Kindred Spirits

102 - How could you love such a disaster?

"No!" Cassidy cried out, rushing towards Aurora in a blind rage now that she'd brought her pregnant little sister into things, but Klaus was quick to hold her back.

"Look at her! How could you love such a disaster?" Aurora scoffed. Living in a world where there were enemies around every corner, Cassidy had gotten very used to brushing the childish insults to the side, but that one word was hard to get rid of... it stuck in her mind. Disaster. Aurora was right. She was a disaster compared to the flawless, petite redhead whom Klaus had once loved. He could so easily turn his head back towards her. What was stopping him? Cassidy was a mess.

"Because she is my mate, and she is the only thing that truly matters to me." Klaus replied instantly, without even a moment of hesitation or an ounce of thought put into it. "You were my past, Aurora, but Cassidy is my present and my future. She is who I want. She is who I will always want."

"Really?" Aurora laughed manically, looking as if she truly had gone insane. "Well, let us see how long your love for poor Cassidy Forbes will last after you truly see her for the mess that she is... after I rip out the throat of her best friend." Aurora wrapped a hand around Cami's throat. "Then, you might just realise that your so-called mate is the reason that so many of her loved ones are leaving. That she loses everything she touches!"

"Stop it!" Cassidy screamed. Aurora's words had really started to affect her, that last sentence ringing as clear as day in her ears. Aurora ignores her, keeping her eyes fixed on the man that she truly was obsessed with.

"Your love for Cassidy is not real, Nik! You were drawn to her under the mistaken belief that she is pure, and she tells you that people want to be good, but she's not quite the ray of unwavering sunshine that you believe her to be. No. There is a darkness in her. Why else would she be drawn to the darkness? Why else would she be drawn to you? See, I might have my own imperfections, but at least I am not a fake. Whereas Cassidy over there? Well, she's... she's just an illusion. And those little bits of ink engraved into your wrists?" Aurora gestured over to Cassidy and Klaus' mate tattoos. Cassidy glanced down at hers sadly. "Those are fake, too. With the power that Cassidy possesses, she must've found a loophole. She must have found a way to choose her mates for herself. That is the only explanation to why you and I are not mates, Nik, like we always should have been!"

Cassidy had never had someone speak about her in such a way. Sure, enemies had tried to knock her down in the past, but the hidden truth in the majority of Aurora's words had affected Cassidy greatly. She never crafted her own mate tattoo or chose her own mates... she never lured them to her or took advantage of her magic... but she was a fake. An illusion. A facade to hide the darkness deep within her mind, banging on a cage, demanding to be let out. A side that she wished her mates never got to see, and yet, Aurora already knew all of it. She knew of her darkness, of the horrific thoughts that sometimes creep into her mind... she ruined everything.

"You've done enough, you bitch." Cami yelled in anger after noticing how Aurora's words had affected Cassidy, the heretic mom whom she'd grown to call her best friend. Cami headbutted Aurora from behind.

Aurora became so furious that she hit Cami in the head hard enough to knock her out, and her body crumpled to the floor as Cassidy furiously shrugged Klaus' arms off of her and vamp-speeds toward Aurora, pinning her to the wall of the cage.

"Bad move involving Cami in this." Cassidy whispered in a dangerously low tone. "You've successfully unleashed something that will have you pleading for death once I'm through with you. I'm gonna make you suffer in ways your spoiled little mind cannot possibly imagine. And when it's over..." Cassidy's grip on Aurora's throat tightened to the point that any tighter and she would crush Aurora's wind pipe. "When your sweet recollections have been rendered obsolete, you will associate my name with fear and pain, and perhaps the dull realization that you cannot get to Nik as long as I'm here. And honey? I'm afraid I'm here to stay. You can't get to me, Aurora. And taking Cami? Taking any of my loved ones? Do it again, and I'll tear your pretty little heart from your chest and shove it down your corpse's throat.

Aurora gasped in shock and fear as Cassidy quickly grabbed either side of her face with her hands and closed her eyes as she dove into Aurora's mind for the information she seeked. After a moment, she found the memory of Aurora handing Tristan the envelopes with the latitude and longitude of Rebekah's location in the ocean. In the memory, they each opened their envelope to memorize the coordinates. Klaus then saw the latitude coordinates on the card in Aurora's envelope, which were 27° 46' 26" N.

When Cassidy had memorized the coordinates for herself, she took a step away from Aurora as Aurora recovered from the mental intrusion. Aurora looked at Cassidy in horror.

"You went into my mind!"

"And took the only thing I needed from you." Cassidy smirked smugly. "So... what's to stop me from killing you now?"

Tears suddenly sprouted into Aurora's eyes, and Cassidy couldn't tell if they were real or not.

"But I love Nik, and I know that he loves me, too."

"You may continue to believe that, but deep down in that twisted, hollow heart of yours, you know that you're wrong about that one." Cassidy muttered, glancing over to where Klaus was watching the two in curiosity. "If you really loved Nik, you'd let him be happy, even if that is with me."