CHAPTER ONE:THE SMILE THAT BLED
How fascinating...
They always noticed my smile first.
It wasn't wide or warm or inviting. It was precise. Controlled. Like a blade polished so well you didn't see the edge until it kissed your skin.
I learned early that people liked pretty things. Pretty girls. Pretty lies. Pretty violence when it was hidden beneath silk and perfume.
My name is Miracle onosegie , and I have never been normal.
The first time I realized something was wrong with me, I was eight years old, kneeling in my mother's rose garden with dirt under my fingernails and blood on my dress. I had pushed a boy—soft, crying, annoyingly loud—into the iron thorns because he wouldn't stop touching my hair. I remember watching the roses drink him in, watching the red bloom across his skin, and feeling… nothing.
No fear.
No guilt.
Just curiosity.
Adults said I was quiet. Well-behaved. Gifted. They didn't see how carefully I studied them, how I practiced expressions in mirrors, how I learned to cry on command and laugh at the right moments. They didn't hear the voice in my head that asked questions like How hard would I have to push? or How long before someone notices?
Pretty girls weren't supposed to ask those questions.
Years later, the kingdom of Aurelion glittered beneath the moon like a jeweled corpse—golden towers, white stone, and rot underneath. Magic hummed in the air, old and cruel, fed by bloodlines and bargains with forgotten gods. Nobles ruled. Monsters hid in plain sight.
So did I.
By nineteen, I was the most desirable woman in court. Men wrote poetry about my eyes. Women whispered my name with envy. Kings watched me like a prize they hadn't yet claimed.
None of them knew I kept a list.
Names.
Dates.
Methods imagined, but not yet used.
The night everything changed, the High Court held a masquerade. Masks of crystal and feathers. Music thick with desire. Wine sweet enough to rot teeth.
That was when I felt him.
Not saw.
Felt.
A presence like cold fingers on the back of my neck.
I turned—and met silver eyes behind a black mask.
They didn't hunger.
They recognized.
He watched me the way I watched everyone else.
That was the first time in my life I felt something dangerous bloom in my chest.
CHAPTER TWO:THE MAN WHO DIDNT FLINCH
His name was Lucien Ashmoor, though rumors called him worse things.
Executioner.
Shadow Prince.
The King's Favorite Monster.
He was ancient in a way magic sometimes made people—ageless eyes, power folded into his bones like sleeping serpents. He didn't bow when introduced to me. He didn't compliment my beauty. He didn't try to touch me.
He simply said, "You enjoy pretending."
I smiled. Soft. Perfect. "Everyone does."
"No," he replied calmly. "You enjoy lying to yourself."
That should have terrified me.
Instead, it thrilled me.
Over the following weeks, he sought me out in quiet corridors and candlelit gardens. Our conversations were careful dances—words like daggers wrapped in velvet.
He spoke of death without reverence. I spoke of love without belief. He never once flinched at my coldness. I never once pretended warmth for him.
One night, as thunder cracked the sky open, he cornered me in the royal library.
"You've killed before," he said.
I tilted my head. "Have I?"
"Yes," he answered. "Not with your hands. But you set things in motion and watched them finish."
I stepped closer. "And what if I did?"
Lucien leaned down until his lips brushed my ear. "Then you're honest. And honesty is rare."
Something in me snapped.
I kissed him first.
It wasn't tender. It was violent. Teeth and breath and hunger sharpened into something feral. When we broke apart, his pupils were blown wide, his composure cracked just enough to let something dark leak through.
"You're dangerous," he said softly.
I smiled again.
This time, it was real.
CHAPTER THREE:LOVE IS JUST A WEAPON
They tried to kill me.
Of course they did.
The court had grown uneasy—whispers of my influence, of men ruined after loving me, of women who vanished after crossing me. The Queen herself ordered my quiet execution.
Lucien came to my chambers before dawn.
"They're coming," he said. "I can smuggle you out."
I considered that. Running. Living quietly. Pretending again.
Then I laughed.
"No," I said. "I'm tired of pretending."
When the guards arrived, they found blood instead of a victim.
Magic sang in my veins as I moved—graceful, efficient, beautiful. I didn't scream. I didn't hesitate. I painted the marble floors red and felt alive for the first time.
Lucien watched, eyes dark with awe and something dangerously close to love.
After, when the palace burned and the kingdom reeled, we stood on a balcony overlooking the chaos.
"You could rule," he said. "With me."
I turned to him, studying his face the way I studied my victims. "Do you love me?"
He didn't answer immediately.
"I don't know how," he admitted.
I kissed him again. Slower this time. "Good. Neither do I."
We were not soft.
We were not kind.
But together, we were honest.And honesty, I had learned, was the deadliest magic of all.
CHAPTER FOUR:THE THING I COULDN'T CONTROL
Power is loud at first.
It screams when you take it—burns cities, bends knees, demands blood. But after a while, it goes quiet. It settles into your bones. Becomes routine. Becomes dull.
I ruled Aurelion for three years.
They called me the Crimson Queen, whispered my name like a curse wrapped in silk. Crime vanished. Rebellion died young. Monsters stayed in the dark where they belonged.
I was perfect at it.
Lucien stood beside me through it all—my shadow, my blade, my only constant. We didn't speak of love. We didn't need to. We shared a language older than tenderness: mutual destruction.
But power does strange things to people.
It didn't change me.
It changed him.
I noticed it in the way he watched me now—measuring, distant. The way his touch lingered less, his loyalty felt heavier. Like obligation. Like fear.
The night it ended, the palace was silent. Too silent.
Lucien met me in the throne room, sword already drawn.
"I made a bargain," he said.
I didn't ask with whom. I could feel it—the old gods, stirring, hungry. They never liked that I ruled without them.
"You were meant to burn," he continued, voice breaking just enough to be real. "Not reign."
I stepped closer. Calm. Curious. "So you're here to save the world from me?"
"No," he whispered. "I'm here because I love you—and that's exactly why you have to die."
Ah.
There it was.
The flaw.
I moved faster than thought, magic flaring—but the gods had taught him well. His blade sank into my chest, deep and sure, right where my heart should have been.
I looked down at the blood. At his hands shaking around the hilt.
"I trusted you," I said softly.
Tears slid down his face. "I know."
I laughed then—wet, broken, genuine. "How beautifully ordinary of you."
With the last of my strength, I kissed him. Blood between us. Magic snapping like dying stars.
Then I pushed him away—and pulled the spell tight around my heart.
If I was going to die, I would not die quietly.
The palace collapsed. The throne shattered. The gods screamed as the magic devoured itself.
When the dust settled, Lucien was found alone in the ruins, clutching a crown melted into ash.
They never found my body.
Some say I'm dead.
Others say the roses in the old gardens still bloom redder than they should—that sometimes, late at night, the wind carries laughter sharp enough to cut.
I don't believe in happily ever afters.
But I do believe this—
If you loved a monster,
you should never expect to survive her.
🖤