The Unraveling
1610 Words
Alisha sat in her studio, staring at the white rose Kael had left her.
It had been three weeks since she'd given him a chance. Three weeks of flowers appearing on her pillow. Three weeks of whispered poetry in the dead of night. Three weeks of Kael being patient, gentle, human.
And yet.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the silver words on her skin: "WAITING FOR YOU. ALWAYS."
Every time she felt his presence, she felt the weight of his obsession pressing down on her chest.
She couldn't breathe.
She couldn't think.
She couldn't live.
And that was when the thought took root in her mind—dark and desperate and terrible.
What if I marry Jake?
The idea bloomed like poison in her veins. If she married Jake—if she bound herself to a living man, a mortal man—surely Kael would have to let her go. Surely even a ghost couldn't compete with a legal, sacred, real union.
Surely he would finally understand that she was never going to be his.
---
"What?" Jake stared at her across the dinner table, his fork frozen halfway to his mouth. "Alisha, what did you just say?"
"Marry me," she repeated, her voice flat and hollow. "Tomorrow. A small ceremony. Just us and a few witnesses. Please, Jake."
Jake set down his fork slowly, his brown eyes searching her face.
"Why the rush?"
"Because I need to be free," she said, and the words came out more honest than she'd intended. "I need to be someone else's. I need to belong to you so he can't claim me anymore."
Jake's expression crumbled. "Alisha... this isn't how it works. You don't marry someone to escape someone else."
"Then how does it work?" she demanded, her voice rising. "Because I've tried everything else! I've tried talking to him. I've tried ignoring him. I've tried giving him a chance to be better, and he is, but it's not enough, Jake! He's still there. He's always there. And I can't—I can't breathe—"
She was crying now, ugly sobs that tore out of her throat.
Jake crossed to her side and pulled her into his arms, holding her tight.
"Okay," he whispered against her hair. "Okay. If this is what you need, then yes. I'll marry you. Tomorrow. I'll do whatever it takes to make you feel safe."
Alisha clung to him, her tears soaking through his shirt.
She didn't tell him that she didn't want to feel safe.
She wanted to feel free.
And if marriage to Jake was the only way to achieve that, then so be it.
---
The wedding was small.
Alisha wore white—a simple dress she'd bought off the rack, nothing fancy, nothing that felt like a real bride. She stood in the tiny chapel with Jake beside her, Maya as their witness, a nervous priest mumbling words she couldn't hear.
"I do," she said when prompted.
"I do," Jake echoed, his voice thick with emotion.
She felt the moment the words left her lips. Felt something snap in the air around her. Felt the temperature plummet and the shadows in the corner of the chapel grow darker, deeper, hungrier.
But Kael didn't appear.
He didn't stop the ceremony.
He just... watched.
And when Jake kissed her—soft, reverent, hopeful—Alisha felt the cold press of invisible fingers against her spine.
"You think this changes anything?" Kael's voice whispered in her mind. "You think a piece of paper can separate what I have claimed?"
She pulled away from the kiss, her heart hammering.
"Everything okay?" Jake asked, concern furrowing his brow.
"Fine," she lied. "Perfect."
---
That night, Alisha sat alone in the honeymoon suite.
Jake had stepped out to get champagne. The room was decorated with rose petals and candles, a beautiful, romantic gesture that made her stomach churn with guilt.
She was married. She was married.
And yet, all she could feel was dread.
The lights flickered.
The candles guttered.
And Kael materialized in front of her, his silver eyes blazing with a fury she'd never seen before.
"Did you really think I would let this happen?" His voice was low, dangerous, trembling with barely contained rage. "Did you think a piece of paper could erase me?"
"Kael—" she started, but he was already moving.
Cold hands gripped her wrists, yanking her toward him.
"You. Are. Mine," he snarled. "Not his. Not anyone's. Mine."
He pulled her into his arms, and the world dissolved around them.
---
Alisha opened her eyes to darkness.
Thick, suffocating darkness, pierced only by moonlight filtering through the canopy of trees. She was lying on the forest floor, moss and earth beneath her, the cold night air biting at her exposed skin.
Kael was above her, his silver eyes gleaming in the shadows.
"Where are we?" she whispered, her voice shaking.
"Somewhere he can't find you," Kael said. "Somewhere no one can take you away from me."
He lowered himself over her, his cold body pressing against hers, his fingers threading through her hair.
"Tonight, you are mine," he breathed against her lips. "Tonight, I will make you understand what it means to belong to me."
"Kael, please—" she begged, but her words died in her throat.
He kissed her.
It was not gentle. It was not loving. It was hungry and desperate and possessive, a claiming that left no room for her to breathe.
Kyle was consumed by rage; he stripped Alisha completely naked and gazed at her with a ravenous look. Alisha screamed and pleaded with him to stop, but he paid her no heed. He pinned her arms above her head, kissed her body, and gripped her breasts so forcefully that she was left breathless; he then pressed himself against her and began to ravish her.
And as the night stretched on, Alisha learned the true meaning of pain.
He was brutal. Merciless. He took and took and took until she was nothing but a broken vessel, her screams swallowed by the darkness, her tears soaking into the forest floor.
She begged him to stop. She pleaded. She sobbed.
But Kael was beyond reason, beyond humanity, beyond love.
He was a ghost starving for centuries, and she was his feast.
---
When she woke, she was back in the honeymoon suite.
Her body was a map of bruises and scratches. Her throat was raw from screaming. Every nerve in her body screamed with agony.
And Kael was gone.
The wedding dress was torn, the rose petals scattered, the candles burned down to nothing.
But the worst part—the worst part—was the word written across her skin in fresh silver ink:
"CLAIMED."
The door opened.
"Alisha? I'm back—" Jake's voice faltered as he took in the scene.
His face went white. His hands trembled. He rushed toward her, reaching out—
"Don't touch me," she rasped, flinching away. "Please. Don't. Don't touch me."
Jake stopped, his hands hovering in the air, his eyes filling with tears.
"What happened?" he whispered. "Who did this to you?"
Alisha couldn't answer. She could only curl into herself, her broken body shaking with sobs, the word "CLAIMED" burning on her skin like a brand.
---
Jake called an ambulance.
He called Maya. He called the police.
But when they asked what happened, Alisha said nothing.
Because what was she supposed to say? A ghost r***d me on my wedding night? A ghost who has been stalking me for months claimed me like property and left me broken in the forest?
They would lock her away. They would call her crazy.
And Kael—Kael would just come back.
Because he always came back.
---
Three days passed.
Alisha lay in the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, her body healing but her soul shattered into pieces.
Jake sat beside her, holding her hand despite her protests, his eyes red from crying.
"I'm going to find him," he said quietly. "I don't care what he is. I don't care if he's a ghost or a demon or the devil himself. I'm going to find him and I'm going to destroy him."
Alisha turned her head slowly, her eyes empty.
"You can't," she said. "He's not something you can destroy. He's not something anyone can destroy. He's eternal, Jake. He's mine now. And I'm his."
"Don't say that—"
"It's true," she whispered. "It's always been true. From the first moment he saw me. I was never going to escape him. I was never going to be free."
Jake gripped her hand tighter.
"Then we'll find a way," he said fiercely. "Together. I don't care how long it takes. I don't care what it costs. I'm not letting him take you."
Alisha looked at him—this man who loved her so completely, so selflessly.
And for the first time, she felt something other than despair.
She felt rage.
Cold, burning, righteous rage.
"I need you to do something for me," she said slowly.
"Anything."
"I need you to find me a witch," she said. "A real one. Someone who knows how to fight ghosts. Because I'm done running. I'm done hiding. I'm done being his victim."
She sat up slowly, wincing at the pain in her body.
"If he wants to claim me," she said, her voice hardening into steel, "then he's going to learn what happens when you try to own something that refuses to be owned."
Jake stared at her, a slow smile spreading across his face.
"That's my girl," he said.
- Writer
