Claimed by the Dark

CHAPTER 12

Michael panicked.

He tried to grab my hands. I flinched like he was about to hit me. He froze, pulled back immediately, palms up, showing me he wasn’t going to hurt me.

It took but a second.

The room tilted. A wave of dizziness hit and I collapsed.

Michael scrambled onto the bed, lifted my head into his lap and kept calling my name, trying to pull me back to him.

I woke again.

His face was right above me—those beautiful green eyes full of raw fear. I reached up and brushed his hair with my fingers.

Michael exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for an hour and pulled me into his chest.

“What happened, Michael?” I whispered.

“You scared me to death,” he said. “I’ve never seen anyone have this kind of nightmare. You didn’t know who I was.”

His words cut deeper than anything in the dream.

I was terrified. It felt like that other woman—the past-me—was trying to escape her fate by stealing my life. She invaded my dreams, my mind, and now… my reality. There was no one left to turn to. Granny Bia was gone. Dragomar was the reason this was happening. And Michael… Michael was the one person I was going to destroy if I stayed.

I curled closer to him, but for the first time, I heard doubt in his voice.

“Kira,” he said quietly, “is there something I should know?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “There’s plenty. I just wouldn’t know where and how to start.”

“I’ll be here,” he said. “But don’t wait too long. Keeping me in the dark might be worse for us.”

I just nodded.

I drank some more water and lay back down. Tears slipped into my hair as I stared into the darkness. I had to let Michael go, and it broke my heart.

---

The next morning, we pretended.

We woke up smiling, laughing, acting like nothing was wrong—celebrating my parents, their love, their thirty years together. The house felt like a full-on wedding. Music, food, relatives, neighbors. My parents glowing like two teenagers who’d never fallen out of love.

They were the best couple I knew. I’d always wanted to find something like they had.

Michael and I kept exchanging glances across the room. We didn’t say much. He was kind enough not to push for answers today. Not on my parents’ anniversary.

We partied late into the night.

I overdrank. Not for fun. To numb.

At some point, the room got too hot. My skin was burning. My heart was racing. I needed air. I needed space. I needed out.

Walking outside wasn’t enough.

My feet just kept going, carrying me down the street, then out of the neighborhood, then away from the lights of the town. Alone, in the dark, in nothing but my dress in the freezing February air.

I ended up at the edge of the Devil’s Forest.

Of course I did.

It was like something was calling me. Something old. Something that lived in my bones long before I was born.

The more I walked under the twisted branches, the more I ached. Not physically—soul ache. The kind you feel when you miss someone so deeply, it feels like grief. The grief of a loss that doesn’t even belong to this lifetime.

Steam poured out of my mouth with every breath as I pushed toward the heart of the forest.

Suddenly, the trees parted.

I stepped into a clearing washed in silver light. The night was clear and sharp. The moon hung above the forest like a watchful eye.

Across the clearing, I saw a silhouette. A woman’s shape.

Her.

The other me.

She moved toward me, her steps slow and eerie.

“You can’t have my life!” I screamed. “I feel you trying to take over, but this is my life! You had yours and you died. Just go rest. Leave me alone!”

The other me smiled—a horrible, broken, demon smile. Her skin was pale and dead-looking, her eyes hollow. Every instinct in me screamed run, but I knew it was either her or me.

She lunged.

She grabbed my hair, yanking hard. I shoved her back, heart pounding, eyes scanning frantically for something—anything—I could use as a weapon.

She was faster.

Stronger.

She tackled me to the ground and pinned me, laughing hysterically. Her weight crushed the air out of my lungs. She leaned over me until our faces were perfectly aligned.

Looking into her dead eyes felt like staring into my own grave.

And from that grave, one word climbed out of my throat:

“Dragomar!”

A dark, cloudy shadow burst from the ground between us, rising like a living wall.

Dragomar stepped out of it, fully formed, facing me first. His beautiful, tragic face was filled with sorrow.

“I never wanted this to happen,” he said softly, turning toward her. “Hello, my love…”

The other me sobbed—a raw, animal sound of pain—as soon as she saw him. She threw herself into his arms, clutching his face in her hands like he was her last remaining piece of heaven.

She looked at him with those empty eyes and her face crumpled.

“No!” she shrieked. “You can’t do this to me! I did this to be with you! I loved you! Kill her! Be with me!”

A single tear slid down Dragomar’s cheek.

He held her tightly in his arms as her body began to crumble—skin turning to ash, hair unraveling into dust, her scream dissolving into the wind.

He kept holding her even when there was nothing left.

Just air and memory.

Dragomar stood there, arms frozen mid-embrace, as if he could still feel her.

“She was never supposed to cross over,” he said finally, his voice low. “She was supposed to be just a memory. Forgive me. I put you in danger.”

He turned back to me.

I was shaking so hard my teeth chattered. Shock. Cold. Fear. Relief. Guilt. All tangled into a knot I couldn’t separate.

I’d called him. I’d risked everything. He could have let her kill me, could have chosen her… but he saved me. Again.

“She was but a shadow,” he continued. “The lingering hatred and anger that were left behind after her death.”

I pushed myself up and walked toward him, knees weak, every muscle aching. The cold finally hit me; I hadn’t felt it until now. But when I reached him, nothing else mattered.

There was just him, and me, and the space between us that I couldn’t stand anymore.

I reached for his lips and brushed them with mine in a quick, desperate kiss.

I pulled back almost instantly, but he lifted his eyes to mine. Something broke in his expression. He grabbed my waist, pulled me flush against him, and with his other hand, tilted my chin up to his mouth.

He parted my lips with his and searched for the tip of my tongue.

He tasted me slowly this time.

Deliberate. Patient. Possessive.

And I kissed him back.

I opened my mouth hungrily and met his tongue with mine. My hands tangled in his hair, and right there, in his arms, I let go of everything I was supposed to be. I didn’t care, not for one second, what this would turn me into.

The cold vanished.

His arms were my only weather now—his grip strong, almost desperate, like he was afraid I might run.

Everything shattered when a familiar voice cut through the night.

“Kira?”

“Michael!” I gasped, tearing myself from Dragomar’s embrace.

“YOU!” Michael shouted. “BACK OFF! GET AWAY FROM HER!”

Dragomar smiled and stepped back, playing along with the human expectation of distance. Michael rushed toward us. I threw myself between them, palms pressed into his chest.

“Michael, stop!” I said. “He… I…”

“Kira, look at you!” he snapped. “Look at where you are! You need to explain—but after I get you out of the cold.”

He pulled off his jacket and tried to drape it over my shoulders.

I glanced back at Dragomar.

“Go, my love,” he whispered near my ear. “I will never hurt him. I promised. I will wait for you to call my name.”

I left with Michael.

Guilt clawed through my ribs. Shame burned my cheeks. But underneath both… something darker shifted.

I realized, with horror, that I didn’t feel guilty for kissing Dragomar.

I felt guilty for getting caught.

---

Back at my parents’ house, Michael helped me change into warm clothes and made me a hot tea. He sat on the edge of the bed, watching me, waiting.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” I said, clutching the mug. “This started just before I met you. I know you don’t believe in these things, but they’re real. The man in the forest is a moroi. I bound myself to him by accident, and I’ve tried my best to get rid of him, but I couldn’t. After binding with him, memories from my past life started to emerge. The other me was trying to take over. Dragomar stopped it tonight.”

“So that was a “Thank You” kiss?” Michael asked, bitter and sarcastic.

“No,” I said, cheeks burning. “I can’t help it. I’m drawn to him. I’ve tried desperately to stay away, but the bond keeps pulling me back.”

“Then why start something with me?” he said, standing up, voice low and shaking. “Why put me through this, Kira? Damn it, I was falling for you.”

“So was I!” I shot back. “Hard and fast. You were my escape route. You were the one keeping me sane. You were the one I was fighting for.”

“And now?” he asked.

“Now?” My voice cracked. “Now I don’t know. When I’m with you, you’re all I want. But when he invades my thoughts, my whole body aches from missing him. I can’t control it. I can’t describe it. And I can’t stop it.”

“So we have no chance?” he whispered.

“No,” I said, gutted. The word tasted like blood.

He didn’t shout. He didn’t slam anything.

He just… broke.

He got up and left. Not just the room. Not just the house.

The town.

He got into his car and drove away.

I broke his heart. I took the most amazing man—a unicorn—and shattered him.

I’m a monster.

And I deserve to be with a monster.