What was it about us, as humans, that drove us to make apologies for beautiful things?

In her view, there were threeoptions for a woman. If you were beautiful, you got married. If youwere ugly, you became a nun. If you were beautiful and stupid, orugly and dishonorable, you became a whore.

In the absence of deliberate cruelty, the harshness of his face and the fullness of his mouth just looked sullen and a little wicked. An angel frozen into a tableau of marmoreal perfection as he contemplated his imminent fall from grace.

His eyes were like a forest at night—dark, wild, and dangerous. They were as fey as the rest of him, calling to mind thoughts of terrifying legends and powerful magic. You could fall into eyes like that, she thought, and find yourself trapped forever. In that moment, he resembled exactly what he was: a witch prince, out for blood.

He was wild, like her, with the kind of profile sculptors liked to cast in bronze: a fiery young god chiseled from the elements. Even in moments of icy repose, she could sense that menace clawing just beneath the surface. The knowledge of its presence drew her, even as she knew that it should have repelled.

People only picked the pretty, sweet-smelling flowers. The ones with thorns were left alone.

There was nothing that fascinated the public quite like a beautiful man with an ugly soul.

She has built her whole life on the foundation of beauty: each chiseled plane, each sloping dimple, each soft curve as crucial as keystones in the cathedral of her body.