Page 209 of Making Choices

The ridiculousness of the ritual almost gets the better of me until I sneak a peek at the men watching us and discover that they are taking this very seriously. Sitting stock still, their bearing is regal, their attention is riveted as they repeat the words that my wife and I are supposed to say with crisp precision.

“Dos cossos units per la sang i beneïts per la sagrada Trinitat.”

“Say it again,” the man with the scythe orders.

Swallowing hard, I try my best to mimic the foreign words to his liking. Forever a teacher’s pet, Cherub enunciates it almost perfectly. Despite the stress of the strange situation we’re trapped in, she flashes me a grin when I mangle the words.

“Two bodies united by blood and blessed by the Holy Trinity.”

As the MC translates the vow into English, two robed men come to stand behind my wife. The widening of her gaze warns me that the same thing has happened to me. I tighten my grip on my duchess’ hand, ready to pull her away from them if they try to lay a finger on her. Beneath their masks, they’re anonymous, yet the one on the left somehow appears more lecherous than the other.

“Disrobe her.”

“No.” My protest is cut off when a blade is pressed to my throat and my arms are seized from behind. “Don’t fuckin’ touch her.”

“Carter,” Cherub cautions me as I struggle to get free. “It’s fine.”

Standing, she holds her arms out from her side and allows the two men to strip the golden robe from her body. Under the bright lights, every part of my wife is exposed. Her creamy skin. The scars she bears from the violence that’s touched her. The cut marks she’s inflicted on herself. On her thighs, my marks are stark. They have nothing on the sweet torture Venom lavished on her while she was with him. Her taut nipples are swollen, the skin around them reddened. Her collarbones are covered with small bruises. The curves of her hips dotted with his fingerprints.

She is majestic as she refuses to bow before the perusal of a hundred faceless men.

“Kneel.”

My wife lowers herself without a fight.

“Take the dagger and mark her as a Trinity bride.”

Mr. Viagra removes the blade from my throat and hands it to me. He murmurs low so only I can hear it, “The Triquetra must be carved into the flesh beneath her left collarbone.”

He subtly moves his robe to show me the mark he bears in the same spot.

Cherub must hear what he says because she halts my protest before I can mount it, “For Zeke.”

The lie I told her comes back to bite me hard.

I take the dagger and shuffle closer. “This is gonna hurt, duchess.”

“It’s nothin’.”

The truth in her statement is devastating. In her short life, she’s experienced so much pain that a dagger carving her flesh doesn’t faze her. Broken bones. The loss of a child. Rape. Torture. Death. She’s felt it all, and there’s still more to come.

“I’m so fuckin’ sorry,” I tell her as I use my knife skills to trace a precise Trinity knot beneath my wife’s collarbone.

“Now anoint her as one of ours.” Dipping my fingers in the blood that runs down her chest, I draw a cross on her forehead. “Taste her essence.” Leaning forward, I press my lips to her wound, then draw my tongue over it. My duchess whimpers. Her hands clutch the front of my robe as she shudders. The sickle wielding weirdo snaps his fingers a moment before he orders, “It is time.”

My duchess is ripped away from me.

She bites down on her bottom lip as she’s carried over to the bed. The two men lift her onto it, then they kneel on either side of the mattress to arrange her spreadeagled in front of everyone. When I try to get to her, determined to fulfil my promise to keep her safe from their gaze, I find myself pushed onto my back and pinned against the pulpit. My robe is stripped off me, and the man with the scythe stands over me.

“We anoint you in the order of La Trinitat Nova.” He drags the end of the blade over my skin in the shape of the Triquetra. The carving bisects the cherub tattoo that covers my heart. The rough outline is crude. Bigger than the mark I gave Cherub. It makes me bleed profusely, and the sight of it enrages me to the point of murder. “Repeat our code, Tres families. Una veritat. Glòria eterna.”

“Three families. One truth. Eternal glory,” Mr. Viagra whispers as he helps to hold me in place.

There is insolence in my voice as I say, “Tres families. Una veritat. Glòria eterna.”

“You’re one of us now,” scythe man tells me as he draws a cross on my forehead in my blood. “Welcome to the New Trinity. Our trinity.”

“Gee, thanks.”

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