"Yes," she smiled politely. "I understand."
He exhaled in relief.
She said, "Anyway, I do have something to show you that might interest you, I think."
"Oh? What’s that?"
"Over there," she nodded toward the adjoining room.
The mansion of this world resembled his in many intangible ways but was far from identical, particularly in architecture. He had spent time exploring the first floor and the basement half-buried in the mountain, but realized he had spent little time on the second floor other than in the room most resembling his office and its adjacent balcony.
Given that this new room sat off that old office, he guessed it to be this world's version of his master bedroom. Perhaps she had found files or a hidden supply cache. He mentally kicked himself for not thinking to investigate there earlier.
Curious, he went in with Nina following and stopped just inside the arch-shaped doorway.
The soft glow of a liquid lantern lit the room and also provided a source of heat, like a small fireplace. In the gentle illumination he saw what he guessed to be a bed frame designed in a strange style with metal bars on the headboard and sagging wood beams along the sides. An air mattresses lay atop of the contraption covered with sleeping bags and blankets, all from one of the Skipper's survival equipment kits.
Her body pressed against his back once again. Her lips whispered in his ear so close he felt puffs of warm breath. "I want you, Trevor. I want to feel you inside of me."
His heart raced and his adrenaline rose but it rose in anger.
"I told you. I made a mistake. Forget it."
"Forget? Like your Nina forgot everything?"
He turned and looked at her. His face twisted. "Why are you doing this? I’ll say it again so that you can hear it loud and clear; I made a mistake. I’m sorry. Now leave me alone!"
He tried to push by but she blocked his escape.
"Look at how afraid you are of me. I mean, you’re trembling."
"You’re making me angry."
"Am I? Is that the same anger that made you stay and fight the Steel Guard?"
"Stop it," he growled.
"Is that the same anger that turned you from a sole survivor into the commander of legions…into the Emperor of your kingdom?"
"You’re pushing me…don’t push me…let it go…"
"Well I want that anger! I want you!".
"Major Forest—"
"Nina! Say it! Say my name! Look me in the eye and say my name! Tell me—tell Nina—to get out of your way! Walk out on me…walk out on Nina! Let me go again the way you walked away from the Nina on your world!"
He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her against the wall. "You just shut up!"
"Look at the Emperor trembling!"
"God damn it I told you once…I told you I don’t play these games!"
Her shark grin returned. Her eyes grew into blue daggers.
"Well I do play games. Me and my Trevor, we played all sorts of games…"
Her hands stroked his chest even as he snorted breath like a beast ready to fight.
He grabbed her wrists and threw them against the wall above her head. She smiled.
"You…are…not…Nina!"
"And you’re so damn mad about that aren’t you?"
His lips quivered but he suppressed an answer.
"Come on! Say it, Trevor! Admit it! Admit how mad you are at me!"
This time it was not a floor he pinned her against, but a wall. Yet once again, she squirmed and fidgeted purposely…teasingly…
"You’re mad at me! It’s boiling over in you! I can taste it in the air!"
He leaned in and nearly bit her nose off as he confessed, "Yes! I’m mad at you for looking like her! You’re an imposter!"
"You’re angry!"
"Yes!"
"And you want me! You want me so bad it hurts."
"God damn it yes!"
Emotion churned out of control as everything came together; anger, confusion, desire; stirred together and simmering toward explosion.
She dared, "Then take me. Possess me, Trevor."
"Is that what you want? Is it?"
He did not wait for her answer. He swung her onto the bed, took a quick step toward her, and then stopped, hovering over her as she sat on the edge of the mattress.
Nina pulled one of the thin leather straps from her battle suit. She wrapped it around her wrist then offered both hands to him. Her face was submissive and pouting.
"If you’re so afraid of me, Emperor, if I so scare you then tie me down. Make me sorry for being her imposter."
He shivered.
"What are you waiting for, Emperor?" She mocked. "Consider it another conquest. Make me your next battlefield."
He looked at her bare wrists—one already bound by the strap—and felt something stir. Something so very dark. The same something that helped him make hard decisions over the years. The same something that allowed him to be brutal on the battlefield.
The something that had made him curse the Gods as he had held the Viking leader aloft at the Battle of Five Armies; the something that allowed him to unleash his dogs of war on the enclave of New Winnabow; the something that had drove him to brutally beating the Hivvan Commander in North Carolina.
The monster his half-brother had warned of; a source of power…and danger.
And oh, the anger was there. Anger and desire, a volatile combination.
The simmering pot exploded. Trevor Stone pounced. He grabbed her wrists and shoved her back, pushing her hands together against the bars of the headboard, working the leather strap around her other wrist and pulling tight.
She grunted in pain. He bound her tighter than expected. She pulled against the binds. The motion barely rattled the bars.
Their eyes locked as he moved off the bed. She saw the wolf in him. She knew it was in there. She knew she could find it. Nonetheless…that look in his eyes. Had she gone too far?
She had been in control of the situation since the instant she brought him to her universe. This was all part of the plan. Still…she felt—just a little—afraid.
Major Forest squirmed on top of the mattress. He stood at the base of the bed and removed her boots and socks. When he was done he unhooked his utility belt. Before he let it fall to the floor he removed the knife from its sheath. He then worked his way over the mattress on his elbows and knees, closing on her with the prowl of a predator.
She licked her lips.
Trevor cut away the top of Nina’s battle suit. Then he caressed the knife over her chest until it found the straps of her bra. More slicing.
He hovered above her bound form for a moment, then leaned in…his lips coming close…just about to touch…and he backed away.
Stone had the feeling of watching from the outside. Was he really doing this? Was his body really aching to have her in this way?
Yes. There was a force within Trevor Stone stirred by this universe, uncovered by this Nina. One part violent; one part passion. Both held in balance in his world but for some reason that balance fell apart here, on this Earth, with this woman.
Whether it was right or wrong did not matter. It was what he wanted.
He had been denied so much over the years; stolen from him by fate.
Not this time. He was going to have her.
His hands greedily worked at her buckle. He found it, undid it, and pulled the rest of her battle gear over her hips, past her clenched knees, and off.
A chill swept across Nina as her body was stripped of all cover. She rattled the binds again. The straps were tight; perfectly tied.
He took a moment to study her, casting his eyes over her naked body but, to his surprise, saw a painfully detailed snake tattoo wrapped around the upper part of her leg. It was a most striking piece of art work, but further confirmation that this was not really his Nina.
Nina would never get a tattoo.
Trevor’s gaze came to her eyes. Her beautiful blue eyes. Her ic
y blue eyes. They stared back at him with just the right mixture of excitement and fear.
And there it was. That darkness. There was a voice far off in the corner of his mind—the irrational corner—angry at her for having Nina’s eyes. How dare she look like her! She was not his Nina. She was not the Nina. She was an imposter. A fraud.
How DARE she…
Yes…anger…and arousal.
"What do you plan to do now?"
He undid the straps on his own top while shuffling out of his boots. Then he threw off the rest until he was naked at the base of the bed.
She tilted her head to examine her binds. She pulled hard. The straps were unforgiving. She realized things had gone beyond the point of return. Nina felt his weight on the bed, creeping forward toward her. He lay next to her. His eyes examined her.
Trevor placed a solitary finger against her lips. He moved it, and then slid it into her mouth. She accepted it and caressed it with her tongue.
He removed the digit and slowly…painfully slow…traced a line down her throat, between her breasts, to her abs, then belly button, then the very top of her—
The finger stopped.
She offered a pout of a purr in frustration.
But that was only the beginning. He used his fingers and hands, his lips and mouth to titillate every inch of her, but always stopped short of satisfaction. All the time she bucked and trembled from his torment. Her moans for more fell on deaf ears.
Stone took pleasure in her torture.
How dare she look like her…
At long last his excitement boiled over. He could tease her no more; even he had a breaking point.
"No, no," she tightly crossed her legs. "After all that teasing… you don’t deserve—"
Trevor leapt upon her like an animal. In one quick motion he roughly grabbed her legs and forced them wide, hooked one of her legs around his arm and pushed it nearly to her ear where it rocked with his motion. He drove into her with speed and ferocity; the beast set free.
His eyes wide, angry, and hungry as he moved. She screamed with surprise, shock and ecstasy. Her head turned from side to side, her eyes shut; her mouth opening to exhale quick squeals that were sighs and then clenching shut again to bear the force of his invasion.
She yanked against the straps above her; the bars of the headboard bent, a little, but she was still secure. Still his.
With every iron-like thrust her body exploded. She heard him growling in her ear as he pinned her to the bed with his weight and his work. Trevor wanted to consume her…devour her with his raw energy. He had never felt like this before. He did not know he had the desire for such…such carnal barbarism.
Yet there it was; a dreadful combination of passion and violence. Of lust. Of anger.
This is what you get for pretending to be her…
His hand found the back of her head and grasped her ponytails, forcing her chin up and back. She grimaced as she rocked. He saw the slightest glint of tears in the corner of her eyes.
With her neck exposed, he dove into her throat where he kissed her tender flesh harshly; violently. Then he reached to her mouth and forced his tongue deep. Then off again, his breath snorting in her ear, but he did not relax his grip.
Whatever pain she felt dissipated in the flood bursting from her body. A trembling, shaking, flood. He felt her muscles as they flexed and released. He felt her strong body weaken and quiver.
Her sigh became a moan became a cry.
Hearing her…feeling her erupt was enough.
He rode her even harder at that moment, then what had been building in the beast released with a primitive energy, making him shudder and roar. His body clenched then flexed…again…and again…and again.
Nina wrapped her legs around him and pulled tight, accepting what he gave even as his final act felt more an assault than love.
Their bodies grew still.
She breathed hard…then softer. His heart thumped against her chest. She could feel it through the sweat.
Trevor was coming back.
Her Trevor.
17. Whispers
Trevor walked the exterior of the otherworldly estate listening to alien-sounding chirps from some manner of bird as it announced the arrival of morning. With a bounce in his step, he passed a sentry, patting the man on the shoulder who responded, "Cold out today, sir."
"Not as cold as it is for those dead Geryons, is it, Morris?"
"No, sir!" the soldier smiled.
Trevor found satisfaction in the man's spirit. Here they were out in the wilderness far from safety and if another Geryon battleship sailed over the horizon they would stand no chance.
Yet Morris felt a sense of invincibility. Trevor had led them to victory over a superior enemy, as he had done many times on his world. How? He knew part of that came from the dark spot of his heart, the part that bubbled to the surface last night with the Major.
At the same time, his strength also came from the righteousness of his cause. Standing on the moral high ground gave him a free hand. No tactic could be too brutal, too nasty for the invading scum. Indeed, the more brutal the blow the more effective; a frightened enemy is more easily defeated. Certainly it would frighten the Geryons to find one of their powerful Battleships obliterated by a handful of humans.
He came upon Reverend Johnny near the front gate staring into the distance with binoculars. On the lake, strands of smoke still smoldered from the destroyed dirigible, but no fires and apparently no sign of Geryon survivors.
"Good morning, sunshine," Trevor greeted lightheartedly.
"I see you have pulled yourself out of bed, Mr. Stone. I feared you might stay there all day," Johnny responded without lowering his binoculars.
That annoyed Trevor. He was, after all, the Emperor. Johnny should damn well turn around and—
Stop it.
Trevor let it go, instead asking, "What do you mean? It’s bright and early."
"I figured you would be loath to leave behind the warmth you found there."
Trevor played coy, "What are you talking about?"
"My dear Mr. Stone, you and the Major—how should I put this within the bounds of good taste?—you and the Major were quite…enthusiastic. Yes. The acoustics of the empty mansion and the cavern into which it is built are quite conductive."
Trevor pinched his nose and grimaced. "Oh. Um. Yeah well…"
Johnny finally pulled away the binoculars and looked at his friend. "Fear not, for I have found a more interesting sight to judge this morning." He pointed toward the mountainside. "There. Behold a curious sight. Perhaps the answers you think are here can be gleaned from the events under our very noses."
Trevor pulled his own field glasses from a pouch on his belt and followed Johnny’s direction to a strip of thin woodlands between destroyed cottages. There he saw a common hostile nicknamed a Rat-Thing, essentially a car-sized rodent with needle-like tufts of fur.
"Not sure what the big deal is, I've seen plenty of these—wait a second. I’ll be damned."
Trevor spied a pack of predators hunting the Rat-Thing. Four Gray Wolves emerged from the debris of the ruined homes.
Johnny and Stone observed the wolves stalk and attack their target. The horrid beast squealed and scampered in an attempt to flee, but the wolves ripped at its hind legs until it fell.
"Amazing," Trevor whispered.
Johnny stopped watching. He did not need to see the tearing and shredding of the Rat-Thing’s hide. Stone, on the other hand, stood hypnotized by the brutal and efficient pack.
"I imagine wolves would attack any creature if promised a good breakfast," Johnny said.
"After all these years, they've learned that some of the invaders are good eats. Still, makes me think about this whole thing. Maybe it’s our entire environment. That might explain why more than just alien armies came to our world. Or, I guess, ‘worlds.’ Maybe it explains why predator and prey have come here. To show their—what?—superiority?"
"Or
maybe," Johnny suggested, "the wolves are just hungry."
Trevor smiled. "Maybe so."
---
The extraction flight arrived mid-morning and evacuated the remaining team members with no interruption, no incident. The Skippers flew over the mountains and plains under a sky that was as clear as the day before.
Nina napped next to Trevor in the passenger compartment. He had missed as much sleep as she had but he felt invigorated, not exhausted. He spent the return flight gazing out the side portal watching the landscape go by.
For every sight that accentuated the difference between this Earth and his, there were a dozen that drove home the similarities.
Yes, the architecture of the homes seemed a warped version of what he knew. Instead of open fields, the developers of this Earth preferred mountains and hills from which sprouted neighborhoods, sometimes on terraced levels, the same type of deigns he had noticed at the lake. Furthermore, the few roads he spied from the sky seemed wider than those back home.
Such subtleties meant little. If he closed his eyes, he could see children playing in the fields that were marked with lines for some sport or another; he could hear the ringing of worship bells in the triangular steeples of the churches; he could hear families gathering in their homes for the evening meal.
When he opened those eyes again he saw the devastation. Fields of bomb craters, toppled steeples, the charred remains of burned homes, the occupants either dead or enslaved.
Yes, the more tiny differences he found the more he saw similarities. The more he grew convinced that this Earth needed him.
---
Trevor and his team returned to Thebes that afternoon. Nothing much happened the rest of the day. Nina disappeared to write reports and as the day went on Trevor's exhilaration turned to exhaustion as fighting alien blimps and shapely Majors finally got the better of him. He did not see her that night as he collapsed sound asleep in the apartment he shared with Johnny.
However, the next morning she knocked frantically on their door.
"We have to appear before The Committee."
He would have suspected that The Committee wanted to pin a medal on him for winning such an unlikely victory. However, the grumpy expression on her face suggested otherwise.
Beyond Armageddon: Book 03 - Parallels Page 23