Undying Hate

[tartaros_avatar]

Dead. No. It was impossible. Marcus couldn't be dead. This had happened before. The nuclear incident in the Soviet Union. The Rikti War. His own plans had seemed to manage it, only for Statesman to rise again.

But they had confirmation of a body. And the method used--he'd considered something similar before. It could have worked. It had worked. And before those useless failures of the Freedom Phalanx could retrieve Marcus, the body was gone.

The Circle. They'd stolen him. Those thieving old wizards were going to use Marcus' body for one of their rituals, and his idiot allies were too distracted saving civilians to notice or care.

But he could not be bound like them. He knew what they were doing, and he knew where. The technique they'd employed left a distinctive signature, one the Mystics could track. No matter where it led, he would follow. And then he would shatter the heart of Oranbega and let the stinking heap of Paragon collapse into its ruins.

A conference of Magi tracked the killers--

--they tracked the killers to a buried Oranbegan outpost, snaking along a ley line from their city. No time to waste. The strike force was already assembled and in motion before he even received the coordinates. Hand-picked months ago for another operation, for a plan that didn't matter anymore.

And they would perform their roles to perfection. If they did not, he would know. And they would die to redeem themselves, or they would live to wish they had been so lucky.

But as soon as they were close enough to strike, his rage could not be contained any longer. He tore into the mages and their demonic allies, the sting of their spells and spectral claws barely felt, their flesh barely felt as he cut them down. They were flimsy, weak things, how dare they, how dare they do this.

He descended through their outpost, his operatives following in his wake, their numbers slowly dwindling. He'd planned for that. When their arch-demon master tried to end him as they'd done to Marcus, he'd planned for that too. He always planned, grown stronger, changed the world to better suit him, and yet it had not been enough.

And this would not be enough to calm him, how could it? He wasn't finished, no matter how much his wounds were slowing him now. He survived the demonic assault, his countermeasures only partly effective. It felt like glass had been ground into his bones. But he could not be stopped.

He tore the demon's burning heart from its chest, and limped on. The ritual chamber was next, the mages trapped in their incantations over Marcus' body. With their ceaseless chanting pinning them in place, all they could do was watch him advance and kill.

And when at last he stood beside the ritual altar, he finally saw.

Marcus was still breathing.

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[tartaros_avatar]

There were tremors through the rock beneath his boots. No time to waste.

His shoulders rose with a deep breath, and then did not fall. His muscles were too tense for that. Why was he doing this. "You can't make it." That was obvious.

"I can. Hold still." He rounded on Marcus, picking him up off his feet as he braced low against the floor, and leapt with a snarl of pain.

He sailed up in a tall arc, stumbling as he landed at the edge of the pit, almost collapsing. He caught himself with his spider limbs, panting for breath.

[zeusincarnate]

The words Marcus was about to say in response to the obvious statement that he couldn't make it died on his lips when he was told to hold still, and Recluse rounded on him. He stumbled backwards, but was still grabbed. This was hardly the first time he'd been man-handled by Recluse, thrown through walls and ceilings and against things and grabbed and held down. But never carried like this, not since they'd become Statesman and Lord Recluse.

The landing was rough on Marcus as well, and he was grateful he managed to avoid having Recluse fall on top of him. He crawled away from Recluse once he was free, gasping over the renewed pain in his chest that had him once again coughing.

He almost commented about it being just like old times as he stared at the fresh blood he'd coughed up, but that seemed far too likely to result in Stefan changing his mind about both of them getting out of here alive. Once the coughing subsided enough, instead he said.

"I always thought it would be more like this, after the well, but with less almost dying." Marcus didn't often let himself think about what might have been, about other paths he could've gone down. Death always had a habit of bringing that out in him, even if this time it was only his own almost-death.

[tartaros_avatar]

The light behind his eyes flared, then flickered out for a moment as he closed his eyes to fend off a wave of vertigo.

"You never understood." He'd been a fool, when he'd called Marcus his friend. He'd become something different, so much better than before.

But not free. "Have no illusions--I was done with you. And it will never allow that to change." The thing in the Well was so enamored of its tidy little narratives.

[zeusincarnate]

It didn't hurt to hear Recluse say that he was done with Marcus. Too many decades of anger and hatred had happened between them, between what they had become. Whatever friendship they'd once had was long buried in the rubble at the Well of the Furies. And Marcus was the only one who lamented it anymore.

Not that he would be willing to accept it if Stefan did say he was going to change. He'd played that card once already. It was just exhausting to think they would be enemies forever when they could have had someone to go through eternity beside instead.

Marcus struggled to his feet once more, waiting for Stefan to recover enough to get up as well. He was uncomfortably aware of the fact that Stefan was behind him and could easily kill him with those spider limbs.

[tartaros_avatar]

He pushed himself upright.

"And it won't let me be rid of you." He grabbed Marcus' arm, pulled him close, and activated the teleport beacon. The flash was bright, but not quite enough to obscure the bending open of space around them, a perspective on the world that the human mind was not built to comprehend. But his was not a human mind. By now, he could read it quite well.

The room they arrived in was completely dark at first. When the lights blinked on, they were a fraction the intensity expected in an Arachnos compound. This was meant only for him, and it was tailored to him alone.

He tapped at a nearby monitor, the readout flashing by at high speed. "Secure." No breaches, no indication that the teleport had been tracked. And reports indicated that Arachnos was collectively distracted by activity around the Thorn Tree in Nerva. The orders he'd left before his departure were holding the day, and his absence had not been noticed. "This will do." He keyed in a terse message to the Fortunata Network, sending out further instructions for operation in his absence.

He needed to sit. To be still, and let his power destroy the pain he felt. Wash off the blood and caustic spell-stuff.

Find his way back to equilibrium, so he could properly deal with this.

[zeusincarnate]

There was no need to question what 'It' was. The Well, or rather, the Box that powered it. Monica used to say she could see glimpses of Zeus in him, but his encounter with other Incarnates, his counterparts in other dimensions, said it might be otherwise. Zeus was a convenient enough name for that part of himself that was something other than himself.

But he didn't question it this time when Stefan grabbed him and pulled him close, reluctantly bracing his hands against Stefan's heavily damaged breastplate to keep from stumbling and needing to be held up. Teleporting by any means was a little unpleasant. Not as terrible as crossing the barrier between dimensions, which was still only mostly uncomfortable as reality seemed to shiver a little when an Incarnate stepped between dimensions.

At least they were safe. Well, Stefan was safe, and Marcus was questionably safe but in a better position than he had been before he'd woken up.

The only chair in the room was obviously sized and shaped for Lord Recluse, with a back build to comfortably seat him and his extra limbs. That was fine. Marcus was close to a wall. He took the few steps over to it and just sat down against the wall.

"Your countermeasure..." Marcus said, not quite sure how to phrase the request he didn't want to make and expected to refuse but knew he had to at least try. "The Freedom Phalanx. They could go after me, again. Or Miss Liberty next." Using her hero name seemed safer than saying 'my granddaughter' given the tangled history in their family. His daughter hadn't gained the full strength of an incarnate, but they shared his strength. They would also likely share this vulnerability.

His granddaughter being taken over wasn't the same magnitude disaster that the Circle getting an Incarnate would be, but Recluse would hopefully consider it enough of a tactical problem to get ahead of the issue.

[tartaros_avatar]

Pathetic. Both of them were. He lowered himself into a chair, the base of his limbs cradled as comfortably as could be possible, with the pain he still felt.

There was a long pause.

"The Circle cannot be allowed control over Incarnates. No one can." No one.

He retrieved the documentation for Countermeasure 4354-484647 from his files, and sent it. To all channels. A personal gift from Lord Recluse to the world.

"Now it is up to them." He was... tired.

[zeusincarnate]

That had taken less work to convince him than Marcus had expected, but Stefan clearly didn't need to point out the problems with the Circle controlling an Incarnate.

He would have to trust that Positron got it an recognized what it was. How important it was. They'd been teammates long enough that Marcus could trust him with that. "They'll take care of it."

Marcus knew he should get up. Get up and do... something that wasn't sit there on the floor wearing a wall hanging. Eat food, probably. Put new bandages on his wounds in case whatever this was didn't wear off any time soon. Clean off. Not necessarily in that order. He wasn't actively bleeding, but a lot of his wounds were sluggishly dripping once more, reopened at some point during the escape.

"Where's the shower." It was getting harder and harder to care about what might annoy or offend Stefan. At least Recluse seemed to tired to want to argue over trivial matters.

[tartaros_avatar]

He gritted his teeth. "Right, left, left." It was through the dining room and bedroom. This space was one without pretense, meant for only him and no one else. Not for decades.

And then he'd let Marcus in. "Get out of my sight."

[zeusincarnate]

In other circumstances Marcus would have argued about being ordered around. But he wanted to leave the room anyway, and he was honestly too tired and in no mood to argue. Let Recluse think he was ordering him around if he wanted.

So he forced himself to stand up and leave. Right. Left. Left. A dining room for one, and a bedroom with an exceptionally large bed. Big enough for multiple ordinary large people, but probably only one person with Recluse's limbs. No obvious closet or dresser.

Bathroom. Very large to accommodate someone with eight extra limbs growing out of his back. Marcus only checked to see that there were towels before he tossed the wall hanging off into an out of the way spot and turned the shower on.

The blood and dirt came off easily. The symbols painted onto him less so, and Marcus spent only the time to make sure each one was at least partly scrubbed off before he decided that was good enough.

Once he was clean enough, he searched out the kitchen. Stefan wasn't making his presence known in any way, no foot steps or deep voice speaking from the other room. Marcus located the supply of Arachnos long-shelf life, ready eat food, and got food for himself. And then more for Stefan, so he'd have a ready excuse to go see if he Recluse was even still conscious without starting another argument.

That was how he appeared in the doorway to the room where they arrived. Wearing a pair of towels, still partially painted, and carrying food. And despite his best efforts, leaving a very faint trail of blood, not that it was obvious compared to the gory foot prints he'd left on his way to the shower.

[tartaros_avatar]

Recluse watched through hidden security cameras, limbs twitching and thrashing, but without much intent to the motion. He had Marcus within his power here, and yet he was still betraying his principles. The ruthlessness with which he conducted every part of his life was absent. An insult to himself, and against her too.

His fingers had carved furrows into the metal housing of a nearby console before the pain in his bones made him realize he'd done it. This was intolerable.

The security feeds were dismissed with an angry hiss. Then he tore open a hidden drawer, lifting out a medical kit and turning away from the console.

He stripped down the top half of his armor and suit, stacking the scorched adamantium plates beside his chair, the tattered and stained cloth was tossed aside to be destroyed later.

There were gashes on his arms, the side of his neck, burns that had snuck beneath the plates, cuts and punctures on his legs he'd deal with later. His power could deal with all of it. It always did, and despite the Circle's best attempts to hobble him, they had failed. But preparation and pragmatism were part of what distinguished him. The magical and demonic residues left in the wounds removed with the proper neutralizing agents. Then he could cover them over with synthetic flesh to hide the damage until he was restored.

He could hear footsteps. Of course he could. With superior senses, the space wasn't large enough to ever forget someone else was there. He didn't look up from his task, though his jaw set tighter, a crackle of hellfire sputtering out as he treated a burn on his side.

"I should have killed you already."

[zeusincarnate]

"I've been wondering this whole time why you haven't."

There it was. The missing piece of the puzzle about why Marcus was alive, the clue at whatever convoluted plot Recluse had that required getting Marcus out alive. The missing piece really was just a missing piece, and Recluse didn't know either or he would've decided to rub it into Statesman's face by now.

He'd certainly started gloating on the precipice of victory before only for Marcus and his allies to find a way out or around his plot. But here he had him, Statesman, after decades of their feud. Literally powerless. And there was no plan. Recluse hadn't planned this at all. Whatever circumstances had led to this point were not only unplanned, but so far out of the realm of possibility in Recluse's that he hadn't even planned for its possibility.

"If you had wanted me dead, I wouldn't have woken up at all. Unless you wanted to gloat first about killing me so I would know it was you, and not the Circle that got me." Not outside the realm of possibility. But that hadn't happened. Recluse was buying time to think of the best way to handle this unexpected situation.

Rather than stand in the door way, he moved closer to set the food down. Not right next to Stefan, but where it wouldn't be on anything important and wouldn't take too much effort to get to. If Recluse had changed his mind about killing him, there was a decent chance he would say so before he decided to skewer Statesman with those limbs of his.

[tartaros_avatar]

"A few hours ago, it seemed they had." A synthetic skin bandage covered the burn, its gray surface losing its sheen as it settled into place.

"I'd already considered the technique long ago. It would have been appropriately painful." He still didn't look up, reaching for the gash on his neck, taking some of the dark blood from the wound and inspecting it. The areas he'd patched were clean, but his face, neck and limbs were still streaked with blood and ash.

"But it was too generalizable to other Incarnates, and the countermeasures were inelegant. I decided against it."

He finally shifted his attention for a moment. "I wonder how many of the plans I've discarded might have been successful."

[zeusincarnate]

It took Marcus a moment to understand the ramifications of what Stefan said. It seemed they had killed him. Recluse went in there thinking he was dead. The Freedom Phalanx thought he was dead.

Between whatever interference the Circle had done in Recluse's plans and running of with his his alleged corpse, Recluse had fought his way in there not expecting him alive. Stefan had likely planned to just avenge the interference and keep them from using Statesman's body.

And then to know that Stefan had known about this shared weakness of their this whole time. Because of course he did.

"I was less careful than I should have been," Marcus reluctantly admitted." I thought the big threat was to the city. The Circle don't come up with anything new very often."

He was always most on guard against Lord Recluse, or the Incarnates from other dimensions. With them, the city or anything else was always the distraction, and it was really all about what was between them.

"Your back is bleeding, too." Cautiously testing out this reluctant and strange cease fire between them. It was the first time Marcus had ever seen the part of Stefan's body where the spider limbs grew out of him. The first time without armor and cape and everything else obscuring it, at least.

[tartaros_avatar]

Of course he hadn't thought it through. Marcus never did.

"They destroyed empires before, as the Mystics insist on reminding me." And it was a point with merit. The Oranbegans were more pawns of the demons they'd dealt with now, but occasionally their magical admixture would produce something more powerful than either could have managed alone.

"I know." He waited to see how far Marcus was going to push the matter.

[zeusincarnate]

The two of them had very good reason to not disregard stories and legends from ancient history. Marcus should have known better.

And those two words right there were Stefan very clearly laying out bait. But at the same time it wasn't also telling him to go mind his own business. Marcus was too tired for that.

"I'm not going to play that game right now."

Still, he made his way over to the first aid kit to eye the contents. Synth skin patches in Recluse's particular shade of inhuman gray, a variety of things he couldn't identify with his limited knowledge of current first aid and medical, strictly for patching up other people when necessary.

And it really wasn't often necessary. Setting his own food down nearby, Marcus reached in to gather a few things from the kit.

[tartaros_avatar]

His only reply was a tired snort. He hadn't expected anything more than that.

A sterilizing swab to clean away the blood from his neck. Another doused in neutralizing agent for the specific class of magical venoms the Circle favored. Forceps to blindly but dexterously remove the shards of something his flesh was slowly pushing out. More neutralizing agent, directly into the puncture wounds. Finally, the synthetic skin.

Patching up small problems rather than facing what should bee done.

bees

[zeusincarnate]

Supplies in hand, Marcus turned to walk away from Stefan. But only because he had to go a fair distance to get around those very lethal spider limbs to actually reach his back. In fact, once he was there, Marcus was standing in the safest place to be around Stefan.

Which was probably for the best. Marcus had watched what Stefan was doing and what he was using, and had enough of an idea what to do to treat the magical wounds and burns and occasional physical damage. Which he did quickly but carefully, picking one that wouldn't require reaching around or under the spider limbs to do first.

Re: bees

[tartaros_avatar]

His eyes followed Marcus' movements, limbs unconsciously flexing as he began to circle out of view.

The greatest problem was ultimately the source of their power. The box. It hadn't taken over completely today. That always had a distinctive, loathsome progression to it. Aura, pain, blackout, confusion, and usually amnesia. But he could account for every second since he'd last slept.

But there were other changes, more subtle ones. He'd noticed some of them from the very first moments, but only some. Over the first years after opening the box, he had thought the alterations had all been beneficial, and under his control. But eventually he noticed patterns in his own behavior. Actions he favored or avoided, without regard for efficacy or personal history.

He understood what he was. He was a villain. He was ruthless, pitiless, unconstrained by morality. Undermining and destroying heroic forces wherever they were found. He didn't just play the role, this was him, in his entirety. And yet so much of it fit to a simple framework. A story. One that would not be allowed to end.

"Do you actually want to do that?"

[zeusincarnate]

Did he want to? No. Not really, but Marcus felt like he should. Because Stefan had saved him, even if accidentally. Recluse had ample opportunity to kill him or leave him for dead or do something and he hadn't. In fact, he had been downright courteous and polite compared to his usual self.

Marcus didn't understand why, and he was pretty sure Stefan didn't know either. Was still figuring things out and trying to plan. Otherwise he would've done something. Recluse could play the long game, but if this was a trick it was absurd by almost any standard.

"You could've killed me, or left me." Except that leaving him wasn't an option due to the fact that they both agreed the Circle gaining control of an Incarnate was a very bad idea all around. That only left killing him. "Don't expect me to start trusting you or to ask for a pardon for you, but I can at least do this much."

[tartaros_avatar]

A pardon? that earned a sneer. "You never would have felt any obligation before." Before. It had been a joke that Marcus didn't want his money going to the Widows and Orphans Fund. The idea that this was the real, unforced personality of Marcus Cole was absurd.

"It wants both of us alive and thwarting each other."

[zeusincarnate]

"Before when? Before you saved me in the war? Before you helped keep me alive on our search for the fountain? Before you saved me again taking us both down there to drink from it? Before you intercepted my mail and tortured our friend to death?" It certainly wasn't for lack of trying, Lord Recluse had come perilously close more than once. "Only one of us keeps coming back to fight again and again, and it isn't me."

Marcus had come close to abandoning everything, abandoning the fight against Recluse. It hadn't been the Well or the Box that had stopped him. He had become less and less proactive about being a hero over the decades. Even with all the organizations and the Freedom Phalanx. He had too many villains and heroes trying to demand his attention to pay attention to everything.

He continued to quickly but carefully deal with the more easily accessible wounds, not ready yet to go working around and under those spider limbs. "We're effectively immortal. We have a very long time to keep doing this." It was hard not to be bitter knowing the only person he had to share eternity with wanted him and everyone he loved to suffer.

[tartaros_avatar]

"If anyone had hurt you as much as I have, you wouldn't give them any charity." No one else had tried so thoroughly, and nobody had needed to. The old Marcus Cole had only cared about fairness when it got him something.

But oh, he had loved to lecture. "You dare assume I never tried to break away. That you never took anything from me." The muscles in his back tensed, wounds flaring open. "Yes. We have as long as it allows us, and I have more than reason enough to never let you rest. With Marlene dead, there's nothing else."

[zeusincarnate]

That was true, but no one else had ever spent so much time going after Marcus. "No one else has the history we do," Marcus said to defend himself, but it sounded like a weak argument. Neither of them could really let go of their shared past, as much as Marcus usually didn't mention Stefan whenever he had to recount how he came by his powers.

An annoyed noise escaped his throat when Stefan's exceptionally bulky muscles tensed up and undid all the work Marcus had just very reluctantly done, and he rested a hand on an uninjured part of Stefan's upper back. Luckily it was easy to remember, or rather, hard to forget, that he was currently weak and powerless and couldn't just take a few moments of rest from arguing by throwing Recluse through a wall. And Marcus had no idea who Marlene was, or when or how she died, but it was clear Recluse was blaming Marcus for it.

Recluse's skin felt strange, not entirely human, and too warm. Although Marcus wasn't sure if that was because he himself was cold or due to Recluse's injuries. Asking about who Marlene was could only lead to Stefan getting more angry as Marcus poked at what seemed to be an entirely different kind of wound. A kind Marcus hadn't thought Recluse was capable of having. "You asked if I wanted to do this, but you haven't said if you want me to stop or keep going." Marcus said as he pulled his hand away from Stefan's back to put more skin patches on the reopened injuries. "Is it making you sit here and let me help?"

[tartaros_avatar]

"Practicality should dictate the answer." It should. Even here, it should. He should take what he needed. He should use his advantage.

He shouldn't be here at all. A properly assembled strike team could have handled the assault. He had altered the team's composition to require his presence, because he had been too angry to leave it to others. He'd wanted to destroy the Circle interlopers personally.

And their magic had cut deep into him, his power. It still gnawed at him with every movement, every tensed muscle.

Slowly he forced his back to relax, even though he hadn't gained much more control over his anger. When it came to Marcus, he always made mistakes.

[zeusincarnate]

"If practicality dictates the answer stop trying to pick a fight and chase me off, and hand me some more skin patches." Which Marcus had always thought was Stefan's weakness. His willingness to give into his rage and his passion.

Marcus waited to see how Stefan would react to that before he started treating the next wound. He still had plenty of the other materials and could start on the wounds around and beneath the spider limbs but he wasn't sticking his hands there until he was more certain Recluse wasn't going to get angry enough to turn on him now.

[tartaros_avatar]

"It should. And I should have killed you, and yet I haven't."

He picked up some of the medical supplies, turning them over in his hands. "I suppose this means that when I finally become angry enough to try again, it will be too late."

[zeusincarnate]

Despite all their fighting, Marcus had always held the impression Recluse would prefer to capture him alive than kill him. And their current situation was strong evidence that despite what he might say, Recluse wasn't going to kill him.

"Why did you attack the Cirlce yourself, knowing you would get this injured." Marcus knew Recluse had some kind of grudge against them and refused to work with them at all, but he didn't exactly know why. Keeping his army of mystics happy was a possible reason, but it just didn't quite fit.

He didn't think Recluse would get injured enough to kill him. Mostly because Marcus was certain Recluse would decide on some plan that involved keeping him alive as a prisoner before Marcus regained his powers and ability to fight back.

[tartaros_avatar]

"I thought you were dead, and they had your body." Those were two separate thoughts, he was beginning to realize. "That could not be allowed."

[zeusincarnate]

On the surface, that might make sense if Stefan thought he might have to take down a fully powered incarnate, but it still didn't add up quite right.

"If they had taken me over, would they have my full power?" Marcus very much doubted it, but since Recluse had already thought over the very attack that had taken him down and developed a countermeasure, he might know something Marcus didn't.

Because it was starting to sound like he was very angry someone had taken the right to make Marcus suffer from Recluse, and that had driven him into a rage. He remembered just how angry and overwrought Recluse had been when Statesman first woke up.

[tartaros_avatar]

"Not at first. Possibly never." In fact the body might have degraded over time, as it rejected the spirit.

A strike force could have dealt with it. The technique the Circle had performed was only effective against incarnates.

"It would have meant a world without you to stand in my way." And he wanted that. He truly did. Nothing drove him mad with frustration quite the way Marcus could.

[zeusincarnate]

He was right. There was no practical reason for Stefan to have been there except that he was angry and wanted to take his Statesman-related anger out on the Circle.

Marcus had never understood why Stefan had shown back up as an enemy, rather than a friend, and he had long ago given up trying to make sense of it. Had long ago given up on Lord Recluse ever coming back from what he was.

But Recluse seemed a little calmer for the moment, so Marcus started to deal with the injuries that would require him getting more tangled up with the spider limbs than he wanted to be.

[tartaros_avatar]

The space between his limbs was still armored, but there was little to be done about his back around it without affecting his movement. His armor was already fitted as close to the limbs as he could afford.

He had to splay some of his limbs apart to expose the burns beneath them, left by mages and demons he'd made the tactical decision to ignore as he pushed ahead through the caves.

And while he sat there, letting his hated enemy bandage vulnerable wounds, he tried to think. To plan. To work a way around whatever this infuriating compulsion was to keep Marcus alive.

[zeusincarnate]

At least they had stopped arguing and Recluse was cooperating with Statesman treating his back. Marcus felt like he should probably take advantage of this somehow, but couldn't think of any way to overcome Recluse. Their current power difference was just too great, and even if Marcus somehow overcame Recluse, he'd have to find a way to get out of here and back to Paragon City. Without his powers.

Watching the muscles around the spider limbs where they attached to the back was interesting, but Marcus didn't let himself be distracted. For a moment he wondered what they felt like and looked like without the armor, but it was a passing thought quickly banished from his tired mind.

[tartaros_avatar]

His mind turned over plan after plan, but he'd already considered them all. Cutting free of the Box was no simple matter. This wasn't a signal that could be blocked out. The web of power that they drew from was too integrated into reality itself.

Theoretically, one could create a pocket dimension that lacked the Box's power. Inside, one could theoretically operate without its influence. A perfect place to trap Marcus, and to perform experiments. Perhaps even a means to permanently sever the connection to the Box.

But it would mean giving up all power in exchange for freedom. While he continued to fund dimensional research, he manipulated their focus away from the idea. He wanted Marcus dead. He wanted to be free. But would he give up the rest of what he'd become? Of course not.

In the meantime, he could at least keep Marcus injured. But inevitably it would fail. The Circle's ritual would wear off. Someone would find them and rescue the hero. Or one of his own followers would undermine him. That was how it always went. Every single time, it failed.

Sometimes it felt like if he could have just a few moments peace to stop thinking about Marcus, he could bend the universe to his whims. He wasted so much energy on the man.

And he was truly impossible to ignore now. There were places between his spider limbs that were always sensitive. Vulnerable. The injuries there ached and spat fire--some of them literally, the Circle's magical flames flared angrily as the wounds were treated.

But most keenly, he felt skin against his. He hadn't allowed anyone to touch there in years.