PYGMALION

 

by DocPaul

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Thirteen: Whales Weep Not

 

They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains

the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.

 

D.H. Lawrence

 

Day Thirteen: Sunday, 8:54 am

 

The house was quiet. The door were shut and fastened, the cupboards filled and closed. Michael listened to the silence, the absence of Jim and Amy. The house missed them. Since they married, this house had been flooded with visitors and activity, waiting for the unborn grandchildren to finally decide to join this world.

Maria was upstairs packing the last of her things. They were going home today. It was time. A few days felt like weeks. Margo and Zeke were coming home today too. Margo was kept longer than Friday, and since Zeke would not leave her side, he stayed as well. His loft had been cleaned and repainted with new carpeting, and everything returned as close as they could get it back to its original condition.

 

Margo's situation was harder. Her life had been laid in ruins - burned and gone in a flash of powder. Her art. Her home. That sense of being safe. It was gone. Sacrificed to something none of them could name. The halls were dead, and leaves fallen. The house was silent to a missed voice as they prepared themselves for tomorrow.

 

The Funeral.

 

They had to go home. It was time to try to get back to normal, but there would never truly be a real normal, not like before. How could there be? They were caught in the storm. Violated. Nothing could take that bitter taste away. The taste of fear and loss.

 

“I’m ready.”

 

Michael smiled at her. It was that or cry. She was so small. So tiny. This world was too hard for her of late. Her shoulders were sagging from the tiredness, and even in the heat of August, she was wearing a jacket.

 

“Then let’s go home.”

 

“Sean?”

 

“He went to pick up Zeke and Margo. Zeke wants Margo to stay with him until her loft can be rebuilt or the one next to him renovated. It’ll be her decision. I don’t think he’s ready to let her out of his sight. He may never be ready.”

 

Maria frowned. “He’s just a baby. We’re the adults. He should be able to trust us to keep them both safe.”

 

Michael pulled her the last few steps down the stairs and mated his forehead to hers. “Let it go, Maria. Let it go. It's okay for us not to be the strong ones this once. There are so many things going on, and we have to let others carry the load for a while. We have to concentrate on you and the babies. Your mom, Jim, and even Margo and Zeke will keep.”

 

“I…it’s just...,” Maria paused and looked at him. He was sick. Tired and gray. She kissed him gently. “Okay. If you can let it go and take the time off, so can I.”

 

“Thank you.” Michael pulled her down the remaining step and walked her to the door, carrying the last bag. He needed it to be just him and her for a while. No one else. He gave it maybe a few hours before someone found them and interrupted that peace.

 

“Is Sean coming home with us?”

 

“No. He’s staying here. Guess he likes the idea of having the entire house to himself.”

 

“Glutton.”

 

Michael snickered. Such a perfect word for Sean.

 

~~~

 

The loft was there. Home.

 

Michael purposely parked in the front, not putting the car in the garage so Maria would be prevented from seeing the damage on the south side. That would come soon enough. The new security doors were heavier than the originals. All the remaining loft areas were now under a tight security system. Michael held emergency override codes to it, plus keys to all the remaining units.

 

Home.

 

The loft was dark due to the drawn shades and had a strange smell to it. The heavy metal blinds kept the daylight out. Michael hit a button to let the warming sun in, and quickly shut the door, re-engaging the security grid.

 

“You keep this on at all times, Maria. The cat door has been converted to an electronic lock that matches Mr. B’s collar.” Of course they would need to find the darn cat first. He had been missing since the fire. None of the construction crews had seen him, and Sean and Michael’s searches had turned up no sign of him.

 

Maria went up the stairs slowly. Stopping at the top, she paused, her mouth gaping in wonder. Carcasses of small dead animals were everywhere. Mr. Booboo was especially hard on small defenseless things. Damn, it smelt!

 

“Michael!”

 

“Shit! I see them. Give me a second.” Well, thankfully, it was now a foregone conclusion that Mr. Boo was still alive and still stalking. He had apparently been leaving presents for the past few days. Michael rushed downstairs and grabbed a plastic garbage bag and returned to their bedroom. Searching the entire room, he found and tossed as many birds, mice and other rodents as he could find, pulling the bedding as he went.

 

Maria had gone into the linen closet and found fresh linen, then sprayed the room with air freshener. The two of them worked together to put their bedroom back in order. When finished, they collapsed on the bed in a fit of exhaustion.

 

It was the banging coming from downstairs at the back that alerted them. Michael rolled from the bed with his gun in hand. His other hand came to Maria’s mouth to quiet her. With a quick finger to his mouth, he went down the stairs slowly, following the sound.

 

Cat door. It was the cat door. The banging kept increasing. Mr. Boo’s cat door was specially cut in a wall leading out from the dining room, next to the glass sliding doors exiting into the garden. The back garden wall was high enough to keep out strangers, but Mr. Booboo could easily scale the wall and travel its length.

Michael turned off the alarm and cautiously opened the sliding glass door. He could still smell the fire. Before he could look around, a bundle of black raced over his feet and shot up the stairs.

 

“Honey, I’m home!” Michael sarcastically mumbled under his breath for the cat. Bastard. He had another dead mouse in his mouth too. Maria’s cry of happiness suddenly turned to terror as Mr. Boo dropped the mouse in her lap. Why the hell couldn’t he just leave the heads on?

 

~~~

 

The clump of smoky black fur meowed plaintively. Michael looked down at the pathetically patchy cat. He was losing his hair again and whining up a storm. Stress.

 

“I don’t want to hear it. I looked for you. If you had stuck around, or let one of the construction crew pick you up, I would’ve put your new collar on. But no! That new cat door will only open if you have the collar on, so you better stop losing the damn things.”

 

Mr. B. blinked once expressively. His ears were back, resembling an owl, a large black furry owl with missing patches of fur. The cat turned his large back to Michael and commenced ignoring him.

 

“We’ll see. First time you try to get in after losing your collar, we’ll see if you wish you hadn’t ignored me.”

 

“Detective, I don’t think he’s paying attention,” Maria said from the stairs.

 

Michael glanced up at her and smiled. She looked a little better. Not so pale. Being home was a good thing.

 

“Take me to the fire site.”

 

Michael swore. “No.”

 

“Michael…”

 

“Maria, could you just please just let it rest a little? Tomorrow is going to be hard enough.”

 

Maria nodded and looked out at the garden. “I just need to see it. I…” Maria swallowed hard and bent her head. “It just seems so unreal. A mistake. I can’t…”

 

Michael came up behind her, pulled her back in his arms. Whispering in her hair, “I know. I know.”

 

“Please?”

 

Michael closed his eyes and rested his head on the top of hers, sighing. It wasn’t going to go away. Not now. Not for a long time. It was like a large ugly wound on the south side of their building. Ugly and hateful.

 

“Come on.”

 

Maria took his hand and let him lead her through the garage to the outside. She stood there and stared at the missing half of the original warehouse. The firewall banking the back where the missing lofts had been was blackened and soot covered. There was special cautionary tape around the site. The restoration and wrecking companies were already removing debris, but the remaining walls around the foundation remained. Maria stepped around Michael and walked off the sidewalk and closer to the building.

 

Shattered brick and glass were all around her feet. Brick did that. It heated up, and when it got too hot, it exploded, showering the area.

 

Maria stood in front of where Mrs. Mulhoney’s unit had been and sank her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking. Michael stopped himself from going to her, from taking her away. There was no getting better. Not now. Not for a long time. Grief. It had to have a beginning, a process and finally an end. Maria was just at the beginning, and nothing could change the process. A person had to live through it.

 

They stood there for awhile, until suddenly Margo, Zeke and Sean were standing next to them. Maria turned and looked at the two young people who were in her care, and she hugged them both. All wasn’t lost. They had survived.

 

~~~

 

“What did you find out?”

 

“Nothing, um…” The man hesitated nervously. “Sir.”

 

Pierce paced the offices. They were rarely used due to the fact that the other identity that was his life tended to overwhelm his existence. The original Pierce, the shape he had taken so long ago, was of a man who had no morals, no real emotions except cruelty. That form was easy to sustain. Almost comfortable. The other form he had taken over in the more recent years was a different story. The native emotions, memories... everything was starting to bother his concentration, his resolve. He was feeling a slight twinge of conscience. It wasn’t something he wanted.

 

“Find Chameleon. Find him, and kill him. But only after you find his employer. I want them all dead.”

 

“Sir, Chameleon has no real identity. Our people could be standing next to him and never know it.” Of all the people in the world, Pierce should have understood the problems that a hidden life presented.

 

“If I wanted excuses, I’d ask for them!” Pierce felt the loss of his normal control. It was his form. It was interfering more and more. At times he found he couldn’t distinguish between what was really himself and the remnants of the human he from whom he had imprinted his form. Quickly morphing from his hidden identity to his Pierce persona he watched his assistant become uncomfortable.

 

“Kivar…he wants a meeting.”

 

Pierce sat down in his chair. Meeting. Kivar wanted a meeting. Interesting.

 

“Make the meet, a phone call for now.” Pierce watched the man scurry from the room. “Mr. Richards, if any of the Royals or those connected with their destiny die, I will be very…very upset.”

 

The man nodded and left.

 

Pierce sat in the dark elegant room and smiled to himself. It was coming together. Finally. His fingers touching in thought, his face froze into its usual blank slate. There was still much left to chance. The threat from an outside enemy using a paid assassin was a problem. It was aimed too close to the Royals, too close to the Commander and his mate. Pierce sat back, thoughtfully puzzling out what employer originally brought Chameleon to Roswell. At the time it seemed a simple stroke of genius for the project he needed done, but now it was an annoyance.

 

Chameleon would not stop until his contract was finished. For Pierce that was a bonus, and the longer it was drawn out, the more he enjoyed it. But the other contract that bothered him. The nature of that contract and who it was targeting was a concern. Factions were getting  nervous. No one knew who or where Chameleon was or when he would strike.

 

Maria DeLuca.

 

Something needed to be done with her soon - before it was too late. The solution was there, somewhere. They had found it once, but where? Where? Time was running out in more ways than one. All this time, all his work, it couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t happen.

 

~~~

 

“Maria?”

 

Michael stopped reading to look at her. She was standing in the dining room staring out at the garden. She hadn’t moved much since they had seen Zeke and Margo, and the enormity of the damage. Her silence was disturbing.

 

The latest book he picked up on parenting wasn’t holding his attention. Time and time again his eyes kept going back to her still form. Mr. B was languishing on his legs, cleaning behind his ears. The pathetic cat looked nappy. There were small clumps of hair everywhere. Maria saw them and dissolved into tears.

 

While she was upstairs changing, Michael had rushed around the house trying to remove as many of the clumps of black fur as possible. Seeing them was an obvious reminder to Maria just how unhappy her cat was, how disturbed their lives were.

 

Normalcy. They were in desperate need of it. As he sat up to start to go to her, his lower leg suddenly cramped. Bending forward, he grasped it as the pain actually brought tears to his eyes.

 

“Michael?” When Maria rushed to his side, he realized he must have made a sound. “What is it?”

 

“It’s okay. Just a cramp.”

 

Maria forced him to lie back on the sofa, shooing the cat away. Mr. B walked off with great dignity. Looking back at Michael, he meowed his malcontent at having Michael’s minor illness pushing his obvious distress to an insignificant level.

 

“You never get cramps in your legs.” Maria massaged the tensed muscle. “Flex your foot. Point your toes to the ceiling and push your heel down and extend the toes towards your head.”

 

Michael swore as it stretched the muscle causing more pain. “Dammit, Maria! That really hurts.”

 

“Stop being a baby and keep it stretched. Now relax. Stretch it again.” After a moment the knot in his lower leg released and he could breathe again. It was still slightly sore, but much better.

 

“Better?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Maria sat beside him on the sofa, her hand absentmindedly feathering through his hair as she searched his face.

 

“You never get cramps.”

 

“Maria, it’s over. Could we just…”

 

“No. No, we can’t. I want the truth.” Maria kept her eyes in contact with his. He wouldn’t lie. Not to her. “This has happened before, hasn’t it? Recently?”

 

“Yes. It doesn’t mean anything.”

 

“Yes, it does. It’s because of me, me and the babies. We’re taking too much from you. There  is so little left in your body to feed yourself, and your muscles are revolting.” Maria frowned. “We need to have your blood chemistry checked. It's probably just as screwy as mine.”

 

“Like they’d know what’s normal for me.”

 

Maria leaned down, her mouth touching his softly. “You’re starving to death. What good is it to save me and the babies if we don’t have you?”

 

Michael ran his hand under her hair and held the back of her neck. “I’ll talk to Parker. She can check my previous blood chemistry against my current, see if I need more potassium or iron.”

 

Maria moved along his body and laid her head on his chest. Together they rested on the sofa. It had been a long day already. A long life. Since last Wednesday it was if they had lived a lifetime. In less than two weeks whatever felt normal in their lives had been ripped apart.

 

“I want to see my mom.”

 

Michael rubbed her stomach, feeling the babies connecting to him like a tingling that started in his arm and rushed up his hand. He couldn’t explain it, but he could feel them, know them.

 

“I’ll take you. Just hold onto me. Hold on.” Michael kissed the side of her head, and his hand stroked the sides of her cast on her hand. Her little hand. One free of plaster, the other encased. She wielded it like it wasn’t there, that from one moment to the next he forgot about her injury from that night. But holding her, all he could see was her broken hand lying on his stomach.

 

~~~

 

“You want to take my room?”

 

“No.”

 

What was there to say? She had nothing of her carefully constructed life left. It had all burned up in a fire. For the first time in a long time, her hands were quiet. There was no art, no inspiration, and the lack of that inner voice was disturbing.

 

“Let me fix you something to eat.”

 

“Stop it!” Margo put her hands to her ears. It hurt. Her voice was louder than she remembered ever hearing it. “Just stop it. I…”

 

“Margo.” Zeke went quiet. Stay. Please. The words he couldn’t say. “It’ll be quiet here. Safe. I swear. I’m just a little wired right now. Excited. Apprehensive. Lots of things. Just take my damn room! It’s quiet. Dark. You can think in there.”

 

She gave up. Going into his bedroom, she closed the door shutting him out.

 

Zeke stood staring at the closed door for a few moments, then went into the second bedroom downstairs to clear away the mess. It wasn’t a bedroom, but a sort of office. He mapped out his computer programs there, putting on hard copy what was in his mind. Cleaning helped. It gave him something to do.

 

Margo had nothing. It was all gone.

 

Leaving the loft, he turned on the alarm and left her sleeping or whatever it was that made her so quiet.

 

~~~

 

Michael was clearing away the mess from the kitchen. Maria needed to go see her mother, so they quickly had a meal, not-so-quick sex, and now she was upstairs showering. He was faster than she was. It was too distracting to stay in the shower for a long time with her, so he showered in record time and was now cleaning up the kitchen and passing scraps to the still-disgruntled cat.

 

“I don’t have time for your usual whining. She loves you a lot, but you’ve got to get over this insane jealousy you have when she pays attention to me. The twins will be here soon. So many others needing and wanting her attention.” Michael tossed more beef on the floor. “She cried over your clumps of hair; what else do you want?” he asked on his way to answer the door.

 

“Zeke? Is something wrong?”

 

“No. Yes…” The room was too small all of a sudden as he struggled for a way to spit it out. “I need a credit card.”

 

Michael reached into his wallet and pulled a card. Handing it over, he watched as the younger man put it into his pocket. “You need anything else?”

 

“It’s not for me. It’s just that it’s Sunday, and I don’t have enough cash on hand.”

 

“It’s okay. I trust you. Just don’t forget the receipts, okay?”

 

Zeke nodded, and started to leave. “She doesn’t have anything. Her art is gone. I think she’ll feel more normal again if she had a paintbrush or something.”

 

“Get her whatever she needs. Clothes. Paints. Canvasses.”

 

“I’ll pay you back when the bank opens on Monday.”

 

“Zeke, just go take care of it, okay? Forget the money. We’ll settle it later.” Michael watched the young man taking off. “Zeke! Get her one of those stuffed animal things. Women like them. And Zeke?” Michael cleared his throat. “The money? It could’ve been for you too, and that would’ve been okay.”

 

Zeke smiled and waved.

 

“Take a cab home!” Michael shut the door and turned to see Maria watching him from the stairs. “Um, that was Zeke.”

 

She just smiled.

 

“He’s growing up very nicely.” Michael said.

 

Maria had to agree. They both were.

 

~~~

 

When they got to the hospital, Amy was crying. Jim was sitting on the side of her bed with his arm in a sling.

 

“Mom?” Maria closed her eyes for a moment. The sound of rushing was in her ears. The room seemed dark, and Michael’s arms came around her quickly before she hit the ground. Picking her up, he sat her in a chair and pushed her head down between her knees.

 

“Maria! Jim, get her some water!” Amy struggled to sit up in bed with that blasted cast pulling at her leg.

 

Amy met Michael’s concerned eyes. Maria was breathing hard for a moment. Feeling a little better she took the glass of water Jim offered her. Sipping it, she looked at her mom.

 

“Are you okay? What happened?”

 

“I can feel my legs! I moved my legs today!”

 

Maria closed her eyes and breathed deeply. It was too much. She was forgetting to look for good things to happen. All she could see was the bad. Going to her mom, she hugged her tight.

 

Amy held her as her thin body seemed to shake apart. Glancing at Michael, she saw his pale tired face. He was breaking. It had been going on too long, and they weren’t even close to finishing.

 

Jim put his hand on Maria’s back in comfort. Amy nodded towards Michael and Jim acknowledged the unspoken request.

 

“Come on, Michael. Let’s go find something for Maria and Amy to eat.”

 

Michael, too tired to resist, let Jim lead him away, leaving Maria in her mother’s care. They weren’t gone that long, but Jim was stopped by his nurse looking for him, so he sent Michael on.

 

When Michael entered the room, he found Maria stretched out on her mother’s bed, sleeping against her. Amy was soothing her daughter’s brow and holding her safely as she slept. Michael hesitated in the door.

 

“Don’t just stand there. Come in and shut the door.”

 

“She’s sleeping again.”

 

“She’s tired. Even I can feel it, so I know that you feel it even more.”

 

Michael put down the food on a table and sank into a large comfortable chair next to the bed, rubbing his face hard, trying to relieve the weariness that was so deeply entrenched he couldn’t even reach it.

 

“I can’t even tell you what it feels like. It’s so deep inside, like every cell in my body is weak and dying. It’s worse for her. I could sleep a thousand years and still need more. Some days I can’t imagine even lifting my arm to help myself.”

 

“How do you go on?”

 

Michael looked down at Maria’s tired sleeping face, the concentration crossing her face in an effort to find rest. “I go on because I can’t afford to stop.” Michael turned eyes so dark with fear and something more. They were bright and full of despair. “I don’t know how to go on without her. If I fail, there is no going on. I can’t.”

 

Amy reached out for hand to him. He took it. Her hand squeezed his hand hard. “You will do what you must when the time is near. Just follow your heart, and regardless of the outcome, it will be enough. It will have to be.”

 

“The funeral is tomorrow. I don’t know how she’ll make it through. We…we were struggling, but there was hope. Now?” Michael shook his head and laid it back wearily. “She’s lost  all of her fight. Her heart is so badly broken between you and Jim, and losing our Mulhoney. She’s so tiny, so small. How much does one body need to pay? You shouldn’t have to pay for love with so much pain.”

 

“Michael, it’s close. The babies can survive.”

 

Michael made a sound of distress, covering his eyes with his arm. “No. We thought so, and maybe there is a slim chance. But we were told that Maria’s importance and connection with them is deeper than a normal one. They need her much longer than in a normal pregnancy. They’re joined to her in a way that even I can’t understand.” Michael looked at Amy. “I just realized today that it’s more than that. I’m connected to Maria in a way that’s beyond normal…even for whatever I am. I feel her in every cell of my body, and with her, I feel the twins. We’re all connected. Her connection has bled over into me. They need us both. It has to be the blood.”

 

“Michael.” Amy looked down at her sleeping child, and back at him. They were both working so hard just to survive, and every slap was taking more than they could afford to give. “Close your eyes, honey. Just for a moment. Rest. I’ll watch her.”

 

Michael made a sound in his throat, almost like a sob. “I…I can’t. I’m afraid to sleep. What if I sleep and wake to find her gone?”

 

“Michael. Sleep. She’s not going anywhere. Not on my watch. Sleep, son. It’ll be okay for a little longer.”

 

Amy watched as he succumbed to the tiredness pulling at him. They were both so exhausted that they didn’t even move, and there were finally no dreams.

 

Jim watched the group of them. Coming to the bed, he sat on the edge on the other side. Reaching across, he put his hand with Amy’s on Maria’s golden strands. They couldn’t lose. They couldn’t.

 

~~~

 

The area was bright, even at night. Time wasn’t the same. He stood on the balcony of the Palace, carved in a rock of brilliant vermilion. Red. Everything was red. The sky and the light were from two suns, and three moons.

 

Antar.

 

The Holy City stood behind tall walls and gleamed in the light of the two suns, as day slowly bled into a night that knew no darkness as the three moons watched the evening skies.

 

“Your Highness, My Lord has returned from the battlefront.”

 

“Bring my brother to me.”

 

“Yes, Sire.” The servant quickly went to his bidding.

 

He could feel him. The very ground almost shook from his anger and the barely held rage.

 

“I didn’t call you. Why have you left your post? Is the war over?”

 

“Zan, many things I have come to expect from you, but this even I didn’t foresee.”

 

The King turned to look at his second in command. The Commander. His brother and heir, should he die without charge. He studied him. Taller than most, he was his father’s breed. Strange that he should be less formidable, being that he was King. His brother had that quality in more ways than one.

 

Yoke his strength. Keep him near. The rebels wanting to depose him and place his brother on the throne were amassing in numbers. Even his onetime best friend, Larek was among the supporters. Rath was a strange one among them. Stranger than most. His one ambition was the fight, the campaign. He hated all matters of the state and politics. It was no wonder he opposed being used as a political pawn.

 

“It is done. The announcement was made.”

 

“Make all the announcements you want! I will not marry her!”

 

“I command it!”

 

Rath got into his brother’s face. “Order it then! I will not comply. In all things, this is the one where you have gone too far!” Rath pushed his brother away forcible and paced in rage. “She is my sister! Our sister! My twin! I will not marry her.”

 

“You are a halfling! Your twin bond is only through the father’s side, but your mothers are not the same. The twin bond is strongest through the mother. There are no rules governing marriage of family as long as it is not through the maternal side.”

 

Rath stopped his pacing and looked at his brother. “Do not think I am unaware of what makes you this way! She is allied to Kivar. All these years they have been lovers, and they would have married if you hadn’t forbidden it. Now you use me as a pawn in your war with Kivar and Vilandra? Why? Is my loyalty under question? Or is it the uprising?”

 

“You’ve never questioned me before.”

 

Rath got in his face again. “That is because you used to make sense! It is my folly. I cared not about this brush of politics. Only my army. Only my command and soldiers. You involve me in a plan nothing short of perverse, even for us! Do you think it will quiet those who criticize your rule?”

 

Zan grabbed his brother’s arm and held it tight. “We are the Ones. As foretold. The Royals. We must in all things be united. My Queen, Ava, you and my sister at my side. She is my twin too, from the mother, and yours caught in time and along the father’s connection. She has been ours all our lives! You think we should give her to one who would destroy our very world, enslave our people?”

 

“He is her great love.”

 

“Love! That is a human concept! It means nothing here. There is no love. There is duty and power. Alliance. Your marriage to Vilandra will be an alliance to fortify our family, The Royal Four into the One. There is not room for her ‘love’, or her ambitions. She will do as I command, or I will see that she dies.”

 

“And you will kill us all! Your pride. Your quest for power! Is not being the holder of the Granilith enough control for you? Must you control the very universe?”

 

Zan paced the floor. “We must control the Granilith. All these generations waiting for the prophecy to come true. Four that Rule. Four that hold the key. The Royal Four. That is who we are! You. Me. Vilandra. And Ava. We are the prophesized ones.”

 

Rath shook his head. Insanity. “Wanting it so, believing it so, does not make it so! If we are the Four, then why can we not control the power of the Granilith to our will? None of our genetics match that which is part of the powering mechanism.”

 

“Yours is close. There are some similarities.”

 

Rath angrily tossed a vase across the balcony with his mind. It shattered into dust. “This quest... Your need to control everything and everyone will be our death! Mark my word. Make her my betrothed. I don’t care! I will never marry her! Never. There is no bond that was ever forged that will make me want to be joined to her in any way outside of the twin bond.” Rath headed for the door and back to his life, his battlefield and then turned back to look at his brother one last time before leaving, “I’ve at times admired and respected you and your vision. But taken as a whole? You hold yourself too highly, your Highness, more than you should!”

 

The King watched as his brother stomped away in anger. He was the key. He would not yield or back down. They would do as he willed. He was the King.

 

“He is right you know.”

 

“Mind your place, Sa’rel. I ask not for your advice.”

 

“Not that you would take it as given.”

 

Zan walked passed his oldest companion, his protector and his shapeshifter.

 

“What would you have me do?”

 

A sigh of exasperation. “There is nothing I could suggest that wouldn’t fall on deaf ears. I told you not to marry the Princess Ava, that a marriage of alliance would not be satisfying.”

 

“She is good enough to use in bed. If she gives me the heir I need, then her purpose is served.”

 

“There is no heart in your body, is there?”

 

“You know my heart.”

 

Sa’rel looked over the red landscape. “No. Once I fooled myself into thinking I knew you better than you knew yourself, that there was only so much you would risk for a dream of absolute power. I was wrong.”

 

“Mind your place, Shapeshifter. We are all born to a destiny.”

 

“And yours is to be the leader, the ruler, and one of the Royal Four? Does that make you omnipotent, Zan? Does it make you right?”

 

Zan looked at the one person he trusted without question. “What are you saying? Will you turn from me like the rest? You have to know what I am trying to do. If we can make the prophecy true, prove it, it will end this Holy War.”

 

“Nothing will end it. The Granilith’s power will always be a source of lust. Just the smallest amount that can be harnessed is beyond our ability to measure, but to unleash the full extent…is madness. It will destroy our entire solar system.”

 

“That test was a mistake. I admit.”

 

Sa’rel laughed in bitterness. That was what it was called? They had tried to harness the Granilith and blew a neighboring solar system into obscurity. A Red Giant went supernova. The twinkling and extinction of its lights would be seen far across the galaxy as a catastrophic event. The five planets in the Formation rose up in anger and fear, even those on the home planet of Antar. The mass destruction and genocide was too much to ignore. If Zan could easily order the death of untold billions on distant worlds, he could do it closer to home. It was only a matter of time before a powerful King unleashed the power of the Granilith to become a powerful dictator.

 

“Do you plan to depose me too?” Zan asked quietly.

 

“No, my liege. My King. I will follow your plans to the fruition of insanity. It is after all, my place.”

 

“Sa’rel…”

 

Zan turned, but his protector was gone.

 

It had to work. The genetics. They were strange. Unique. Human. But one constant was also present. Antar and Celzian DNA. That was the Commander’s DNA was in the mix. Different, changed. Altered. His hand alone should have activated the Granilith, but it did not. The other three DNA’s were just as strange, especially the one that was almost completely human with a slight alteration. It was the unique presence of Rath’s DNA that fueled the rebel factions supporting him as the true King. The Granilith seemed to know him, follow him, and hum to his presence. But he lacked an alteration that would make it all possible.

 

Zan closed his eyes and concentrated on understanding what made the Granilith. Four with one in the center. Like a diamond with three sides, a fourth at the base sharing the same base with three to the other side. Two golden triangles joined by a common base. The pattern. It repeated. What did it mean? From the two triangles swirled two interlocking spirals.

 

The manuscript found in the Granilith all those eons ago foretold of a hybrid mix, but if the events played as written, then the Granilith would be lost to them for all time. That couldn’t be allowed to happen. There had to be away to break the cycle of time. But where? Where to break the cycle?

 

~~~

 

Max sat up in the dark, breathing hard. Dreams. Just dreams.

 

Mistakes. Too many risks. Too much arrogance. A mistake...

 

“Max?” Jonathan’s hand moved up his back in comfort. “What is it?”

 

“Nothing. Just a dream.” Max got out of bed and went into the bathroom. Standing at the sink, he drank some water and stood staring at his reflection in the gloom of the bathroom, lit only by a wall light. Splashing water on his face, he rubbed it hard with a towel. That wasn’t his face. His. But not his. It was fading. The dream. He had been dreaming this dream for a while, but lately he had come to him more frequently.

 

 Zan. He was Zan.

 

“Max? Is it the dream again?”

 

That was startling. He had never mentioned the dream to Jonathan.

 

“How did you know?”

 

“That you were dreaming?” Jonathan didn’t know what to say. The talking in his sleep. The thrashing. A flash he picked up from Max. Something he didn’t want to explain. It made no sense. It was just part of Max, who he was.

 

“Yes. How did you know about the dreams?”

 

“They wake you. So they wake me.” Jonathan came up behind Max and rested his head on his shoulder, bending to talk into his skin. “You talk in your sleep. I can’t understand it most of the time, but I know that this dream disturbs you.”

 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

 

Jonathan just shook his head and pulled Max from the bathroom back into the bedroom. It was late, almost midnight, and tomorrow was going to be a long hard day. For all of them.

 

“What does it matter, Max?” Jonathan stretched out beneath the covers. He was going to have to convince Max to get a bigger bed if they weren’t going to move in together. The Queen was okay, but he liked more space and a long length. California King was the way to go.

 

Max settled down into his side of the bed, thinking of turning his back and just trying to get back to sleep, and he knew that Jonathan half expected him to do this. Images from his dream were haunting him. Was that who he was? What he was? Could he have been that vain and arrogant? Could he be so again? If he turned away from his lover, someone he was supposed to care for, then yeah, he hadn’t learned anyth