80. Chapter 80
Chapter 80
M y breath held, I watch Cain stand straight and, as if nothing happened, slowly and casually roll his shoulders and crack his neck.
He shoots a couple of shadows out of his fingers, the power seeming to be even greater than a second ago.
Then he turns his eyes onto me, but it’s even before he drawls, “Ah, now this is everything I imagined it would be,” that it hits me.
My eyes widen in shock. “No,” I mutter, my voice sounding so disturbingly distant and despicably helpless.
He’s just entered Cain’s body.
And now he’s standing there with his head tilted at me, seemingly enjoying the look on my face. “I have to say,” he starts, “after that first body I took over, your shifter mate’s corpse was such a nice change. Very powerful. So much so that I decided to stay in it. Showing up looking like him was just an added bonus. But this one?”
A sob threatens to leave my mouth. How do I kill him without killing Cain? “Leave him be, Baldur,” I plead. “There’s no need to involve him, this is just between the two of us.”
“Oh but it hasn’t been for exactly thirty three years now,” he replies as he starts strolling around me. “That’s when you managed to go back in time, thinking you’d escaped me. But almost as soon as you left, the most magnificent, life-altering thing happened.”
I frown, my mind threatening to explode as I try to focus on both his words and figuring out how to get out of this mess.
He stops in front of me, a smile on his face. “Remember Serra?” he asks.
What the…
He goes back to strolling. “A couple of years after she died — still stuck in the time you dragged her to, her associate finally managed to locate a pair of vampire twins who were most special in almost every single way. He took them from their family, put them into hibernation — right here at Grimm Academy — and made it so they woke up while I was still occupying it.” He laughs. “They came with a little note and everything, telling me one of them was — imagine this — the mate of the woman I’d been unsuccessfully spending a lot of my resources to capture.”
He stops in front of me again. “Until that moment,” he tells me, this pensiveness in his voice, “I’ll admit I’d always struggled making peace with the fact that, even if I’d tracked you down, you’d never fret over me the way you fret over your little mates.” He tips his head back. “But now I found myself holding one of them at only two years old, still so defenseless. Ignorant. Pliable . It was then that a plan formed in my mind.”
Dread floods me. “Taking over his body,” I whisper, “it’s always been the plan.”
Smiling, he nods. “Yes. And from the very beginning, even when there were still two of them, I knew it would be this one, simply by how much more powerful he was.”
His choice of words makes me grit my teeth. “ This one ?”
He quirks an eyebrow at me. “Yes, this one. I only kept the other one for… leverage. It turned out to be a prudent choice. His death made your little mate even more focused on honing his body, his skills, his mind. And I was still in complete control of his upbringing. So now, thirty three years later…”
He uses his powers, but not to attack, just to show exactly how much more powerful he is now.
Too powerful.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make him leave Cain’s body.
And he seems to know it, at least judging by the smirk he puts on once he’s done with his little demonstration. “As humans say, nothing beats growing your own. Because he’s not just your mate, his body is unlike any other, a weapon in its own right, a vessel most worthy of a god.” He appears to tower over me. “Don’t you think?”
I stumble back, afraid he’ll make me have to defend myself and in turn, hurt Cain. “Stay away, I’m warning you.”
This makes him grit his teeth, showing something other than smugness for the first time tonight. “I need you to stop with the nonsense already, Freya,” he warns. “All those years ago — hundreds and hundreds of them — you told me we had to part ways because that man was your mate.”
No no no, he’ll never let go. “Leave him be, Baldur,” I try bluffing, because I’m now sure that I could never kill him if it meant killing Cain as well, “or I swear to all the gods, I’m going to find a way to kill you.”
He lets out a long, dragged-out chuckle. Then he turns serious, shaking his head. “No, you won’t. I’m your mate now. Call it fate or call it…” He looks around, shrugging his shoulders. “Me working very hard towards this very moment.” He fixes his eyes on me again, a deadly confidence in his eyes. “But you have no other choice than to accept me.”
I just look at him for a second, the devastating realization hitting me.
Yes, that’s literally my only choice. I gulp and then nod. “I will accept you. I will be your bride, just leave him be, please, I’m begging you.”
I keep looking at him, watching him calculating with my breath held.
But before he can say anything, his body spasms again and he closes his eyes shut, seemingly fighting something.
A pang of fear shoots through me.
Then, despite my better judgment, I move towards him.
“Anna,” he mutters when he opens his eyes again.
“Cain,” I whisper, hope flooding me.
But then he drops to his knees, wincing with pain.