Chapter 1
I was born in a world where a woman’s first draw of blood didn’t come from between her legs but rather from biting down her tongue.
I am a gift and a curse. The beauty of my face, the hiss of my hair, the glass of my eyes, the stone of my heart. I am perfect, yet so imperfect.
Many make the fatal mistake of assuming beauty contributes to perfection. That lacking the ability of prepossession deems you flawed. But a flaw can only be labelled as such if we consider it a flaw.
Why should I be considered a monster when I am nothing but a mere mortal?
I did not choose this life, it was given to me. And now it is my duty to live it.
My mother called me a gift. She told me I was special, precocious. With the flutter of lashes I could make men swoon, and with a glimpse of their eyes I could make men stone. My mother warned me of men, of their rapacious nature. She told me that men, where monsters and that I needed to be shielded from their eyes. I was callow at the time, disregarding everything she fed me, my young heart desperate for any sort of excuse to experience being wanted.
I am not to be loved. I am not to be cherished.
My father called me a curse. A siren with a serpent song. He would berate me, abuse me with his vitriolic tongue each time a man fell victim to my beauty. I would hear him at night, screaming at my mother for granting him such horrid children. I was not a gift to him, I was a burden. But he is to blame for what I am. The monster in my marrow comes from him. My mother is beautiful, and so I am beautiful. My father is a monster, and so I am a monster. I do not get to choose who I become, because my fate has already been chosen.
