The Ugly Flower by Liza Mynx (highly recommended books TXT) 📖

think about the legend of the Ugly Flower until my fifth birthday. My hair had grown down to my waist, and it was the most beautiful hair in the entire village. It was black like everyone else’s, but people said it seemed like my parents had weaved stars into it. They started calling me Stellarum Virgo, Girl of the Stars.
“After that, year after year I became more and more gorgeous, and people knew I was the Ugly Flower. I also started to notice when I was thirteen, that when I looked a person in the eye, I could make them do whatever I wanted and as soon as they were done they forgot everything they did for me.
“People were drawn to me. I was the Pale Beauty, the Lady of Dreams, the Celestial Empress, and people adored me. My parents were all the sudden proud to be called such, and took me everywhere with them so other parents could envy at them. It seemed I was the talk of the world. Not only this world, but the next.
“Well, when I turned eighteen, a strange man came to our village. It wasn’t really that uncommon; ever since I was ten people had come from all over the world to marvel my beauty. Men came to ask for my hand, but my father wouldn’t allow it.” At this, she smiled that same sad smile. “He never wanted to let me go. He wanted to keep me under his watchful eye forever, or at least as long as he lived.
“But this man was different from all the rest. The other men never had an effect on me. I mean, my father doesn’t know it, but I slept with a couple of them, some pleasurable, others not so much. But I never truly felt something for any man until he came to our village. He claimed he was there on business, that he came from a neighboring island and thought it was time to open up trade. That was the first thing that drew me to him. He never once asked to speak with me, to see me, for my hand. No, I had to ask to speak with him. He was handsome, which was also something that caught my eye. He had shoulder length brown hair and deep brown eyes. He was tall, fit, and tan. I’d never seen a more gorgeous man in my life…
“I asked my father if I might have a word with the newcomer, he stayed on our island for a couple of weeks to work out the trading plans, under the pretense that when my father passed on I would like to know that everything would be running just as smoothly as it was when he was there. He agreed, thought he didn’t have much of a choice. I looked him in the eyes and told him to let me speak with the man.
“I went to go find him. He was in a hut on the far side of the village. I walked in and found him meditating in front of an altar. He didn’t look at me, but he called my name and asked me to sit with him. I did as he asked and when I sat, he turned to me and said, ‘I am not who I appear to be, princess.’
“Somehow in my heart I knew that I had known his words were true from the moment I met him, but at that moment I just wanted to listen to him speak. His voice was so smooth…it put the same spell on me as mine does on you. He then said to me, ‘My name is Decus, the God of Beauty. I have heard of you, my dear, and wanted to see if the rumors were true.’
“For some reason, I wasn’t speechless. The news didn’t shock me, and I was able to talk with him as if he were just an ordinary person.
“‘What rumors?’” I asked him.
“He said, ‘Rumors of your striking appearance, the rumors that said you made the sun turn green with envy and the moon hide in shame. My love, you are all these things and more. I would be honored if you allowed me to show my true self to you.’
“Well, what really could I say? A god was offering to show me who he really was, what he really looked like. I nodded my head and he told me that I would have to look away for a moment. When I turned my head away, there was a bright flash of light a loud pop! sound. He told me I could see him, and when I looked at him, for the first time in my life I was speechless.
“He was beautiful, more beautiful than me or any other being to grace the Earth. His hair was long and had the same dark brown color, but it fell in waves like the ocean, and his eyes were no longer brown, but a brilliant orange. I compared them to the orange of a full bloomed lily. He was pale-silver like the moon, and his smile stole all the breath out of my body.
“‘Well, what do you think, princess?’ he asked me.
“I couldn’t speak, even now as I recall on those moments it is hard to put into words the sheer beauty that he possessed…”
Her eyes dropped from Katherine’s and focused on the fire, as if it were replaying the scenes from that night within the dancing flames.
“He was beautiful on the outside, but on the inside he was twisted and evil…
“I told him that he was beautiful, and he smiled at me with a crooked smile that I both feared and adored. He asked me if he could have me, and I thought he meant to marry me. I was honored, a god wanted to marry me! I couldn’t say no to such an offer. But that’s not what he meant. I said yes, and to this very day, after so many years, I say it was the biggest mistake I’d ever made.
“He grabbed my hand and threw me onto the pile of straw that was his bed. I knew he had muscles and that he was a god, but his strength surprised me still.
Her eyes started tearing up and she looked into her lap, seemingly afraid to look up either from fear of Katherine seeing her cry, or from shame.
“I still didn’t realize what was happening,” she said as her voice started to shake a little.
“He…he raped me. It wasn’t consensual; I didn’t want to do it! I would be looked down upon for having sex with a god if I wasn’t married to him! I kept trying to get up and call for help, but he just kept pushing down on me harder and harder…he told me that he put a charm around the hut so that no one would be able to hear how loud I screamed…and I screamed. I screamed so loud my throat was on fire; he actually put a spell on my mouth that kept me from being able to open it. He said my voice didn’t sound pleasant when I screamed and it almost made him dislike me. Almost he emphasized.
“When he was through with me, he told me that my beauty would be known only to this island. He wanted to keep me to himself…he didn’t want any other man to be able to steal me from him…so he sent a plague over our livestock and crops…everyone starved to death but me because I can’t die!
“I sat there and watched my friends and my family die because I couldn’t do anything but just sit and stare at them! Children, babies, all died within the first week. Adults and the elderly died the second and the third! Decus made sure that my parents stayed alive for five weeks as a punishment for treating me so horribly for the first five years of my life!
“I begged and pleaded to him to keep everyone alive, but he was a jealous and greedy god and wouldn’t listen to me. When my parents died, Decus came to me and took me in his arms. I was too weak to reject him and he said to me, ‘I understand that you hate me now, but soon this will all make sense. You are pregnant with four children, two boys and two girls. When they are born, they will share characteristics of both you and me. They will help you build a nation so grand, but no one outside of this island will know of it.’
“That’s why there is a cloud of fog obscuring our island, so that no one outside of it would ever know of its existence. He then told me that there was a certain scroll of infinite knowledge that only People of Promise were shown. He said that there were great men before and would be more great men after me that would know of this knowledge, and he gave it to me. That is how I have come to know everything over time. The scroll was called Datori Intelligentiae, or Giver of Knowledge. Once I was down reading it, I gave it back to Decus. He comes to visit me from time to time to see how the city is going. I never have sex with him anymore, and he has come to respect that I probably never will.
“So, there is my sad life story. Don’t look so shocked, my dear, haven’t you learned in your time here that not everything is as it seems? I figured that lesson was learned when you tried to sit on the stumpfry.”
Katherine sat there and held on to her every word. It was amazing how calm she felt given the circumstances she noticed. But being in the presence of Stella, and thinking about Oberon as well, as released a calming sort of spell over her; she felt that nothing could surprise her at the moment.
She still had many questions to ask this Celestial Wo-Girl (she recalled Stella did not like to be thought of as a woman), but there was one that was eating away at her patience.
“What will you do with Oberon?”
Stella looked surprised at first, and then she stared into Katherine’s eyes fiercely for a moment. It was as if she could actually see Katherine’s thoughts through her eyes, and after a couple of seconds, she relaxed her face.
“Well, this is something new. You’ve Imprinted with my Oberon, haven’t you?”
Before Katherine could even think to ask the question, Stella said, “Imprinting, basically, is love at first sight. But it’s much more powerful and much darker. You will soon come to realize that everything he feels, you feel, be it pain or pleasure. You won’t be able to stop thinking about him, and he won’t stop thinking about you. It’s a fast growing love, but it soon becomes a cancer for your whole life will be nothing but him. You’ll end up dying because you’ll be separated from him for more than an hour; your heart will literally break.”
Katherine couldn’t take the prophecy of what was to come. Had the Imprinting already begun? She thought of never being able to return home again, just because of some huge mistake! There had to be a way to make sure the foretelling wouldn’t come true.
“How do I stop this process?” she asked Stella frantically.
She gave another sad, hardened smile.
“The only way to stop you and him from dying is by either killing one of you, or making sure you’re never separated. I will have to kill him for crimes against me.”
Katherine felt a pang in her chest and she lost all the air and common sense in