Obsession (Aris Duology #2)

Chapter thirty-two

The next few days, Aris is strange. We are together constantly, but he keeps his followers around him as well. We don’t have much time alone, and, when we are alone, anger clings to him, weighing him down like wet clothes. He isn’t unpleasant, but his jaw is never not clenched. I don’t understand it.

Today, after he finally dismissed his minions, we retired to our room. I've been trying to coax him to the bed, slowly and suggestively revealing more of my skin and less of my silk covering, but Aris isn’t having it. He’s pacing, wearing a hole in the carpet.

Finally, I sigh. “What will I have to do to have you touch me?” I ask.

His footsteps do not falter; in fact, he walks faster and faster until he suddenly stops right in front of me.

I crane my head to meet his troubled gaze, alarmed. “Aris?”

He pauses for a long time, my anxiety growing with each second. Eventually, he says in a strange voice, "I think you've been thoroughly punished."

“What?”

He moves away from me again, my heart cinching at the distance. Have I done something wrong?

I reach out for him, and he chuckles. To my relief, he accepts the hand I offer, but he doesn’t interlock our fingers. Instead, he trails the tips of his fingers up my arm. “It was never my intention for this to be permanent; I simply wanted you to understand how it felt.”

I don’t like his tone. I have the strange, dizzying feeling of standing on the edge of something. “Understand what?”

His answering smile is a little sad. “You’ll see.”

Aris pulls back, offering me his hand. I stare at it like it’s a snake—mouth wide, yellow venom running down its fangs. I’ve never not wanted to touch Aris before, but something feels …

“Don’t be scared,” he murmurs. His hand stays suspended in the air, though he could grab me so easily, though he could force me.

He wants me to take it.

Choose it.

But what am I choosing?

I don’t want to do this—whatever this is. I want to run my fingers through his dark hair, smoothing the soft strands down. I want to press my thumbs by the corner of his eyes, musing on the lack of wrinkles and laugh lines. I want to run my fingers down his straight, strong nose, before cupping his pale cheek and pulling him close for a kiss.

His hand falls back to his side, and he lets out a huff. “Can you think of nothing else?”

“What?” I say, surprised.

“You are so plebeian. Utterly hindbrain. It is amusing in a way, but,” he says, hands clenched into fists, “you met my sister. Is there nothing else to think of but how I smell and how silky my hair is?”

I just stare at him.

He lets out a noise like a snarl and grips his hair hard, pulling until my heart tugs from worry that he’ll tear it out. “I don’t even care if returning you is part of some scheme she concocted!” hisses Aris. “I can’t have you like this anymore.”

I can’t have you. I can’t have you.

My breathing comes out shaky, tears appearing in my eyes. A horrible, unacceptable thought strikes me. “Do you not… want me anymore? Do you want someone else?”

Aris sighs, the sound all aggression. “And, of course, you misunderstand. It isn’t that I want another partner, but I want my Mary, and you aren’t her.”

Am I not Mary? I don’t understand.

“Come now,” he says, suddenly less angry and more exasperated, “let’s end this and put things back how they were.” “What do you mean by that? ‘End this?’ What—?”

“You’ll see. Come.” He raises his hand again, eye twitching when I move back. “Mary.”

Another moment passes, and my confusion festers. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. “You can tell me about your sister if you’d like,” I say carefully, my attention flicking to his broad shoulders.

He still wants me. Whatever this is, I’ll still have him by the end of it. Once it’s passed, we’ll be together again. I’ll have him above me, working me, and I can hold him close and tight, gripping the muscles in his forearm and—

“ Mary ,” he says sternly, a reprimand. His palm strains as he motions it toward me again.

Finally, hating the way he’s looking at me, knowing that I can trust him, I take it.

Our fingers intertwine, folding neatly, a chill rushing through me from the contact. Aris looks at our hands, jaw ticking, and then his eyes shut. I see him mouth something to himself, but I can’t make out the words.

And then…

And then,

My memories hit with a jolt, my consciousness, morals, and experiences returning.

I immediately let go of him, gasping as I run through the last few—what, weeks, months ?—that I’ve been with him as a zombie. My eyes fill with tears that immediately fill over, flooding my cheeks with warm wetness.

“How could you?” I demand.

Strangely, he smiles. “It’s nice to see you again.”

I scoff, devastation replaced with anger—so he’s mocking me, is he?—and go to move past him, but he grabs my arm and holds me still, his fingers sinking into my skin until I know I will bruise.

"No thank you?"

I jerk my arm out of his hold. Only because he lets me, I know, which makes me even more irate.

His mouth sets, and he follows me as I walk to the bedroom door. “Don’t throw a fit. Yes, I had your mind messed with. But do you see now, the indignity of what you did to me?”

Indignity. He wanted to show me indignity . The thought makes me manic enough to laugh. Because he’s right; my dignity was violated. And I violated his. I did it to him; he did it to me.

Fair’s fair, right ?

I come to a stop a foot from the door and shut my eyes, more tears streaming down my face. I don’t even know how long he kept me like that—long enough that my wrist and back are healed—but memories rush through me: how we held one another, the things I whispered, how I obsessed and clung to every crumb he offered.

I am beyond humiliated. I feel deranged and slightly insane.

Shuddering, I wrap my thin robe around me tightly. It was falling off of me just a minute ago, as I was practically begging him to…

I feel him behind me; his presence is a tangible thing, our bodies so familiar with one another. What was a comfort just seconds ago has been replaced by pure loathing.

More memories. I ached for him like air. I lusted for him like I’d die if he didn’t touch me. He paraded me in front of his followers. He made me an accessory to him, nothing more than another jewel in his crown.

He went too far.

Just as I went too far, my traitorous mind reminds me. You did it first. You started this cycle of too far .

What a perfect word for it: cycle. A cycle of love and hate, trickery and deception. Indignity and violation. Of, what have we become, and what will we do to each other?

My conversation with Sem strikes. She was right; it makes sense now. Everything rushes through me with cool clarity, and there is no mistaking what she told me… how she admitted to making me. Aris was telling the truth about that. My shoulders shudder at the thought.

This is a game that I was literally created for. I was created to play with him, a designer toy for a temperamental dog.

She made me to participate in this sick cycle with Aris, where he and I take each other farther and farther. And so we will. We will continue to go too far with one another until… Until what?

The end is unfathomable.

Ouroboros.

“Mary.”

He wants my attention, but I can’t bear to look at him, tortured by our past and the inevitable future. I don’t want to see his face. I don’t want to see his eyes and read the resigned understanding there—or worse, what if he is smiling?

Certainly, he has the better end of this. I am here, I exist, for him .

He is the mouth. The leader. The one who eats. And I am the tail. I am the one being eaten.

But, then it comes to me, in a sudden rush.

Sem’s face flashes. Her smile, her lilac eyes. “Bite,” she’d said.

Bite. Bite down.

I am the mouth. I have the teeth, and I choose.

Ouroboros.

It makes sense now, the choice she said I had to make. There it is: Stay with him, or let go. Sem was telling me to stay, to bite down and remain.

The realization is staggering, and my immediate reaction is no . No, I can’t do that. Even if it saves the world, even if it saves every world, I don’t know if I can do it anymore.

What he just did… What I did to him… How could I be expected to subject myself to that indefinitely?

I can’t. I won’t.

And, along with that initial rejection, is my anger. She made me for this. She took away my free will, and she has the gall to make requests ?

No. No, I won’t bite. I won’t stay. I won’t do what Sem wants.

Then, I begin to second-guess myself.

I reason nervously: she created me. She made every part of me. Maybe this is another trick and our conversation was designed to make me think that she wanted me to bite and stay with Aris. I don’t know why she’d want me to abandon my task of entertaining Aris, but maybe doing so leads to something else, something she planned for. Or maybe she wants me to stay and I’m completely overthinking this! How the hell am I to know what the right choice is?

“Mary, open your eyes.”

Finally, frustrated, I look at Aris and am struck by the emotion on his face. He looks as hurt as I feel. Why? He can hear my thoughts and knows how uncertain I am; he should be eating up the conflict.

“You know that I…” He starts, then pauses, uncharacteristically uncertain. “You know that I care about you. You can’t give up just when the game is getting good.”

“The game. The game, the game, the game,” I repeat, until I’m practically moaning. There is a faint ringing in my ears that turns to a roar, and the light inside of me—call it what you want, hope or joy or perseverance—whatever it is, it flickers once, twice, and finally goes out.

The decision comes without thought, as natural as breathing, so maybe it is Sem speaking for me, but it’s what I believe is the right thing to say.

“You win,” I say, and his mouth falls open before he quickly shuts it, stunned. I continue in a wooden tone, “You’ve won the game. It’s over. So you can kill me now.”

He just stares, long enough that I would feel embarrassed if I could feel anything beyond self-hatred and resignation right now. His face is unreadable.

“Right,” he says, and it is clear in his tone that he doesn’t believe me. He sounds faintly amused, like I’m playing a joke.

I repeat, “Kill me. End this.”

His brows push together, eyes darting around as he resumes searching my mind to see if I’m serious, perhaps expecting me to change my mind, but I stay silent.

Eventually, he shifts from foot to foot. His eyebrows stay mushed together, but in concern, not confusion this time. “Mary…” he tries, then drifts off, realizing that there is nothing to say.

He has demanded this be a game, and fine, so it is; now, it is forfeit.

“Aren’t you tired?” I say, tears in my eyes again. “Aren’t you just exhausted? Don’t you want to…”

“No,” he replies. “I don’t want that.”

“What do you want?”

He continues staring at me, and then he shocks me into silence when he falls to his knees.

Aris is on his knees. Aris .

“Stay, Mary.” His throat bobs. “I want you to stay.”

For a few moments, my mouth flaps open and shut. I thought I’d seen everything—every part of Aris, at least—but this version of him is new. “I… I can’t,” I eventually manage.

“Mary.” He shuts his eyes and works his jaw, then he says the one word I didn't know he was capable of uttering: "Please."

This requires effort on his part; gods do not plead. Not to each other, and certainly not to mortals. And yet…

He used the word for me, maybe even learned it for me .

I hesitate. It does mean something that he would get on his knees and say such a thing. It speaks to who he was when he played with birds and held me when I had nightmares—the soft, amnesiac side.

Did some part of him survive, after all?

"Please," he says again, a new light in his eyes, encouraged by my thoughts. "Stay."

A wave of helplessness and indecision overwhelms me. Every form of him, and every form of me, will seek the other out. Without memory, without power, without anything, we will go to each other; I know this. But whatever that is… love, obsession, it isn’t enough. Not when it’s a sick love, a bad love.

An ouroboric cycle of use and misuse.

I say nothing, firm in my decision, and Aris stands, shoulders shuddering, desperation replaced with anger. His face is pinched and self-conscious, and it’s clear that he wants me to feel every bit of the terror and embarrassment he experienced when he got to his knees to beg—an act that resulted, ultimately, in nothing.

“You were made for me, to placate me !” he demands. “You heard Sem—she told you to stay. What do you think happens if you leave? You’d be purposeless!”

“I don’t need purpose if I’m dead.”

“I’m not killing you, and you’re not—” Aris scoffs. He can’t even decide on a word to explain my rebellion. “You aren’t giving up. She did not design you for that, and so you can’t!”

I stare at him, frenzied, so upset that he isn’t even clever in manipulating me. I must be smart enough for the both of us.

“Don’t you see that you’ve played right into her hands?” I ask, and he stills. “She made me to tame you.”

“I have not been tamed !” he hisses instantly.

I give him a look, but pointedly don’t mention that he was just on his knees for me. “She showed up and planted the seed in your head to give my memory back. She created me to react this way to having my mind altered. Whatever her plan is, this entire conversation is just a part of it.”

His eyes narrow. “How does your rejecting me fit into her scheme?”

I don’t have an answer.

As of now, no, I don’t know what plans Sem has concocted, the same way that I can’t follow the schemes of her brothers. But I know who she is now, and that she has a stake in this. That’s something.

Aris peers at me coolly, unimpressed by my thoughts and behavior. The look in his eyes is enough to convince even a blind man that he will not let me go. I can’t quit the game; he will start another match, and another, and another, until I resign myself to finally play.

There is a reason the ouroboros is unending; it cannot bite, and it cannot let go. Naturally, these thoughts have occurred to the snake, but it cannot detach.

Why did Sem tell me I’d have a choice?

“If Sem is so omnipotent and intelligent, tell me, how are we meant to counter her?” asks Aris.

I turn away to take a seat on our bed. Minutes ago, I was desperate for him to touch me here, to rake my hands down his muscled back and pull him close while his eyes danced with mischief. Now, the room has never felt colder, and I have never felt more prudish.

Even when Aris follows and sits next to me, there is space between us. His scent does not entice me; his proximity does not lure me. I am too tired, and he is too angry that I will not accept him.

Despite our many acts against one another, I note that we are still sitting here together. When Aris asked me what we’d do, he said “ we .” The mouth and the tail are, and always have been, part of the same snake .

“It would help to know what she wants,” I comment. I’ve no idea what else to do but talk to him at this point, and the words flood out.

“Peace, most likely,” says Aris.

“So she wants you to stop destroying things.”

“And yet, she came here and provoked me,” he mentions thoughtfully, and I glance at him, bringing my legs up to wrap my arms around them, resting my chin on my knees. “I don’t think that she wants me to stop altogether. Sem respects balance, as do I; Order and Chaos work together.”

Turning to him, I ask, “What does she want, then?”

“For me to stay in line,” he begins slowly. “That is where you come in: my moral, pestering compass. She created you to make me understand, and perhaps respect, the sanctity of life. But then, why make you and then disappear? Why fake her death?”

We both sit in silence, until I say, “She made me, but how was she supposed to make you interact with me? You’d never listen to her outright. If you learned that she made something to try to control you, you’d kill it immediately. Someone else had to intervene.”

Aris’ ebony eyes flit to my own, narrowing as he catches my train of thought. “Jaegen.”

“She let Jaegen think that he killed her and let him use her magic. That’s how you ended up trapped in me—he gave the Grand Mage the spell for the amulet.”

“Then, the amulet began to malfunction,” Aris continues. There is a knowing glint in his eyes now, as though he has already reached the conclusion I’m still working toward, but he does not cut to the chase.

“Maybe because Jaegen was bad at magic, or maybe because Sem wanted it to be that way. So I started disappearing, and you…”

I drift off as I remember his rage and relief, how he clung to me desperately when I returned. Aris says, “And I panicked. Because I was losing you, and because I realized that I didn’t want to lose you.”

A few seconds tick past, and then I keep going, because it suddenly feels like I’ve been seized, possessed, and I must finish the story. “I left you after the Institute, as Sem knew that I would, and Jaegen found me. He came up with a plan to incapacitate you and…”

“Yes, I remember this part well,” Aris says wryly.

“Right… so, you lost your memory, but Sem wanted you back as yourself, just with more restraint—with a guiding hand and conscience that you would listen to. And so, here we are. Your memory is back, mine’s back, and you’re changed.”

I pause for a moment, waiting for him to contradict me. I wait for him to tell me that he isn’t different, that I don’t matter and never have, but all Aris says is, “She has gotten exactly what she wanted, then.”

The full meaning of his words sink in slowly, the coldness between us dissipating, and I take in his tone. He’s speaking matter-of-factly. Calmly. It isn’t like him.

“I don’t get it,” I say. “Aren’t you angry? Don’t you want to flay her alive? You’re being so rational about all of this.”

He sighs and leans forward, placing his forearms on his knees. It shifts him a little closer to me, and I suddenly want to unfurl myself and touch his leg. I have no idea what desires are my own and which were crafted by Sem.

“I will admit, a part of me wants to make her hurt,” he says. “But as you were speaking now, laying this truth out, I just enjoyed hearing you talk and speak to me civilly.”

Aris doesn’t look at me; I don’t look at him. Purposefully, I study the carpet. “I guess it makes sense why she did it,” I continue, trying to stick to the logical side of this and not the part where he just implied that he’d rather have me happy and at peace than get revenge on his sister. “It’s not like you would’ve listened if she told you to lay off on all the annihilation and chaos-bringing.”

He lets out an amused breath. “No, I don’t suppose I would have.”

We sit in silence for a few moments.

Seeing the web you’ve been stuck in is a strange feeling. Most people who have been manipulated never even realize what happened. That’s for the best. Knowing is off-putting: an awkward, embarrassed sense of relief. We thought we were the highest on the food chain, but there was someone above us the whole time, feeding and ushering us where they wanted us to go .

“So, it worked?” I ask, looking at him.

He glances at me, knowing what I mean: Are you changed because of me? “Yes,” he says, finally. “It worked.”

That’s all there is to say, but he continues, “I can’t go on without you. When you’re unhappy, when you’re not yourself, I am acutely aware of it.” He pauses. “You asked me once what I needed. I need you.”

Compelled, perhaps by some instinct Sem shoved inside me, I put my hand on top of Aris’, and both of us stare at where our skin connects. Neither speaks for a few moments.

“I will always be what I am,” he says, then. “Chaos. But if I were to rein that into something that is balanced and manageable… if we went somewhere where I could act as my nature dictates, a place you are not so emotionally tied to, then maybe…”

“Yes?” I say.

“Maybe we could be together.” He finally meets my eyes.

My brow furrows at the concept. Be together. Be ourselves. Somewhere alien, somewhere new.

“Don’t make me get back on my knees,” he says, tone wry and slightly bitter.

I want to say something mean, like: Do I have a choice? What if I say that I want to stay? Will you steal my memory and make me go with you anyway?

But he is being vulnerable, and lashing out is not the path to take. And, besides, what would be the point? Deep down, all cards on the table, I think that I actually want to go. Maybe Sem forced me to feel that way, or maybe the urge is there by its own design. Either way, it’s there.

“Okay,” I say.

I know that there’s no return from this. But there is no rush of dread; instead, I feel the rightness of my decision, a gut sense that guides people from a time before we were people.

I don’t know if Sem is masterminding this, but, at the moment, I don’t care. My earlier anger is forgotten, my destiny embraced.

He looks back at my hand atop his own, then moves so he can slide out and hold it. “I will make a formal promise to you, then: This world will see no more death and destruction by my hand. If humans die, it will be because they harm each other. Their ends will be their own.”

He’s said this before, in an abattoir, in the belly of his menagerie. I didn’t expect him to stick to his word, and yet, there had been something in his voice. And now, this.

“In return, I promise to stay by your side,” I say. “Wherever you go.”

“Forever?” he asks.

I pause.

This is not a simple request. People say the word forever all the time, promising to remain as partners. What we really mean is, for the rest of our lives. That isn’t how it works for Aris. If I am to stay with Aris, it is to be that way until the end of time.

“Forever,” I repeat.

Aris nods, and something slides into place. A bond. A band, bringing us together. My skin tingles like a current runs through me. For a single moment, it is unbearable and I almost gasp out, but Aris’ cold touch allows me to keep my reason. And then, the electricity is gone and I feel like myself again.

“I cannot use magic to create,” he tells me, “but I can transform. As you have been.”

Immortality. His hold tightens, and he nods.

“We are to remain together now, until the end of time. Ouroboros, as you say.”

This time, I nod. Silva lamented over the idea, but I feel nothing but calm as the news settles. Maybe I’ve been more affected than I thought by Nora and Aris altering my mind. Maybe I’ve gone truly insane.

But I don’t think so.

A new piece is sliding into place, and I am realizing: This is what Sem meant by biting down. This was the choice to be made, committing to him for an eternity. The thought feels… right, which could be further evidence that I’ve lost it, or a quiet trickle of approval from Sem, wherever she currently is in the universe.

Be clever. Be good.

“Which means there’s only one thing left to take care of,” Aris says. He pulls his hand out of my own, his back straightening. The way his jaw clicks, I know immediately what he means; there is only one thing that makes him react in such a way.

Jaegen.