Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Carmine had seen plenty of men in the crypt. There were dour priests and shifty-eyed acolytes who watched the brides a little too closely. There was the instructor who came to the crypt to help them get their mortician certifications and the quiet, observant healer who'd come around a few times to examine them. A number of her fellow brides were men, too, but they were all kept so isolated from one another that she couldn't say she was familiar with any of them.

But mostly, the men in her life were dead.

She was much more familiar with the shape and scent of them spread out on a slab. Carmine knew the meat of a man — the places where they had hair and she didn't, the sturdiness of their bones, the pliability of their skin as she passed a needle in and out. At first they'd been a marvel, but over time she began to see them as no different than the other bodies that arrived on her table needing care and kindness.

Under the cover of studying for her certification, she'd done other research into the subject — reading that taught her a man was not just the meat he was born in, but could come in infinite variations and identities that went beyond flesh. Knowing these things had helped her understand how to care for the dead better, how to respect them and their identities even when their souls rested by the riverbank, and occupied her mind when she imagined the day her price would be paid.

She thought that when she finally met her bridegroom, she'd be prepared. She wouldn't be shocked by the weight of a man on top of her when the day finally came. Carmine knew exactly how heavy a man could be, how sharp the bristles of their beards sometimes were, and how sometimes they had cocks and sometimes they didn't.

Vague memories of a life before the crypt helped bolster her confidence — not in the direction of her life, but in her ability to understand what would happen next. Unlike most of the brides, she was taken into the crypt late. Carmine had six years in the world before her parents took her to that free clinic for a fever and everything changed.

That was why she never bought the crap that the waxy-faced priest beat into their minds. Being a blood bride is a life of luxury, a blessing. You will cradle the offspring of Grim herself. You will bring pure life into this world. Your spouses will worship you for the gifts you've ? —

Nevermind the fact that Grim was an eternal virgin — something they loved to harp on when they spoke of a bride's virtues. Carmine knew that a bridegroom paid a hefty price for a blood bride. She knew that the crypt had been turning a massive profit for years because she'd secretly made friends with one of the administrative workers who loved to gripe about how wealthy they were but how little the office staff was paid.

That money didn't come from donations or funeral services. It came from them.

No matter what the acolytes said, anyone who thought to buy another person was bad. She only wanted to live in peace, doing her work with the dead, but a bad man would ruin all of that. Even if he turned out to be the average sort of awful, she knew that her life would never belong to her.

Either she'd die of boredom or wither under the cruel hand of a man who believed he could buy another person. She refused to accept either option.

Carmine had vainly hoped that her bride price would never be paid, that she'd get to live the rest of her life doing what she loved in peace, but then everything went bad all at once.

She overheard the priest cursing the new healer, saying he'd said something to someone. Suddenly there were men with badges at the crypt's doors, asking to speak to all the acolytes, and the head priest's white makeup began to streak with sweat. He managed to send them off, but within days, her fellow blood brides began to disappear, one by one, until only she was left.

It was only a matter of time after that.

She'd thought a thousand times about who would pay her price, what would happen to her, what she'd do if the worst came to pass. Cruel, sweaty faces swam in her mind's eye as she imagined her bridegroom. Someone pasty, with unkempt claws and a sneer. They'd expect her to lay on her back and take the shriveled, wiggly cock between their legs until a baby popped out. The thought made her shudder.

Carmine always knew she'd run, but a part of her was curious to at least see the face of the man who would be her groom. She'd imagined him a thousand different ways as she was dragged out of the crypt, into a van, then a small, beaten m-jet. When the doors to the trailer closed — stuffy, pitch black even to her vampiric eyes, somewhere she'd been shoved without any warning, would she die there if she was forgotten? — she expected a cruel face.

What she got was… him. Atticus.

She watched him suspiciously from under her lashes as he puttered around the small RV. There was far more room and amenities in it than the trailer, but he was a very large man. The priests had clucked about her height, saying she was too tall and skinny, but she didn't feel tall when Atticus loomed over her like a thundercloud.

Dressed all in black, he would have blended into the darkness well if it weren't for his pale skin and shock of ginger hair. He was broad-shouldered, slightly stocky, with huge hands and a hard chin. Tattoos peeked out over the collar of his shirt and crawled up his neck. More covered what she'd seen of his hands.

She'd thought she was prepared to deal with men outside of the crypt, but Carmine had never, ever seen a man like him before.

It wasn't just his looks. It was something in how he carried himself that made her skin prickle with a keen sense of danger. Perhaps it was the gun he'd pointed at her that tipped her off, but she thought it was something he carried with him, too. A predatory aura that only her atavistic gray matter could sense.

"Gimme a second," he muttered, like she'd said anything since he began poking around the RV.

Carmine said nothing. She was used to not speaking much. The crypt was a place of silence, and she mostly hung out with the dead, anyway. They weren't great conversationalists, but they were the best listeners.

"Just trying to see if there's a bowl or something— Oh, there we go." Atticus's voice was a deep, raspy baritone. It sounded a bit like someone had taken sandpaper to the inside of his throat. Not in a bad way, exactly, but something about it made her insides squirm.

She watched him pull a plastic bowl out of a cabinet and set it in the sink. He flicked the faucet on. As the bowl filled, he quickly hunted down a towel from another cabinet, set it on the small countertop, and then snagged something from a black backpack by the front seats.

Turning off the water, he lifted the bowl out of the sink and turned to face her. Carmine examined his face unabashedly, fascinated by the hard lines and intense, hooded eyes. It was a very compelling face. Almost as compelling as the rich, clean scent he gave off.

For a moment, he stood there, staring back at her with his lips parted. His tongue darted out, pink and wet, to dab his lower lip. A long, sharp fang caught her eye.

Something crackled down her spine. A jolt of electricity, maybe. Carmine blinked and the moment was broken.

Atticus's pale cheeks went dark with a blush. Her mouth watered, prompting her to wonder when she'd last had a meal. They'd given her a large pack of synth in the trailer, but for once, she didn't have an appetite. Now, though…

He focused his attention on her feet, dangling filthy and bleeding over the edge of the bed. The cuts weren't as bad as they looked, but she knew it was pure luck that she hadn't been hurt worse. There hadn't been time to think of the consequences of running barefoot, though, which was probably why the matron had taken her shoes to begin with.

A deep scowl grooved Atticus's face as he peered at her feet. Carmine fought the urge to shrink away. That look was scary.

He knelt in front of her and set the bowl on the floor. There was hardly room for him to fit there by her feet, but he didn't seem to mind the squeeze as he gently grabbed her ankles and guided her toes to the water.

"Too hot?"

Carmine hadn't been paying attention to anything except him, so it took a second for her to process what he said. When his eyes snapped back up to give her another scowly, impatient look, she shook her head.

"You tell me if you're uncomfortable," he ordered in that gruff, mean voice. It was entirely at odds with how gently he lowered her feet into the warm water. It wasn't even steaming. Just a pleasant, lukewarm temperature. It still stung a little, but not much.

When her feet were fully submerged, he sat back on his haunches and glared up at her from under thick brows. "I need a yes on that, Carmine. It's important."

She blinked at him. "Why?"

For a split second, it looked like the skin of his face was pulled too tight over his skull. His upper lip slid over his fangs and his eyes went hard and dark. "Are you asking me why it's important you acknowledge when I give you an order or are you asking me— Carmine, tell me you're not asking me why it's important that you say so when you're uncomfortable."

Well, how did he expect her to answer? It wasn't the first thing, and he said he didn't want her to tell him the second one, which was the truth, so she settled on silence.

That seemed to be answer enough. Atticus cursed and slapped one of those heavy, tattooed hands over his eyes. "Those motherfuckers." He took a deep breath and dragged his hand down over his mouth. "Okay. Right. We need to get some shit straight, you and me."

That sounded bad. Carmine watched him warily. He said he wasn't her groom, and she was reasonably confident that whoever that man was, he wouldn't want to receive his bride damaged. Atticus probably wouldn't punish her. At least, not in any meaningful way. Maybe he'd take her synth away if she displeased him. That was okay. That happened plenty of times in the crypt. She could go at least a week before it became unbearable.

He watched her feet, those intense eyes following the slow swirl of dirt and blood as the water soaked the filth off. "I'm Atticus. I was hired to transport some cargo into the EVP. I had no idea that it was— that you were the cargo. I never would have agreed to it if I did."

Carmine listened carefully, her focus roving around his face. For someone so hard-looking, she thought Atticus was very expressive. He didn't hide behind a thick layer of makeup and he wasn't dead. It was a nice change.

Atticus looked up again, caught her staring, and an expression a little bit like pain crossed his face. His voice came out slightly more strained than before when he said, "I'm gonna ask you some questions, okay? I need you to be honest with me. I can't help you if you're not honest."

Help me? She eyed him up and down. He'd been hired by her groom. Carmine liked the look of him, and might have been able to buy his story that he didn't know what he was doing, but she wasn't stupid enough to trust him.

Nowhere and no one was safe. Not for a blood bride.

When she didn't say anything, Atticus pursed his lips. "Why've you gone all quiet?"

"I'm not used to talking," she admitted. "We're not supposed to."

Silence. Obedience. Purity. The three tenets of Grim's blood brides.

A stolen whisper during worship, a quick update from the office staff, answered questions during their lessons — that was about all the brides could expect if they wanted to speak with someone. Mostly, Carmine spoke in her mind. It was always safe to say things there. And to the dead.