque touch haunted those futures.
Us, never free of his sick delights.
And Feyd never free of the reminder of them.
"As long as you keep your word, Feyd."
He will kill us. He will kill our son and me along with him.