All The Pretty Monsters

I'm not all that special, really. I'm sure there are a lot of girls with old gypsy blood who see the dead, have killer cults hunting their family, and turn into something that gets scary when they panic. Yep. I'm just an ordinary girl. I wish people would believe that. I've been labeled as one thing or another for most of my life: Death Girl. Crazy Gypsy Girl. Gothic Chick. Monster. It took my mother's death for me to finally start getting answers about what's really been going on. Unfortunately, most of the answers come from men...who aren't just men.

What's it like to be a monster in a town full of monsters, who don't know you're a monster? Complicated and a little scary, but doable. What's it like to be the girl who can't die - that everyone seems to always want to kill? Frustrating as hell. What's it like to accidentally raise a psychotic alpha vampire everyone fears, who drops a lot of bodies on his first day out as a gift for your troubles? Terrifying, if I'm being honest. I really don't know how this stuff keeps happening to me.

I'm like a snowball rolling downhill. That's the first thing that pops into my mind when I try to explain my life. I don't know exactly "what'"I am, but I do know who I am. At least...I did. Sometimes life sends things your way that upend everything you thought you knew, and then slings you in another direction without any sort of harness or warning. Sometimes it drops someone like me off in the path of four wildly different monsters, who all used to be best friends, but now sort of hate each other and compete over absolutely everything, including...me.

Imagine searching your whole life for answers, and then finally finding them. A part of you is excited to know the truth. Another part of you is damaged, because you realize why it was so hard to learn answers. Secrets aren't usually very pretty. In the midst of all of it, the four monsters I've gotten too attached to are about to be reunited with the one woman they all once loved so deeply that they sacrificed everything for an eternity with her. They said they hated Arion, but I never see hatred when they're around him. I see frustration, resentment, anger, and pain, never hatred.

"Sing, gypsies, sing of your lies." That old song plays in my head as the world turns around me faster than it has ever turned. Monsters and mayhem. That's become my life. Fear and apprehension. That's become the normal for those around me. Dread and distraction. That's what has interrupted my own personal romance story with my mon-star quad. Vengeance and retribution. That was the theme of the monster world long before I landed in it, and it's starting to heat up more than ever. I guess it's time to see if I can handle being in the middle, because that's where I'm about to put myself.

After spending the vast majority of my life lonely, I came to this town to find answers about my mother, and instead, stumbled upon a secret society full of monsters I never knew existed outside of dark tales. Now I've built a sanctuary, gotten in the middle of an ages-old feud between various monster factions, and somehow ended up with an ancient, queen-like tyrant targeting me, because my life sucks sometimes. For now, hoping for the best is all I have. Well, I guess that's a lie too. Hope's not all I have.