chapter three
giselle
T hey say murder isn’t the answer.
Cute.
Murder’s always the answer—you’re just not asking the right questions.
Like: How deep should the knife go? Or will he moan or scream first?
Those are the fun ones.
It’s late now. Later than most people survive. And the tent? Oh, baby... the tent is alive .
Breathing in lust, exhaling death. There’s blood in the air, sweat on the floor, and a body count that’s definitely broken double digits.
Cirque Du Désir is in full fucking bloom.
And I’m starving.
I strut barefoot across the ring, my legs stained red up to my thighs. My paints are mostly gone—melted off in sweat and sin—but the blood stuck around like a jealous lover. I don’t bother cleaning up. What’s the point? I like the mess. I am the mess.
The tent moans and howls and pulses around me. The scent of sex is everywhere—a mix of leather, iron, spit, and desperation. It clings to your skin, seeps into your lungs. You don’t breathe air in here. You breathe kink, chaos and fire.
To my left, some poor bastard is tied upside down from a beam while a masked girl rides his face like a Valkyrie on a warhorse. Every time he chokes, she squeals.
To my right? A couple is throat-deep in bloodplay and something that smells suspiciously like piss. Good for them. Ten outta ten.
I blow them a kiss and keep walking.
A stilt walker lumbers past juggling fresh organs. I spot a kidney, maybe a liver—hard to tell from this angle. "Damn," I murmur, licking my lips. "Looks like I missed a good show."
Someone screams near Johnny’s section—high-pitched, guttural, definitely pain. Sounds like he hit something vital. Alaska’s probably got her teeth sunk into someone’s thigh again, chewing through the muscle like it’s fucking steak tartare.
Gods, I love it here.
And then I see him.
Red-branded.
Stripped. Bound. Gorgeous. Tied to a throne built from bones and shattered steel. Chest bare. Eyes wide. Fear radiating off him like heat off a forge.
* * *
"Mine," I whisper with a giggle, bouncing on the balls of my feet like I’ve just spotted a prize at a fucked-up carnival. My fingers twitch with excitement, and my eyes light up like fire. I sway closer, practically humming. Oh, I can already taste the screams.
I glide toward him like a sin in motion. The crowd parts around me—some touching themselves, some watching, some whispering my name like it might save them.
Spoiler alert: it won’t.
I climb into his lap, all slow and purring, as I straddle him like the kill I’ve been craving. His skin is warm and flushed. I lick my lips, press a finger to his chin, and tip his face toward mine.
"Red brand," I sing-song, tilting my head like a doll. "Means you don’t get to leave alive. Lucky you!"
He opens his mouth—probably to beg, to plead, to say something stupid?—
SMACK.
My hand snaps across his cheek, fast and sharp.
"Uh-uh," I coo, wagging a finger in his face. "No talking yet, pretty boy. Let Mama play."
He flinches.
I giggle, like I just got a pony for Yule.
I pull my dagger with a little dramatic flourish, then press it to his chest like I’m tracing hearts in the snow.
"You know," I murmur, twirling my dagger like a ribbon stick in a pageant from hell, "the gods love a good sacrifice. That’s what all this is about, pretty boy. Disting. Death. Devotion."
I lean in, dragging the blade along his ribs, not cutting—not yet—just teasing.
"Everyone with a red band paid for this. You signed your soul on the dotted line, sweetheart. There’s no take-backs once you step into my ring."
He shakes his head, eyes wide, lips trembling like he wants to cry or scream or beg.
I giggle. "Awww, don’t pout. What’s the matter? Getting cold feet?" I tilt my head, real slow and smile like a wolf with lipstick. "What’s it that Bjorn says?" I ask, tracing a bloody rune onto his chest with my finger. "Oh right…" I slap his cheek lightly, then harder, until his eyes glaze just a little. "Your fate is sealed."
He opens his mouth to speak but I slam the blade down beside his ear and he jolts.
"Too late to chicken out now, pussy," I snarl, then giggle again, pressing my mouth to his cheek like a kiss.
"Hold still," I whisper, biting my lip as I drag the tip just beneath his collarbone.
He hisses.
I hum, all sweet and syrupy.
Thick, ruby red.
My favorite color.
Like candy for my soul.
I smear it with my fingers, paint it across my lips like lipstick.
“You bleed beautifully,” I coo.
I roll my hips, slow and cruel, grinding down against the thick line of his cock beneath me. He groans, low and desperate, hips twitching like he’s not sure whether to thrust or pray.
“Mmm-mmm,” I tsk, wagging a bloody finger in his face. “No cumming without permission. We’ve got rules in this circus, sweetheart. Even the gods like a little discipline.”
He whimpers. Good.
I lean in and lick the blood from his chest, warm and metallic and perfect. He shudders underneath me like I’ve cursed him, and maybe I have.
Then I glance over his shoulder… And there he is.
* * *
Bjorn.
Watching from the altar, backlit by torches and death.
There’s a fresh lineup kneeling at his feet, heads bowed, branded and waiting to bleed.
And him?
He’s standing like a god carved from bone and fire, fists clenched, that beautiful axe slung over his shoulder. His chest still painted in dried blood and Viking ink. His thickness pressing hard against his leathers, straining like he’s seconds away from snapping the whole world in two.
My heart skips. My cunt clenches.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
Bjorn doesn’t share. He doesn’t even look when someone else breathes near me.
But this one?
This one’s for the gods.
This one paid to die.
A red-brand. An offering.
So he lets it slide.
But only, for the gods.
Besides, he knows I’m not letting this man touch me.
Not really.
I’m in control.
I’m always in control.
I flash Bjorn a wicked little grin—one he knows well. The kind that says I’ll be on my knees for you the second this one's dead.
Then I drag my blade lower, slicing across the sacrifice’s ribs. Not too deep. Just enough to make him gasp. Make him twitch. Make him leak.
“Aw, you like that?” I croon, voice sticky-sweet. “You dirty little offering.”
I ride him faster now, dragging my nails down his stomach, making him writhe beneath me. His breath stutters and his eyes roll.
He’s close.
I lean in close to his ear, whispering like a bedtime story soaked in blood.
“You’re gonna come for me, aren’t you? Right here. Right now. While the gods watch. While he watches.”
He moans, high and pathetic as his whole body tenses.
“Good boy,” I breathe. “Now take all that ecstasy... and deliver it straight to Valhalla.”
And just as he breaks—right as the orgasm hits, face twisted in that perfect moment of agony and bliss?—
I bury the blade in his throat.
It punches in deep. The steel severs flesh and voice and worship all at once. His cum spills as his blood does, mixing in a final, holy mess across my thighs.
He gurgles, twitching beneath me, dying while still coming.
Gods, it’s beautiful.
“There it is,” I moan, grinding once more as the light leaves his eyes. “ There’s my altar song. ”
I arch my back, drenched in blood, gasping toward the firelit sky like the gods themselves just came through me.
Across the ring, Bjorn’s watching.
Hard. Breathing heavy. His cock now a weapon begging for war.
Soon, baby.
Real soon.
I rise from the corpse like a goddess made of ruin, blood painting my thighs, my chest, my lips. The crowd gasps. Some cry. One woman faints. Two men come.
And I?
I lick the blood from my knife and blow a kiss to the altar, and that’s when I see him.
He’s not moaning.
Not touching himself.
Not flinching.
Tall. Dark-haired. Fur pelt draped over his shoulders like royalty. Tight black jeans, combat boots. Kohl around his eyes. Pale hands clasped in front of him like he’s at a funeral. Like he’s waiting for me.
And he’s smiling.
Watching.
Oh.
Now that’s interesting.
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t moan. Doesn’t even blink at the mess I’ve made of the red-band beneath me. Just stands there like he belongs to the blood, like it’s his tent and we’re all just lucky to be in it.
I tilt my head, licking a streak of gore from my knuckles, and flash him a grin.
Game on, beautiful.
“Not bad,” a familiar voice purrs beside me. “A little theatrical, but you always did love a climax and a corpse.”
I turn with a bloody laugh, spotting Indie strolling toward me like a dominatrix dropped straight from the gods. She’s glowing in crimson leather, whip coiled at her hip, eyes lined in black and rimmed with heat.
“Guilty,” I say, twirling my dagger between two fingers. “You know I like ‘em screaming.”
“I saw. So did everyone else.”
She raises a brow, glancing down at the puddle of blood and other fluids leaking from the altar.
“Was he any good?”
“He came like a choirboy and bled like a sacrifice.” I shrug. “Ten outta ten. Would kill again.”
She laughs, low and dark.
We walk together through the firelight, both of us slick with red, bones crunching beneath our boots, torch smoke clinging to our hair like perfume.
“Gods, I missed this,” Indie mutters, voice lower now. “The smell. The screams. The sex. Makes me feel alive.”
“Makes me feel divine,” I say, spinning once in the center of the tent like a dancer drunk on death. “This is the only place that ever felt like home.”
She nods, quiet for a beat, eyes scanning the carnage around us.
One man is being branded with hot iron runes while begging to come. Another is being strung up by his ankles, his thighs slick with blood and candle wax. Someone else moans loud enough to drown out the drums.
“Think they’ll remember us?” Indie asks suddenly.
I grin, teeth bared, dragging my fingers through the blood on my chest like it’s lotion.
“They’ll be dead,” I purr. “But I’m sure they’ll curse us from whatever hell we send them to.”
We stop at the edge of the ring, gazes drawn once again to the mysterious man in the fur pelt.
He’s still watching me, like I’m the only thing in this whole goddamn tent worth seeing. And maybe I am.
He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t hide behind the mask like the rest of them.
He just stares. Calm. Knowing.
Like he’s waiting for something.
Like he’s testing me.
Good. Let him.
Let him watch. Let him wonder. Let him try to understand what kind of creature I really am.
I’ve already spilled enough blood to fill a river tonight. And I’m not done.
Not even close.
So I smile and sway, blades flashing at my hips, and let the tent swallow me again.
He came to watch?
Then he better fucking enjoy the show.
Indie disappears back into the shadows, hips swaying, already sizing up her next victim.
And me?
I stay where I am, dripping and smiling, eyes locked with the stranger wrapped in fur and shadow.
He doesn’t break eye contact. Not for a second.
And neither do I.