Chapter 20
The Trickster
“ Y ou’re an asshole…”
It’s been two, almost three, days, and Eve’s words still repeat themselves over and over. They’re fucking with my mind. She’s been with me for a week, hurling any amount of insults at me. Yet, there’s something about this one that’s sticking.
“You’re an asshole…”
The bourbon glints amber in the half-light, promising oblivion I’ve been chasing since we returned from the Sanctuary just a few hours ago after yet another performance.
Apart from grunting commands, I haven’t spoken to my Little Bride since the other day. It’s better this way. My fingers circle the neck of the bottle without lifting it, a ritual repeated so many times the motion feels carved into muscle memory.
Eve watches from her cage, gray eyes tracking every aborted movement—the twitch toward the bottle, the unlit cigarette rolling between my fingers. Her silence feels deliberate, a calculation I can almost hear working behind that clinical gaze.
I should feel victorious, shouldn’t I? I got her here in my cage, just like I wanted. Instead, I feel like I’ve been hollowed out, scraped raw from the inside. Like…breaking her isn’t what I wa nt anymore.
“It won’t bring Ruby back, you know.” Eve’s voice cuts through the silence, startling in its calm precision. “The alcohol. It doesn’t resurrect the dead, it just pickles the living.”
My jaw tightens, teeth grinding at the fucking audacity. As if I need a psychology lesson from my own prisoner. As if Ruby’s name belongs in her mouth.
“Did I ask for your professional opinion, Dr. Death?” I keep my voice level, a contrast to the pulse thudding in my throat.
She shrugs, the movement shifting the oversized t-shirt I gave her to sleep in. My shirt. I don’t know why I gave her that instead of making her sleep naked.
“No,” she admits. “But your liver probably would if it could speak.”
A laugh threatens to crack through my anger—unexpected, unwanted. I leave the bottle alone. “There,” I say, turning the unlit cigarette over in my fingers. “Happy now?”
“Ecstatic,” she deadpans, but something in her eyes shifts. Like she didn’t expect me to actually listen.
Power shifts between us for a breath—a current changing direction without warning. She’s still my captive, still locked behind metal bars that I control. But she’s also the only one who keeps me from splintering into something unrecognizable.
I cross the bedroom to the garden doors and push one open, letting cold night air slice through the stuffy heat of the room. The lighter flares orange in the darkness as I cup my hand around the flame, inhaling deeply when the tobacco catches.
“Thank you,” Eve says softly behind me.
I glance back, smoke trailing from my lips. “For what?”
“For not smoking in here. My lungs appreciate it.”
Gratitude for something so small feels like a hook—like she’s found a way to make me care about her comfort without asking directly. Clever. My eyes narrow as I exhale toward the garden.
“Don’t mistake self-interest for consideration,” I tell her. “Smoke damages things I own.”
“Is that what I am to you? A thing? ”
I drag deep on the cigarette, letting the burn spre ad through my chest before answering. “You’re whatever I need you to be.”
“And what do you need, Jack?” She leans forward, fingers curling around the bars. “Revenge? Punishment? Or something else you haven’t admitted to yourself yet?”
The question hangs between us, too direct to deflect without looking weak. “What I need,” I say, each word precise. “Is for you to remember your place.”
“My place is in a cage,” she acknowledges, but there’s no fear in her voice. “That doesn’t mean I can’t see yours.”
Smoke curls from my nostrils like a fucking dragon. “And where’s my place, according to your expert analysis?”
Her eyes reflect the ember of my cigarette, twin points of light in the darkness. The air between us feels charged, thick with something that isn’t just hatred anymore.
“Right where you are. Trapped between what you think you want and what you actually need.”
“What I want,” I growl, “is justice for my sister.”
“No,” Eve counters, voice soft but unflinching. “What you want is to hurt someone because you’re hurting. There’s a difference.”
I flick the cigarette into the darkness, listening as it hisses and dies. “You think you know me because you’ve read a few psychology textbooks? Because you’ve analyzed damaged people for a living?”
“I think I know you because I recognize the pattern.” She tilts her head, studying me like I’m one of her patients. “The drinking. The smoking. The rage that doesn’t quite cover the guilt. You’re not just punishing me, Jack. You’re punishing yourself.”
Before I’m aware I’ve even moved, I’m in front of her cage. My hand slams against the bars, making her jump but not retreat. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I roar.
“Don’t I?” Her gaze doesn’t waver. “Tell me what you really want from me. Not what you planned when you knocked on my door at midnight. What you want now.”
The truth itches under my skin—I had a plan, clean and vicious. Break her. Use her. Discard her. But something’s changed. The only time I feel alive now is when I’m with her, watching her fight, watching her yield, watching her surprise me again and again.
“I want…” The words stick in my throat, too raw to voice.
She waits, patient in a way that makes me want to shake her. When I don’t continue, a small, knowing smile curves her lips. “That’s what I thought.”
“Don’t push me,” I warn, but it lacks the edge I want it to have.
“Or what?” she challenges. “You’ll lock me in a cage?
Force me to my knees in public? Make me come so hard I forget my own name?
” She drums her fingers against the metal bars, smirking while she taps out a melody I don’t recognize.
“You’ve already done your worst, Jack. And I’m still here. Still looking at you.”
I force out a low chuckle. “Have I?” I ask as I walk back to the door and light another cigarette. “For a prodigy, your mental capacity is pretty limited if you think you’ve endured my worst. We’ve barely just started.”
Her gray eyes stay on mine as she flexes her hand, the one I cut during the ceremony. She removed the bandage yesterday, deciding it was time to let it air. Personally, I thought she should have done that after the second or third day, but whatever.
Eve’s smile deepens, secret and knowing. “So what is your worst, dear husband?”
Ignoring her, I chain-smoke by the garden door, watching night press against glass while Eve’s words crawl under my skin. The fifth cigarette burns faster than the first four, ash dropping to marble like gray snow.
My mind circles her challenge like a predator testing weakness—what I really want versus what I planned. Two different beasts entirely. Behind me, fabric shifts against metal as Eve adjusts her position in the cage, the sound drawing my attention back to her like a compass finding north.
“Why did you call me a prodigy?” she asks, shattering the potent silence.
I shrug but don’t turn back to face her. I count the seconds, knowing it’s just a matter of time before she continues talking. Eve doesn’t appreciate silence as much as I expected given her career as a therapist.
“My dad wanted me to be a prodigy, so he forced m e to become one,” she suddenly says. “I’m nothing like the people you sometimes read about. You know, when a five-year-old can play or compose better than Mozart, or when a twelve-year-old makes a new scientific discovery.”
I still don’t turn, don’t encourage, but I don’t stop her either. The cigarette burns closer to my fingers.
“He never saw me as anything but an experiment. One he could mold exactly how he wanted, which is what he did. I guess I could say I was both his greatest experiment and biggest disappointment.” She laughs, the sound empty of humor.
The confession hangs in the air between us, unexpected and intimate in a way I wasn’t prepared for. I crush the cigarette against the doorframe, leaving a black smudge.
“He wasn’t raising a daughter,” she continues, voice steady but softer. “He was creating a successor. Or a legacy… maybe both.”
I turn to face her, leaning against the frame. “Is that why you became a therapist?”
“Yes,” she says, and there’s something like disappointment in her expression. “I chose it because… well, I’m not actually sure I ever chose it. It was what he expected, so I did it.”
The words hit with unexpected force, like she’s reached through the cage and struck something tender beneath my ribs.
“My dad…” I start, then stop, surprised by my own impulse to reciprocate. Her eyes on me feel like hooks, pulling truth I hadn’t planned to offer. “My dad hated me.”
I lock my gaze on her, wordlessly daring her to look away while I give her a small piece of me.
“The only one of us he ever liked, maybe even loved, was Nick. Ruby was useful since he could sell her off. I’m the only one who was completely worthless and nothing more than a disappointment.” I let out a bitter laugh. “He even had me killed.”
Eve’s eyes widen, her body going still. “He had you killed?”
My fingers drift to the scar on my torso, invisible beneath my shirt but always present. “I was dead for a few minutes before the doctors revived me.”
“Oh, Jack.” Her voice carries a weight I don’t want to examine. “That’s—”
Not wanting her pity, I interrupt her. “When I came back, things were different.” I look toward the ceiling. “Death changes your priorities.”
I almost tell her about the Knight curse then—the superstition that claims two heirs from every generation. How Ruby’s death fulfilled the prophecy that’s haunted my family for generations. But something holds me back. That knowledge is a weapon I’m not ready to place in her hands.
“I understand more than you think,” Eve says quietly.
Before I can respond, she shifts, drawing up her knees and spreading her legs wide. My shirt hangs loose on her frame, but she pulls the hem higher, inch by inch, until the fabric clears her inner thighs.
It takes me a moment for my brain to register what she’s showing me. And now that I see the faded circles of puckered flesh, I have no idea how I haven’t noticed it until now.
The scars are pale and smooth against her skin; old burns, etched like secrets she decided to show me. Her garter tattoo covers some of the damage on that thigh, but not completely.
“These weren’t about wanting to die,” she says, tracing one with her fingertip. “Or even about the pain. I wanted to feel something real.” Her eyes meet mine, unflinching.
The sight stirs something in me—not pity, something darker and more possessive.
For the first time, I don’t want to fight it.
Fuck it. Let her be the thing that drags me under, because when she looks at me like this, scars bared and defiance steady, I don’t feel like the Knight who lost his sister. I feel alive.
I move to the cage door, keys suddenly in my hand though I don’t remember reaching for them. The lock clicks open with finality.