Chapter 28: Twenty Eight

"No!" I tried to jerk away but his grip tightened on my body. "Don't you dare…"

He laughed, dark and genuine, the sound vibrating through both of us where our bodies pressed together.

"You already know I'm speaking the truth," he said, his lips brushing my neck. "You sensed it the moment you met her. Cersei is different from typical Nexium; more delicate and gentle, yet my every word is her command, even to the point of death.”

His hand slid from my stomach to my hip, his touch possessive on my body, pulling me so tightly to him that I felt my skin grow hot where he touched me.

"That is my design. My grand purpose. To increase my forces and my strength by transforming your kind into my own soldiers. Just imagine, an army of converted Heartwalkers, all bound to my will."

His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "And then, finally, we take the human realm itself."

Of all threats he had made to me in the short time I’d known him, this one was by far the worst. A threat of not just death, but something far worse.

Total corruption. The perversion and erasure of everything that we Heartwalkers were meant to be.

And somehow, despite the horror of what he was describing, and despite the rage building in my chest, I felt my treacherous body responding to our closeness.

From the heat of him pressed against my back, to the possessive way his hands claimed ownership of my body.

I hated myself for it.

"You cannot do this," I said, forcing my voice to remain firm even as my pulse raced in my chest. "I won't let you."

"You are correct."

I blinked, thrown by his agreement.

"I cannot do it," he continued, and now his hands were moving, finding the fastenings of my dress.

"Not alone. That is why I could scarcely believe my fortune when you; the final piece of my puzzle, the solution to every obstacle I've encountered, walked directly into my chambers at precisely the moment I needed you most."

"What do you mean?" I tried to turn around but he held me fast, and I felt the dress begin to loosen as he worked the clasps open one by one.

"I am not strong enough," he said simply. "Nexium magic alone cannot achieve complete transformation. Not permanently, and not without significant... cost."

The dress slipped lower and I grabbed at it instinctively, trying to hold it up but he slapped my hand away, leaning to growl in my ear as a warning.

"I know this because I experimented extensively," he continued, his tone calm and conversational despite what his hands were doing.

"I brought with me a number of Heartwalker prisoners during the Great War. You may have seen the last of them on your little adventure to the dungeons “

Dragus continued, “I drained their life force, their magic, and their very essence. After which I combined it with my own dark power and used the mixture to transform Cersei."

"How many?" I demanded, my voice shaking. "How many people did you murder for your experiments?"

"Fifteen hundred."

Great hundred. I gasped, horror overwhelming every other emotion I had in that moment.

"That's few to you?"

"Of course," he said, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world.

"One thousand five hundred lives to prove the concept was possible, to perfect the methodology, and create one flawless success."

His hands traced across my bare skin now, his touch sinful now that the dress had slipped low enough to expose my shoulders and my breasts..

"I considered it to be worth it at the time. But soon I came to realize that such an approach is inefficient. Fifteen hundred lives for each conversion would take far too long, and require far too many resources." He said.

He spun me around suddenly, pressing me back against the table, and forcing me to face him. His eyes burned into mine with terrible intensity.

"But now I have you," he said, his voice dropping to that dangerous purr. "The strongest Heartwalker alive. One billion successful matches. A thousand years of accumulated power and experience."

His hands moved to my waist, his fingers digging in possessively. "I no longer need to hunt down hundreds of lesser Heartwalkers to fuel each transformation. With you as my source, I can convert dozens at once. Hundreds. Perhaps eventually thousands."

The implications crashed over me with every word he spoke.

What he’d said about transforming me was only his strange sick version of a joke, what he was actually planning was to use me as a battery, draining my power over and over to corrupt my own people.

"I will use you, Cupid, to destroy and enslave your entire race," he said, as if he were sharing good news. "You distracted me last time and prevented the initial phase from proceeding as planned. But that will not happen again."

The dress fell away completely now, pooling at my feet, leaving me in only the thin undergarments I'd been given.

His eyes raked over me with hunger and lust, tracking over the length of my body from head to toe.

"As soon as the planets align in six months' time, when both realms exist in perfect sync and the barriers between worlds grow thin, the transformation will begin."

He lifted me effortlessly, setting me on the edge of the table facing him. "And you, my perfect Heartwalker, will be the instrument of your people's ultimate defeat."

I was trembling now; full of rage and grief and the sick arousal that I couldn't suppress as his hands explored my body intimately.

Half of me wanted to claw his eyes out, another part wanted to weep for the countless souls he'd already consumed, for all the Heartwalkers he planned to corrupt.

And despite this; some terrible, shameful part of me was responding to his touch, to the heat in his burning eyes and the dark promise in his words.

“There is absolutely nothing you can do about it, Cupid. That is what pleases me the most, that you will remain at my side, underneath me, beside me, and you will never be able to leave.”

He grinned then, revealing rows of frightfully sharp teeth, “Who will you run to when all your people are mindless soldiers, and you are the only one left?”

He trailed his hand down my breasts, then my stomach, stopping only at the slickness between my legs. “By then it would be too late, you would have already learned your purpose, body and soul, is to serve me and me alone.”

I whispered, shrinking back at his words. “Please let me put my dress back on. This is… it is indecent.”

"The only reason I allow you to wear clothing," he murmured, his hands sliding up my thighs, "is so that I may experience the pleasure of removing it."

He leaned in close, his mouth hovering over mine, not quite kissing but close enough that I felt every word against my lips.

"Tell me, little spy," he breathed. "Does knowing my plans change anything? Does understanding that you will be the instrument of your people's destruction make you hate me more? Or does some part of you find it... intriguing?"

His hands moved higher and I couldn't suppress the gasp that escaped me.

I grabbed his wrists, stopping him, forcing myself to meet those burning red eyes even as my body betrayed me with its reactions.

"What will you do," I asked, my voice steadier than I felt, "when I stop you a second time? When I find a way to ruin this plan of yours just like I ruined the last one?"

I leaned forward until we were nose to nose, letting him see the defiance burning in my eyes despite everything.

"When I stop you forever?"

For a long moment, he just stared at me.

Then his smile widened, slow and predatory and absolutely delighted at my dare.

"Oh, my fierce little Heartwalker," he murmured, his eyes blazing brighter. "I do so enjoy it when you bare your teeth at me."

His grip on my thighs tightened.

"Let us find out together, shall we?"