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The thing pretending to be your husband is herding the goats today.
You watch from the foyer of your homestead as the morning chill brushes your skin. The creature moves as it always has. With his tall, familiar frame weaving between the animals, hair dark and tousled just so, yellow eyes scanning the pasture with that same patient attentiveness. He talks to them in the soft, clipped tones Kyryll used to use, calling names, clicking his tongue, shooing them gently—but there is a precision in the movement that feels… too clean, like the rhythm has been learned rather than lived.
The goats respond, though not as they once did. They fall into line with a tense, unnatural obedience, skittish bodies pressed close together, eyes rolling white whenever his shadow cuts across the snow. They follow not from trust but from the brittle edge of fear, as if some instinct in them recognizes what you’ve only begun to accept:
This is not the man you married.
Had you loved him any less, you never would have known. It is the depth of that love that allows you to see the gap between Kyryll and this thing that walks in his skin. Yet, you have chosen to live with it, and that choice knots inside your chest, a strange tether made not of grief but of reluctant endurance.
You step out into the snow, letting the cold bite at your cheeks as you call out to him once. He glances up to meet your eyes, and in that fleeting moment, you allow yourself to believe in the elaborate lie.
The goats bleat low and uneasy as they crowd his hands, shrinking from his nearness even as they yield to it. He hums softly before guiding them back toward the barn, and you fall into step behind them with your heart caught somewhere between mourning and the uncanny, stubborn comfort of his presence.
You go about your life as though nothing has changed since the day he wound up on your doorstep. You collect eggs, skim the milk, tidy the house, all while keeping a careful eye on him. Even when you lie beside him at night and your body insists on recognizing him as Kyryll, your heart screams otherwise. But you have come to terms with it—that this fractured imitation, this hollowed echo of the man you love, is all you can hold onto now.
Because if someone like this can still be with you, can still offer the shape of warmth and illusion of companionship, then…
Was Kyryll ever really gone?
…
You’ve always loved that boy with the burnished yellow eyes.
Kyryll has always been quiet, the one who kept to the edges of games and gatherings, content with watching while the other children laughed and shouted. He was odd, but not unkind, as though the world moved at a slightly different rhythm for him. People used to whisper, what does she even see in him? But for you, loving Kyryll was as easy as breathing.
Now, years later, with a ring on your finger and a home carved into the mountainside, that love threads through every corner of your life.
Your mornings begin in the hush of the barn, the air sharp with the scent of hay and the warmth of the animals. You pull your shawl tighter around your shoulders as you milk the goats, listening to the steady patter of froth into the pail. By the time the sun peeks over the ridge, you are already gathering eggs from the chickens and brushing straw from your skirts. The goats bleat impatiently until Kyryll appears—his tall frame outlined in the doorway of the barn, his hair falling untidily into his eyes.
The animals used to shy away from him. They always do at first. But Kyryll never once let a morning go without unlatching the gate and letting them nose out into the meadow, even when he was running late for work. And animals, like people, remember kindness. Now they greet him without a fuss, nudging his hands with soft noses until he clicks his tongue and shoos them on.
Everyday, you fall into rhythm together. He shoulders the woodpile, you whip up breakfast from the day’s harvest. The hearth crackles as he sets the kettle on, and steam soon fogs the windowpanes. Kyryll doesn’t talk much in the mornings—he rarely talks at all—but his quiet is never empty. When he passes you your cup of tea, your fingers brush, and that alone is worth ten pages from favorite novel.
Your husband laces his boots after breakfast, checks his pouch of gemstones bound for town, and shrugs into his worn winter coat. He never rushes, even when snow threatens in the pass. But before Kyryll steps out of the door, he bends down just enough that you can meet him halfway. His lips are cool from the morning air, his small goodbye kiss brief but certain. He has never once forgotten it, not in all the years since you first moved into this home together.
It is a small life, some might say. A lonely life, tucked high in the mountains where snow lingers long into spring. But it is yours, and when you look at him—your childhood sweetheart, your odd, aloof Kyryll—you cannot imagine wanting any other.
So when whiteout season arrives, you can't help but worry.
These mountains are no strangers to snow, but this time of year the storms grow violent, their howling gusts capable of burying even the most seasoned traveler. Not even the hunters or shepherds from neighboring ridges could survive a night stranded in the unforgiving blizzards of Snezhnaya. You shiver at the thought as you glance toward the snow-blanketed pass.
“Kyryll…” you begin, hesitating as he lifts a pail of milk into the sunlit air. He glances back at you, those calm yellow eyes meeting yours as a small smile tugs at the corner of his lips.
“It’ll be fine,” he says. “We’ve weathered it every year.”
But you’ve never forgotten the elders’ tales. Whispers passed down over decades in your family of what walks after the white storms. They spoke of shapes in the snow, eyes glowing like lanterns in the blizzard, and travelers who vanished without trace. The stories crawl under your skin, prickling along your spine, and you tighten on your skirts at the mere memory.
“Promise me you won’t go out too much until it calms?” you ask, biting back the tension in your voice. “I… I just—”
Kyryll sets the pail down and steps closer as he places his gloved hands over yours. His touch is warm and grounding, and it stills the racing thoughts in your head. He leans down close enough that his breath brushes your cheek.
“I promise,” he murmurs, captivated not just by the concern in your eyes but by the way you care for him, always so completely.
You nod, relief washing over you, but he doesn’t step back. Instead, he tilts his head with a playful glimmer in his otherwise aloof expression. “Though if I can trade and sell better gemstones this season, maybe we can hibernate in peace, all snug in the house, while the snow rages outside.”
“You always think about work first,” you sigh.
“I always think about surviving it together,” Kyryll laughs softly. “Besides, the goats won’t let me rest anyway.”
You shake your head with a smile, but the unease in your chest doesn’t completely fade. Whiteout season always carries that edge of dread, no matter how many times you’ve endured it. Still, with Kyryll by your side, you can almost believe everything will be as it always has.
Almost.
Your husband has kept his word all season, making every trip to town count so he doesn’t have to venture out into the brewing blizzards more than necessary. But one afternoon, the wind whips with a sudden, vicious force. Snow lashes the mountainside, and even from the safety of the yard, you can hear the low howl that promises a storm like no other.
All the warnings have already been issued, but you and Kyryll are caught in the final flurry of activity, corralling the animals back into the barn before the sky darkens. Everything is in controlled chaos until a sudden, panicked bleat slices through the hubbub—a lamb, young and spooked, darts past you, slipping out the half-shut door. It bolts up the narrow mountain path, a small white shape against withering snow.
“Wait—!” you cry, instinct pushing you forward. Your boots crunch against the icy ground as you try to follow, but Kyryll catches your wrist with a strong, firm grip.
“No,” he tells you, calmly but sharply. “It’s too dangerous.”
Your heart thunders. “But that poor lamb won’t survive out there alone…”
Kyryll doesn’t argue; he only lets out a soft breath and lifts his gaze to yours before he smiles. That painfully adoring smile, the one that has always made your chest ache, softening even the wildest of fears. He bends and presses his lips to the ring on your finger, brushing it with his mouth like a promise.
“Then I’ll bring it back,” your husband murmurs. “Wait for me, okay?”
Before you can protest, he steps out of the barn. Snow flurries around him immediately, catching in his hair, frosting his shoulders. He doesn’t look back as he slides the barn door shut behind him with a solid thud, leaving you in the warm glow of the oil lamps and the bitter howl of the storm beyond.
…
You were taught to count time in threes.
Three heartbeats, three breaths, three steps, the elders would say. “Nature always balances itself in threes,” they whispered, as if the rhythm of the world could be measured by patience alone.
Three minutes pass before it hits you fully: Kyryll is out there.
The thought is simple, almost too mundane to register at first, but a sharp pang of panic blooms in your chest. He promised he would be back. He always keeps his word, and yet, the wind howls so loud that you can’t hear the faintest echo of him, can’t see any trace of the lamb racing back with him.
Three heartbeats, three breaths, three steps.
You repeat it to yourself like a mantra as you pace the floor of the barn, watching the snow blot out the mountainside through the window. The animals press close as if sensing the tension in your bones, nudging you, bleating softly—but it does nothing to quiet the dread tightening your chest.
Three hours pass before the edges of reason begin to fray. The sky has gone from pale gray to a solid white wall. You should be calling for help in the town. Every instinct honed from a lifetime in these mountains screams at you: a storm this strong would have killed him by now. The path is invisible. The snow is merciless.
Yet… you cannot act. You cling to the promise he pressed into your hands, to the brush of his lips against your wedding band.
Wait for me.
Three days pass before Kyryll returns.
The blizzard had seemed endless, each hour stretching into another frozen eternity. The nights without him in the bed you share were unbearable; you had spent them clutching your pillow, weeping into the cold, silent darkness, and imagining the worst with every gust of wind rattling the shutters.
Finally, he is there.
Your sobs spill into the open as soon as you see him, and you barely notice the snow still clinging to his indigo hair and the streaks across his yellow eyes. Without thinking, you launch yourself at your husband, arms wrapping around his tall frame as if you could never let go again. His hands find yours, pressing you against him with the faintest, grounding pressure.
“Kyryll,” you choke, your voice breaking, “you came back.”
He doesn’t say anything as he lets you cling to him, and when you finally step back a little, brushing the wet snow from his coat, you insist he come inside.
“Take off your jacket. I’ll prepare a hot bath for you in a bit,” you say, almost bouncing on the balls of your feet, eager to undo the cold that has surely numbed his bones.
Your husband hums in acquiescence, letting you fuss over him. You hang his coat by the hearth and light the fire higher, the warmth spilling into the room as you run your hands over his arms, shoulders, and chest—making sure he hasn’t suffered too badly. When your palms finally cup his pale cheeks, something inside you buckles. Your heart seems to melt straight through your ribs, and before you can stop yourself, you lean in, pressing your mouth to his as tears blur your vision.
He does not kiss you back.
Later, steam curls around Kyryll as he sinks into the tub, the heat drawing color into his otherwise pallid skin. You linger close to fuss with towels and lay out clothes thick enough to guard against the cold. Relief hums faintly through you at having him here, whole and within reach. But your thoughts remain tangled, a restless knot that no warmth seems able to unravel.
“What happened to the lamb?” you ask carefully, trying not to betray the panic still clinging to your chest. Because what else could you ask your husband when he just came home from a storm that should have killed him?
You brace yourself for sorrow, for the weight of bad news, and the sight of his shoulders sagging with defeat. But Kyryll simply looks at you, his yellow eyes calm, unnervingly so, and asks:
“What lamb?”
“…The lamb! The one that ran up the mountain!” you exclaim. “That’s why you went out—why you—”
But he only smiles faintly, tilting his head as if your exasperation is a puzzle he doesn’t quite understand. You stop yourself from pressing further. Kyryll is here. Alive. He has survived three days in a storm that could have buried a person in minutes, with nothing but that same fur-trimmed jacket he always wears to town.
Whatever else happened—whatever he endured—you do not ask. Even when you see bloodstains on his jacket sleeves despite his unmarred skin, you do not ask. Even as he lies in your bed for the first time in days, and it feels like a stranger’s weight against you, you do not ask. And when you glimpse something behind his eyes that should not be there…
You do not ask.
…
You wake to the quiet hum of the house, the familiar rhythm of morning stretching before you, and for a moment you allow yourself to hope that everything will be as it always has.
The old villagers never quite understood Kyryll. They whispered about his odd ways and the sharp intelligence behind eyes that seemed to flicker with some unnatural light. They called him “the devil’s spawn,” a curse that somehow found its way to your small life. But they had never seen him as you had—never saw his kindness, or the way his heart opened to the world if only they’d given him time.
That’s exactly what you spare to him now: time to recalibrate to the rhythm of your home, after the reckless mistake of letting him charge into the storm.
Breakfast is done. The table is cleared. Steam from the kettle still curls lazily into the air. You watch your husband lace his boots, the ritual so familiar you could do it in your sleep. Your heart tightens in anticipation of the small, certain habit that has marked every morning for years: the brief kiss, cool against your lips as he whispers goodbye.
But today, there is nothing.
Kyryll pauses at the doorway as he stares down the path to town. His yellow eyes are serene but the warmth you’ve always found there is absent, or perhaps buried beneath something you cannot name. He doesn’t turn back, only adjusts the strap of his pack and steps outside, the door swinging shut behind him with a hollow finality.
Your fingers linger on the spot where his lips should have been.
For a moment, you believe that he is simply shaken, still readjusting to the world after the storm. Yes. That must be it. He’ll come back like he always does, and the habit will resume as though nothing ever happened. But even as you tell yourself this, a low, unnameable unease twists in your stomach, settling there like frost.
Something is off. Something has changed, and you are not yet ready to admit how deep the change might run.
You feign ignorance until the lambs go missing.
At first, you don’t notice. They vanish for hours, sometimes a day, and each time they reappear safe and warm, bleating softly as if nothing had happened. You breathe a sigh of relief, attributing it to wandering and some miracle of the mountains.
But then, you begin to catch the subtle differences. A curl of wool slightly off, the shade of a fleece a little darker, the shape of a hoof unfamiliar. It perplexes you until your mind tightens on the truth you’ve tried not to name: these are not the same lambs.
They are replacements.
The disappearances always coincide with nights when Kyryll rises after you have already fallen asleep. You never hear the creak of floorboards, never see the flicker of candlelight as he moves through the house, but you sense it like a pause in the familiar heartbeat of your life. When he returns, the air around him smells faintly of soap—an attempt at cleansing so precise it almost fools you. But there is always the undercurrent something sharp and metallic just beneath the clean scent.
You try to ignore it, bury it beneath the comfort of his arms as you curl against him. Even the smallest doubts are suffocated by the familiar rhythm of his breathing, the steady press of his body, and the illusion that nothing is wrong.
But one night, the tension becomes unbearable. You lie in bed, counting the seconds as he slips from the warmth of your sheets, and after five minutes, the gnawing at your chest becomes too loud to ignore. Heart hammering, you slip from the bed and pull on your shawl, keeping quiet as the house sleeps.
The hallway is a shadowed corridor. Every step toward the barn feels like crossing a threshold into another world. The snow outside glints coldly beneath the lanterns you’ve hung along the path, but one faint glow draws your eyes—the soft, swinging light of a single oil lamp just beyond the barn.
You creep closer, heart in your throat, and stop at the edge of the snow-dusted doorway.
The barn is swallowed in shadow, yet your eyes pick out the figure of your husband, kneeling on the straw-strewn floor. Darkness spares you from the full horror of what he is doing: the crimson stains seeping into the hay, the silent terror in the other animals, and the wet, sickening sound of flesh being torn between the maws of a monster.
He feasts quietly, leaving no trace that would immediately betray him to you. He does not do it every night—he cannot afford to arouse suspicion—but when he does, it is methodical, and chillingly precise. Only one animal at a time, and always with the meticulous care of one who cleans after the carnage he leaves behind.
You step back, the cold air catching in your lungs, and the weight of what you are witnessing presses down like stone. The shadowed figure shifts at the sound of your foot catching on a dried leaf, the subtle crunch shattering the fragile hush of the barn.
In an instant, the creature snaps his head toward you. The motion is too violent, his neck bending at an angle that no human should manage. A low, guttural hiss rolls from his throat, reverberating through the straw, and the Kyryll you knew evaporates like smoke in the wind when you see his eyes. Not the calm yellow you’ve associated with safety, with love. But glowing magenta irises, vivid and burning with something ancient, something hungry.
Your knees go weak. Your hands tremble. The barn, once a sanctuary of routine and care, has transformed into a chamber of nightmares. The animals press against the far walls, silent and trembling, as if sensing the change before your own mind can even process it.
It is him—your husband in shape, in shadow, in form—but it is not Kyryll. Not the man you promised your life to. This is something else. Something that wore his face to cross the threshold of your home.
That night, you were fully convinced you were going to die.
Every instinct screams at you to flee, to bolt into the snow and leave the barn behind. You are certain he will lunge, certain the same jaws and hands that tore the lambs apart will turn on you next. Yet, beneath that fear, a bitter comfort coils in your chest: if you die, you will finally be reunited with him. Your Kyryll—the boy with yellow eyes and a heart that loved too deeply, not this monstrous imitation who has defiled everything you thought you knew about him.
Your heart thunders in your chest. The creature rises, the movement fluid and unnervingly deliberate. But he does not lunge. He does not attack.
Instead, he walks toward you.
Your knees buckle beneath the weight of disbelief. You realize you have been crying, the tears streaking your face in the cold barn light, the trace of your fear laid bare. Then the bloodied hands reach for your cheeks.
For a moment, you cannot breathe.
He wipes your tears away with the same gentleness, the same patience Kyryll always carried in his hands—but now, his touch smears the dark, iron-stained blood of the lamb across your skin. It mats into your hair, seeps along the line of your jaw in a sickeningly warm testament to what you have witnessed. The reality of it nearly overwhelms you, but you do not pull away.
The creature inclines his head slightly, murmuring something unintelligible, yet intimate as though he is speaking to the part of you that still clings to your Kyryll. He bends and lifts you into his arms with ease, your body trembling against his, every nerve alight with terror, revulsion, and a twisted familiarity you cannot escape.
He carries you back through the cold night, your shawl catching the blood on his forearms as he moves. The barn fades behind you, the animals’ terrified eyes still imprinted on your mind, yet all that matters is the steady, unyielding presence, and the impossible reality: the man who returned to you after the whiteout is no longer Kyryll.
And yet… he is holding you, as if he’s always known how.
…
That is how you came to an unspoken understanding with him.
From what you have gathered, the creature desires only sustenance. He shows no interest in harming you, no hint that you might become his next prey. In fact, he seems almost… attentive to Kyryll’s habits, as if trying to inhabit the life you once shared.
The first thing you mention is the kisses goodbye. When you speak of them casually he does not flinch at the fact that you are now fully aware of who he isn’t. My husband always does it before he heads to town for the day. Since that moment, he makes a point of leaning down each morning to press his lips against yours—a brief, careful peck just as Kyryll always did.
It is not the same. It will never be. Yet somehow, it is enough.
There isn’t much you can do about the way the animals behave around him. They know what he does each night. They remember the terror, the cruelty, and the gore that lingers in the air long after the blood has been cleaned. You wish you could spare them that fear. Gods know how much these poor creatures mean to you.
But ever since you allowed this monster to masquerade as a fixture of your life, you have learned the uneasy rhythm of turning a blind eye. You have learned to tune out the shrieks that echo in the corners of the barn, to ignore the way the sheep and goats shrink and totter away when he passes.
Because if a few lambs are the cost of feeling the illusion of your husband still by your side, then it is a price you are willing to pay. If it means the brush of his lips against yours in the morning, the familiar warmth of his arms as you nestle close at night—even if the hands that hold you carry the memory of slaughter—then you endure it.
But it is a different story when the creature starts to want something else.
At first, it comes only in dreams. You wake each morning with the echo of Kyryll’s hands on your skin, the warmth of his mouth pressing against yours, and the weight of him over you as he claims you as he once did. It is familiar and foreign all at once, which you suspect is all the work of the monster sleeping next to you.
You have not felt desire like this in months. It has lain dormant beneath the grief you still carry on your shoulders, the quiet routines of the mountains, the soft companionship of your animals. But in these dreams, it surges, reckless and insistent. Your body still remembers what your mind struggles to reconcile. This is not Kyryll. This is the creature that stole him from you, and even then… the part of you that has always loved him, cannot resist.
In the dreams, you start to let him in. You let your hands wander over the strong curve of his shoulders, down his back, feel the press of his hips as he aligns with yours. He moves with the tenderness you once knew, and the juxtaposition makes your chest ache—the body of the thing that has fed on lambs now giving you pleasure. You moan his name in the darkness of slumber, and it is both comforting and unbearable.
The creature does not say anything of it in your waking hours.
Life goes on as if nothing at all has changed. He moves through your small routines with the same uncanny mimicry: carrying wood to the hearth, brushing snow from his boots at the door, kissing you softly before leaving for town.
And yet, when night falls, you brace yourself as the dreams return again and again like a tide that will not recede. They seize you with the same hunger, the same unbearable tenderness—your body spread beneath him, the bed groaning with the weight of his need.
It gets worse. You start to crave it even in daylight, even if you know how wrong it is. When you stand in the kitchen, kneading bread with your sleeves rolled up, a flicker of heat stirs in you at the memory of his hands on your waist. When you stoop in the barn, the sheep shifting nervously as he passes by, your skin prickles at the thought of him pressing into you from behind.
Desire burrows deep into your gut, tangling itself with your grief until you can no longer tell where one ends and the other begins.
One night, the dream takes a turn.
You are on your back, legs parted, the familiar shadow of Kyryll’s body over yours. His mouth finds the hollow of your throat, his hips driving into you with a rhythm you know by heart, and you give yourself over with a pathetic sob. But in the flicker of lamplight that isn’t there, his form wavers.
For a heartbeat, he is not your indigo-haired, golden-eyed husband. He is something else—pale hair spilling across your chest, magenta eyes glowing like embers, half his face swallowed in blackened bandages. His body is cracked, pulsing with sinister light that leaks like an infection from beneath his skin.
The sight is gone as quickly as it came, but it sears itself into you. He doesn’t stop driving himself into you with a brutal tenderness that has you gasping his name through tears. The horror of it should have torn you from the dream, and yet you cling to him, to his heat, to the slick drag of his cock filling you again and again.
You wake trembling, your body soaked in sweat, the sheets damp beneath you. The creature sleeps quietly at your side, his breathing even, almost human. You turn toward him in the dark, studying the face that wears Kyryll’s features so faithfully, and your heart twists with something you can no longer name.
You know this is wrong. You know this is dangerous. And yet… you let him stay.
Because sometimes, grief does not just ache. Sometimes, it devours.
…
Winter eventually gives way to spring.
The animals relax in the warmer air, their skittishness easing as though the frost itself had carried the weight of dread. When you finish harvesting eggs from the chickens, you glimpse him in the pasture that morning, carrying a lamb in his arms with an unsettling gentleness. A suitable replacement for last night’s sacrifice.
You say nothing. You are past the point of caring. You would give him every lamb you owned, every goat and sheep, if it meant Kyryll—whatever remains of him—would stay by your side.
At lunch you dine in silence. It is nothing strange. Kyryll was never a chatty man, and the thing that wears his face well enough does not bother pretending otherwise. You chew, swallow, wash the taste down with water. Across the table, his eyes flick toward yours once or twice, but no words pass between you. It is as though silence itself has become the language you share.
Afterward, as you tidy up the plates, his hips brush behind you while reaching for something in the cupboards overhead. You freeze, breath caught in your throat. You don’t know if he does it on purpose, or if he even understands the meaning of this sort of closeness. He has never once initiated any sort of affection in waking hours. Not once. Almost like he is still unsure of his place in the rhythm of your grief.
And that is when you turn.
Your hands lift almost without thought, fingers threading against the nape of his neck, pulling him down into you. His lips meet yours clumsily at first, stiff and uncertain, as if sifting through Kyryll’s memories on how a man ought to respond. But when he finds it—when the recollection locks into place—he answers with startling force.
The kiss deepens, rough and desperate, his mouth parting against yours to claim and consume. A soft whimper escapes you, swallowed instantly between his teeth. His hands find your hips, gripping hard enough to bruise, and then you’re hoisted effortlessly onto the kitchen counter. Plates rattle, a fork clatters to the floor, but you don’t care—your arms wrap tight around his shoulders, pulling him closer, and closer still.
He kisses like hunger itself, tongue hot and insistent, as though he has finally been permitted to take what he’s been denied. You gasp into him, and he swallows every sound greedily. His body presses flush to yours as the hard length of him grinds against you through your skirts, making a shiver race deliciously down your spine.
It’s wrong. Even if every frantic kiss, every nip of teeth, and every desperate clutch of fingers digging into your skin feels exactly like Kyryll, you know it is not him. But the wrongness only makes your desire burn hotter, makes you want him more.
For the first time, it is not a dream.
And gods help you, it feels too good to stop.
By the time he hauls you off the counter, your dress is already half-undone, bodice tugged down so your breasts spill free into the air between you. His hands are everywhere—rough palms sliding over your skin as if he means to memorize every inch, thumbs dragging over your nipples until you’re gasping into his mouth. The poor dress hangs uselessly around your waist, wrinkled and bunched, but neither of you care.
You stumble through the hallway tangled together, his mouth never leaving yours for long. He devours every sound, every needy whimper, while you clutch at him desperately, nails biting into the fabric of his shirt as though you might anchor yourself to something real.
The bedroom door slams shut behind you. He pushes you back onto the mattress with a force that rattles the frame, climbing over you in the same motion. His weight settles heavy, solid, frighteningly real as his lips trail down your jaw to the hollow of your throat, sucking bruises into skin that will ache tomorrow.
You arch beneath him, a ragged cry escaping when he mouths at your breasts, tongue flicking over hardened peaks. His hand fists in your skirts, yanking them higher, baring your thighs to the cold air, and the hunger in him sharpens into something that feels less like mimicry and more like possession.
The heat between you only builds as the last buttons and ties surrender, clothes falling in careless heaps across the floor. His shirt slips from his shoulders, baring the breadth of him above you, and you’re too lost in the fever of it to notice the first flicker. But when your gaze catches, just for a heartbeat, on the wrong shape of his hand—the grotesque, bandaged thing from your dreams—you shudder.
Not in fear. In want.
The sight lances through you like fire, and instead of pulling away, you arch up into him, clinging tighter as though you could drag both Kyryll and the monster into yourself at once. Your breath stutters when the illusion fractures again, the man you knew shifting into the beast that stalked your sleep. And gods help you, your body only grows wetter for it.
His mouth is merciless against your throat, dragging teeth over tender skin, sucking bruises deep and dark where Kyryll never dared. He marks you as his own, every bite a brand that leaves you whimpering for more. And when you tilt your head back, baring yourself willingly, the shadows in the corners stir.
They creep closer in a whisper of movement, until phantom hands—long-fingered, writhing things—slither across the sheets. One brushes your ankle. Another strokes your calf. By the time the third slides up the inside of your thigh, you’re gasping, hips canting instinctively toward the unseen touch.
The hands multiply. They crawl over you in teasing strokes, cupping the weight of your breasts, thumbing your nipples while his mouth claims the other. They squeeze and knead, worship and torment in equal measure, until you’re arching helplessly beneath the combined assault. Another pair parts your thighs wider, their slick, phantom touch skating too close to where you burn for him.
A sob escapes you when one finally dips between your folds, fingers ghosting over the wet heat of you with maddening delicacy. The creature above you growls low in his chest yet he doesn’t stop it. His weight presses heavier, his hand locking your hip down as he grinds against you with ruthless force, as if staking claim over what the shadows dare to touch.
And all the while, his face wavers—Kyryll’s beloved features flickering into that bandaged monstrosity, eyes like embers staring down at you from behind the mask of flesh. It should terrify you, but instead your thighs fall open wider, your nails dig deeper, your body begs harder.
The tendrils do not relent. They writhe over your skin in concert, stroking and teasing until your cunt trembles with need, slick dripping freely onto the sheets. Every phantom caress loosens you further, leaving you open and aching and all too ready.
Then, like a cruel mercy, the monster’s blurred edges start to settle. Bandages and shadows peel away, and for one dizzying heartbeat, it is Kyryll above you again. His face, his weight, his warmth pressing you down into the mattress. The illusion is so seamless you almost weep, because it feels as though the storm had never stolen him at all.
His hand fists around his cock, pumping the thick length through gritted teeth. The same cock that filled you countless times before, the same one your body remembers down to the last inch. Veins throb beneath his rough grip, the head slick with need. Your thighs fall open wider, invitation and surrender in one, even as your mind reels at the fact that you are about to let the monster who took your husband become him. You are about to let him fuck you. Claim you.
And you want it. You want it so badly you could break.
When he pushes in, the stretch steals your breath. His length slides into your dripping heat with agonizing slowness, every inch dragging through your folds until he’s buried to the hilt. The tendrils tighten their grip, circling your clit in relentless circles, stroking in time with the heavy throb of him inside you.
The sound he makes when he bottoms out is near animalistic—a guttural growl, raw and trembling, pulled from somewhere deep in his chest. His forehead drops to your shoulder, breath ragged as his hips grind down, grinding that thick length against every swollen, desperate inch of you.
Gods help you—you wrap your legs around his waist, nails clawing at his back, and pull him closer still. Because it feels like Kyryll. It feels like home.
Even if you know it’s not.
His hips snap forward harder now, fucking you into the mattress with a force that rattles the bedframe. Each thrust drags his cock deep, striking places inside you that make your back bow and your throat spill broken cries into the dark. The tendrils keep perfect pace, every stroke of his length amplified by the phantom touches teasing your clit, twisting your nipples, prying your thighs open wider still until you are nothing but raw nerves strung tight for him.
You sob beneath him, body shuddering as pleasure coils hot and unbearable in your belly. It’s too much—his cock stretching you, the tendrils flooding every inch with sensation, your mind splintering between grief and want. Tears spill hot down your temples, streaking your flushed skin.
And he notices.
The monster groans low in his throat, his pace never faltering as he leans down to lap the tears from your face. His tongue is rougher than Kyryll’s ever was, his lips sealing over the salt of your grief as if he drinks it. When he pulls back, his eyes glow with an otherworldly magenta, the last proof of what he really is.
You see it. You know.
But gods, his cock feels too good. Each thrust slams you higher, deeper into delirium, his thickness battering your poor, soaking cunt until you’re choking on your own sobs. The tendrils slither higher, slick tips prying your lips apart and pressing down on your tongue, forcing you to pant helplessly around them like a bitch in heat. Every gasp is stolen, every whimper muffled by the invasive strokes inside your mouth.
It’s vile. It’s wrong. It’s everything you should recoil from.
Still, your body betrays you.
A scream tears from your throat as your climax rips through you, violent and unrelenting. Your cunt spasms wildly around his cock, milking him as gushes of slick spray out, soaking the sheets beneath. He growls, hips driving harder, chasing your squirt as though he means to wring every last drop from you.
You’re shaking, sobbing, choking on tendrils and tears, but you can’t stop—don’t want to stop. Because in this moment, no matter how monstrous his eyes burn or how filthy the shadows writhe, his cock still feels like it belongs inside you.
His thrusts grow savage, every snap of his hips driving you down into the soaked sheets with bruising force. You can feel him swelling within your gummy walls, cock thickening as his rhythm grows erratic and desperate. The tendrils match his frenzy—slapping against your clit in relentless circles, tugging your nipples cruelly, writhing deeper into your mouth until you gag around them, your tears streaking hot and heavy down your face.
You’re lost, shattered. Pleasure has stripped you raw, left you nothing but a body to be used, filled, and claimed. Your cunt clamps down like a vice, spasming around him as aftershocks ripple through you, each thrust forcing out another gush of slick.
Then he lowers his head to your neck, and the sound he makes is not Kyryll’s.
“Mine.”
The word rumbles against your throat, deep and guttural, alien in timbre. The magenta glow in his eyes burns hotter, brighter, searing through the mask of familiarity as his hips slam forward one last time.
He buries himself to the hilt, cock throbbing violently as his release tears out of him. Hot spurts flood your cunt, thick and endless, spilling into your womb until it leaks down your thighs. He stays locked inside you through it, grinding deep as if to brand you from within, tendrils tightening their hold so you cannot flinch away, cannot deny what’s happening.
Your body convulses, another helpless squirt gushing around his cock as he stuffs you full, your sobs breaking against the slick pressure filling your mouth. You’re choking on tears, choking on pleasure, choking on him—and you can’t stop clinging to him even as the last shards of Kyryll’s illusion fall away.
It is not your husband’s face above you now. Not his eyes, not his voice.
Only the monster.
…
Weeks later, the snow has melted into the earth, leaving behind dark soil rich with promise.
Crocuses bloom along the edges of the field, their soft petals swaying in the wind, and the first shoots of green push stubbornly through last season’s frost. You stand at the fence line, apron dusted with flour, watching as your new neighbors hammer beams into place, their laughter carrying bright and clear across the valley.
When they visit a week later with baskets in hand and children darting shyly behind their skirts, you and Kyryll greet them at the door. Bread is broken, wine poured. You lead them through the rows of sprouting seedlings, Kyryll smiling faintly as he explains the soil, the seasons, the way the mountains cradle the crops just so. The family listens eagerly, their faces open and kind, and for a while it almost feels as though this life has always been yours.
As the evening wanes and the neighbors depart, the house falls back into its familiar quiet. Kyryll clears the table while you rinse the plates. Your husband’s shadow lingers at your back, and your wedding bands glint in the waning light.
You glance at him—at the face you love, the face you chose to keep—and for a fleeting heartbeat, something else flickers beneath it. Something you no longer flinch from.
You were taught to count time in threes. Three heartbeats. Three breaths. Three steps. After all, nature always balances itself in threes.
Now, it is you and Kyryll.
And the thing that wears his face.