Ok honestly I was done with this chapter last night and I'm mostly done with the next chapter but I didn't want to update too quickly. When I do that I don't get much feedback.
Anyway, I hope you know I had to put some angst into the story so that's how this chapter came to be.
CHAPTER WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SLIGHT NON-CON. You've been warned
Chapter eleven:
As the boat drifted off further and further, Cedric got increasingly more confused. The lake was much too big to be going on this far and he couldn't see the shore anymore. Sofia seemed to be getting unnerved as well.
Suddenly, Cedric hunched over in pain. His head felt like it was being drilled into by something sharp. Sofia was by his side in an instant.
"Are you okay?!" She cried, but he continued to whither in pain. He was holding his head in his hands so tightly she thought he was going to hurt himself.
"Can't..." He growled and shook his head violently. He was tugging at his hair, trying to regain control of himself but found that impossible. The world started to fade and he watched the panicked look on Sofia's face before he completely lost consciousness.
Cedric stood in a dark space, nothing illuminated by light, only himself. He looked around trying to find an answer to what was going on but couldn't.
"Hello?" His voice echoed and a few seconds later he was greeted by... another version of himself?
This version of him was dressed more formally, white undershirt, black vest and black pants. His hair was slicked back, making his bangs blend in with the rest of his hair so it looked like silver streaks instead of the simple bangs that fell on his face normally.
"Hello, Cedric." The duplicate smirked at him rather hungrily.
"Who are you?"
"I'm you. But..." The duplicate circled around him, eyeing him like prey. "I'm the darker half of you. Yes I know you may be wondering how there can be a darker half of you, but trust me when I say you're the lighter half. All those evil impulses..." He chuckled, "that's me. And I am so glad to finally be in control. There are some things you wouldn't dream of doing, or at least admit to."
"What do you mean...?" Cedric looked around, worried. "What are you going to do?"
"Sofia is a pretty girl, isn't she?" Cedric's face twisted it in anger.
"Don't you dare touch her!" He snarled and grabbed the duplicate by the shirt.
"But I will." He said softly and shoved Cedric to the ground easily and waved his hand. Cedric looked up to see... Sofia? It was like he was watching her on a screen of some sort. "This is what you're seeing through your eyes right now... But you only get to watch, because I'm in charge now." He vanished and Cedric frantically jumped to where he stood trying to grab him but he was already gone.
"Don't you dare touch her!"
"Cedric? Are you ok?" Sofia asked softly when she saw him begin to stir.
"Oh yes, princess..." He slowly met her eyes and slicked back his hair, a look she'd never seen on him before. "I've never been better." He smirked devilishly and his eyebrow was raised, Sofia thought it would look pretty sexy if it weren't so terrifying.
"Cedric...?" She pushed herself back, trying to show him that he unnerved her. She knew he'd never do anything to intentionally hurt or scare her.
"Calm down, princess." He purred scooting closer to her. "No need to be shy around me. You love me after all..." His hand cupped her cheek and slowly stroked down her neck. She shivered.
"Cedric... Please stop. You're scaring me." His smirk widened and he pushed her to the floor of the boat and climbed on top of her. She tried to push away from him but he pinned her wrists and pressed his pelvis against her, stopping her from moving her lower body. She continued to push against him, only now realizing how much stronger he was.
"Oh please, princess. Struggle, it makes it more exciting don't you think?" His voice was rough and his accent seemed thicker somehow. She knew this wasn't her Cedric but she had no idea what happened to her Cedric.
He leaned in close and let his tongue lick up her neck and he bit her earlobe. Sofia shuttered, getting goosebumps all over her body. She was terrified and what was even scarier was her body reacting positively to it.
"Please, I don't want this." She winced as he bit down at the base of her neck.
"Don't worry, princess... I won't take up too much of your time." He chuckled and slid his hands up her shirt.
"No! No stop it!" She tried to move her hands since he let go of them but with a quick glance, her hands were pinned by magic. "You can do wandless magic?"
"Oh princess, I can do much more than that."
"STOP! LEAVE SOFIA ALONE! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?! DON'T TOUCH HER!" Cedric screamed, his voice on the brink of breaking. He didn't know how to get him to stop. He wasn't going to listen to a voice in his head. How would he save Sofia?
Was this really his evil side? He found it hard to believe he'd ever force himself on Sofia, no matter how evil he was. But now wasn't the time to think about his moral compass and spend more time thinking about how he was going to get control over his body again.
Sliding his hand into his pocket, he found his wand. He tried to think of spells to cast but none was for his exact weird position. He pointed his wand up and thought of the first spell that came to mind.
"GLACIES SPIRITUS!" A jagged blast of ice emitted from his wand.
Sofia whimpered at his touch and jerked her body against his trying to free herself but only felt his body react positively to that. All the movement of her lower body seemed to make him hard. Sofia's face flushed and she stopped squirming as much, not wanting to excite him more. She just stared at him, pleading.
"Why are you doing this?" She asked softly and he grinned with all of his teeth but it was the same evil grin from before.
"I want you. Is that so hard to imagine? I want you and I'm going to have you." His fingers toyed with the lip of her pants and her eyes widened.
"Please don't-"
"Shut up!" He hissed and her eyes watered, watching him yank down her pants. "Fuck!" He clenched his head and fell back. He held his head in his arms and shook it like crazy. "Cedric if you think you can stop me, you're sadly mistaken! I will have this damn princess... fuck!" He hunched over holding his head tighter.
"Cedric!" Sofia cried, still unable to move her arms. "Cedric please! You can fight this! Whatever it is!"
"Shut up, girl!" He hissed and his eyes flashed a deep red color. "You're mine. Cedric won't be able to save you from that. He's not strong enough. I'M THE STRONGER CEDRIC." He bellowed and knelt by Sofia and wrapped his fingers around her neck, not enough to actually choke her, just enough to scare her. "If only you knew the things I've already done to you..." He chuckled, letting his hand stroke down her chest. Before he got to her breasts, he was hit with another sharp pain, almost like a freezing sensation that had him double over in pain.
"This is getting old, Cedric." He panted. "The more you struggle, the more aggressive I get with the princess. Or maybe I should tell her about all the mean things you've done to her over the years." The toothy smirk on his face was terrifying and he centered his attention to Sofia. "Oh that got you quiet, didn't you? You don't want Sofia to know all the times you were naughty? Well, Sofia, have I got some stories to tell you about your dear Cedric-ow! Do you really think that will stop me?!"
"What are you talking about?" Sofia questioned quietly and that elicited a grin from him.
"When you first got to the castle, Cedric had no interest in you. In fact, the only reason he actually was nice to you-Cedric, you can stop that, I'm going to tell her anyway." He winced really hard and evened his breathing. Whatever Cedric was doing didn't look pleasant. "He... well... we, really, wanted to steal that lovely amulet of yours to take over the kingdom." Sofia frowned. "We planned to enslave the kingdom but especially your father." He sneered. "King Roland would be our greatest pet." Sofia felt him get hard against her leg and he chuckled. "Just thinking about it excites me. What about you, princess? I think you would've made a lovely slave. Especially now." He purred, eyeing her.
Sofia never felt more naked than she did now. She knew Cedric had a fascination with her amulet but she didn't know how deep it ran. Was it true? He wanted to enslave her family?
"I see you don't believe me." He almost pouted. "Very well, I suppose I'll have to provide examples." He winced. "You really don't want her to know about your dirty deeds, Cedric? Well I guess I can tell her after..." He grabbed her pants and yanked at them until they were off and Sofia stared at him in horror.
"Please don't. Please." She whimpered and he chortled.
"Cedric doesn't care enough to have stopped this, princess. Get over it." Sofia squeezed her eyes closed and felt his fingers slip under the sides of her underwear but the moment she thought he was going to yank them down, he didn't.
She opened her eyes and he had his teeth bared angrily and his eyes shut tightly. He looked to be in a great deal of pain. He stumbled back and shook his head angrily, his breathing was erratic.
Sofia felt like she watched him struggle with himself for hours, who knows how long it had been? He finally stopped flailing around as much and just stared down at the boat, eyes vacant. Sofia held her breath and he blinked a few times. She was the brown hue come back to his eyes and he rubbed his face and looked up at her, in tears.
"Sofia, I-I'm so so sorry." He shakily grabbed her pants and handed them to her. When he noticed she wasn't making an attempt to grab them he remembered her hands were bound and he quickly unbound them. "I'm so sorry." He repeated. "I-I would never hurt you." Sofia slowly put on her pants, not looking at him. "Sofia..."
"I don't want to talk right now." Sofia said quietly and looked out at the water. Cedric bit his lip and tried to stop himself from blubbering like a fool. He breathed in and out with extremely shaky breaths and tried his best not to look at Sofia, feeling unworthy, especially now.
They sat in the boat for a while, seemingly going nowhere. Cedric was going crazy in the silence and noticed that no matter how far they went, they were still in the middle of nowhere. He was starting to wonder if it was enchanted. He looked at Sofia, his heart breaking and he choked back more tears and quickly looked away from her. Would she ever forgive him?
"What did he mean?" Sofia finally asked. "What did he mean when he said he'd give examples? What dirty deeds?" She looked at him and saw how scared he looked at the question. He shook his head.
"Sofia please-"
"Just answer me, I think I deserve that." Cedric frowned and bit his lip.
"Okay... When you were 8 years old... you needed help studying for a sorcery test, do you remember?" Sofia nodded and he sighed. "I... I was working on an invisibility potion. I wanted to use it myself to turn invisible and steal your amulet." Sofia looked confused.
"But you didn't, you turned Clover invisible." She recalled and Cedric gave her a small smile.
"Exactly. I couldn't do it. Don't you remember how you helped me that day? You poured a potion on yourself to prove to your father I could do magic and it worked. That day everyone was so proud of me and when it came time to steal your amulet, I couldn't do it." Sofia stayed quiet. Cedric hoped it was a good thing.
"Were there other times?" She wound up asking. He could lie, but he knew she'd see right through it. He sighed. "There were."
"Yes..."
"How many?" He shrugged lamely.
"I can't count them all, Sofia." Sofia felt angry, hurt, betrayed. She had a tight frown on her face and couldn't think straight. Her heart hurt and she just wanted to scream.
"Do you even love me or is that a lie too?" Cedric stared up at her, flabbergasted. He quickly got up and knelt down before her. She shied away from him and he didn't want to show how much that hurt.
"Sofia, I would never lie about loving you. I admit, I was evil. I don't want you to think I was someone good but you changed that about me. I wanted to be better. I fell in love with you but even before then I stopped my quest to steal your amulet. I wanted power, I felt inadequate. All my life I'd been in my father's shadow and no one thought I was good enough. You did, Sofia. I knew that from the day you walked in and asked for magic lessons. You were the only one that cared about me and honestly that made me want the amulet more. You were a princess, I didn't deserve to be your friend. I wanted to take over the kingdom, but I wanted you there too and I know that sounds lame but that's how I felt. When I was a king, I could be your friend and wouldn't feel like I was a liar.
"Eventually, I grew to realize that in my quest to gain your amulet, I was only hurting you. What would come of it when I actually took over the kingdom? You wouldn't want to be my friend anymore. So I stopped that silly dream and focused on being a better sorcerer. You wanted to be with me all the time, every day. And I thrived in it. Then I fell in love with you, the sweet Sofia, she grew up into a beautiful woman and I will admit, for a moment I wanted to be king. I wanted to court you and have no one say a word about it. But I knew you wouldn't like that. I just assumed I would never be with you and it hurt but nothing would make me go back to how I was. I was miserable. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Sofia." Sofia stared at him long and hard.
She watched him, on his knees in front of her beg for forgiveness but she wasn't so sure it was necessary. She wanted to be angry with him for all he did. In fact, she tried to. Seeing those big brown eyes, his bangs fall on his forehead the way they always did, the tear tracks down his face. They all just reminded her of her love for him.
"Who was that person that took over your body?" She wound up asking and he breathed out slowly.
"Apparently he was my evil half but... Sofia I need you to hear this and I need you to know this as a complete fact. Sofia, I've never ever thought about forcing myself on you. No matter the evil deeds I've done or thought of doing, hurting you was never one of them. Please, just know that." Cedric still knelt in front of her and she was still shaken up over everything but she couldn't not tell him she forgave him. Especially when she already forgave him. He didn't need to be distracted more. If she needed to talk to him about whatever happened, she could do that when they didn't have to save the kingdom.
"I forgive you, Cedric." She said quietly and Cedric's eyes met hers. The relief in them was palpable and he shakily reached out, slow enough for Sofia to move if she wanted, and took her hands in his. He brought them to his mouth and kissed them.
"I promise to be a better man for you Sofia. If you still want me, that is." The anguish on his face truly broke her heart and she gave him a weak smile and knelt down next to him and slowly enveloped him in a hug. He hesitantly hugged back, waiting for her to shove him away, but she never did. She leaned onto the hug and Cedric had never felt more relieved to smell lavender in his life.
This chapter will make sense next chapter.
Anyone care to guess why this happened?
