Chapter 17
The Trickste r
T he Sanctuary looms before us, a playground for the twisted and curious. Eve doesn’t stumble as we approach the entrance, but I can feel the tension vibrating through her body where my hand presses against the small of her back.
Her dress is thin enough that I can feel the heat of her skin and the subtle ridge of her spine through it. My fingers dig in slightly, not enough to bruise—not yet—but enough to remind her who she belongs to.
The night air carries the scent of incense and wet earth, mingling with the artificial fog that billows around our ankles, thick as cream and cold as a grave.
“Look at that line,” Eve says, her voice carefully neutral. “We’ll be waiting forever.”
I chuckle, low and close to her ear. “That queue isn’t for us, wife.” With those words, I guide her past the waiting people, where eager patrons in their Halloween finery wait like cattle for slaughter.
My hand slides lower, resting just above the curve of her ass as we approach a side entrance flanked by two masked guards.
One nods, stepping aside. “Mr. Knight.”
“Call me Jack,” I reply curtly. “Mr. Knight i s my brother.”
The fog thickens as we step through, enveloping us in a cocoon of white that obscures everything beyond arm’s length. Eve’s breathing changes—shorter, more controlled—and I can almost taste her effort to appear unfazed.
“What time is it?” she asks suddenly, turning her face toward mine. Her eyes are sharp, analytical even in the gloom.
“Why do you need to know?” I counter, pressing my thumb into the divot at the base of her spine.
“Because I’d like to have some sense of how long I’ll be enduring this.” Her tone is acidic, but I catch the small flutter of her pulse at the base of her throat.
“You’ll know when I want you to know.”
She turns away from me, scanning the crowd that materializes through the fog. A man passes close by—some standard-issue hipster in a vintage coat—and Eve reaches out, catching his sleeve.
“Excuse me, do you have the time?” she asks, her voice honey-sweet.
“Sure I do.” He shoots her a sleazy grin while checking out her cleavage. Then he leans closer, brushing one hand against the curve of her breast as he turns his wrist, presumably to check the time.
With a low growl, I step between them and seize his wrist—the one that dared touch her. Bone grinds under my grip, his breath hissing through clenched teeth. I twist until I hear the first sharp crack. His knees buckle.
“My wife doesn’t need the time,” I bark, not bothering to mask the threat in my voice. “And you don’t need to breathe the same air as her.”
The man’s eyes widen, panic flooding them. “I was just trying to—”
I slam my fist into his gut, folding him like paper. “Like I give a flying fuck what you were trying to do.” I let him drop into the fog like discarded trash. “Walk away before I decide to finish the job.”
“Oh, give it a rest, Jack,” Eve sighs, stepping over the man without a glance. Her voice drips with bored disdain, like she’s scolding me for kicking over a trash can instead of dismantling someone’s wrist.
My cock twitches at the sheer ice in her tone, but it’s the restraint in her face that really gets me—like she’s weathered worse and knows exactly how to bury it. I want to crack that composure wide open… but first, I’ll remind her exactly who she’s dealing with.
Reaching for her arm, I spin her around to face me. Her eyes narrow to steel-gray slits, but I just smirk. “If I don’t want you to know the time,” I say, tracing a finger along her jawline, “you won’t. Simple as that.”
Her nostrils flare slightly—a tiny tell that speaks volumes about the rage she’s containing. “Controlling even the most basic information. How predictable.”
“And yet you still asked a stranger,” I reply, my hand sliding up to cup the back of her neck. “How predictable.”
“So?” she challenges, baring her teeth.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” I ask, my voice low and edged with danger. “Because if you want to keep tasting freedom, you really need to stop touching other men.” Before she can answer, I pull her along, almost making her stumble in her high heels.
The crowd parts as we move deeper into the Sanctuary grounds. Ahead, a structure materializes from the mist—a tunnel mouth constructed of what appears to be bone and sinew, though I know it’s all carefully crafted synthetics.
A neon sign hangs above, announcing this is the Tunnel of Screams. But we’re not going there tonight.
We’ve barely made it fifty yards from the Tunnel when Eve’s stride falters. Her head turns, focus caught by something through the drifting fog. I follow her gaze to a small booth draped in black velvet, set apart from the main attractions.
Blood-red candles burn in iron holders, their flames perfectly still despite the night breeze. Their light illuminates a hand-painted sign that reads, Fate reads you as you read the cards.
Eve’s pupils dilate slightly, and I decide to indulge her curiosity. After all, knowing what she seeks might give me more to use against her later.
“Want to know your future, wife?” I ask, my voice silky with mock concern. “Or are you hoping to find out when you’ll escape me?”
Eve’s shoulders stiffen under my touch. “Perhap s I just want to know how this story ends,” she replies, her tone carefully measured. “Whether the monster gets his comeuppance.”
I laugh, sliding my hand to the nape of her neck. “Let’s find out together, shall we?”
Inside, the air is thick with incense—frankincense and myrrh, biblical scents of death and divinity. The space is smaller than it appeared from outside, forcing Eve to stand close enough that I feel the heat radiating from her body.
The fortune teller sits hunched behind a small table covered in black silk. Her face is a roadmap of wrinkles. A tattered hood casts her eyes in shadow, but I catch glimpses of them when she moves—pale, almost colorless, like river stones worn smooth by time.
Her gnarled fingers extend toward us, beckoning. “I’ve been waiting,” she says, her voice surprisingly strong and clear. “The cards told me you would come tonight.”
Eve shifts her weight, her skepticism almost palpable. “Did they tell you our names too?” she asks.
The crone smiles, revealing teeth too perfect for her ancient face. “Names are masks we wear for others, Eve,” she says.
At my side, my wife tries her best not to react as the fortune teller casually throws out her name.
“The cards know you by what lies beneath,” the old woman finishes. She gestures for us to sit. There’s only one chair, low and close to the table.
I sit down before pulling Eve onto my lap like she belongs there. She stiffens, but I cage her in with an arm around her waist, forcing her to face the crone across the narrow strip of black silk. From here, I can feel every shallow breath she takes.
Before I can respond, she pulls a deck from nowhere—a fluid movement that my eyes can’t quite track. The cards are larger than standard tarot, their backs decorated with an intricate design of intertwined thorns and roses.
“Both of you,” she commands, laying the deck on the table. “Touch the cards together. They must taste your bond.”
I place my hand on the deck first, then grasp Eve ’s wrist with my other hand, pulling her palm down beside mine.
The cards feel warm, almost alive, beneath our touch.
Eve tries to pull away, but I hold her there, fingers pressing into the soft skin of her inner wrist where her pulse jumps like a trapped bird.
“That’s enough,” the fortune teller says after a moment that stretches too long. She takes the deck back, shuffling with a dexterity that belies her apparent age.
The first card slaps down on the table. The Tower—a lightning-struck structure with bodies falling through flames.
Her gaze sharpens. “Some towers fall by accident, others because the heir at their table decided they should burn. Even now, the bones of the man who built yours sit where you can see them every day… to remind you the cage is gone, but never forgotten.”
Eve’s shoulder twitches against my chest, like she wants to turn around but thinks better of it. I wonder if she thinks the card’s about me.
It’s not—it can’t be. My dad’s gone, but he was killed by Nick and Carolina, not me. And as far as I know, no one kept any of his remains. He’s rotting in the family mausoleum.
The old woman lays a second card beside it. The Devil—a horned figure with a man and woman chained at its feet.
“Bondage,” she continues, her pale eyes flicking between us. “Not just of the body, but of the soul. Chains you both forged willingly. His out of revenge, yours out of hunger for the dark. Each link is both a choice and a lock. And now there is no key.”
Eve’s breathing quickens slightly, and she presses her nails into my thigh. Whether to steady herself or claw her way free, I can’t tell. I shift my hand to her stomach, holding her in place, feeling the shallow drag of her breath against my palm.
It’s not lost on me that where my revenge is a negative, my Little Bride’s curiosity and hunger for the dark is a positive. How fucking ironic.
“I didn’t choose this,” Eve says, voice low but steady.
The crone’s eyes fix on her. “Didn’t you? You followed the masked man of your own volition—”
Whirling on me, Eve stabs her fin ger into my chest. “Did you tell her that? That I followed you here?”
The woman cackles. “The cards told me, dear. They know what’s in your heart.” She pauses for a beat. “You let him defile you, and you loved it even though you claim to hate it. Is this not your heart’s desire, Eve? To be free of the shackles your father bound around you? To be free of—”
“Please stop,” Eve begs, turning away from me again. Her face is down-turned as though she’s ashamed by what the fortune teller is saying.
“What else?” I demand sharply, not liking how uncomfortable this is clearly making my wife.
With a sharp nod, the old woman draws the third card; Death.
“Not an ending,” the fortune teller says, “but a transformation. Blood has been spilled, and more will follow. The question is whose, and whether either of you will survive what you’re turning each other into.”
Eve exhales through her nose, a sound too sharp to be a sigh. I feel it in the way her back muscles tighten against my chest. My own jaw locks—I tell myself it’s just theatrics, but the card’s image still burns behind my eyes.
Surviving each other… the thought shouldn’t interest me, but it does. What would be left of her if she did? What would be left of me if she didn’t?
I feel a trickle of genuine unease crawl up my spine. This is theater, like everything else at the Sanctuary—carefully researched, designed to unsettle—but something in the woman’s gaze feels too knowing, too precise.
“The cards show what already exists inside you,” she continues, laying down a fourth card. The Lovers—but inverted, the figures separated by a chasm of flame.
“A union built on revenge,” she says. “Two souls tethered not by love but by debt and desire. Every choice made for the wrong reason will come back to collect its price.” Her finger traces the divide between the figures.
“Your souls are tethered now. One cannot bleed without the other tasting iron.”
The words hang between us like smoke, seeping into every crack. I feel her spine straighten against me, defiant, but she doesn’t pull away. She isn’t running. Not from me, not from this. That knowledge settles in my gut like a claim.
Eve seeking danger. My need for ruin. Two poisons poured into the same cup.
Her head tilts the smallest fraction toward mine, not enough for the crone to notice, but enough for me to feel the brush of her hair against my jaw. It isn’t closeness—it’s a dare, a silent acknowledgment that she knows exactly what we are.
Eve’s fingers twitch against the table. I catch the micro-expression that crosses her face—surprise followed by something deeper, more troubled.
“Blood bonds,” the fortune teller continues, “once formed, cannot be broken. Not by distance. Not by death. What flows between you now will flow forever.”
“Poetic,” I say, forcing a dismissive tone, “but hardly specific. This could apply to anyone.”
The crone’s eyes cut to me, sharp as blades. “Could it, Jack Knight? Could it apply to the brother who failed to save his sister? To the man who punishes the innocent for his own failings?”
My hand tightens on Eve’s wrist, hard enough that she winces. The fortune teller sees it and smiles, a knowing curve of lips that makes my skin crawl.
She draws a final card, placing it with deliberate slowness. The Hanged Man—but reversed, the suspended figure twisting unnaturally.
“The curse only matters because you let it,” she says, eyes never leaving mine.
“It consumed your sister, and now you’re letting it consume you.
And you…” her gaze cuts to Eve “… will drink his ghosts until they rot your veins. By the time you notice the taste, you’ll be too far gone. This is your warning from fate.”
Eve’s fingers flex against the table like she’s deciding whether to shove the cards away. My thigh under her tenses, ready to keep her seated if she does. I can feel her pulse through every point where we touch.
I keep rolling the words over in my mind. Rot in he r veins and ghosts in mine. I know what mine means, but what did my Little Bride do? Or is this about the people she didn’t protect from Valentine fucking Grant?
The cards lay between us like evidence, each image a wound the crone pressed her finger into. Whether she believes her own words or just knows which scars to touch, the result is the same—Eve’s pulse is racing, and mine is too.
I stand abruptly, pulling Eve up with me. The table rocks, nearly toppling the candles. “We’re done here,” I say, throwing down bills without counting them.
The fortune teller doesn’t reach for the money. “You’ll return,” she says simply. “Both of you will be back.”