Chapter 11: New Year – Beacon Hill

Jordan took a sharp breath as Kat finally stopped cycling. He had never went to this side of the Hill. He also had never realized how close he lived to the MacGregor not so humble abode. His mother’s apartment was situated near the Massachusset General Hospital, while Kendalynn’s was on the gentle southern slope of Beacon Hill. Which meant that he was now panting before a very large, Victorian-looking, manor. He had no other word for it, for it was far larger than a simple house, without being too ostentatious. It also looked really ancient, as opposed to more modern reproductions, which often seems tackier than necessary.

“Home sweet home” said Kat, her tone as unsure as the emotions she let out through the Bond.

“Are… are you sure it’s a good idea?” he asked, feeling as if he was looking at the den of some extremely angry and dangerous predator, who was just waiting for him to get close enough to be devoured without a chance of fleeing.

“Yes!” she affirmed, her mixed feelings dissipating like snow in the summer sun. “My Mother wouldn’t have called me back here, with you, if she hadn’t relented. I don’t know what yours did, but it seems she was right and managed to convince a MacGregor to relent. Especially Marilyn...”

Just as she finished her sentence, the main door opened and a sort of butler came to greet them. Or at least Mouse suspected she was one, but perhaps she was a bodyguard, considering how muscular she seemed to be. She was clad in a very fitting black and white uniform, which did nothing to hide her large biceps, quads and even calves which seemed to be bulging with so much power than a strange part of his mind wondered how far he would fly if she kicked him.

“Young miss” she declaimed, her voice as powerful as her body, making the poor Minor flinch, even as he noticed her blond locks and almost angelic face, which seemed at odd with her monstrous physique. “I am happy to see you back, and well. And it must be the famous Jordan Smith?”

Mouse gulped hard when her piercing icy blue eyes fell on him. She was clearly not liking him, he could tell with how cold her blue orbs where. He almost took a step back, but he felt a sudden surge of confidence chasing away the fear. Kendalynn’s presence in his mind grew stronger and he was able to steady himself and not give in ground. He couldn’t hold his eyes locked with hers, but at least it was a first step. Wordlessly, he thanked the younger giantess who let her hand fell on his shoulder.

“Hello Jean” coldly replied Kat. “If you don’t mind, we are expected, so we’ll go inside. I know the way, so you can return to your other duties.”

“I was expecting more luggage, miss” stated the butler-guard or maid of body, or whatever she was. “Madam was quite clear that you had to bring back all your possessions here.”

“Yes, well, I took with me what was necessary, Miss Smith will help me bring the few items left when she’ll have the time. And don’t bother trying to chastise me, she and I agreed on that, so it’s a matter between, me, Miss Smith and Mother. Now, if you’ll excuse us!”

Without another word, Kat pushed him forward. He stumbled a little but managed to get his balance back as she made him turn around the muscular blond, who didn’t even glance again at him. Somehow, it made her more intimidating, no less. And when they had gone up the short set of stairs to enter the manor fully, he couldn’t suppress a gasp. The insides looked almost too wealthy for him to countenance, with framed paintings of all the MacGregor’s generations, and a red woolen carpet which seemed far too well groomed to be called just that, and furniture’s in dark wood, with exquisite curves and golden edges and…

“Stop gawking, it’s not so impressive” mumbled Kat, sounding and feeling a little embarrassed. “It’s just here to impress the guests, really...”

“I am plenty sure it is extremely impressive for your boyfriend” said a vibrant voice.

Looking beyond the costly furniture, Jordan gazed upon a tall and lithe woman. She was around his Mom’s age, but looked in better shape, and her fiery red mane was similar to her daughter, albeit longer and kept well-groomed, falling way past her shoulders and covering rather modest breasts. He winced when he felt Kat pinching him, unhappy with the way he described her mother, but he really couldn’t help it. Marilyn MacGregor was impressive, still young enough to look barely a handful of years older than Kandalynn.

“It is, Ma’am” squeaked Jordan, who was very intimidated by the older MAJOR.

“Well, at least you seems cognizant enough, as expected of Jezabel’s kid… Even if...” she didn’t finish her sentence, instead sighing and shaking her head a little.

“Mom!” yelled Kat, and Mouse felt her sudden anger threatening to overcome his mind. “Can’t you wait at least an hour to start insulting my boyfriend, to my face!”

“I’m not insulting him, child. I’m stating a fact. And you should truly care more about the state of minors; that way you would realize that Jordan Smith is an oddity among his kind, and that, while I am… disappointed by your tastes, I know he won’t tarnish the MacGregor’s name. Too much!”

Marilyn MacGregor’s voice had taken quite an homely-like texture as she spoke, as if she was disclaiming her feelings not only to her daughter and himself, the poor little Minor trapped in the belly of the beast, but also those haughty ancestors who looked down on him. He felt particularly tiny here, and huddled against Kendalynn’s muscular right leg to feel safe. Her hand grazed the top of his curly hair as she send a wave of appeasing feelings in his mind, allowing him to cope better with the situation, bringing a dreamy smile on his face.

“There has been Minors in our family before!” stated Kat, frowning. “None of them tarnished the legacy of our family! Why would Jordan start it?”

“Don’t be disingenuous!” said Marilyn, her voice biting even if she remained low and calm. “You know perfectly well that those were mistresses and side-lovers, not official relationships. No children born from those ever bore the name MacGregor. Yours will be a first.”

“It… it’s a little too early to talk about kids, mother!” yelped Kat, her embarrassment painfully visible as her pale skin turned almost as red as her fiery hair. “Jordan’s still far too young to become a father, and so am I!”

“Nonsense” huffed Kat’s mother, her voice perhaps a little sterner now. “You have proclaimed, quite proudly, that you and Jordan were more than a passing fling, that you truly loved each other and that you wouldn’t just play with his heart for a time before dumping him. I expect you to hold true to those words, for I would hate bringing this poor young boy crying and hurtful to his mother. It would be a loathsome thing to do, even in the name of my love for you!”

“Jesus mother! Why must you make anything and everything so grandstanding? I love Jordan, he loves me and I assure you that in due time, we will produce heirs you seem so anxious to see! And I would never hurt my, Jordan!”

At least not if you don’t agree with it first, she added mischievously, only for him to hear, as she sent into his mind images of her powerful and perfect feet planting themselves on his face, pressing down and making him feel powerless and very aroused.

“We shall see if you truly mean it, Kendalynn, I suppose. In any case, go bring your stuff in your room. I took the liberty to arrange its accommodations, and I expect to see both of you sharing a meal with me in ten minutes flat. You know how I feel about tardiness.”

Without another word, Marilyn MacGregor turned away and walked toward another door, to the right of the main entrance hall where they stood. Meanwhile, just as silently, Kat briskly moved toward the large staircase, large enough for at least four MAJORS to cross each other without feeling to constricted, leading to the upper floor of the manor-like house. It was made of polished dark wood, contrasting with the creamy tone of the walls, also covered in wood. Surprisingly enough, the stairs were far smaller than what he had expected and he had almost no difficulty going up by himself.

“The house’s very old” stated Kat, as if reading his mind – and perhaps she had. “It was one of the first built here, long before the Dark Age, when MAJORS and Minors were closer in size. But don’t expect the rooms to be so accommodating. They were always massive enough for us not have to remodel them once our kind grew so much! Only those ballooning Cyclo’s would be too big to fit here – no that I would bring one home, note.”

“But you did bring a Minor” he mumbled, quite certain that she would have said that she would never do so, mere months ago.

“It’s not the same!” she huffed, before opening a large door and walking into a room which left Jordan quite stunned and gawking at everything. “And we really don’t have time for this!”

Mouse knew she was right, but he couldn’t help it. It was as if he had become a kid once more, treading in an adult’s room. It was incredibly neat and yet with all the clothes in the open clothing, the large chair near the towering desk he couldn’t even see the top of… It was incredibly strange. Near to him, Kendalynn dropped her few belongings she had brought from his Mom’s home, and looked at herself in a mirror which made even her looks small, which was breathtaking for the teenager, who got to gawk at her whole body easily that way.

“You’ll get used to it” she said absent-mindedly, working on her hair, which was a bit ruffled by the winter’s wind of Boston, but still looked beautiful. “And when we’ll be at lunch with my Mother, try and keep quiet, okay. Don’t go telling her what we do together, or anything like that.”

“I would never do that!” he cried out, shocked and embarrassed at this very idea.

“You don’t know my Mother. She’ll try to pry it out of you, and you’d better not spill it, if you don’t want to be kicked out of this home and never see me again. Are we clear?”

Suddenly, the subdued Kendalynn gave way to the imposing Kat. Her face lost the kind of incertitude which had often plagued her during those months when she didn’t know what her future would be. But back at her ancestral home and she returned to her full nature as a tyrant. Which he liked quite a lot, truth been told. It aroused him when she took complete control, after all, and while he was a little wary that she would act a little less caring about his own pleasure when she took hers, he was confident he wouldn’t be too off put by all of this. He trusted her.

“Bah! You’re too sugary, Mouse!” she grumbled, blushing abundantly. “Let’s go eat!”

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If he had thought he had seen the most frightening pieces of the house, Jordan had been sorely misguided. The dining room was a large rectangular room, which had a large canopy as a south wall, which allowed the guests to see the garden, which was slowly starting to be covered in snow, as the menacing cloud finally released their bounty of the white, silent and suffocating frozen water. Jordan never liked snow. It was cold, it made everything far more tiring and turned the winter months in a humid mess where he often ended with a cold and a running nose.

The other walls were covered in decorations, be it ancient portraits of the MacGregor, or vast landscape of –he suspected- the ancestral fief back in Scotland, from which came the first of this ancient family of Boston. Golden lamps, older perhaps than the United States themselves seemed as pristine as when they had been freshly crafted, and alongside those ancient treasures rested more modern equipment, such as a state of the art radio, or LED lamps which almost looked alien to him, so different from the old things he had at home.

Surprisingly, the table they were sitting at wasn’t as massive as what he would have expected. It failed utterly to fill the vastness of the dining room, even if several large armchairs, which, once again, ranged from ancient-looking to the newest of the brand new design, huddled near a massive fireplace and its mantelpiece made out of white marble and carved in an elaborated Hellenistic design. Mouse suddenly wondered if it was how the heroes of ancient stories and legends felt when they went into the houses of nobles and fairies and giants…

“So, Jordan is it?” asked Marilyn, as she cut into a large piece of meat, which seemed to have been freshly roasted – perhaps in the roaring fire warming the large room, wondered the Minor.

“Yes!?” he squeaked, which irritated Kat, who silently chastised him through the Bond, making him all the more nervous in the process, which didn’t helped him.

“How long have you and my daughter been together before I heard of it?” asked the matron, not looking up from her plate as she brought a piece of meat large enough that the young teenager wouldn’t have been able to put in his mouth, no matter how much he could have tried.

“I… not for long!” he managed to say, even if his throat felt drier than the Sahara. “We… I mean, I’ve been attracted by your daughter since a long time ago, but… but we didn’t admit our feelings for each other long before you… you found out.”

He gulped hard when the hard green eyes, a shade darker than Kat’s, finally looked at him. It was hard to be fidgeting on his specially adapted chair, which gave him even more than usual a child-like appearance compared to the MAJORS, or to not glance at Kendalynn, who was using the Bond to try and keep him out of trouble, without revealing too much. He could feel how wary of her mother she was, and it made him all the more self-conscious. He really didn’t want to make a mistake and reignite the feud between the two towering women.

“That’s good to hear. I guess that it does mean that your relationship is recent?”

“Well… yes...” admitted Jordan, who didn’t understood where she was going with it.

“Then, don’t you think that it would be better to put an end to it now, before you two truly get attached for a time, and your future separation will hurt more?”

“Mother, how dare you!” roared Kendalynn, jumping from her chair to glare menacingly at her mother, who seemed utterly unphased by this outburst.

“I only tell the truth, so that both of you may actually have happy and fulfilling life, daughter.”

More than the harshness of the words, or what they displayed of a cunning but cold woman, who clearly hadn’t has mellowed out as his Mom had assumed, Mouse was taken aback by her tone. There was no anger, no disgust, no joy nor contempt. She simply stated what she considered facts, and was clearly not bothering to mince her words. Somehow, it made what he had to do easier. If she wanted to speak like that, so could he – perhaps.

“No” he said, too weakly so he repeated it, looking straight at her. “No. It’s not up to you to decide what our lives will be. Nobody but us can make a choice for ourselves.”

He felt a rush of anguish and warning from Kat, but decided to ignore it. If she so wanted, she could take command of his emotions, and he would be okay with that, but for now, he felt as if he needed to prove himself to her mother. Even if it meant angering her and getting punished because of it. Thankfully, the enormous maid/bodyguard wasn’t with them, because he doubted he would have been able to say even this much if she had been standing here, with her cold blue eyes full of contempt. For now, at least, he could speak the truth.

“Really?” smiled Marilyn, even if her green eyes didn’t display any of the charming quality that her lips had for now. “You would have me believe that the two of you can already be perfectly in love with each other, forever and ever, and that it won’t just be a passing fling?”

“It is not. I’m in love with your daughter, and… and she is in love with me!” managed to say Jordan, until the well of confidence he had found out dried up and he ended feeling more than a little embarrassed and very, very exposed, as two set of green eyes were looking straight at him.

“Well, someone here at least seems to have some guts” stated Kat’s mother, cutting herself another piece of meat, while still looking at the Minor. “Would you agree with his assessment of your relationship, Kendalynn? I would hate for Jordan to entertain delusions when it comes to your feelings toward him…”

“What he said is true!” thundered Kat, sitting back and glaring at her mother. “I love him mother! I was the first surprised for it to be true, but it is! I want to be with him, I want to live with him, and have my Mo… my Jordan with me, forever!”

“And you have thought of everything? Even how he grow old and weak – well, weaker- so much faster than you? Will you be able to hold to your feelings no matter what?”

“Can anyone says that, even when its two MAJORS together?” huffed Kat. “It’s utterly hypocritical of you to ask me something like that when you know perfectly that relationships can go stale after years or decades together. But I can tell that I love Jordan and that I don’t think it’ll ever change, as of today!” she affirmed, which did poorly to assuage some concerns from said Minor.

Of course, he couldn’t know if he would forever be in love with Kat. His own mom had fallen out with his father almost as soon as he was conceived, and he had never seen him -and hardly had any inclination to do that, from what he had heard, he was hardly the kind of man to care about a Minor boy and more the like to pretend they weren’t related. Still, he would have loved for Kendalynn to defend their relationship a little more passionately. It was hardly selling a perfect vision of their future together, which frightened him.

Oh hush, you big baby! she thundered in his head. I know what I’m doing, and I know my mother! And stop wallowing in self-pity for the smallest thing! I want you happy, got it!?

Jordan nodded, even as the effects of the Bond over him started to happen. His worries dissipated, leaving instead a sort of happy contentment. A part of him knew perfectly what was happening, but they were woven so close, Kat and him, that he couldn’t resist it. So he felt his lips turn into a strange smile and didn’t complain. He just did his best to hide it by drinking a glass of water, so as to not arouse suspicion from Kat’s mother.

“What a rousing speech” stated Marilyn, her sardonic amusement quite easy to spot. “You’ll understand that hearing this is hardly able to make me change my mind, that you and Jordan are not meant to be together, surely? I know my daughter should at least be able to realize it, at her age...”

“I’m big enough to know you’re just testing us” growled Kat, her anger roiling around Mouse without rousing him from the state of happiness he had been put under – he was far too unused to the Bonding process and how to manipulate it, too weak of will, to not be so easily under the thrall of the commanding mind of Kendalynn, after all.

He suddenly felt large arms coiling around his torso and he was then lifted from his chair, pressed against the modest but firm breasts of Kat, who hugged him tight, which made him giggle a little, as she looked at her mother, who seemed now genuinely surprised. It was really hard to not burst out in laughter because of the face she was making, but he did his best. He was pretty sure that Kat wouldn’t have liked him to do that, and he was an obedient little Mouse, he had promised her that, after all. He leant against her a little more, easing himself against her strong and powerful upper-body, enjoying its warmth.

“Now, if you excuse us, we’ll go to sleep! And tomorrow morning...”

“Tomorrow morning, we will all go together to the theatre, to see that movie you spoke about for the longest time since last year… what’s its name again… Aquaman III or something like that.”

“Moooooooooom… It’s Doctor Strange IV which will be released tomorrow. Seriously...” sighed Kat, who suddenly sounded a little amused, if embarrassed.

“Whatever, it’s not as if it was great cinema! Now, Alien, back in the days… But I’m digressing. If you want to finish your plate, you can, otherwise you can leave with Jordan and do whatever you usually do at this hour.”

There was an obvious undertone of reprobation, but to Jordan’s fuzzy mind, it sounded more directed at Kat not finishing her plate than whatever she was planning to do with him. The young Minor also thought that it would be a terrible waste of food to leave the table now, but he didn’t feel like bringing it up. He was just too happy to really care about it. Still, he felt himself being put back in his chair, and, with a last caress of his hair, Kendalynn walked toward her own place to finish the meal. He wasn’t sure, but he suspected her hips were swaggering a bit more than before.

“We’ll stay and finish this lunch, thank you very much” she huffed to her mother. “Jordan needs all the strength he can get and I know for sure that the food here will do him wonders!”

“I’m sure it will” chuckled Marilyn, her green piercing eyes falling on the smiling Minor.

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“Kat!” he mewled, as he laid, naked, on the woolly carpet in her room, looking up at her, towering in all her glory over him, still clad in her clothes.

“Hush Mouse” she whispered, her order unable to be denied thanks to the Bond. “We’re finally home, so it’s time for a real celebration. I’ll be rougher than usual, so try not to scream. Too much. Because I do want to hear you scream, from time to time.”

Her carnivorous smile should have sent shudders down Jordan’s spine, but instead a hot and fuzzy feeling started to spread from his groin outward. His breathing quickening and while he did send a quick glance at his medicine, he trusted Kat enough to know nothing dangerous would happen to him today, or any other day, as long as they loved each other. And he doubted that she could ever find someone as well suited as he was to give her pleasure, somehow.

“Well, someone sure seems awfully confident” she purred, her eyes glinting with the power she knew she had over him. “I guess we’ll have to see if you’re right about that, Mouse! After all, sometimes a Kat can’t keep her claws hidden…”