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"Yes, I imagine this all must be very confusing," he says insincerely.
I hear Mason growl in his cell in response. Aiden throws him a smirk.
"Hush over there little creature, it's rude to speak out of turn," he tells Mason, who looks like he will throttle him first chance he gets.
Aiden turns his attention back to me, nonchalantly stroking my face as if its commanstance to lovingly stroke people who you have chained up. He gets a faraway look in his eyes.
"You know I'll never forget when I first saw you. You were in that garden that you loved, the sun streaming down on your hair as you hummed to yourself. You looked just like an angel, the most beautiful creature that I had ever imagined. I fell instantly in love with you, swore there was no one else in any of the realms who would ever compare.
I had already cast the spell to start the plague, it was a plan that my family and I had been preparing for hundreds of years. I would have stopped it for you though you know. I would have done anything for you to love me," he laughs bitterly at that thought.
"You didn't pay me the slightest bit of attention. I was like a curtain on the wall for all you noticed me. You looked right through me, your mind somewhere else when your father introduced me to you. It was like I didn't exist. I followed you that first night after dinner. I saw you with Beckham, someone who wasn't fit to kiss the ground you walked on. I heard you promise him that I was nothing and that he would forever be your one and only. I made a vow that you would one day break your promise, that you would one day belong to me."
A grin breaks across his face, as if this next part of the story fills him with so much joy that he can't contain it.
"I made you give him up," he announces proudly. "You walked away from the being who supposedly was your fated lover. I've gotten rid of everyone who had a chance of getting between us, including your mother," he says, as if admitting to killing my mother is simply an afterthought.
He strokes my face again, and this time I pull away even though the movement causes agonizing pain in my broken wings. I see anger streak across his face at my movement, as if he's somehow entitled to my devotion after all of this.
"You were the most beautiful bride the worlds have ever seen. Seeing you walk down the aisle, My lovely Queen, my everything....that memory won't ever leave me. In fact…" he says, rage filling his voice, "it haunts me to this day. Every second of every century I've spent searching for you, and my darling you've done a hell of a job of hiding, you've never left my mind for one minute."
He takes a deep breath and I'm shook realizing the depths of his obsession for me.
"I thought with time that you would fall for me. Surely as my wife I could finally get your attention."
He shakes his head and then levies Mason with such a hate filled glare that I shiver even though it's not directed at me.
"Then you somehow fell for that creature over there, that filthy incubus. You hated your husband so much that you dallied with a creature that's lower than the worms in the ground. The palace slut."
I gasp as a black whip shoots suddenly from Aiden's outstretched hand and slashes Mason across the face. Mason somehow only grunts as blood starts seeping down his cheek from the large gash that spreads across its entirety. Aiden again looks at me.
"I thought I fixed that little problem. I thought I fixed all of the little problems that kept threatening our happiness. But I also thought I had uncovered all your little secrets, dug through that miraculous brain of yours and figured you all out. I obviously was wrong since you upended all of my carefully laid plans. You still have more secrets I need to solve."
Aiden stands up as if he hasn't just dropped a million things on my head at once. I have so many questions, but my mind is still caught on the months I feel like I just lived with him. Getting answers to the questions about the months we just spent together feels more important for some reason than finding answers to the clues he gave me about my past. The life he speaks of still doesn't feel real to me. The mother he claims he killed, the land he says he cursed, the fact that I supposedly knew Beckham and Mason...and maybe even Damon. I feel like I no longer know what is real and what's not real. The lines are all blurred.
"What did you do to my mind?" I ask, a sob caught in my throat. "Was any of that real?"
There's a hint of sadness in his gaze and for one second I can see the Aiden that I thought I knew in this monster standing before me.
"I thought I could have a fresh start with you. Make you my partner without their interference," he says gesturing to the still bleeding Mason who's listening raptly. "Everything that I put in your head was based on real events, just how I wished they had gone instead of how they did go. I didn't lie that I've always loved potions. In fact, I was always referred to in our former life together as the most talented potions master that Fairie had ever had. My talents have only grown over the years. So concocting a potion that allowed me to plant images in your mind, a kind of virtual reality as they call it nowadays, was really no problem."
I cringe thinking of him rooting around in my head, how much he's already been in my head.
He crouches in front of me again.
"We were almost there, weren't we?" he asks softly.
"I almost had you, but you had to let them interfere," he continues without waiting for my answer, anger once again filling his voice.
"Let who interfere?" I ask, as ever, so confused.
"Your bitchy handmaiden, along with the others," he says, motioning to Mason.
He must see the confusion still written across my features.
"The snake that went out of control...the crows...the spider...thekaches? Obviously I wouldn't sabotage myself," he says to me, and I feel like such an idiot.
So many signs that went unnoticed. The empty village, the neverending perfect, unblemished days. The fact that no one would ever talk to me beyond pleasantries or instructions he had given them for me. I should have known something was wrong.
