"Gauri..."

"Gauri..."

Her name rolled from his tongue like a honeysuckle meadow on the dawn of spring, like waves kissing shorelines and a balm on open wounds. Her heavy lids flutter and she opens her eyes to lose herself in the depths of an obsidian thunderstorm. His breaths tickled her nose and his beard brushes her chin.

"You skipped the lunch."

The accusation in his tone didn't register right away as she raised her hand to touch his cheek. Her fingers come in contact with solid warm flesh and her chest heaved with a relieved sigh. Whatever her dream was made of, has long combusted into dust. She was now in reality, in front of the man who called her soulmate. A frown appeared between her brows as she slowly worked her hazy brain and straighten up. The journal of Rajya Vardhan was lying on her feet. Yagya slowly tugs the stubborn tendrils caressing her cheeks behind her ears and she back away shyly. Her body suddenly comes to life and hyperaware of everything that's happening.

"What? What are you doing here?" She muttered hoarsely and cleared her throat.

"Well, it is dinner time now and everyone's waiting. When did you come here and what are you reading?"

Yagya asked while reaching for the journal, which Gauri grabbed at the last moment and attached to her chest.

"Umm... It is an old journal."

"Really? Who wrote it?"

"Your grandfather."

"Oh! The old man! While growing up I heard he was a nutjob and a great storyteller, especially in his last days. Kept spewing stupid shit, that has nothing to do with virtual reality." Gauri's jaw dropped at his attempt of lighting the surging tension between them and she rolled her eyes.

"Please, from what I read he sounded like a man who truly cared about his family."

Yagya shrugged his shoulders before pulling her arms to make her stand and drag her out of the dimly lit library. But when he was about to cross the threshold, froze for a second. Closing his eyes, he drew a large breath, inhaling the slightly foul stench in his lungs. Something in him burned and his eyes moistened. His jaw clenched and the hold around Gauri's wrist tightened until she yelped. His eyes skipped to the dark corner of the library and goosebumps erupted all over his flesh. Unknowingly, his canines started to show and he snarled. A low growl reverberated from his chest and the window behind the couch opened on its own with a thud.

Gauri jumped out of her wits and dropped the journal. Her instincts commanded her to paste herself to her protector. The cold wind blew inside and her teeth started chattering. The male in front of her was as rigid as an ice block. Yagya's face contorted back into human form and he quickly leaves the spooky premises. Feeling weak and shaken, Gauri let him guide her toward the flight of stairs leading to the main hall and the dining area.

"What's happening?" Winded she asked to which he backed her into a wall and inhaled sharply in her hair.

"Promise me one thing- You would never roam around the palaces unattended. Always take someone with you." His voice sent chills down her spine for he wasn't speaking alone but a very restless beast hiding beneath the human flesh gritted urgently.

"Okay."

Her short reply made his hunched shoulder relax and he glared at the whispering maids at the end of the stairs while peaking at them shyly.

"Okay. Let's go, grab something to eat."

"What are you doing in my room?"

Late in the night, a baffled Gauri asked as she watched her husband unbuttoning his shirt and tossing it on the floor. Out of habit, she immediately picked it up and laid it on an empty chair.

"Would you rather have me sleeping in the quarters with one of the maids?"

Her eyes turned into saucers and she glared at him hotly.

"I don't remember releasing such a statement. Mind you."

"Then it's decided, I am calling it night here."

"No, you wouldn't! Go to your Rajwada Palace and haunt the hallways. Scare away some poor guards and recite the bloody rules and do not forget to write a warning on the front doors. CAUTION- THERE'S A HALFWITTED WOLFMAN INSIDE WITH RAZOR-SHARP TEETH AND TALON-LIKE NAILS, SO, ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK."

Yagya gaped at her openmouthed and didn't pretend to not eye her heaving chest for 5 seconds.

"I can't believe you said that. Keep your voice down, woman. Even the walls have ears."

"Let them hear. I am not scared of anybody." She waved her hands in the air and froze realizing that she was fighting with her husband like it was a normal day when reality was far from it. "Why are we fighting?"

"Ask yourself, you trouble-seeking dwarf!"

"Stop calling me names! Or else!"

"Or else, what?" He challenged her with a cold smile revealing his canines making her gulp and take a step back.

"I will tell mother."

The man burst into peals of laughter and clenched his taunt abdomen. Gauri felt humiliated by the sight and her nostrils flared. Picking a pillow from the queen-sized bed, she swung it harshly and smacked him in the face.

Pin-drop silence floods the room.

Yagya stood like a statue and waited for one long minute before lunging at her at once. Hauling her from the ground and tossing her on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, he threw her on the bed.

Gauri could only scream in horror when was smacked with the same pillow on the face. He held her struggling wrists with a single hand and started tickling her belly with another. It was her time to wail and laugh.

"Stop."

She could only yell as he maintained the momentum of his onslaught. The room lightened up with their collective gasps and joy. After Kirti's demise, this was the first time he was laughing carefree and all his facial muscles stretched at weird angles. He looked divine- with his eyes shimmering with genuine happiness and not clouded with webs of a haunting past. Mesmerized by this new man in front of her, she forgot the pain in her gut and looked at him emotionally. Something inside of her felt filled to the brim. God knows what it was that made her heart this heavy that the tears in her eyes betrayed her, broke the old dams, and fell like dew drops on the pillow underneath her. He stopped mid-attack and started to back away fearing he has hurt her, but she held his hand and brought it to her wildly beating heart that matched his rhythm. For the first time in her life, she felt so deeply connected with a person other than her grandmother. She could sense every breath he took and the way his vessels pulsed.

Unknowingly, the beast-man in front of her pressed his lips on her forehead and elation fluttered in her heart. She wanted to dance, touch the sky and kiss the moon for this moment carried a grave meaning, her soul slowly succumbing to his needs, accepting him bit by bit. He was her own, stardust and divine light. Her other half for the rest of her life. A lost puzzle piece.

She wanted to say so much in that one second that the word escaped her and when she opened her eyes, a muffled plea escaped her.

"Kirti!"

Her husband's first wife was floating behind him, like an angry Pharoah ready to turn her castle of dreams into ruins. He shuddered at the name and glared at her fiercely for driving in uncharted waters, but before the full-blown assault of his words could've injured her emotionally, the heavy wooden square column above the bed, which holds the net, cracked into two pieces and fell on his spine.

A loud crack resonated along with her outcry for help.

His dead weight crushed her and she clawed at his naked back, trying to gather the shattering cocoon they made around themselves a few minutes ago.

"Oh, God! Yagya!" She wailed so loud, that her voice pierced the silence of the night and disturbed the asleep hallways.

"Damn it!" he muttered under his breath as he pushed the broken log to the side, from where it tumbled on the floor with a loud thud. Dark dots started dancing in her vision as his supposed broken spine started to piece together. Her eyes rolled at the back of her head as he taps her cheeks to ask if she was hurt. She fainted because of shock and fear.

Yagya took a deep breath. His eyes dance with a fury he never experienced before. He could sense them, the peeking scavengers from behind a thin veil separating living and dead. His new wife had taken a name that once use to elate him, but today, it was a bitter aftertaste, a reminder of the days he spent wishing for death. He had no idea what to do back then and let somebody take charge of everything.

"Alive she didn't remain happy, fearing she might lose you due to her illness. Now dead she haunts us, looming over our heads, never letting anybody make us feel again. She is a threat." The monster in him grumbled rendering Yagya speechless.

"What are you talking about?" The clueless man asked, still processing the fact that the monster is speaking like he is a part of him and not a different entity.

"Keep my wife safe!" The beastly spirit ordered before diving into its second home, the astral realm.

Sobs of a woman resonated in the sleepy hollow of the dark realm.

Dressed in the color of innocence, hiding her face in her palms, curled in a ball, she wept on the cold floor of fallen ruins.

A mixture of fog and smoke blanketed the atmosphere, and swirls of chilled air wailed in the corridors as if carrying the tortured outcries of hellish souls. The sky was crowded with crimson clouds as if someone has tossed vermillion high in the air.

The anguished female cursed the woman who stole her husband, the man who was supposed to love her till the end of time, the narcissistic witch who didn't think twice before taking her life, and the evil demoness who haunted her every waking hour when she was alive. She never felt so lonely before. Earlier she used to pass her time looking after her husband but after the arrival of the new woman, he stopped thinking about her, he didn't miss her or talked to her. His attention was stolen by the charming storyteller from a small village. Now nobody thinks of her, as if she never existed or ran through these hallways. She has loved him whole, how dare he crush her throbbing heart beneath his feet and move on to taste blossoming grooves.

"Years ago, I felt the same when he decided to forget the past and hold onto his future like I never mattered and my demise was a natural event and could be accepted."

A voice holding the scratchy baritone rang in the depressing environment. The woman went rigid and slowly turned to gawk at the uninvited spectator, who never bothered to address her before. A dark feminine figure with smoke erupting from its core, as if she was on fire, gazed down at the suffering soul with those blood-red eyes.

"I tried throwing signs, screamed, wept, and did everything in my power to let him know I was still here. I wasn't gone, but invisible, hurt, alone, and suffering beyond this veil, serving a sentence for loving someone deeply. There's not a single moment where I don't curse myself for choosing differently. I wish I was wise. And at the end of the pain, I was done wasting tears for someone who didn't even care. There is no pain worse than the pain inflicted by the person in front of whom you opened your soul. It took me a long time to make peace with my fate. I chose to become the deadliest piece on the board.

Why should I feel apologetic for the monster I've become when no one apologized for making me this way?"

Her brutal words were an eye-opener. And soon the spirit of Yagya's first wife realized that they weren't so different. She was capable of turning into this vengeful monster if all the right strings were pulled. Kirti shook her head in denial.

"My Yagya wouldn't do that to me. He will soon realize that I was the only one for him."

The ghostly spirit chuckled and shook her head in pity.

"Oh, sweetheart! I wish you had longer to understand that the world doesn't work like that."

The moment she finished her sentence, a furious beast emerged from the shadows and jumped on his latest victim. Kirti's soul didn't even get the time to scream or fight when he dug his claws into her torso and bit on her head. The ground of the astral realm shook and tore, revealing the burning ambers of hellish rogues who opened their mouths to devour the leftovers of another broken soul.

The ghostly spirit cackled at the show made by the beast before disappearing into the darkness.