[attr="class","lvappbody2"]

[attr="class","lvappbody3"]

& this is how we loved:

a knife on the tongue turning into a tongue

There are some born with misfortune sewn into their souls, but you have never thought yourself one of them. Instead, you are grateful, split-lipped, bruised, gasping, the word falling from your mouth in drops of red when you heave yourself to your feet to be knocked down again. It is the first thing your father makes sure to teach you of this life: that love will not fill your belly or heal your wounds. Not when you are far from wealthy.[break][break]

But you are young. It should come as no surprise when desire twists your gut like lethal poison, and heats your blood to fire in your veins. You have never wanted something the way you want Cain, but still you hesitate – not because he is a collector of hearts, but because he is a boy. Because even now you still remember the feel of your father's hands when he spoke of affection, rough, the painful blue of shadows left in their wake.[break][break]

Love rots you the way your father always warned it would, festering beneath your skin like secrets do. You become an aberration, an abnormality: vile, filled to the brim with filth and wrongness. Boys should want to kiss girls, you understand from your father's teachings, not other boys. When your body finally becomes more honest than your words, your confusion gives way to fear of discovery.[break][break]

And so you disappear. Upon your return to Sundial six years later, with a new name and face to cloak you from recognition, you find that coven Leviathan is everything you could have wished for, from its purpose to its enigma. Twenty-four and still an aberration, you suppose you could have done worse than a life of secrecy and crime. You suppose it suits you anyway.