chapter one
giselle
Dark Side – KIRRA47
Blood. Sweat. Fear.
Ahhh, my three favorite perfumes.
The scent clings to me like a second skin—thick, hot, and absolutely feral. It curls in the back of my throat like smoke and honey laced with a little blood and a whole lotta sin. Mmm. Intoxicating. The musk of torches, the salt of sex, the kind of heat that makes your skin prickle before anyone’s even touched you.
The tent?
Oh, baby. It’s throbbin’.
Not a crowd—a pit. Of breathing, panting, trembling bodies, all masked, desperate, and just dying to be ruined.
Some are here to watch.
Some are here to die.
And a few real special snowflakes?
Well… they haven’t decided yet.
That’s where I come in.Enter the blonde bombshell with blood on her lips and murder in her eyes—ta-da!
I hang upside down from the silks, high above the bloodstone altar like a little spider with a taste for sin. My body twists and untwists, slow and serpentine, like I’m winding up for something wicked. Which, let’s be real—I always am.
I’m barefoot. Bare-skinned in all the right places. Black leather straps cage my chest, pushing the girls up like a sacrifice, just beggin’ to be blessed. Runes are smeared across my stomach and thighs in blood-red paint and crusted ash, flaking off as I move like I’m shedding my skin. A fox pelt dangles from one hip, swaying with every little swing of my hips like a tail.
I’m not dressed to dance.
I’m dressed to devour.
And honey, they eat it up.
The crowd below’s already buzzing like flies on a fresh kill—shoulders bumping, masks fogging, mouths open like they’re all just waiting to be hand-fed a piece of me. Some gasp. Some moan. One lady’s got tears on her cheeks and a man’s hand up her skirt, and it’s barely started.
I grin widely. It’s always the quiet ones who make the messiest stains.
Outside, the drums are pounding louder, like a heartbeat that’s just found out it’s about to stop. Boom. Boom. Boom. A war beat. A call to bleed. The kind of rhythm that says, “welcome home, sinner.” Makes my spine shiver and my toes curl around the silks.
Then the torches flare, hot and hungry. They know what’s coming.
So do I.
Becausehesteps forward.
Bjorn.
Not the ringmaster tonight. Oh no, sugarplum.
Tonight, he’s the executioner.
The preacher.
The monster we gift their bodies to, so he can gift them to the gods.
