[Companions Chapter 22]

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WARNING! The following text contains explicit adult subject matter. It is not intended for anyone under the age of 18. If you are under the age of 18, then you must stop reading now. The author has taken steps to ensure that this story does not appear in any subject-inappropriate or age-inapropriate forum. This version has been posted with the author's permission to Yiffstar.com.

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* _COMPANIONS_

* by Evoquus

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* (c) Copyright 2002, 2003, Evoquus, All rights reserved.

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* Feedback is appreciated: [email protected]

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Rating: NC-17 for explicit sex: M/M, Human-Stallion-Mare, Anal, Oral

Chapter 22: Another Prophecy

That night, I received Mourne's gift. It was a dream that by design, was his open invitation to visit the same place on the same day every year of our lives. The day: our wedding anniversary. The place: Rovaun's grave.

The dream contained no ambiguity and no metaphors - just the opposite. It showed me my destiny in crystal clarity, a detailed snapshot of my life fifty-one weeks from now:

At first the thought of spending our anniversary at a gravesite seemed morbid and unpleasant, but when we stepped out of the shadows on the beautiful summer day, we witnessed the destiny we had created. A large Anthraun, his mare, and his two small stepsons all frolicked together in the cool friendly water. Right next to them blazed Rovaun's monument, bedecked in a dazzling array of bright summer flowers.

The mare was the first to welcome us. "Rovaun, Danny, you made it!"

Everyone scrambled out of the water and dashed toward the pair of off-worlders.

"You knew we were coming?" I asked.

"We were given a heads-up," said Danny, heading straight for my husband. Josh, in turn, needed no prodding to come to me. Both we Dannys dropped our Hipponaur shells and hugged our respective long lost lovers, then we hugged each other with friendly pats on the back.

I smiled back at the virtual reflection in my arms, and we noted that Josh and Rovaun seemed overtly amused at the sight of us together. So naturally, we both got the same goofy idea, and buried our tongues in each other's throat.

"Hey Rovaun," chuckled Josh, "remind you of anyone?"

"Ah yes," he smiled, "the Slut Twins. Did you bring a crowbar?"

We let go of each other before the joke got stale. It was still hard for me to comprehend that this was not my twin, but was ME. We would react almost identically to any given situation. Then I saw him smile just as I did, because at that moment he realized exactly the same thing.

"How are you doing, Danny?" I asked.

"I'm doing great," he said, hugging his proud Anthraun. "I miss Rovaun, of course, but Josh is very special. Perhaps more special than you realize, Danny."

"More special than my Rovaun?" I said, hugging my husband. "I don't think so."

"Now, now, Companions, let this reunion not degenerate into a pissing contest."

"It really is good to see you, Rovaun," said Danny. "Is he treating you okay? Where are the kids?"

"My Companion and I are doing well, Daniel. Mourne chose not to allow our sons to accompany us, I suppose to give us some time to ourselves on our anniversary."

"Well, don't mind us," said Josh. "If you need some privacy, just say so."

"Your Tantau and Tattoo look just like ours," I marveled. "This is so freaky."

Little Tantau looked up at me. "You look a lot like Mommy."

"How do you know I'm not?" I smiled, squatting down to his level and rubbing his head.

"It's obvious!" he said, leaving to chase his brother around the pool.

"Is it that obvious?" I asked Rovaun.

He looked at Josh who shrugged and shook his head. "Not to me, Companion. Perhaps I should nip your neck just to make sure you are the one who comes home with me."

"I'm going to keep an eye on the kids," said Josh.

"Yes, that would be wise, My Love."

They smooched, then Josh ran back to chase his screeching boy-colts.

I shook my head at them, amazed at what a difference a year made. "The last time I saw you, Danny... the mood here was not nearly so cheerful."

"Tell me about it. But you should have stuck around for another fifteen minutes. The mood changed considerably. Josh and I ended up making love like horny weasels."

Rovaun snorted. "I am pleased you were able to move on so quickly," he said, sarcastically.

"Who said anything about moving on?"

"You mean, he took advantage of your grief?"

"Hardly. Josh is a new Anthraun. He is as honorable as you, Rovaun... that is, the Rovaun I knew before that deplorable honeymoon I heard about."

"Hey!"

"I'm kidding. But like I said, Josh has been a perfect gentleman in public and a perfect sleaze in private, which makes him, on average, perfect! He even swore off empathetic linking, and to this day, has been true to his word."

He saw my uncomfortable expression and answered it.

"Yes, I know all about it. He used it on me to give me closure. I never really talked to Rovaun's spirit."

"How did you find out?"

"He confessed when he felt I could handle it. I was pissed off, of course, but by then other pieces had fallen into place, and I realized that the words he said to me were EXACTLY the words you would have used, Rovaun, had you been given the chance to say good-bye to me."

"It was uncanny," I had to agree.

"So I asked myself, how was it possible for this total stranger to know Rovaun so well? And I came up with three possible scenarios. One: Somehow, your soul channeled your message through him, which I don't believe for a second. Two: Somehow Josh got to know you really, really, really well during your week of debauchery, which is possible, but still not very likely."

Then he coyly walked up to Rovaun and touched his face. "Or three, the only possible explanation: Josh, my dear Rovaun... is you."

My gasp muffled Rovaun's snort.

Danny turned to me wearing my happiest face. "Josh and Rovaun have the same soul."

My mate and I pondered the staggering possibility. It was not out of the question that Rovaun's soul might turn up in an Anthraun instead of a Hipponaur in a parallel world populated by Anthrauns instead of Hipponaurs. That Josh so inexplicably recognized me as the key to his new destiny supported the supposition that he and I were soul mates.

"You discovered this fifteen minutes after I left?"

"No. I made love to Josh fifteen minutes after you left, because five minutes after you left, Tattoo said 'Hi Daddy!' It shocked me out of my grief, and after thinking I had just talked to Rovaun, I looked around for him but Josh was the only one there. He talked to Tattoo, who continued to identify him as his Daddy. And in my desperation, I reasoned that maybe it was possible that Rovaun's soul had boomeranged into Josh, just like mine had done to Zhorelle. I wanted to believe it so much that... well, who wouldn't want to fuck his brains out?"

"Me," said Rovaun.

"Liar," said Danny. "I know about you and him."

"No wonder he was such a formidable rival, Husband. And now my attraction to him is vindicated!"

"Keep your hands off him," he muttered.

"That's right. Hands off, Danny," he said, waving a finger. "You had your chance to swap Husbands a year ago and you blew it."

"Oh Geez," I laughed. "You even got married!"

"Just a technicality in my mind, since our souls were already married, but Josh wanted to. Varyl performed the ceremony, again. He claimed to be not completely convinced that this was my same husband, but he didn't deny it either."

"Who cares what anyone thinks," I said. "The only thing you should care about, is how insanely jealous I am of you!"

"Not funny," said Rovaun.

"Hilarious!" laughed Danny.

"I am happy for you, Daniel," said Rovaun.

"You're not convinced, are you," he said, rubbing Rovaun's neck.

"I agree with my Companion, in this matter. It should not be your concern what anyone else thinks."

"But I DO care what you think, Rovaun," he said. "And there's just one more tiny bit of proof. Come on."

He led Rovaun to his Hipponaur body. "There's a telltale clue on my rib cage. Take a look."

Rovaun stared at his side. "Your ribs look normal to me."

"Look closer."

He examined them closely, but shook his head. "What am I supposed to see?"

"You're not close enough."

"I cannot focus any closer than this!" he said, rapidly finding Danny's "proof" extremely annoying.

"If you can't see it, you're not close enough."

"Fine!" he snorted, butting his head into the mare's ribs "Is this close enou..."

He dropped his jaw and then backed away, smiling delightfully at the human. "Congratulations!"

"You're PREGNANT!?"

"I'm pregnant with SOMETHING. God knows what he'll look like being seventy-five percent Hipponaur, but he's really funny and smart, just like his biological father. So what do you think, Rovaun? Who on this planet, other than you, can get me pregnant?"

"No one," he said in astonishment.

"No one but you,... or your other-worldly equivalent."

"What's his name?"

"He's playing his own theme song. Shouldn't be hard to guess."

When I listened to the mare, what I heard was a tiny piano and a tiny voice doing a remarkable impression of Paul McCartney singing "Hey Jude."

"Jude."

"Jude is his official name, but I have a feeling 'Hey Jude' will be the more common reference."

"Or just, Hey!" I laughed.

"Be-HEY-ve!" he retorted.

"Excuse me, Companions, I wish to congratulate Josh."

Rovaun left us, either to really congratulate him, or to determine for himself just how many duplicate souls currently existed in his garden, today.

"Can I talk to you mare-to-mare?" I asked. We merged back into our bodies and strolled around the meadow.

"Thank you so much for finding Josh," he said. "You saved my life, you know."

"Thank you for not being so bull-headedly-blind to my best intentions for you and Josh."

"I deserved that, but give me a break. My Husband died!"

"Okay. I saved your life, but you get credit for being heartbroken and bonus points for quickly recognizing a good thing when I dumped it in your lap."

"So we're even."

"You truly believe they came from the same soul?"

"You still don't?"

"As Rovaun would say, 'the evidence is compelling,' but I have a lot of trouble with too many necessary coincidences for this to have come about. I mean, what are the chances that Josh and Rovaun are cut from the same celestial stock? That of all the parallel worlds we could have gone to on our honeymoon, we picked one where we unknowingly brought back an alternate version of Rovaun?"

"But you didn't pick it."

"No, Mourne..."

I stopped in my tracks and gaped at him. He returned my stare with a raised eyebrow.

"That is the look of an epiphany," he said.

My mind rapidly rewound the tape of my life to recall a conversation from nearly a year ago.

"'It would set a bad precedent, Mr. Racher,'" I whispered to myself. "Mr. Racher... That's how Mourne knew my name..."

My gape morphed into a grin. "You bastard!," I laughed. "You fucking lucky ass-biting son-of-a-bitch BASTARD!" I said, head-butting him with each syllable.

"I beg your pardon," he chuckled.

"You got Rovaun back! And he's shaped as the hunkiest, sexiest Anthraun in Vegas! Oh Christ, I had him in my hands and I gave him to you!"

"It sounds like you're finally convinced."

"Too many coincidences! There AREN'T too many coincidences. Not a single one! Mourne set me up - AGAIN!"

"You know more about Mourne than I do. In fact, I didn't even know it was him. Please fill me in."

"Mourne has a couple of main duties along with a few side projects. Mostly, he stands around directing traffic, but he also zealously guards his population experiment that we are a part of. In Varyl's domain, no one is allowed to travel to other worlds. But he has a soft spot for Wraiths, maybe because there's something about us that the future of Hipponaur pivots on."

"But he blew me off completely."

"Yes he did - MISTER RACHER. We both visited Mourne after being rescued from limbo, but we had different agendas, and you got to him first while I was having another roll in the hay with Rovaun. The thing is, you introduced yourself as Daniel Racher. He had no idea who you were, just one of a million other distraught humans whom he must have to disappoint on a daily basis; so sorry, Bub, return to sender. A few minutes later, I come along and introduce myself as the Wraith. Suddenly he realizes just who it was that he totally screwed over earlier, and quite possibly fucked up his own experiment as a result. And do you know what I did on that trip?"

"Not a clue."

"I brought back a living inhabitant from a parallel world to console a grief-stricken friend. In my timeline, Parceph now has his Companion back."

"He does? Oh, how nice. Maybe Mourne will let me do that for him, here."

"So now Mourne gets the idea to do the same for you, but all of the Rovauns are already spoken for, so he looks elsewhere for the closest suitable match, and he finds a possible prospect on the planet he was already planning to send us to. Unfortunately, Josh isn't in Oahu, he's in Las Vegas. So our original honeymoon plans had to be trashed."

"I don't see why that was necessary. With all the strings he could pull, I'm sure he could have figured out a way to send Josh to Hawaii."

"Probably, but he didn't have a lot of time, and I doubt if he even knew it would work. Mourne may control the fabric of time and space, but he still can't know if two people are right for each other. He had to consider Josh's feelings, too, and neither of us could know it was a setup otherwise we'd rebel against it. No one likes a matchmaker."

"They don't?"

"You'll find out. So he used my honeymoon as another little experiment, with me as the guinea pig, putting us up in the same hotel where it was Josh's VERY JOB to seduce me. If Josh could woo me away from my own lovable Husband, then there'd be no doubt that you and he would click."

"Click, click, clickety-clackety, click, clack, clock, cluck, clicky, clacky..."

"No shit, you lucky bastard. Man, I look back now and can't believe I missed the signs. Josh and Rovaun - I felt like a tennis ball bouncing back and forth between them. The instant intangible attraction, his desert oasis..."

"His big dick."

"His big dick! There you go! 'Big dick' is practically synonymous with 'Rovaun.' How could I have missed that clue!?"

We both chuckled because it was true.

"Every time Tattoo said 'Hi Daddy' to him, I assumed he was simply greeting the big dick that was bashing him in the head."

"That totally freaked out Josh the first time. Must have freaked you out even more."

"The first time it did, but later I found it endearing, and then really liked the idea of big and little Anthrauns in the family."

"Me too."

"And at the very end, Mourne made sure that Josh had no place to go but here. Not a single coincidence in the loop."

"I must send Mourne a fruit basket."

"Lucky fucking bastard."

"Are you actually saying that you wish you had kept Josh for yourself?"

"No, but had we all known then what we know now, I would have ended up with Josh by unanimous agreement."

"Hmm, probably so. I certainly would have preferred Rovaun back then, and he would have agreed he was the best choice. Ah, what might have been."

"Danny," I said sincerely, "all name calling aside, I could not be more happy for you. You're lucky not because you got Josh and I'm stuck with Rovaun, you're lucky because you got a second chance. You got him back. And I still have mine. Look at us, we actually left Las Vegas as winners."

"No regrets, whatsoever?"

"Do I regret having Rovaun instead of Josh? Of course not. Do I miss Josh? Of course. And I know you miss Rovaun."

He sighed at the flowering monument we ended up at. "I have one regret. I regret that he had to die. But I believe HE doesn't regret it. I believe he knows I'm happy and why I'm happy, and that it is HIM I am still married to and hopelessly in love with."

He smiled warmly at his husband's well-maintained marker.

"He and Josh have very different personalities, but that's not surprising given their very different life experiences. Rovaun has some endearing quirks, but Josh more than makes up for it with endearing qualities of his own. But yes, of course I miss him."

I studied his body for a moment. "You don't look pregnant."

"Sixteen days."

"Other than that, we're completely identical."

"And, naturally, I know what you're thinking."

We returned to our husbands swimming in the pool. Rovaun paddled around with Tattoo and Tantau on his back while Josh squirted the squealing targets by squeezing water through his fists. Seeing all the boys playing together warmed my heart.

"The matching bookends have returned," said Josh.

"You two look suspiciously like you are up to something," said Rovaun.

"We just want to know if you can tell us apart."

Eagerly up to the challenge, Josh hopped out of the pool. "No problem," he grinned. He looked back and forth between us, then stood back and crossed his arms.

"Hmm," he smirked, "there's only one way to tell."

He kissed his spouse passionately, and I heard a subtle moan escape the mare. Then he turned to me and kissed me just as hard. I tried to moan in a similar fashion, but I suspect it was a wee bit more passionate than the first.

He let go of the kiss and nuzzled me tenderly. "This one is mine," he proclaimed. "And if you will excuse me," he said, leading me away into the meadow, "I am now going to have a few intimate moments alone with my wife."

"Enjoy yourselves," said Danny, who then turned to Rovaun who was still in the pool with the kids. "Husband, are you going to let them have all the fun?"

"I AM having fun - with my boys. Please give them a few more minutes with their biological father."

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure. It is so good to see you with them."

"It's so good to see you again, Cellie," said Josh, not fooled for a moment.

"I missed you."

"You never really gave me a chance to miss you. You and my mate are still nearly identical, but with one huge exception: None of this would have happened were it not for you. You saved the lives of everyone here and gave me a family and a purpose. That makes you, alone, someone truly special in my life. No matter what happens, I will always love you."

"And I will always love you, too, Josh, and I can now say that without jeopardizing my honor."

"Well, it's a gray area at best," he smiled, then kissed me tenderly.

"And you're going to have a son of your own. That is so wonderful."

"Yeah, how about that! I fear my kids are going to run me ragged, but can you believe my luck? Never had an ounce of it in Vegas."

"This world is lucky for you."

"Cellie," he said tenderly, "your world is lucky, too."

"Yes it is. Rovaun is number one in my life. But you're..."

"A close second?"

"More like one point zero zero zero zero zero zero one. You and I still make love a lot in my head. I keep those memories as alive today as they were a year ago. Rovaun tolerates it but wishes I wouldn't dwell on it so much, mostly because it makes me unhappy sometimes."

"I am sorry we live worlds apart, Cellie," he nuzzled.

"We aren't worlds apart now."

"I have thought about you, too. I felt bad for you, knowing how you felt about me. I have often thought about comforting you like this."

"Josh," I said tenderly, "I am in estrus."

He broke away, suddenly taking me very seriously.

"Rovaun and I had planned to use this day to conceive a new child. And I still plan to."

"Cellie..."

"I remember my first dream of you. How I felt after we made love. How I wanted you to grow inside me long after you were gone. That feeling was real then, and it is even more real now."

"Oh Cellie, I would love nothing more than to give you a child, but I can't do that to my mate."

"Your mate has already given both you and me his most enthusiastic blessing."

"And what of your mate?"

I dropped my head. "I'm afraid to ask him."

"Cellie," he said tenderly, "you must ask his permission."

"I can't be sure of his answer," I said shaking my head.

He lifted my chin and kissed me. "Please ask him."

I looked up into his beautiful loving eyes. "I will ask his forgiveness. That is all I am assured of."

"Cellie..."

"Josh, My Love," I said, setting down and raising up to him, "I can't have you, but I can have the next best thing: a part of you I can hold and love every day. Don't make me beg. Make love to me."

And bless Rovaun's soul, he did.

Rovaun carried the kids on his back as he climbed out of the water to greet the mare. After letting them off, he stood tall and handsome for her while she nuzzled him.

"It is time to play with you, Companion," he said, smoothly.

"Oh, Rovaun, I've missed that word so much, and that wonderful silken voice that utters it."

Rovaun stepped back, only now aware of what was going on. He looked at the amorous couple in the field, then back down at the mare who so desperately wanted him. His eyes smiled warmly at her.

"Shall we join them, Companion?"

"I would love to, Husband."

The stallion and mare set down next to us. Rovaun entered her and made love in his usual, sexy, slow-grinding fashion. The response from the mare was overwhelmingly joyful, feeling her Husband once again alive and virile inside her, loving her the way he had loved her so often before.

Josh became apprehensive when Rovaun first approached, but it was clear that there would be no fallout from my husband, so my step-husband continued to focus his attention on me. However, he was still intimidated by the legendary stallion making love next to him, so I linked with him to remind him how wonderful it felt to have him inside me.

"Oh Cellie," he sighed warmly, "I love you, too."

His passion renewed, he made beautiful love, saying tender things to me that I hoped Rovaun would pick up on. His passion and his words brought me great joy and an even greater climax. The positive feedback of my link soon triggered his own spasms deep inside of me. After the last of his contractions, he became suddenly aware of the potentially serious consequences of this union. He glanced nervously at the stallion next to him, and saw to his relief that he was beaming at his beloved mate.

"Remain still, Josh," he said warmly. "Allow your seed to do its work."

Feeling the smallest of sparks sputter to life in my womb, I turned to my Rovaun with the happiest of tears.

"Husband, it has."

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[End of _COMPANIONS_ Chapter 22: Another Prophecy]

[This concludes Part 7 of the series. Take a break.]

[Next in series: Chapter 23: When Worlds Collide]