The castle was suffocating. Nami gasped awake, her throat tightening as if unseen hands had seized it. The air was thick, pressing down on her, heavy with something ancient, something hungry. Every breath burned, her body aching to be free.
Not in the way of tight walls or crushing weight, but in the way of something unseen watching, listening, pressing in on every breath. The air was thick, cloying with the scent of rotting lilies and something darker—something that made Nami's skin crawl, like she was already buried deep within the frozen ground.
As she registered the energy she felt around her, she could not move. She lay bound against a massive four-poster bed, golden cuffs locking her wrists to the carved headboard. The sheets beneath her were offensively soft, bridal white, a mockery of innocence. She had fought, twisted, and pulled, but the cuffs did not give. The magic that bound them was ancient—something that drained her strength the longer she struggled.
And across from her, watching with unsettling patience, were the same eyes she felt from the woods.
He lounged at the foot of the bed, his posture a mockery of ease—legs sprawled apart, a hand idly resting on his knee, fingers curled like talons. He carried himself like a king, but his throne was built from stolen flesh and rotting vows.
His long coat was cut like a parapet along the hem, the high collar framing his broad, grotesque body. His crisp white shirt bore two stylized crosses, and his slacks—tucked neatly into high, strapped boots—only made the monstrous nature of his form more jarring. A belt of silver and chain sat at his waist, a mockery of the knighthood he imagined himself wearing. But beneath the elegance, beneath the garments, was something stitched together from nightmares.
The skin beneath his collar was too thick, a grayish tint peeking from the seams of his shirt. It was elephant hide. His arms, grotesquely muscular beneath his cuffs, flexed with inhuman power—grafted muscle from bears and gorillas. Every inch of him was unnatural, but the worst was his face.
The blond strands of his hair only framed the horror. The muzzle of a lion was stitched over his mouth, jagged seams threading down his jaw like a grotesque masquerade. It moved when he grinned, his too-human teeth bared beneath the fangs of a beast.
He was a nightmare dressed as nobility, a beast pretending to be a prince. And worst of all? He thought Nami was his princess.
"You're beautiful," he mused, voice deep, almost purring. His sharp nails tapped against the chair's armrest, watching her bare form like she was something to be admired, something to be claimed. "Even more than I imagined."
Nami clenched her jaw, refusing to shudder, refusing to react, but attempted to her best ability to cover her exposed body.
"What are you?" She spat.
Her anger only seemed to bring a smile to his crooked face. "Absalom. Absalom of the Graveyard Kingdom."
Nami had seen monsters. She had seen devil fruit users twisted by their own power. But this wasn't the work of magic. This was man-made. The realization hit her like a crashing tide.
Her mother's warnings came back to her in a whisper—words she had buried deep, lessons that had once felt like old stories but now rang through her mind like a prophecy.
"Magic is a force that can be understood. But when men try to remake what the gods have already designed, they create something twisted. Something wrong. A body can be broken, reshaped, reanimated—but the soul? The soul cannot be stitched together."
Nami's stomach twisted. He leaned forward, his trembling claws coming for her legs, and she pulled them up fiercely, curling herself into a ball.
"You are...delicious. Your scent." he growled, "I'm drooling just thinking about it...but I'll wait. For the ceremony."
"Ceremony?" she forced out, her voice calm despite the ice crawling up her spine.
Absalom leaned forward with a disgusting swallow of saliva, elbows on his knees, as if amused she hadn't understood.
"Of course," he murmured. "I am a prince, my dear. It would be unbecoming of me to...taste you without proper tradition." His voice was thick with satisfaction. "All my wives had their ceremonies."
Nami's stomach churned. All his—
Her breath hitched as her gaze flickered past him to the shifting shadows along the wall. And that's when she saw them—the dead bodies—his hexed women.
They stood in the dim candlelight like ghosts of a forgotten past, draped in bridal lace and veils, their frozen procession never-ending. Some twitched violently, their joints creaking, their heads snapping toward her in jagged, unnatural motions. Others drifted closer, their lips still painted with the remnants of their last moments—their wedding night, their first kiss, their final breath.
But their eyes—their eyes were wrong. Hollow. Stretched. Too wide. Some were melted like wax, their features smeared beyond recognition. Others had their lids stitched shut, trapping their silent screams within.
"You think I'm going to be your undead bride?" Her voice was sharp as steel, slicing through the thick, humid air. "You're insane."
Absalom let out a deep, indulgent sigh. "Oh, woman. All my wives started alive."
She froze. The dead women shifted in the candlelight. Her blood turned to ice.
"I refuse," she spat, yanking at the cuffs again, feeling the magic pulse in a warning. "It will never work."
Absalom chuckled, slow and dark. "You say that now."
Then he snapped his fingers. The air shifted. The cold presence of the dead women grew closer. And suddenly, she felt it. A sickness. A weight pressed into her chest, something invisible sinking into her skin, pulling at her very essence. Her breath caught—like something had been ripped from her lungs. Her eyes widened.
"Ah," Absalom murmured, watching her realization dawn. "You finally recognize that you cannot escape."
Nami felt it—the way her limbs tingled, the slow, creeping exhaustion in her bones, the way her body suddenly felt lighter—like something had been stolen. He was absorbing her energy. Not just hers—all of theirs. The wives. The hexed women. Every single soul in this cursed place had been fed to him, piece by piece; their very existence leached from their bodies to sustain his own stolen flesh.
It wasn't a devil's fruit. It was worse. The dead whispered around her, their voices curling in the shadows. Nami fought against the suffocating pull of his magic; her wrists burned against the cuffs as she gritted her teeth.
"You're disgusting," she hissed.
Absalom grinned. "And yet, soon enough…" He walked over to her, licking his fangs as he leaned toward her. His breath was hot against her ear. "…You'll belong to me."
I'm not yours," she spat. "I will never be yours."
His expression didn't falter. If anything, he looked amused.
"And what can you do...naked and afraid?" he murmured, his voice dipping lower, more predatory.
"It's just a matter of time. You see, our bride, there's something that binds us all—something far deeper than love or choice. Death."
She ground her teeth. "Death? I'm not dead!"
"Oh no, but death comes for us all..." he corrected, standing and stretching his arms wide. Even for someone whose energy tastes as decadent as yours."
A chill ran down her spine. Nami's fingers curled into the sheets. The shadows moved closer. Cold hands ghosted over her arms, tugging at her naked body, lifting her wrists.
"Prepare our bride," Absalom commanded, stepping back.
Nami thrashed as the dead women surrounded her. "NO—GET AWAY FROM ME!"
The figures didn't react. They moved in eerie synchrony, slipping silk over her shoulders, unfastening her chains but binding her under their frozen and skeletal fingers with unnatural precision.
She kicked and twisted, but the hands never let go. Her breath came fast, panic clawing up her throat as she felt the weight of them pressing in, the scent of decay and faded perfume wrapping around her like a noose.
"This will never work," she hissed, her voice shaking as she struggled against the inhuman hands stripping her of her will.
Absalom merely tilted his head, eyes glinting in amusement.
"Oh, our bride," he purred, his voice filled with dark satisfaction. "That's not up to you."
The dead wives whispered around her, their voices hollow, their hands relentless. Absalom stood, his monstrous form casting a shadow over her bound figure. His lion-stitched mouth curled into something smug, something victorious.
"W-why are you doing this?" She asked, not hesitant out of fear but because she could feel herself falling asleep again.
"This is his fault," he purred, the words seeping into her bones like poison. "The demon thought he could steal from me."
His clawed fingers traced the shackles at her wrists. "And now…you are his payment…and wedding gift."
As the dead wives moved around her, forcing silk and lace over her trembling form, Nami felt bile rise in her throat. The weight of their fingers was unnatural; some were too cold, some too soft—like hands that had forgotten how to touch, how to feel, and how to be human. The bridal gown—an obscenity in white—clung to her skin, the delicate and sheer fabric pooling around her like a funeral shroud. It was meant to be beautiful, meant to make her a prize.
Like a jewel placed in a crown. Like meat placed on a platter. Her fingers curled into fists. She was no man's possession.
"You can dress me in whatever you want," she snarled even as her head felt light, her voice sharp as steel, "but I don't keep myself fit for voyeurs like you."
Absalom—back seated leisurely in his grotesque throne—laughed.
"Oh, but you do, our bride," he purred, his lion-stitched mouth stretching into a smile. "You don't even realize it. Every step you take, every curve you flaunt—it's an invitation."
Nami's stomach twisted in revulsion. "An invitation?" she echoed, her voice dripping with contempt.
"Yes," he said, spreading his hands as if he were explaining something obvious. "A woman like you—soft, warm, untouched—was meant to be admired. Meant to be claimed."
Nami had heard enough from this beast. From men like this. She saw her mother suffer through it.
Even in Belle-mére's kindness to rid villages of possessions and demons, sometimes it was the mortals who were the cruelest. Men who thought her mother…her daughters…their bodies were for their taking.
As she journeyed, older and even wiser, some thought her survival—her fitness, strength, and confidence—was for them, that she had shaped herself into something desirable for their benefit. Her teeth ground together.
"I don't stand for being treated like a piece of meat," she hissed, her wrists burning as she pulled against the golden cuffs. "And I sure as hell don't keep myself strong for pathetic bastards like you."
For a second, just a second, Absalom's smile twitched. "Good thing you aren't standing…and you won't be for long. After this ceremony, we'll have you back on your back again."
He gave her another lecherous grin as she panted, watching her body be draped in his desires as she suffocated from his leeching of her power. The cold presence of the dead wives tightened around her, the lace binding her arms in elegant chains.
"You think you have a choice?" Absalom purred, tracing a clawed finger at his animalistic chin. "There is no choice, woman. You were made for us. From the moment I laid eyes on you, from the moment I tasted your power in the air…you have always been ours."
The dress was suffocating—not just in its fit but in everything it represented. The fabric was heavy, an unnatural weight pressing down on her as if it carried the burden of the dead wives before her. A pristine white, it gleamed in the candlelight, a cruel contrast to the decay that surrounded her. The off-the-shoulder neckline left her bare in a way that made her skin crawl, as if she were being offered up, exposed for judgment and possession.
Long, elegant gloves were pulled over her arms, covering the bruises left by her struggles, their silken grip just another form of restraint. The bodice was impossibly tight, cinched to the point that every breath felt stolen as if the dress itself was trying to mold her into something she wasn't. And the skirt—layered and flowing—cascaded down her legs in waves of thick, ghostly fabric, trailing behind her like the remnants of a forgotten life.
The dead wives worked in silence, their cold, skeletal fingers fastening clasps, adjusting lace, smoothing folds of the cursed gown as if this were a ritual they had performed countless times before. Their hollow eyes did not see her—they only saw a bride. Another bride. One more name to be lost to the procession of the damned. And then, his voice cut through the hush.
"I designed it myself," Absalom mused, his tone laced with satisfaction.
Nami's jaw clenched as she felt him watching, admiring his creation as if he were an artist and she, his final masterpiece.
"A dress worthy of our bride," he continued. He kept speaking of Nami as if she were a shared object, and then Nami realized—these hexes women fed him but were also now a part of him. Their souls were cut off from reincarnation, from peace, as he wove their energy in his very stitches.
Stepping closer, his lion-stitched mouth twisted into something smug. "Worthy of you."
Nami swallowed her rage like poison. The veil was the final touch. Thin, delicate, almost weightless—but suffocating all the same. It draped over her, blurring the edges of reality, sealing her within this nightmare. Even in the deadness of his eyes, all she saw was a corpse dressed for its burial.
She's different than the other ones, he thought as she continued to resist his power. He tasted it before. Something inside her was almost forbidden, and he wanted to dive into her at this very moment to discover it for himself. As his hexed women skittered away from him, his palms floated over her cleaned, perfumed, and now clothed form.
"Please understand…," Absalom murmured, stepping closer until he towered over her. The grotesque patchwork of his monstrous body flexed, stitched muscles rippling beneath stolen skin. His shadow swallowed her whole. "You are not merely meat, our bride."
His clawed fingers reached for her jaw, tilting her chin up. "You are the feast."
She wanted to scream—not in fear, but in rage. The women—his past brides, his sacrifices, his victims—pressed closer, their silent forms heavy with something unspoken. Desperation. A warning. A curse.
Absalom's voice dropped lower, a growl threading beneath his words. "And soon, we'll be dining."
Her breath caught. He licked his lips.
"You say you are not for men like me?" he mused, dragging his claws down the curve of her throat, not touching—hovering, just promising. "Then why do you tremble?"
Because she was furious. Because she had been here before. Because beasts like him always thought they had the upper hand, they never did. And they never would. She turned her head, breaking his grasp, her voice like venom in honey.
"You think you're the hunter, don't you?" she whispered, her voice like a blade unsheathing.
"But hunters like you always make the same mistake."
She tilted her chin, her lips curling into something sharp, something hungry.
"They think they're untouchable. They think they own the hunt."
Her eyes burned, not with fear, but with promise.
"Until something bigger comes to feast on them instead."
For the first time, Absalom paused. But he laughed as he waved his cursed women to finish their work, readying her face.
Nami screamed as they continued to prod and poke her until even her voice gave way, and she fell back into a frozen dream- a hex meant to keep her still until Absolom had his way with her. He enjoyed watching them beg for mercy, listening to their pleas as it only added to his pleasure.
And somewhere in the distance, a demon moved through the storm. Not for her. Not for anyone. But because something needed to be destroyed. And if fate had placed an obstacle in his path… then fate had issued a death sentence.