I. What Wears Her Face?

Three days since the kiss.

Since the sarcophagus shattered. Since the original Witness stepped into Briar’s shadow and settled there like a second spine.

At first, the changes were subtle.

She forgot names—not just others, but sometimes her own. She’d open her mouth and speak in the old tongue without realizing. She no longer blinked when candles lit themselves. And when she touched the piano, it played without keys.

Thorne watched in silence as she unravelled. She still looked like her. Still smelled like rose smoke and adrenaline. But something moved behind her eyes now—a second presence, ancient and watching.

The manor loved her more this way.

Which terrified him.

II. How He Fell?

He hadn’t meant to care.

Not for a girl bred from pact and prophecy. Not for another link in the Elwood chain. But Briar had arrived not with questions—but with rage. She didn’t ask to save him. She demanded to know who had failed him.

Thorne had been studied before.

Briar saw him.

When she touched his wrist that first night—without flinching—he hadn’t felt lust.

He had felt startled.

And that’s how it began.

Not with obsession.

But with recognition.

As if her fingerprints had once lived beneath his skin, waiting to be remembered.

III. A Moment That Nearly Undid Him.

She stood barefoot in the garden where the roses had returned from ash. The sky bruised above them, and she swayed like something ancient playing human.

Thorne approached cautiously.

“What do you see?”

“Everything,” she said. “Too much. Your heartbeat is wrong. One of your ribs is cracked. You think about kissing me when I’m angry but are terrified you’ll disappear if you do.”

He exhaled like she’d punched him.

“Why are you still here?” she whispered.

“Because I don’t love what you are,” he said. “I love what you let yourself be when no one’s looking.”

That was when her lips began to tremble—not from power.

But from memory.

And that’s when the curse pulsed violently through her spine, like it didn’t want her to feel that.

IV. How Their Love Shifts the Curse?

The boy—the Witness First—hid in her subconscious, feeding on wrath, memory, identity. But when Thorne touched her with intent, when he kissed her not as a sacrifice—but as a man choosing her chaos over his safety—the presence inside her weakened.

It hissed.

It recoiled.

Because it needed a vessel of fear, not connection.

And in that moment, Briar reclaimed a single second of clarity.

She remembered her real name.

She remembered how her mother smelled.

She remembered what it felt like to want touch without hurting someone.

“It’s working,” she whispered.

“Then we starve it,” Thorne said. “With love so loud it can’t hear anything else.”

V. The First Time He Says It.

It wasn’t after a kiss.

It was after she smashed a mirror to silence the voice inside her, then curled up against the ruined vanity, shaking.

He wrapped himself around her like armour.

“You’re not fading,” he told her.

“I’m becoming something monstrous.” she said.

“No. You’ve always had claws. I just love how you use them.”

She looked up, broken and beautiful.

“Say it again.”

And he did.

Not loud.

But true.

“I love you. Briar Elwood, blood-bloom and blade.”

VI. The Curse Evolves.

Love doesn’t destroy curses.

It seduces them.

The Witness didn’t leave her.

It adapted. Hid deeper. Grew smarter. It now wanted what she wanted—to be loved. To be real. To belong.

And that made it infinitely more dangerous.

Because now it wore her voice perfectly.

And Thorne had to learn the difference between Briar's touch—and the thing pretending to wear her hands.

"The thorns are tightening. But so is the bond."

~TO BE CONTINUED....🥀🩸🖤