All Chapters of Reborn as the villain's obsession [MM romance]: Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

151 Chapters

96: April again

One hundred and seven years is a long time.Cassian knew this in the abstract way that immortals knew time — not as something felt in the body, the way mortals felt years accumulate in their joints and their faces and the way they moved through the world, but as something witnessed. The world changing around him. The people in it changing. The cities growing. The integration framework, which had been a radical proposition when they built it, becoming so embedded in the structure of things that the generation currently running it had no memory of its absence and found the idea of its absence as remote as any other historical circumstance they had not lived through.He had kept his promise. That was the thing he held most carefully through the hundred and seven years — not as a merit badge or a claim, but as a fact, the fact of having made a promise to someone he loved and having kept it.He had lived. Not existed. He had kept the distinction, the one Adrian had taught him, the differen

97: What mira built : Part 1

The archive was called The Shape of Things, which was Mira's title and which nobody had argued with because Mira, at forty-three, had been making decisions with the quiet authority of someone who had earned the right to them across two decades of work that had changed what historians understood about the period of integration.She had started with the notebook she carried as a nine-year-old to a palace garden. That notebook was in a case in the archive's entrance hall, preserved under glass, the handwriting in it careful and serious in the way that a nine-year-old's handwriting was serious when the nine-year-old understood she was writing something important. The questions she had written that afternoon were the foundation of everything that came after — not because the questions were extraordinary, though they were better than most, but because the act of asking them had been the beginning of understanding that the answers mattered beyond their immediate context.She had gone back

98: What mira built : Part 2

He looked at the cases. At the twelve volumes, dark-covered, Cassian's handwriting visible through the protective glass on each open page."These are—" he said, and stopped."His notes," Cassian said, from beside him. "Twenty-three years."Aiden stepped into the room slowly. He moved from case to case, reading what was visible, not saying anything. At the third case he stopped for a long time. Mira came to see which entry was visible.He laughed at something Kael said today and the sound of it stopped everything for a moment. I don't think he knows he does that.Aiden read the entry twice. Then he looked up at Cassian."Did he ever know?" he said. "That you wrote it. That you kept all of it.""He found the box," Cassian said. "We read them together. Three days before the end.""Good," Aiden said, with a conviction that was entirely his own and also, she heard entirely Adrian's. "Good. He should have known.""He did," Cassian said.They stood in the notebooks room for a long time. Mira

99: The soul remembers

The coffee shop in April.That was where Cassian had found him, which meant that was where things began again.They had been meeting at the coffee shop every morning for three weeks. Aiden arrived at seven. They drank coffee, which Cassian had never particularly enjoyed and drank anyway because this was where the morning was, and they talked.The talking was different from what Cassian had expected, which was not a criticism of his expectations but an acknowledgment that he had not entirely been able to imagine in advance what it would be like to sit across from someone who was and was not the person he had known, who had Adrian's soul and Aiden's life and the specific combination of those two things that produced someone who was genuinely a third thing rather than either of the previous ones.Aiden was twenty-three years old and was studying urban history, which Cassian had found out in the first week and had then spent a considerable time sitting with, because the specific form of

100: Welcome home

They stood in the garden with their hands joined."Tell me what I missed," Aiden said."A hundred and seven years," Cassian said."All of it," Aiden said. "I want all of it.""That will take some time," Cassian said.Aiden looked at him."We have time," he said.They stayed in the garden for a long time, not talking.Aiden didn't realize he was crying until Cassian lifted a hand and gently wiped away a tear from his cheek.The gesture froze him.Aiden closed his eyes.And suddenly there was sunlight.A hand reaching for his.He staggered slightly.Cassian's hand immediately tightened around his."I can't see everything," Aiden whispered."You don't have to," Cassian said.His voice was breaking.For the first time since they had met, Aiden heard it break."I remember how it felt," Aiden said.The words surprised both of them."I don't remember every day. I don't remember every conversation. But I remember..." He pressed a hand against his chest. "This."Aiden laughed through tears.An

Special chapter 1 : Daddy Cassian's very bad day

Timeline: Two weeks after adoption"I have managed a demon realm for two centuries," Cassian said, to nobody in particular, staring at the sitting room ceiling where one chair, one candlestick, one shadow-dragon toy, and what appeared to be a decorative vase were currently floating in an approximately even distribution. "I have survived wars. I have negotiated with kings. I have—""Papa," Kael said. He was looking up at his shadow-dragon with the expression of someone who wanted it back and was considering his options. "Mr. Shadow stuck.""I can see that Mr. Shadow is stuck," Cassian said. "I am working on it.""How long working?""Ideally less time than it took for him to get up there."Lyanna, standing to Cassian's left, said: "I'll get them down," with the composure of someone who had caused a problem and was prepared to address it."How," Cassian said."I'm not entirely sure yet," she admitted."That," Cassian said, "is what I was afraid of."The situation had begun forty minutes

Special chapter 2 : Jealousy

Timeline: Seven years after weddingThe visiting prince was handsome in the specific way that visiting princes were handsome — with the practiced ease of someone who had been told they were attractive since childhood and had organized their entire personality around this fact.His name was Prince Damien of the Western Reaches and he had been in the palace for approximately four hours and had already found three separate reasons to touch Adrian's arm.Cassian was counting."Prince Adrian," Damien said, with a smile that was technically polite and was also, Cassian noted with the precision of someone who had been reading rooms for three centuries, designed to be charming specifically to people who found that kind of smile charming. "Your integration policies are remarkable. I'd love to discuss them in more detail — perhaps over dinner tomorrow? Privately?""That's kind," Adrian said, "but my schedule is—""Flexible, surely," Damien said. "For such an important conversation."Through the

Special chapter 3 : Roleplay gone wrong

Timeline: Eight years after weddingIt had been Aria's idea."You need excitement," she had said, which was a sentence that should have triggered more scrutiny than it received. "Spontaneity. You're married. You have children. You've revolutionized the political landscape of two species. You need to remember the tension.""The tension," Adrian had repeated."The early days tension," Aria had said, with the energy of someone who had too many opinions about other people's relationships. "The enemies energy. The forbidden attraction. The 'I shouldn't want you but I do' dynamic.""We were never really enemies," Adrian had said."The bond thought you were enemies," Aria had said. "Play into that. Roleplay. You know. For fun."He had, in what he was now recognizing as a catastrophically poor decision, mentioned this to Cassian.Cassian had given him a long look."You want to pretend to be enemies," Cassian said."Aria said—""You want to pretend we don't love each other," Cassian said."It'

Special chapter 4 : Body swap

Timeline: Eight years after weddingThe artifact looked harmless."Don't touch that," Kieran said.Too late.The flash was gold and crimson. The sound was a very specific kind of silence that followed very loud things. Adrian looked down at his hands and found them pale, long-fingered, and faintly shadowed at the edges."Oh no," he said.The voice that came out was Cassian's voice. Which was correct. Because these were Cassian's hands, which were attached to Cassian's body, in which Adrian was currently residing.Across from him, Cassian stood in Adrian's body looking at Adrian's hands with the expression of someone encountering something that defied their established understanding of the world, which, for Cassian, was a short list."This is—" Cassian said. Adrian's voice came out."Yes," Adrian said. From Cassian's body."We're—""We are."They looked at each other."How long," Cassian said, to Kieran, in Adrian's voice, which was deeply strange."Twenty-four hours," Kieran said, exa

Special chapter 5 : Truth serum

Timeline: Eight years after weddingThe wine tasted normal.That was the problem with truth serum — it always tasted normal until approximately seven minutes later when you found yourself telling the Iverean ambassador that his speech had the structural integrity of wet bread, which was accurate but not something Adrian would have said in any other circumstance."The what?" the ambassador said."Wet bread," Adrian repeated, with the specific helplessness of someone watching themselves say something they cannot stop. "The argument collapses in the middle. Like wet bread. I've been thinking it for twenty minutes and now I've said it."Cassian, standing beside him, turned very slowly to look at him."Something is wrong," Cassian said."The wine," Adrian said. "Don't drink the wine."Cassian set down his glass, which he had raised but not yet consumed.Aria materialized at Adrian's other elbow with the expression of someone who had already identified the problem and was calculating soluti

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