Josephine's voice kills any man who hears it-except for the assassin sent to capture her for the king that's been chasing her all her life...but what happens when he decides he doesn't want to hand her over and keep her for himself instead?
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I did not cry when they cut my son out of me.
I did not cry when they ripped him out of my arms every single time once my breasts were emptied from his suckling mouth.
I did not cry when they whipped and tortured my husband before my very own eyes.
I did not cry when I witnessed my sister being tortured just the same.
I did not cry when he took me to his bed when the crude stitching on my stomach had barely stopped bleeding at the slight pull of skin.
I did not cry as he took my body for his own and sucked my very soul from my body.
But when first he walked in...when I spotted the face my father once sported before his untimely death, with a bronze blade in his hands dripping with scarlet blood, I cried.
I cried for the life I should have had and the love that should've been given to me.
I cried for the happiness that I'd once had but thrown it all away for my misguided prejudices.
Because my sister? The young woman whom I'd raised from a small child? She was no monster.
No, the real monster was before me with a leering smile on his familiar face.
He plunged the blade into my chest, and I cried.
I cried for the pain and the anguish, but also for my long lost sister that I'd never be able to apologize to for my mistreatment of her.
I cried for our father who'd befallen the curse of a family line that he'd known the risks of.
I cried for the little baby boy that would never know his mother's love.
I cried for the love of my husband rotting away in a jail cell beneath my feet.
But in the end, I cried for the woman I would never get to become.
Oblivion blackened my eyes, but the sweet release of peace never came.
Again and again, he slammed the blade deep within my chest, and still no relief washed over me.
My cries turned into despair, then desperation.
"Kill....me...."
My words were rasped out in a wet croak, blood filling my lungs and chest as over and over again, my uncle tried to carve my own heart from my body.
"You're far more resilient than the Sirens, just like your sister. I wonder why that is."
My uncle turned away from me, the jagged scar cutting across his cheekbone seemingly more fresh than the others on his body.
It looked as if it had bubbled up and festered from the inside out, like some kind of malicious burn.
"I wonder who your whore mother bred with. It certainly wasn't my brother who created you. I wonder what would've caused my poor brother to play father to two bastard children."
