Unchained with Three Devils (The Dead Bride Duet #2)

Chapter 1

The Bride Wakes

Ninety-seven.

The number moved through my head more cleanly than air moved through the coffin, and I held on to it because counting required order while panic demanded only obedience.

The lid hovered inches above my face, close enough that every breath came back carrying varnish, gunpowder, and the expensive white-floral perfume Helena had worn while watching Cassian lower me into the dark.

Ninety-eight.

The three shots remained inside my memory with unnatural clarity.

Each had come from the same direction, separated by nearly identical pauses, followed by echoes that struck the cathedral columns and returned too evenly.

Real executions could be organized, but bodies disrupted rhythm.

A person struck by a bullet stumbled, gasped, collapsed, or provoked movement from the people nearby.

I had heard gunfire and then silence so complete it felt rehearsed.

Ninety-nine.

My right hand slid through the compressed space beside my head until my fingers found the sharpened bone pin hidden beneath the loosened coil of my hair.

Knox had carved it from a sliver of animal bone because metal detectors were less suspicious of ornament than intention, then taught me to use it on a practice coffin lock while lying so close beside me that his instruction had become difficult to separate from the heat of his mouth near my ear.

Every lock is built by someone who believes you will panic before you understand it, grave girl. Humiliate them.

One hundred.

I drew the pin free and guided it toward the seam above my shoulder.

The first touch of the mechanism told me Helena had ordered something more elaborate than a standard coffin latch.

A conventional internal release moved along a direct horizontal track; this one resisted at two separate angles, which suggested a secondary hook or ceremonial locking plate had been added beneath the decorative silver fitting.

I traced the narrow metal channel by feel, pressed the bone point into a groove, and rotated my wrist until the pin scraped across a spring.

The sound was painfully small.

My lungs tried to interpret it as failure.

Elias had once told me that panic was a body attempting to protect itself with outdated information.

The heart accelerated because it believed speed might help.

The muscles tightened because they believed impact was coming.

Breathing shortened because the body prepared to fight or flee without asking whether either option existed.

His solution had been infuriatingly simple: give the body new information.

I pressed the back of my head into silk and catalogued what remained true.

The coffin had air. The seam near my left cheek carried a faint current. My fingers still had strength. The gunshots had been suspicious. Cassian had whispered a command rather than a farewell.

Count to one hundred. Then burn everything.

Cassian loved plans with contingencies buried beneath contingencies, and he loved making decisions for other people almost as much as he hated admitting fear.

His final instruction could have been trust, manipulation, or a calculated attempt to keep me still while he sacrificed himself with the other two men.

Three men had taught me how to survive them, yet none had explained how to remain rational while wondering whether they were bleeding above my grave.

I pushed the thought aside and returned to the lock.

The spring yielded under pressure, but the lid remained fixed.

I adjusted the angle, followed the metal plate toward the foot of the coffin, and found the catch Knox had described as the builder’s vanity: the small point where the designer had added complexity without adding strength.

The pin slipped beneath it. I pressed upward.

A click moved through the wood.

Cold air slid across my mouth.

I kept my breathing shallow and lifted the lid the width of two fingers before it struck something heavy.

The resistance shifted rather than held, which meant weight instead of a bar.

I braced my forearms against the underside and pushed, slowly enough that whatever rested above me scraped instead of crashed.

Fabric dragged over lacquer. Something coarse rolled toward the opposite edge.

A man’s voice spoke beyond the coffin.

“Eastern cells are secured.”

Another answered from farther away. “The doctor?”

“Separate from the others. Lady Helena wants him conscious.”

“And Wren?”

“Lower level. Double restraints.”

A pause followed, then the first man added, “Bell tried to remove his thumb.”

The other laughed. “Did he manage it?”

“The doctor stopped him.”

Their footsteps receded across stone.

Alive.

Relief struck with enough force to weaken my arms, and the coffin lid lowered half an inch before I caught it.

My body wanted to close around the knowledge, to protect it, to make it sacred before evidence could complicate it.

I refused the luxury. Alive could mean injured, drugged, tortured, or waiting in separate cells while Helena used each man to dismantle the others.

Still, alive meant time.

I shoved harder until two weighted canvas bags slid from the lid and struck the floor with dull thumps.

Light entered in a thin amber blade, followed by cool air and the smell of wax, damp stone, and old incense.

I raised the lid fully, tore the veil where it had caught beneath the hinge, and sat upright inside the coffin my mother had commissioned to fit my body.

My mother had placed me in a coffin and expected obedience to emerge. Genetics had clearly disappointed her.

The preparation chamber beneath Saint Mercy had the unfinished appearance of a stage after the audience had gone home.

Folding black screens divided the room into narrow sections.

Racks of ceremonial robes stood beside cases of weapons, makeup, medical supplies, and silver bowls filled with wilted rose petals.

Thick electrical cables ran toward the ceiling, feeding hidden lights and speakers that had turned three blank rounds into a convincing execution.

My gown dragged heavily as I climbed out.

Helena had dressed me in black silk stiffened with internal boning, the bodice fitted so precisely that it felt less like clothing than a boundary drawn around my ribs.

The skirt pooled across the floor in dark folds, beautiful enough for a wedding and practical enough to conceal several weapons, had anyone possessed the courtesy to leave me one.

I kept the bone pin.

The nearest table held three pistols arranged on velvet with their slides locked open. Beside them lay three spent cartridges, each casing crimped at the mouth. I picked one up by the base and smelled the residue.

Blank ammunition.

A stainless-steel basin contained several translucent packets filled with dark red liquid.

Two had been ruptured, their adhesive backing smeared with black fibers that matched the men’s clothing.

The fluid smelled sweet beneath the artificial iron, and a small printed label identified it as theatrical blood.

Three shots. Three bursts of red. Three deaths performed for a cathedral full of masked believers.

Cassian had known.

Possibly Elias and Knox had known as well.

Helena had staged the executions because killing the men would have ended their value as leverage, while convincing me that she had killed them would have broken something she wanted pliable.

I placed the cartridge inside the hidden fold of my sleeve. Proof weighed almost nothing, yet keeping it steadied me.

Across the room, a narrow service door stood partially open.

Beyond it, a staircase climbed toward a corridor illuminated by emergency lamps.

The route was unguarded, conspicuously so.

I could slip upward, find an exterior exit, and disappear into whatever part of the city remained beyond Helena’s reach.

The possibility called to every bruised instinct in my body.

Then the guards’ conversation returned to me.

Eastern cells. Lower level. Doctor conscious.

The three men were alive beneath Saint Mercy, along with prisoners I had seen named in the Bone Ledger, women whose deaths had transferred money and power into Society hands, and witnesses Helena had kept hidden because their knowledge still carried value.

The open door might have been an escape route.

It might also have been a test.

Helena rarely offered choices unless she believed every option belonged to her.

I could have escaped, but freedom purchased with their captivity would have been another kind of grave.

I crossed the chamber and closed the service door.

The decision did not feel noble. It felt cold, deliberate, and mine.

I stayed because leaving would surrender the board to Helena, because rescue from outside would take too long, and because the Society had made the mistake of bringing me inside its walls while believing grief had made me manageable.

I opened one of the theatrical blood packets and smeared a narrow streak along my throat, then pressed more beneath the bodice where it might suggest an injury. A bride who climbed cleanly from her coffin invited restraint. A bleeding woman created uncertainty, and uncertainty bought time.

“You always preferred evidence to theater.”

Helena’s voice came from behind me.

I finished closing the packet before I turned.

She stood near the descending passage in the same severe black gown she had worn inside the cathedral, her death mask removed and held loosely at her side.

Without the porcelain face, she looked more artificial rather than less.

Every detail of her expression appeared arranged: the slight lift of one eyebrow, the relaxed mouth, the absence of surprise.

Two guards waited several feet behind her. One held a compact rifle. The other carried silver restraints that gleamed beneath the low amber lamps.