Slavers of Antar

By DocPaul

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Chapter Seven: Vibration

“Nothing Rests; Everything Moves; Everything Vibrates.”

"Oh god, Michael..."

Moaning, he molded her sweaty body to his as she leaned over him. She licked her lips, and Michael followed the movement with a groan, his mouth moving to replace her tongue with his, into the warmth of her mouth.

They needed to talk. To really talk. It started that way, but three days without her, next to her, but so far away. They tried. Michael noted the conversation had jumped around in a non-sequential fashion, until it seemed to be nearing a point. The point where he got all her clothes off along with his, and they were in their bed rutting out of control. He forced himself to speak. It hurt to speak. "We shouldn't do this..." The words were like dry leaves on a gust of wind. Water. Hell, he couldn’t talk any longer. All his vital fluid was in his wife. "You need rest and ..."

"I'm not going to file sexual harassment charges...," Maria whispered, groaning against his moist skin, “unless you stop. Now that would be cruel behavior.” She moved the last final inches between them to initiate touch, pressing her lips to Michael's neck, mauling the heat she found there.

Michael closed his eyes as sensual lips focused on the hard, aching knot in his throat. Soft hair brushed against the underside of his chin and jaw; he sucked in his breath, fighting to keep from grabbing Maria with the bruising strength of his desire. She wasn’t helping his control problem. Actually, she was blowing them both straight to hell. Maria always went right for the throat. It seemed that in seduction, most people would have started somewhere near the ear, or the lips. More inrushing memories of their first time together in this bed after they wed swept over Michael with terrible vividness, lucid tactile memories of her body, sprawled across the bed like living sculpture, warm flesh working greedily against his own.

"Wait, Maria, god, wait..." Michael said, with faint desperation.

Pulling back, Maria favored him with a look. A confused, almost startled one. Michael never said wait, or…

"Stop? Stop?" She asked mildly. Fear. He was making her worry.

"God, no."

Maria's mouth twitched at the fervor of Michael's rebuttal. She studied his handsome face, as she reached up to brush away his long sweaty hair, then merely touched the promontory of his cheek with a tracing finger.

"Nerves? Marital guilt?" Maria leaned into him, moving their joined bodies together harder. He moaned. “You don’t have to feel guilty, you know. We are married. It’s what married people do.”

Michael opened one eye, and raised his brow. “Really? You’ve met my parents, Maria.”

“Okay what most married people who are not your parents do.”

“We need to talk. There are things I need to tell you.” Michael moved his hands to her hips. She was moving slowly and deliciously over him. His heated flesh was still aroused, still embedded in her, and more than a little interested in not discussing this topic at this time.

Michael looked immediately to one side, his face closing up. Guilt. He needed to tell her, but warring with his own body was taking more than he had. Maria saw the look and shook her head. "You jump when I poke you there," she observed, not ungentle in her assessment, but with a kind of clinical detachment. She was pushing him in ways she couldn’t understand, but it would take a very unobservant woman not to notice that. He had places that were sore.

"So leave it alone." Michael swallowed, cleared his throat. Looking at his wife, his eyes gentled and softened. "I don't have anything without you," he said quietly. "I need to work this out myself."

Closing her eyes, she nodded. Many times in her life, she found the same need. Part of her past, her life, touched him, but there were other parts that were all about her. He belonged in her life now, but some places had to be worked out alone. She could respect that. Only a fool thought that together meant in all ways, that it would or could ever be healthy for two individuals to give away every aspect of themselves, to live completely and exclusively in each other.

Michael stared into Maria's open and honest face. Darkened green eyes held and owned him. She made warmth. Deep inside of him, she was everything. Desire punched Michael in the gut again with brutal suddenness.

"I want you," he heard himself say. “I need you.”

Incredulous at his admission, he waited to regret it, but felt only the flaring burn of lust rise higher. Less than a handful of other women had ever stirred his desire. Real desire, not raging hormonal lust. Desire that lived in the bones. Only Maria. No other woman had aroused this kind of senseless, lunatic passion. It was almost pure rut; the need to drive hard as he could, as deep as he could, into a body that was capable of offering itself in complete welcome.

“Need?” Maria asked softly.

Michael nodded. He could fight, but some things were becoming too hard to ignore.

"Um, I need and love you too." Maria pulled Michael up into a sitting position, her hand slid down to grip his arms hard. She gave a small, breathless laugh that carried happiness.

Michael paused, forcing her to look at him. Happiness. Love. Words that once meant nothing to him. Now they were his world. “You make me happy.”

Maria’s entire face lit up. It didn’t take much in the way of romance to make her feel secure and satisfied. This much he could give her. The sound and sight of Maria laughing melted something in Michael. He could feel it going, a piece of himself softening like butter in boiling water. When he was another man, he didn't laugh enough; no great investigative work was needed to know that. He laughed in derision, or at a joke, but laughing out of sheer joy was almost unheard of. He couldn't begrudge Maria this small happiness, this seductive victory. She deserved it. She taught him how to laugh, to actually sit still in a quiet room, and have a sense of calm.

Michael drew her forward and kissed her and let the force of his embrace communicate a command to pliancy. When Maria's body relaxed into his with obedient, sudden submission, he was nearly driven off balance by the silken weight of that pleasure. God, he loved her! She knew when to push and when to hold back. She let him be vulnerable when he needed to be, and dominant at other times.

Her mouth played against his with tantalizing skill, her tongue skipping inside Michael's own mouth with the fluidity of fire. He could already feel the bruising beginning on both their lips; for a time, all sensation in his body seemed gathered in his mouth. He was a feeding animal and barely felt it when Maria pulled off the sheet and tossed it somewhere aside; he was concentrating on the ravishment, the burn and brush of face, tongue, and lips. Where the hell did his wife learn to kiss like this? It was not a newly learned talent. Michael recalled past pleasures more sharply with every passing second. The movement of tongue and the obsessive, repetitive pressure of her teeth on his lips nearly made him howl with furious approval. The likelihood of that mouth rediscovering and mapping his entire body sent a frantic burst of need through bone and sinew.

As if on cue, Maria drew away from his mouth with a lingering stroke of her tongue and began roughly nipping at his neck.

“Did you mark me?” Michael asked.

“Did you want me to?”

"Let me...” Michael began in a husky, half-strangled voice.

"No. I want to do it." Maria said with grave stubbornness, and nuzzled him seriously while finally working their bodies together tighter, the sweat and heat increasing. “You’ve been very, very busy lately, and then you take the high road most of the time. It’s my turn to take care of you. Full service.”

"Do I have to pay for these frills, or are they free?"

Maria allowed her thick lashes to lower and smoldered at him, posing with the stylized artifice of seduction, yet somehow, underneath the mask, glowing with a far more innocent happiness. "All included in our one low price," she said in a soft but cheeky voice.

"We didn't agree to any price," Michael said, adopting a pretense of irritation and faint menace.

"Hmm, a thousand credits?" Maria suggested in a mocking gesture of great thought.

"A thousand?" Even in fun, Michael felt rather outraged. She was his wife, dammit! She could offer him a discount. Inflation was everywhere. He scowled with brooding intensity at Maria. "Just how do you intend to earn that?"

"Well, you know—anything goes." Maria gazed at him with mischief, her internal muscles tightening down on him, making him moan hot and deep in his throat. “Though if you must have references...”

Michael slapped her ass lightly. “Get to work! You’re burning my credits.” He had licked his lips before realizing it. Maria’s eyes lit up further as amusement blended there with arousal.

"Any special requests or special commands for me, Sir?"

Michael gave a loud shouting laugh of real humor. “I love it when you ‘Sir’ me!”

Maria made a small wincing face. "That’s because you’re a megalomaniac when you have a touch of power." She moved harder on his body, biting back a response. They had been at this  a long time. She was sore, and this ride was a nice slow easy one, or at least she tried to keep it from moving out of control. Michael’s hands on her hips weren’t helping the pacing.

Michael half-closed his eyes and concentrated on remembering to breathe as Maria began to increase the pace, and her mouth went to his chest, tonguing an aroused nipple in her hot mouth. His hands rested on her hips, and the feel of their lightly-padded warmth, small and neat as a wishbone under his large palms, made him ache. She was so damn tiny in comparison to his larger frame, and heavier bones. As skimming gifted fingertips teased downward along his body, Michael slid his own hands around to cup her ass. Nakedness of her body pressed itself to his as their bodies merged and moved in tandem. She rubbed herself hedonistically against him. He could see Maria’s face flush at the contact, her head dip back as her nipples and skin were chafed against Michael’s rougher skin. He might have been a lamppost, the way she pleasured herself. It was instinctive and self-absorbed, the movement of a cat scratching an itch, and it was the most arousing thing he had ever seen. His wife. She was his. Completely.

He grabbed her ass more roughly and pulled her rhythmically forward, watching her lips part and the burning heat in her face flare higher. A kick-started pulse leapt visibly in her arching throat.

"Oh god, Michael…"  He could feel the warm flooding of her orgasm starting deep inside, moving around his cock, where he filled her body.

Hearing his first name on her lips was hardly strange, lending a comfortable intimacy to their togetherness, and in response Michael set to obliterate any conscious thought either of them might have. He moved his hand, placing it with deliberate aim, targeting the swollen curve of her breast. Maria bucked at the touch. Nakedness. The feel of her, the sight of her, divested of her usual daily preoccupation and distraction, stripped to a silken wealth of muscle and skin, ripe as a cut peach. Her skin had a healthy bloom to it. It was an effort for Michael not to tear into her, and then—in the flashpoint of a moment—it was impossible not to.

He pushed Maria off him onto the bed, under his body, sending her tumbling back on the bed, where she lay, laughing rather breathlessly. “What took you so long?” She asked saucily as Michael grunted. The slow excruciating pace was designed to tease and taunt him into action.

Brat. He married a spoiled brat. Laughing under his breath, he trapped her beneath him as he continued to thrust with increased vigor and purpose. She giggled deep in her throat, which turned to a moan, and finally losing her breath entirely when Michael shoved her further up the bed with the driving weight of his body, a force that pounded with almost a ruthless intent and pressure. Driven, he pushed them both to completion.

Groaning, and tired, Michael rested for a moment, his heated and sweaty body transferring the warmth to her skin. They both were breathing hard. Maria’s hand was moving gently along his back, soothing him to a calmness.

Stunned speechless, Michael allowed himself to be rolled over; if he'd been able to keep his eyes from falling shut he would have seen the look of greedy intent on Maria’s face, but he was sinking into the mattress, deeper every moment. He felt the twist of his wife’s body as she slithered down between his legs, and then heard a muted thud. Opening his eyes to a slit, raising his head a few inches, he saw nothing. "Where the hell are you?"

A hand reached up over the side of the bed, and Michael found himself falling on the floor with her. Michael shout of surprise and Maria’s laughter rang through the room as they tangled around on the floor.

~~~

“He sleeps?”

“Finally.” Maria sipped her tea. Ritualistically reaching for the pot, she carefully performed a silent tea ceremony taught her since birth, pouring her mentor and long time companion a cup. He would never drink it. He could not, but that did not preclude the need for a respectful decorum.

“He knows now.”

Maria shrugged. “Perhaps. It might take some time for his brain to work through the information, but he will figure it out.” Maria looked at O’Jah. “He is highly evolved.”

“A child sees the world with open eyes, taking in the world, unknowingly. It is only age that makes all that was seen find meaning.”

Sipping the tea thoughtfully, Maria sighed in tiredness. She was too tired to sleep. “I’ll need the map room.”

“Antar is a far away, Princess.”

They shared a look. “Was he the same one?”

“Khivar had gone long ago, but his evil seed lived on through time. Evil never dies, Princess. It hides, transforms, and mutates, but the feeling of evil is one that can never hide.”

“So after all this time, we play this game again?”

“Colliding particles in space know no sense of existence without the other to reference it. All things in life need contrast, and in contrast, is vibration.”

“Vibration,” said Maria thoughtfully.

“This is the strong force of all forces, overcoming every subtle thing, and penetrating every solid thing.” O’Jah waited for what was obvious to a child to become the understanding that Maria would need to move on.

“We vibrate.” Maria put her cup down, “Michael and I. We vibrate, as we shifted through time.” Maria sat for a moment thinking. “The Harmonics. Eminents. Empaths. The twin bond.” Maria moved her head to the side. “This Universe is vibrating at a faster pace.”

“The configurations of spiritual energy are responsible for our gross physical forces and matter, thus nothing can resist its alterative force.”

Maria stood up, her face creased in worry. “Two Universes collide!”

“Impacting particles can deflect, destroy, or join together into one larger new entity, or two newer ones.”

Maria walked to the window overlooking the past world of Ancient Karnak. The Temples of the Immaculate and the surrounding Temples . The Halls of Knowledge. A world caught in a bubble of preserved time. One entity walked through it unchanged through all these centuries.

O’Jah.

Maria groaned and put her head in her hands. Guilt. Sheer stupidity. A child sees life, but doesn’t truly understand what they see. Age. Time. Perspective. Vibrating.

“Michael is caught in vibration!” Maria looked at her mentor. “His nature is waking to a threat he feels, but can’t understand.”

“Why here? Why now?” O’Jah could feel Michael stirring. “It is a question for nature, not man. The body is a slave to what nature created. The Balance. Do not resist the Balance, but rather ask, ‘What does the Balance tell me?’ Sometimes the answer is the question.”

Maria bowed her head in respect as O’Jah blended away into his existence.

Michael. Maria rubbed her eyes. She knew that he was distracted and fighting inner demons, but not this. It was so clear. How could she be so blind to what was written in front of her face?

He needed a baby.

A future.

A storm was brewing, and he needed his seed to continue, their bond to move into the next generation; as a way to preserve them. If they were at the top of a large looping reality, was there no tomorrow? Was this to be their last battlefield as ultimate good battled infinite evil?

“I know you!” Maria said to the surrounding walls. “I know you for what you are!”

Two serpent entwine. Cut off the head, and it grows another one.

“Khivar.”

~~~

Maria put the tray of food on the table next to the bed. He was watching her. She could feel his eyes on her from the moment she entered the room. Leaving him to speak first, she sat on the bed next to him.

“You understand?”

“Much.” Maria said softly. “How long?”

Michael opened his eyes to search her face. She wasn’t angry. He expected her to be. “Since the twins were born.”

Maria moved her hand up his chest, enjoying the feel of his naked flesh. How could she still want him like an ache? Insatiable. He was a need that knew no end. Maria frowned. Their marriage ceremony…

She vaguely remembered something about drinking from the other, being a thirst that never could be quenched. They had created a timeless bond.

“Three years is a long time to rage against the machine, Michael. Nature is the Balance. It can only win. Time is something you can stall or steal, but sooner or later…”

“Time runs out.” Michael sighed. “I know that.” His hand delved under her hair to hold the back of her neck. “My needs are raging against my wants. I need a child. I need to mate, procreate. I want time. Time for you and me.”

“What was your goal?”

Michael stared at her mouth. God, it was red and puffy from his kisses. Her hair was wild from his hands. She looked mussed up. He loved her that way. Gulping, pushing the need down, deep, he needed to really talk to her, not let his nature rule his body.

“Thirty-five?”

Maria looked at him incredulously, incapable of comprehending how insane the man she married truly was. “Thirty-five? she squeaked. “That another four years!”

“I could do it!”

“You can’t make it another month!” Maria placed her hands on either side of his head. “What are you afraid of, my Lord? Tell me.”

Michael frowned. He really didn’t know. He wanted time with her. Just with her. The two of them. Alone. They were never alone. “Run away with me.”

Maria sat back and looked at him. He was serious. “Where?”

“Anywhere in the Universe. We can go as far as the Zephyr will take us.” Michael sat up warming on his subject. “We can explore. Learn new recipes. Find new worlds. You and me. Just the two of us.”

“No Shiva?” Michael shook his head. “Max? The others?” Michael paused. Pulling a twin bond was hard, but he shook his head. “What if they need us?”

“What if we needed Alex? He was free to leave. Why not us?”

“Why not?” Maria said lightly. “Okay, wherever you want to go, I’ll go with you. For however long as you need us to be gone.”

Michael smiled, mating his forehead to hers. “Promise?”

“Absolutely.” Maria cleared her throat. “And children?” They couldn’t very well raise children in the limited space of the Zephyr, which was already tight for the two of them.

“They can wait. Wait until we’re ready.”

So that was the problem.

He was ready for children now, physically, but not mentally. Maria searched his face, her fingers gently following the lines of her eyes. Her man. Such a child at times. He didn’t want to share. Since they met, he always had to give way to more pressing concerns. Concerns that kept threatening to take her away from him. Her Destiny. Khivar. The Granilith. The War. Reconstruction. And now—children. He was tired of sharing. His future children were just another threat to his exclusive attention from Maria. Selfish. Who cared? Human nature.

“Okay.” Maria sat back on her heels on the bed next to him. “You decide. We go. I will let you be the Captain of our hearts, soul and destiny. Where you go, so do I. Just us.” She bent to kiss his mouth passionately. Her eyes stared into his honest and sincere. “I will do whatever you need to feel better, to be happy, and healthy. Anything. You are my first and only concern. You. Only you. Always you. First and foremost.”

Michael’s face became solemn, and Maria saw the hint of moisture. He had really been upset. A reassuring calm seemed to move over him, and he stared intensely in her eyes. “Thank you,” he said softly and heartfelt, his thumb moving over the crest of her cheek. “I love you.”

Maria nuzzled into his side, mating her face to his. “I know. I love you too.”

She did. Without end. She loved him. It made it easier. There could be no question about giving him what he needed, because it was what he required to be happy. She loved him happy. It was easy to let him lead, because this was a fight between him and himself. A fight that she could have no part of, or say in as it raged.

It was easy to give in because regardless of what he thought he wanted, there were Truths in the Universe. Unconquerable. Unchanging. Michael was a soldier. A warrior. A protector. He had a solid unshakeable loyalty to those he pledged his life and his love. He might want to walk away, run away from the spiraling destiny that seemed to plague his every step, but that did not matter. He would never desert his brother to fight a war alone. He would never abandon his people, or those who trusted him to protect and save them. Never. Running away was a dream. A hope to be able to grasp control from a universe spinning fast and out of control.

Michael would never, not even for a moment, regret his children. The moment they became real. Alive in his mind and heart, all other thoughts would leave. Of that, Maria was certain. A leopard couldn’t change its spots, and Michael was incapable of not feeling an overwhelming bond to his own children, anymore than Max could deny his sons. Wanting something not to be, didn’t make it so. Nature always found a way.

~~~

“The last batch?” His voice was dark and deep. Moving in his chair, he searched the shadows for his Commander.

“There were a few promising ones. Not the one, though.” He gestured for his Thoth warriors back and from the room. “My Lord, there is a need to go faster.”

“You think I don’t know that!” Gesturing to his body, he stood and paced in front of his throne. “Look at my body! Only twenty cycles, the cohesion is already failing. Too many generational repeats. The cycle is closing.”

“Mine is the same.” The Commander broached a subject that was at best, touchy. “The Others took Celzia and another world. Half of this world is theirs as well.”

“Antar will not fall back into the hands of the Royals!” He looked at his loyal Commander. “Are they suffering the same degradation?”

“Yes. Some have increased longevity, but the process has stripped variety from them as well. They are actively searching, using the old records as we do. Currently, we are ahead of them by mere steps, and they are closing on us.”

Sweeping his hand in a wide gesture, objects from neighboring tables and from the walls rattled and flew to the group in a loud cadence of noise. “Damn them! Why could they not die? I grow tired of this war!”

“Sire, we will win. We take what is vital, and destroy all else in our wake. We leave them nothing to scavenge.”

“And the worlds we take from?”

“Unable to detect us until it is too late.”

He nodded, fingering a ring on his hand of two entwined serpents. “Do not underestimate them. It has happened in the past. I am beyond tolerating it happening again.”

“The slaves we do not need?”

“Strip them of anything vital. Sell their bodies or their bones. I care not. Leave me.”

“My Lord...”

The Commander’s small body melted back into the shadows, a ghost of a malicious smile graced his face. It would be his pleasure. He would see to the enslavement and annihilation of their prisoners personally.

Laughing, he went to the holding compound. So many. All of them worthless. Few had enough common alleles and markers to be of use. The rest were human refuse.

He looked over the masses of faces until his eyes found one. The female. She was the leader he had taken in the last raid. She was close. Close enough to keep and play with. With a wave of his hand, he committed all those around her to death or the slave block. Either way, death was preferable.