BLEEDING VELVET

"Time doesn't heal demons. It feeds them."

The night air was heavy with salt and smoke.

Almond stood by the window of the crumbling cathedral she now called home, the sharp wind slicing across her cheek like a familiar slap. Outside, the city trembled in its sleep—oblivious to the storm that brewed behind her glassy gaze.

There were no more prayers left in her mouth.

Only names.

Aren.Velda.Her own.

Names that had once been sacred. Names now etched in blood, stitched into the torn fabric of her soul like curses passed from mouth to mouth by those too afraid to scream.

She hadn't eaten in days. Her stomach was a hollow drum that beat only when her rage rose. The hunger wasn't for food—it was for revenge. For clarity. For something more permanent than fleeting pleasure or aching memory.

The room behind her pulsed with old magic.Black candles burned low. Salt circles were broken and re-drawn again. Ash coated the floor like snow in hell.

She walked to the shattered mirror and stared at the distorted pieces of herself.

"Every version of me died for him.""And he's still breathing."

Hours earlier, she had dreamt of Aren again.

But this dream wasn't a memory—it was a warning.He stood at the edge of her old childhood home, shirt soaked in blood. Not his. Hers.

He reached out. Said her name. But not with the tenderness of the boy who used to write poetry on her arms with kisses.

No. This Aren was darkness on legs. An echo of everything he used to be—twisted, stretched, perverted by the ritual that split his soul from his body and fed it to the Other Side.

When Almond woke, she was already bleeding.From her nose. From her eyes. From between her thighs.

It was happening again.

The possession was creeping back in.

She had vowed to never summon him again.But love makes liars of us all.

Almond stood beneath the full moon, bones aching, her mouth muttering forbidden incantations like lullabies for the damned.

She dug her nails into the dirt, chanting as the earth pulsed beneath her fingers.Around her, ravens circled.In the sky, the clouds bled.And in her chest, her heart screamed.

"You can't come back whole," she whispered. "But you can come back mine."

The portal cracked open with a sound like heartbreak.And from the center, clothed in ash and ancient regret, Aren emerged.

His eyes weren't human anymore.His smile was a blade.

But he remembered her.

"Almond," he said.And her name on his lips tasted like sin dressed in silk.

She stepped forward. "You remember what you did?"

He didn't answer. He didn't need to.

Instead, he walked until their noses almost touched. The air between them was thick with everything they never got to say—lust, anger, betrayal, obsession.

"I came back for one thing," he growled.

"What?"

"You."

She swallowed hard.Velda's warnings echoed in her head.If you let him in again, he'll burn you alive from the inside out.

But Almond didn't care.She was already in flames.

The devil remembered her.And she would make the memory hurt.

She let him touch her.Fingers gliding over her collarbone like a man retracing the map of his greatest sin.

"Does it hurt?" he whispered.

"No," she lied.

He leaned closer, voice dripping with cruel affection. "Good. Because it's about to."

His lips met hers. Not soft. Not kind.It was a kiss meant to undo her. To remind her that pain could be intimate. That destruction could be divine.

And she kissed him back.Because she didn't come for mercy.She came for ruin.