Before Heian, before the studio, before she knew how to bleed beautifully—
—there was Rinée.
She was older. A literature professor with a silk voice and a scent like cedarwood and winter. Liora had met her in a university library, wrapped in a blood-red shawl, reading Baudelaire like it was a holy text.
Rinée had seen her, wanted her, shaped her.
At first, it was subtle. Long glances over worn pages. Fingertips grazing on accident, then on purpose. The first kiss tasted like ink. The first bruise bloomed behind her thigh, unseen.
But it didn't stay gentle.
Rinée liked control. And Liora liked giving it.
"Don't speak unless I ask you something," Rinée had whispered one night, wrapping Liora's mouth in silk.
"And if I cry?"
"Then I'll know I'm doing it right."
Liora thought it was love.
Until Rinée began collecting her.
Photos. Recordings. Lockets of hair. Letters sealed with Liora's blood.
And when Liora begged to leave, Rinée carved a word into her shoulder with the tip of a fountain pen:
Mine.
She wore that scar for years, even after Rinée vanished.
And somewhere inside her—
—she missed it.
The worship. The control. The surrender that felt like death, but tasted like salvation.
So she never dated again.
She waited.
For someone darker. Someone worse.
Someone who wouldn't just hurt her...
…but immortalize her.
—