Page 73 of Serpentine Valentine
It stirred me how comfortable she seemed to show me affection in public. Walking down the streets of New York holding her hand felt akin to walking down some kind of red carpet. I felt proud and honored by her.
Which of course, made me feel sick and evil in equal turn.
I was starting to feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, two definitive sides of me at war with each other. I’d never be able to quell the violent rage inside me without having my vigilante outlet, but it was at elemental odds with the part of me that loved Luna’s soft touches and silken kisses.I hadn’t been scared since Halloween, because what could be worse than the crimes Morgan had committed on my body? But when Luna looked at me like I hung the moon, a different kind of fear took root in my soul.
A fear that I might survive without the rage. All I had to do was focus on her light in the darkness.
“Hey, grumpy.” Her sweet voice cut through my brooding thoughts seconds before I felt her arms wrap around my waist and her lips pressed to the green and black snake on my neck. “What’s the matter? It was your idea to come here.”
I tilted my head to give her better access to my throat and simultaneously glared at the older man staring at us through the arms of a statue across the hall.
“This one always makes me melancholy,” I said, gesturing to the statue I’d been standing in front of for the past five minutes.
It was true, too.
The statue of Perseus holding Medusa’s decapitated head.
“Why?”
The sigh that unwound from my lips spilled heavily to the ground. The release felt like a relief. That I could bury some of my story, some of my emotional baggage, in the myth of another woman who was horrifically wronged.
“Do you know much about the myth?” When Luna shook her head, I continued, “Medusa was a beautiful virgin priestess in the goddess Athena’s temple. One day, Poseidon took notice of her beauty and decided to take her against her will in the temple. When Athena found them, she punished Medusa by turning her into a monster with snakes for hair and a gaze that turned all men who looked at her to stone.”
“That’s horrible,” Luna breathed, staring at the sculpture with frank horror.
It pleased me to see her so undone by theinjustice. I knew she was a soft-hearted woman, full of sympathy for those less fortunate, but I was beginning to understand that there was no hardness in her heart. No space for the anger and revenge that seemed to dominate my own.
Still, I tested her.
“It is. At least Medusa was made into her own weapon of revenge. I like to think she took at least a little pleasure in her curse, turning men who sought her out as a prize into immortalized tributes to their own greed.”
“No,” Luna said, gazing into the eyes of the decapitated head as if she could reach through centuries and read her original intent. She stepped forward to give in to her natural temptation to touch and brushed her fingers along Medusa’s cheek. “I bet she was terribly lonely.”
“She had sisters.”
“Okay, but she was still stuck. Athena imprisoned her in this body and made it impossible for her to connect with anyone new ever again.” She looked over her shoulder at me, and there were tears in her pretty green eyes.
That chasm in my chest yawned open a little wider. My hand pressed to the pain even as I looked away from Luna, unable to stand the agony of seeing the empathy in her gaze.
“Yes, well, life is often unfair.”
Luna caught my hand as I went to turn away and tugged me into her front. Her fingers delved into the hair over my ears so she could hold me still and force our gazes to connect.
God, she was pretty.
I let myself wish for a single second that she could be mine.
Not just now at this moment, but forever.
But I hadn’t thought beyond my next plan for revenge in so long that I didn’t even know what that dream of the future would look like.
“You can brush off what was done to you like it doesn’t matter, but itdoes,” she said gently, thumbs brushing over my cheekbones.
“College-aged women are three times as likely to be sexually assaulted. One in three women is raped, and those are just the cases reported. Most women are convinced not to report the crimes against them, or they are too ashamed to do so.” I shrugged but felt brittle, like one wrong move would make my fragile bones shatter beneath my skin. “It’s not so uncommon.”
“Don’t use other people’s suffering to minimize your own, Lex.” Luna’s fingers tightened in my hair as she leaned forward to press her forehead to mine. “It’s okay to hurt. It’s okay to be human.”
My lips formed a snarl before I could remind myself she wasn’t the enemy. I couldn’t convince my body that she wasn’t trying to attack me, though, not when my heart started to sprint through my chest.
