Toxic Beauty

Chapter 1: The Unknown

He knew she was there before she appeared. He could smell her, not the aroma that she had applied to her body but the scent that seeped from her pores. He had been stunned by it, overtaken by the urge to consume its source. But he had fought to keep his distance, not knowing what the source really was until she had appeared.

She was human.

He was completely lost, then. No human smelled like her. Nothing smelled like her. She was like a magnet to his senses; he had taken the chance to look at her aura and it was far from stable. Shifting from one color to the next sometimes pulsing like a heartbeat and he was immediately drawn to the power vibrating within her veins.

His clenched fists had started to bleed and he knew he had to get out of there. The alluring pull coming from her was incredible and he was slowly losing his will to stay away.

His eyes glanced down as his brows pulled together and he shook his head. It was clear she wasn't human but she still wasn't a creature he had ever encountered. He remembered her eyes, hazel and curious, her face small and delicate, and how her burning red hair was wild and tangled. He could remember the curves of her body outlined under her large coat but this thought had him clenching and unclenching his fists again.

She's a human child, he thought to himself.

He knew the human aspect was questionable but still...she's a child, to him.

Beside his better judgement, he now watched her at a distance walking quickly to get home. He took note of how her hound walked protectively in front her, like a hell hound guarding it's queen. But neither saw the shadows floating above them in the trees. He watched as they grew in number, three, four, and five like morphs to a flame. Drifting above her, watching her every step. This girl was a peculiar one.

They kept walking and he kept watching until she exited the deep forest. A part of him hoped he wouldn't see her again but something else was telling him good luck with that.

One Month Earlier

She didn't know how she would explain it if someone saw it. She, herself had no idea where it came from or what it even was. She wondered if she was just hallucinating but that was highly unlikely.

"Just say it's a tattoo", a meddling thought suggested.

"It looks nothing like a tattoo!" she retorted.

"Yes it does you idiot!"

She was convinced she was going bat shit crazy, arguing with herself but this was something that was happening more often, so maybe she really was going crazy. She decided she would rather pick being crazy than face what her little predicament really meant for her future.

She laid there staring at the ceiling but seeming to look past it. She took a deep breath and looked around her room. An old wardrobe stood to the left corner of the room beside her room door, the wardrobes' door forced open by all the clothes stuffed inside. She made a mental note to fix that, it was a contrast to the neat dresser beside the closed window to her right and her single night stand beside her bed.

She reached for the only object on her night stand, other than a recycled bottle filled with water and a lamp, which was a book, its covers were fading and its many pages crisp with age but it was still well kept. Considering that it was bought five years ago and had been read more that twenty times, from the first page to the last.

"A well known romance novel this is," she had been told before she had made the decision to buy it. Regrettably, after realizing such complicated, exciting, rich and passionate love could never really exist she had put it down and had never read it again. She frowned at the fading pages as she flipped through and then placed it back on her night stand. If she had truly given up on 'love', after never really experiencing it, then why was it still sitting on her night stand?