Chapter 3
The Bride
I freeze, glancing at the digital clock on my microwave. It’s way too late, or early, for a casual visitor. Not that I ever get any of those. Shelby and Caleb are the only ones occasionally stopping by.
Another knock, firm and precise.
A chill ripples beneath my skin as I slowly turn toward the door. I hold my breath, listening for… something. A voice, footsteps, or shuffling. But nothing comes.
I set my glass down and move silently to the door. While moving, I silently scoff at myself. If Shelby told me this happened to her, I’d roll my eyes and ask why she didn’t just ignore it. But curiosity wins over any common sense I should possess.
Just as I reach for the door, the knock sounds again, as if whoever’s on the other side knows I’m here.
“Who is it?” I call out.
The hallway beyond my door remains silent. No shuffling feet, no impatient sighs. Whoever stands outside is patient. I look through the peephole, holding my breath as if the person on the other side might hear it.
I gasp as my eyes land on the motionless man who looks an awful lot li ke the one I saw just after exiting the club. He just stands there, completely motionless. Tall, rigid, face hidden behind a matte black gas mask.
The two round lenses stare back at me, flat and blank like insect eyes. A single cylindrical filter protrudes from the mouthpiece. He’s wearing military boots, laced tight and polished to a dull shine, worn jeans, and a leather jacket that’s zipped closed.
In his gloved hands is a matte black box, tied with a bright orange ribbon that curls in dramatic spirals at the top. The contrast between the cheerful bow and the ominous messenger makes my skin prickle with both awareness and excitement.
Shaking my head, I laugh softly to myself. It’s possible this is just some mistake. The intercom never buzzed, so maybe he’s at the wrong door. Yeah, that’s probably it.
A middle-of-the-night delivery from a company that doesn’t believe in only embracing the Halloween spirit in October. The mask and the outfit’s disturbingly hot. It works for him. So much so that I’m almost jealous he’s here for one of my neighbors.
There’s a pulse of want I can’t disguise. The silence behind the mask presses in on me, a dark weight that makes my skin prickle with hunger—like lust crawling straight out of the grave.
With that thought, I open the door. “Can I help you?” My voice sounds louder than it should in the silence of the hour. Everything feels thinner at midnight, as though the entire world’s holding its breath.
Rather than answering, he extends the box toward me. Now that the door isn’t between us, I can hear his slow, steady, and slightly mechanical breathing.
“Who sent this?” I ask, not reaching for it yet.
Silence. The mask’s filters rise and fall with measured breathing, but no voice emerges.
“What is it?” I try again.
Still nothing.
“Are you sure you’ve got the right apartment?” I ask, narrowing the door a fraction. “There are other floors—other people who might’ve actually ordered something.”
Rather than a cknowledging my questions, he takes one step forward and lifts the box higher, like that movement is its own answer.
A small, clinical part of my mind catalogs the familiar markers—racing heart, flushed skin, the subtle tremor in my fingers as they brush the doorframe. But none of it registers as fear. It feels too focused, too hot, too alive.
“I can’t accept packages without knowing their source,” I say, injecting a note of authority into my voice. It’s the same tone I use with difficult clients who test boundaries.
The man remains unmoved, arm extended, box waiting. The silence stretches between us, heavy with an unspoken challenge. We’ve reached an impasse—this strange courier won’t leave until I take the package, and I can’t close the door on this mystery without resolving it.
My nipples harden under his stare, a traitorous response I hide by folding my arms. But the truth is, I like that he can pull it from me without a single word. There’s something undeniably enticing about the way his identity is hidden—like a question I shouldn’t want answered.
His loud breathing and something that almost sounds like a chuckle has me realizing I’ve been standing here like an idiot, gawking at him. Shit. I extend my hand, accepting the box while maintaining maximum distance between our bodies.
As soon as my fingers close around it, he releases his grip with a finality that feels significant.
“Thank you,” I say automatically, professional habits asserting themselves even in this bizarre encounter.
He gives no acknowledgment. Just turns around and walks to the stairwell at the opposite end of the hall.
I stand frozen in my doorway, the box cool against my palms, watching this strange messenger retreat. The boots make a distinctive sound against the hallway floor—a heavy thud followed by a slight scrape.
Only when the stairwell door opens and closes several stories below do I step back into my apartment. I secure both deadbolts, then add the chain—a precaution I rarely bother with. But something about this strange encounter makes me feel like I have to.
The silence that follows is thick, electric, like the apartment itself is holding its breath, waiting for me to admit that I wanted every second of what just happened.
I look down at the box in my hands, the orange bow suddenly garish against the matte black surface. Like a warning sign in nature—bright colors signaling danger, approach at your own risk.
Whatever message this package contains, it’s already breached my defenses, crossed my threshold.
With deliberate steps, I move away from the door, carrying this strange offering into the kitchen where I place it on the counter. I study its dimensions from every angle. No markings or labels. No indication of its origin or purpose.
Instead of cutting the ribbon, I carefully work at the bow, loosening it with methodical patience. The satin slides against itself, making a soft whisper as it comes undone.
With steady hands that betray none of my internal tension, I lift the lid and set it aside, aligned parallel to the box’s edge. Inside, black tissue paper forms a nest, carefully folded to cradle the single object it contains.
A black rose.
It’s not fresh—not alive at all. The flower is desiccated, preserved in its death. The once-supple stem has hardened into a brittle twist of organic material, the spathe curled inward like a protective cloak around the spadix.
The bloom’s elegant curve remains intact, but the tissue has transformed—no longer velvet-soft but papery, fragile, like ancient parchment that might disintegrate at a touch.
What catches my eye are the speckles—dark red, almost rust-colored—marring the black petals like scattered blood. I reach for the rose, pausing only as a slight tremor runs down my fingers.
The flower feels wrong in my hand. It’s too light, too hollow, a brittle relic rather than anything once alive. A petal breaks off at the touch, crumbling to dust against my skin.
As I set it down, something shifts beneath the tissue paper—a small rectangle of black and orange cardstock I hadn’t noticed before. I lift it free a nd turn it over.
For every bride, a bloom must die, Petal-black and blooded dry. The vow begins before the ring, You’re his now, let the silence sing.
The final line pulses beneath my skin like a bruise I want to press harder. I read it again. And again. My fingers leave smudges of black dust on the counter, marks that feel like proof I’ve already let this vow under my skin.
What the actual hell is this? Oh, no. Please don’t let this be Caleb’s way of proposing.
The Trickster
Smirking, I make my way back to Eve’s door the moment I hear it close. When I realized she was hanging around, waiting for me to be gone, I had to walk all the way down and open the front door.
My cock’s still hard, straining painfully against the metal teeth of my jeans zipper, the pressure making the pierced shaft throb with each heartbeat. Fuck me. The dress she wore left very little to my fucking imagination.
Tight across her breasts and short enough I saw the swell of her ass when she turned. No bra or panties—I would’ve seen the lines.
Eve Mortis opened the door to a masked man in the dead of night without a second thought. All while her attire screamed desperation, as if she were inviting chaos to consume her whole.
The hallway is dead silent, all the doors shut, and the lights off. Perfect. My hand slides down, fingers curling around the rigid outline beneath denim. A sharp breath escapes through clenched teeth.
Wit h a savage groan, I rip my zipper down just enough to free myself, the relief instant and agonizing. Each metal stud along my shaft scrapes my palm as I grip hard enough to hurt.
My jaw clenches until my teeth nearly crack, imagining her gagging, eyes watering as I roughly feed her every rung of my Jacob’s Ladder, leaving her throat bruised and ruined for days.
I slam into my fist, each brutal thrust making my vision blur at the edges. I imagine her delicate fingers struggling to close around my girth, her eyes widening in fear when she realizes what I’ll force her to take.
The force of my next thrust sends my knuckles crashing against her door, the hollow thud echoing down the empty hallway. I freeze, heart hammering violently in my chest.
Shit, did she hear me?
My breathing sounds entirely too loud through the mask as I wait to see if she’ll come back out here. I wait for ten, twenty, fifty seconds. Each passing second makes me impossibly harder. Pre-cum leaks from my cock, and I can’t say I hate the idea of Eve opening the door, catching me jerking off.
Nothing happens.
Fuck, the anticipation rips through me like electricity, my balls drawing up painfully tight against the base of my cock. One last savage stroke and my entire body convulses—vision whiting out, knees nearly buckling as I erupt, every muscle seizing in violent release.
I bite down on a groan as I come, thick ropes spilling over her door. I press the head of my cock to the wood, dragging it down until it smears. Then I dip two fingers into my cum and write one word.
Soon.