In just an instant, that angelic face of hers was a lie I wanted to possess. That grace of her attracted the ugliness of my soul. Her beauty was a curse for every man on Earth. She would burn me if I got closer, but I had the sudden desire to find out what dark compulsionsshe was hiding.
She was poisonous.
Just like this flower.
The type of woman you either break or worship.
The one you’d build a kingdom for, or make her your slave.
That uncanny duality made me do something I thought I’d never do—ask. “What’s your name?” I was convinced the more I learned about her, the more that spell would break. All I had to do was kill the mystery—replace the fantasy with the somber reality.
“Lily Bellerose,” she whispered softly with sweet blossom lips.
The niece of an incompetent man had captured my attention.Lily… Lily… Lily.She had to be an illusion. An illusion strangely familiar, but at the same time, unattainable. It felt like déjà vu. A memory I’d buried a long time ago was trying to reemerge.
It didn’t matter. She was presumably a lie. The impostor swore she had no idea about our past “agreement.” But she couldn’t be that clueless? Or could she? All I knew was humans were liars, thieves, entrapped in their perversions. We destroyed everything we touched without any chance of salvation. I wondered what sins she would crave? What would make her break?
I needed to tear apart that illusion.
“And you are…” She was afraid to pronounce my name, letting the words linger between her lips.
“What am I?” I edged closer to her, wedging her between the savage flowers.
She glanced back, hoping to find a way out, but she was trapped. I fed on her fear, and as I towered over her, the moonlight illuminated the side of my face. I heard her heavy heartbeat, the terror stabbing her heart and freezing her blood vessels. It pained her to swallow, her pupils dilated, and I knew she had seen it.
Plunging her eyes into mine with a curiosity that would put her in danger, she met a glimpse of the thorns of my scar hidden behind my mask. Some would say a demon carved half of my face from his imprint. Others, that it was the brand of hell.
I silently cursed myself to have gotten much closer than I should have, and I inched backward.
“They call you the Devil.” The way she chose her words carefully showed how blind and naive she was.
I was dreaded. Cruel. Inexorable.
Women dug that in this world. Good girls fell for bad boys, and bad girls liked monsters. But me, I was something else entirely.
I was hell.
And hell was meant to rule alone.
“People call me Witch,” she added. It was bold of her to assume we had anything in common.
We didn’t belong to the same tale. We were reversed elements.
I was chaos seeking light.
Fire seeking water.
Evil seeking purity.
“Making perfume doesn’t necessarily make you a witch.” A name is an identity; it’s not granted. It’s a reputation that is owned and deserved.
“I guess I’m just…” She searched for her words, tugging her lower lip nervously. She glanced over the vines that were climbing over the windows of the greenhouse to gather her strength. “Weird. I’m seeing the world in a different way. I’m more comfortable with flowers than humans sometimes. People don’t understand me, but it’s what I love. The scent we’re attracted to can tell a lot about us… It defines us. It’s a form of expression in a way.” She spoke with a rare passion, as if she was inhabited by something stronger than her.
Being different is a curse among normality. People have always been afraid of who or what they can’t understand. She was right. But she did something wrong by exposing her vulnerability to someone who had the capacity to break her.
Unless I did use her.
The way her stare crept under my skin, with curiosity and sweetness, would make her an unwanted problem. A complication. But my only remaining solution was witchcraft. My family secrets were obscure and hidden in their graves. I’d built an empire where the horror of life collided with the ecstasy of it. I’d succeeded in creating the perfect illusion, a synesthesia of sense, a fusion in quest of the ideal—the final strike was the smell.
