The Name She Already Wore
Lucerne — 3:17 A.M.
Emaan stood beneath the white glare of the bathroom light, its reflection sharp against the cold marble, outlining her like a secret half-exposed.
Her reflection trembled.
Lips parted, still swollen. Neck bruised, kissed raw in a language of possession. Her thighs — unsteady, tight with the aftershock of something deeper than touch.
Not pain.
Not pleasure.
But the devastation of having wanted.
"Just once," she had whispered against his mouth.
A promise. A shield. A lie.
She'd let it happen — and she had burned for it. Still was.
It wasn't his fingers that undid her.
It was the mirror. The one that reflected a girl no longer untouched — but undone.
She touched the obsidian wolf pendant resting just below her collarbone. Fingers brushing the warm shape, etched in silver.
It had felt heavy when he gave it to her.
Now it felt like a leash.
Why does it feel like he already owns me?
Zayyan's POV — An Oath Fulfilled
In the suite above hers, Zayyan sat in silence.
The fire crackled low, embers pulsing like a heartbeat.
In his hands: a worn legal document, its edges browned with age. He unfolded it slowly, with the reverence of someone unsealing a sacred truth.
Nikahnama.
Old script. Ink faded.
His name, signed in bold: Zayyan Haris Al-Raheem.
Her name beside his: Emaan Binte Irfan Khan.
Dated. Witnessed. Fingerprinted. Legal.
The marriage had happened.
Sixteen years ago.
Childhood voices echoing vows they didn't understand.
Two powerful families — one noble and dominant, the other quiet, crumbling, desperate for protection.
A union meant to be forgotten.
But he never forgot.
PAST SCENE — The First Glimpse
Karachi — 16 Years Ago
The garden was cramped, more earth than beauty, but to eight-year-old Zayyan, it had felt like the entire world had gone silent.
There, by the koi pond, sat her.
Seven.
Barefoot. Hands cupped with fish feed. Her hair in two uneven braids. Laughing at the way the fish nibbled her fingers like a secret only they knew.
Something about that laugh had stayed.
"Who's she?" he had asked.
His father: "The girl you're marrying today."
He hadn't understood then.
Just hours later, they sat on opposite sides of a thin white sheet. The imam's voice a distant echo. Aunts crying softly. Uncles recording it on grainy camcorders.
"Repeat after me."
And they had.
Small mouths speaking ancient vows.
Then sugar cubes pressed to their lips.
Then silence.
Then years.
Years without her.
Until—
PAST SCENE — Lucerne Lakefront, Present Day
Two weeks ago
The same girl.
No braids now. No koi pond.
Just a woman wrapped in silence and snow, standing at the edge of Lucerne's frozen lake.
Her scarf was loose. Her lips pink. Her eyes — distant.
She hadn't seen him.
But something in him flared.
By nightfall, his men had confirmed everything.
Her name. Her records. Her father's death.
Most importantly: her marital status.
Undisclosed.
But not unbound.
His name was still tethered to hers on official records.
No annulment. No divorce. No erasure.
She had always been his.
She just didn't know it yet.
Back to Present – The Name She Never Knew
Buzz.
Emaan's phone lit up on the bathroom counter. One message.
No name. No preview.
Just a file. PDF.
She opened it.
She didn't breathe.
NIKAHNAMA
Spouse 1: Zayyan Haris Al-Raheem
Spouse 2: Emaan Binte Irfan Khan
Date: Sixteen years ago.
Her mother's signature.
Her father's fingerprint.
And at the bottom — a clumsy, uneven scrawl in red crayon.
Her own.
The phone slipped from her hands.
Glass against tile.
Her chest shattered the same way.
Her World Shifts
She ran.
No coat. No phone.
Through the hallway. Down into snow.
Up marble stairs slick with ice.
Until she was outside his door.
She didn't knock.
She threw it open.
Zayyan's Suite — The Reckoning
He was there. As if waiting.
The room was warm. Soft lamplight. A storm in her lungs.
"What the fuck is this?"
She threw the phone at him like it burned her fingers.
He didn't flinch.
"Your name," he said calmly. "The one you were given. Not the one you imagined you had to earn."
"Tell me this is fake."
"No," he said. "It's the only truth you were never allowed to know."
"You—" Her voice cracked. "You knew?"
"I recognized you the moment I saw you again."
He stepped closer.
"And when I confirmed the records... you became mine again."
The Storm Between Them
"You could've told me—"
"I wanted you to choose me."
"You didn't let me choose. You tricked me into needing you."
"I waited," he said. "I watched you fight it. I let you fall, not because I wanted your surrender. But because I wanted your hunger."
She backed into the wall.
"You ruined me."
"No," he said, stepping forward, voice low. "I unlocked you."
Then, softly:
"Why are you wearing my necklace, Emaan?"
She couldn't answer.
"You let me touch you before you knew. You said just once. But your blood remembered me before your mind did."
Ruin Me with the Truth
Her knees buckled.
He caught her before she hit the floor.
She struck his chest.
"You used me—"
"You're mine."
Her fists trembled.
"So why didn't you tell me?"
He cupped her face.
"Because I needed you to want me... before you remembered you were already mine."
The Stillness Before the Fire
"Then take me," she whispered.
Not broken.
Not begging.
Commanding.
"Not like some conquest. Not like a mistake."
She took his hand. Pressed it to her heart.
"Take me like you've always had me."
The Consummation — This Time, With Knowing
He lifted her gently.
No rush. No grin.
Only reverence.
As if she were scripture he had finally been allowed to read aloud.
"Say it."
She stared up at him.
"I'm yours."
No More Holding Back
He undressed her slowly — a silk offering unfolding beneath moonlight.
No shame in her.
Only readiness.
Her body opened like a confession.
Her breath caught when his tongue touched her, not as play, but as worship.
She broke apart in his hands.
And when he entered her — it wasn't invasion.
It was homecoming.
The Rhythm of Reclamation
She gripped the sheets like she was holding back time.
"Zayyan—"
"I've got you."
He flipped her. Entered deeper.
Fucked her like history.
One hand in her hair. The other pressed to her belly — as if he was already planting futures inside her.
He came with a groan like thunder.
Stayed inside.
Mouth at her neck:
"Now you remember."
Yours, Again — In Flesh and Fire
Lucerne — Dawn
She woke first.
Naked. Bare. Glowing.
The pendant rested on her chest like a sealed truth.
His arm around her thigh, his breath hot against her shoulder.
And still — she didn't run.
Because now…
She remembered.
The Softest Morning
"You're staring," he murmured.
"I'm memorizing."
He smirked.
"You forgot your name last night."
"I didn't forget," she whispered. "I replaced it."
He pressed his lips to her pulse.
"Say it."
She did.
"I'm your wife."
A Vow Made Twice
Later, he took her to the mountains.
Where the trees stood like witnesses.
No imam. No family.
Just her. Just him.
And the thread-wrapped pendant tied around her wrist.
"This isn't another nikah," he said. "It's a vow we both hear this time."
She looked at him.
"I do."
"And if I fail you?"
She stepped closer.
"Then I'll remind you who I am."
He smiled.
"And who are you?"
She didn't blink.
"Your ruin.
Your wife.
Your beginning."
And when she whispered "Take me again,"
It wasn't surrender.
It was sovereignty.
Zayyan's Novella: In Possession and Shadow
Lucerne — One Week Later
Zayyan stood at the balcony of their mountain estate, bare-chested, dressed only in black slacks, a tumbler of blood-dark wine in his hand. The snow below shimmered like crushed glass, but it was her silence that gleamed sharper.
Emaan hadn't spoken since the ceremony.
She wore his pendant. She slept in his bed. She bore his name — now knowingly, now legally, now undeniably.
But something had gone still in her.
She no longer flinched.
She no longer asked.
She watched. Observed. Calculated.
And he loved her more for it.
She was beginning to understand the game.
Good.
He would teach her how deep it went.
Memory — Riyadh, Five Years Ago
"Is it done?"
"Yes, sir. Irfan Khan is dead."
Zayyan didn't smile.
He simply signed the final contract on the table. A silent end to the man who had tried to annul the marriage quietly — in a secret court, without his daughter's knowledge. A man who dared to erase his name from her.
So he erased him instead.
Five years ago, Irfan Khan had made a fatal choice.
He had filed a petition in Riyadh's private Shariah court to annul the childhood nikah between his daughter, Emaan, and Zayyan — without informing her. He intended to sever the contract before it became legally inconvenient. To clear her name. To prepare her for another marriage. One he would arrange, for alliance or leverage.
But Zayyan's network — sharp, patient, ruthless — learned of the petition within hours.
And that day, Zayyan made a decision.
He didn't challenge the petition. He didn't send a lawyer. He didn't issue a warning.
He issued a death order.
Clean. Quiet. Untraceable.
Irfan Khan was found collapsed in his hotel bathroom. Sudden heart failure. No signs of violence. No questions asked. A closed casket. A funeral without noise.
Just as planned.
Because Zayyan didn't just defend a contract.
He defended a claim. A truth. A bond.
A name.
Hers. Connected to his.
Forever.
Present — Zayyan's Private Study
He watched her on the surveillance feed — live from the estate's internal cameras.
She was reading.
In the winter library. Wrapped in his robe. Legs folded on the velvet couch like the queen she didn't yet know she was.
She touched her neck often. The pendant.
Still wearing it. Still mine.
He pressed a button.
The hidden door behind her opened.
She didn't flinch. Just looked up, slow. Like a cat sensing a predator it now craved.
He entered.
"Do you like the library?"
"It's beautiful," she said softly.
"I made it for you. Before I even knew you'd remember me."
She looked at him.
"No. You made it so I wouldn't run."
He chuckled, slow and low. "Both can be true."
Nightfall — The Game Begins
Zayyan sat her down at the dinner table. Candlelight. Silver. A single glass of wine.
Only his.
"You don't drink?"
"Not yet," she said. "Not unless I pour it myself."
He smiled.
"You're learning."
"You're teaching."
He leaned forward.
"Good. Because I don't want a puppet. I want a wife who chooses her collar."
She said nothing.
Just reached up. Brushed the pendant.
Possession — The Cellar Below
The estate had a lower level.
She wasn't allowed in it.
She asked once.
He said no.
So one night, she picked the lock.
And found it.
A room lined with files. Photos. Reports. Of her. From every age. Every school. Every city. Every time she changed her name. Every number she disconnected.
And one wall — a shrine.
Not romantic.
Devotional.
Obsession carved in corkboard and string. A map of how he never let her go. Not really.
She found court documents too.
One labeled: PETITION FOR ANNULMENT — Riyadh Shariah Court.
Stamped. Unprocessed.
Beside it: AUTOPSY REPORT: IRFAN KHAN.
Her breath left her. Cold. Hollow.
A scream built inside her chest — not of pain, but betrayal.
Her father. Gone.
And the man she had given herself to — the one who made her tremble, the one who made her burn — had orchestrated it.
She dropped the documents, staggered back like she'd been shot. Her heart, a vice of hatred.
Hatred for him.
And hatred for herself.
For loving him.
For wanting him.
For letting him inside her body — when he had taken blood from her life.
He found her there.
She turned on him, eyes blazing. Voice cracked.
"You planned everything."
"No," he said, stepping forward. "I prepared for everything."
"You killed him."
"I removed the man who tried to steal what was mine."
"MY FATHER!" she screamed, tears breaking down her cheeks. "You took my father! How dare you touch me, love me, claim me — after what you did!"
"He tried to cut your name from mine. I stopped it. I did what I had to."
"You didn't have to do anything. You chose to become a murderer."
"I chose you."
She laughed — sharp, broken. "No. You chose control. You chose to play god with my life."
"I chose to protect what was already mine."
"I will never forgive you."
"You don't have to. You only have to stay."
"I won't."
"You will."
She shoved him with both hands. "Stay away from me!"
He grabbed her wrists. Pinned them to the wall. "No."
"I hate you."
"Good," he growled. "Hate binds even tighter than love."
She struggled, kicking at him. But he was stronger. Always had been.
"Don't touch me!"
"You're mine, Emaan. I've waited too long. Buried too many secrets. Killed for you. You don't get to walk away now."
She shook her head. "You're sick. I hate you. I hate—"
He silenced her with his mouth, brutal and claiming.
She tried to turn her head. But he held her there.
Tore open her shirt.
"Don't—"
"I warned you," he whispered into her skin. "I told you not to wear the pendant unless you meant it."
She cried.
But even in tears, her body reacted.
He touched her like possession. Like sentence. Like no god would come to save her now.
He entered her roughly, pinning her against the cold wall of the cellar.
She sobbed.
But he didn't stop.
Not until she shattered.
And when he pulled away, breathing heavy, he whispered:
"Now your hate is inside you. Just like I am."
She collapsed to the floor, shaking.
He knelt beside her, brushed her hair back.
"You can hate me all you want, Emaan."
He kissed her temple.
"You'll still be mine tomorrow."
Flashback — The Beginning of Obsession
Karachi — Thirteen Years Ago
Zayyan was ten.
The wedding had happened years earlier, but he hadn't seen her since.
Until one summer afternoon, when she arrived with her parents to visit his estate.
She was nine. In a white cotton frock. Laughing at the parrots in the courtyard. Her fingers sticky with mango.
He watched her through the lattice.
Not with innocence.
With hunger. The kind no child should've known.
She had no idea what she was to him.
But he knew.
He followed her through the hallways, memorized the way she touched walls, counted steps, whispered to herself.
That night, he snuck into the library where she had left a notebook.
He took it.
Kept it.
Read it every night until he could rewrite her in his mind.
She was already in him.
And he had made a vow, long before he was old enough to speak it aloud:
No one else would ever touch her.