Page 36 of Tricked By Jack
“One couple will get married in earnest. I can promise that their matrimony is not just a cheap trick. It’s legally binding. The bond you’re about to witness between our main couple is real. The claim is true. And the contract will be written in more than ink.”
The audience gasps, a ripple of delighted shock. They think it’s part of the theater. But the way Carolina smiles at me—slow, knowing—turns my stomach cold.
Nicklas goes on. “Groom, do you claim this Bride as your own, to possess and use as you see fit, to mark with your will and bend to your desire?”
“I do,” the man behind me states.
“Eve Mortis.” Nicklas turns to me, his eyes cold as he speaks my name. “You have been chosen. You have been marked. You have been sacrificed. Your consent is not required, but your surrender is inevitable.”
It’s not a question. Hell, he’s not even bothering to pretend I have a choice. It’s just a statement of fact, delivered with the certainty of someone who has never been denied anything.
Someone says something about legitimacy and witnesses. It sounds official. Binding—just like Carolina promised. My ears ring as if I’m underwater.
Then, a hooded figure moves closer to the altar. Tall and skeletal, dressed in robes so black they seem to devour the surrounding light.
When they begin to speak, the sound is broken and strange—a language I don’t recognize with sounds that shouldn’t be possible from a human throat. The words scrape against my ears like fingernails on slate, making my skin crawl.
“I am the shadow priest,” he announces proudly. “I’m here to seal the unholy union between this Groom and Eve Mortis.”
The priest raises skeletal hands, bones visible beneath paper-thin skin, and gestures at something on the altar. My Groom’s hand closes around my upper arm, his grip firm but not painful as he guides me forward. The audience watches with rapt attention, their breathing a collective hush that pulses in time with the drumming that has begun somewhere behind us.
On the altar rests a black glass bowl, its surface reflecting the candlelight. Beside it lies a ceremonial knife, blade gleaming silver against the dark velvet. My Groom releases my arm and reaches for the knife.
He. Reaches. For. The. Knife.
“No!” I scream, lunging to the side. But he’s quick to grab me again, hauling me back so I’m flush against him before I even manage one step. “No! Let me go. Let go of me, you fucking psycho!” I thrash and kick, but he just laughs. Fucking laughs.
Using his hips, he pins me to the altar; the stone digging into my hip bones. “Keep fighting me, Little Bride,” he rasps, rolling his hips so I can feel his growing erection. “It’ll make it so much sweeter when we consummate our marriage.”
“The fuck,” I hiss. “I’m not fucking marrying you. This is just a performance. A sick one, but that doesn’t make it real.” It can’t be real… right? I mean, it has to be a trick no matter what they’re saying.
He lowers his head; the hard edge of the mask grazes the shell of my ear, his breath a filtered hiss. “Are you sure about that, Bride?”
Before I can answer, he wraps his arms around me. If he’s doing it to keep me here, there’s no need. The second he draws the blade across his palm, I stop fighting, too transfixed by what I’m seeing to keep it up.
The skin parts like silk beneath steel, a thin line of red welling up in its wake. He doesn’t flinch or inhale sharply as blood begins to drip from his hand into the black bowl.
When he reaches for my hand, I feel the first real jolt of fear spike through me. But I’m too scared to move as he turns my hand palm up. The knife hovers above my skin, and I can feel the cold radiating from the metal even before it touches me.
“Don’t,” I whisper, the word barely audible over the growing noise around us. “Please… at least clean the knife first.” What a stupid fucking thing to say.
He laughs as he steps to the side and positions me so we’re facing each other. His head tilts, the black lenses of the mask fixed on me. Then he raises the knife and smears it across my lips. “Anything for my wife-to-be,” he mocks.
The blade bites into my palm, a line of fire opening across my skin. I gasp, the sound swallowed by the priest’s rising voice. His grip tightens, holding me still as he completes the cut. Blood wells up, hot and shocking against my cold skin.
Somewhere behind us, the drumming returns—slow, steady, echoing the rhythm of his breath against my neck. A beat for each heartbeat.
He positions my bleeding hand over the bowl, pressing his wounded palm against mine. Our blood mingles, running down our wrists and dripping into the dark glass. The sensation is intimate in a way that makes my stomach turn.
The priest chants louder now. It sounds like words but feels like a binding. Like the syllables are crawling under my skin, writing a new name beneath the one I was born with.
More people appear from the edge of the stage, taking the bowl with reverence before disappearing as quickly as they joined us.
My Groom moves behind me, chest to my back. One arm cages my waist while the other, still slick with our mingled blood, drifts lower. My pulse races as his fingers bunch the fabric of my dress.
“You’re mine now,” he rasps through the mask. “Bought and paid for with blood and pain.”
My breathing comes faster as his hand lifts the skirt of my dress, the movement hidden from the audience by our bodies and the fog that swirls around our legs. His fingers trail up my thigh, dragging fire across skin too sensitive, too aware.
