Chapter 1

Isaac Jameson truly wanted to kill me. He didn't hold back at all.

"I can't believe that a wretched, twisted heart lies beyond your pure, innocent face! I nearly married you! I was lucky the hill was the final hurdle to marrying you, or you might've murdered my entire family!"

I had no idea what Isaac was saying. I only knew that I was covered in blood. I'd die if he kept this up.

He was too strong for me, and I couldn't fight back. I could only helplessly point at my stomach as whimpers bubbled up my throat.

Isaac understood what I meant. He glanced at my stomach and barked a harsh laugh. "You're carrying the devil's spawn! The Jameson family will never allow you to give birth to a cursed child like that!"

As he declared this, he tossed the axe aside and hauled me up by the collar of my shirt. Then, he rammed my stomach against the boulder off to the side.

For a moment, the sharp pain ripped my voice from my throat. My eyes nearly bugged out of my head.

Throughout the ordeal, Dad simply stood and watched in grim silence. If anything, he even seemed a little pleased.

Isaac finally let me go after he'd had his fill of violence. Before he left, he even spat on me in disgust, then made a point to tell Dad, "Mr. Seymour, sir, you'd better keep an eye on her! It serves her right to stay mute!"

He flung me to the ground like a bloody ragdoll. Dad gathered me in his arms in the end, but I knew hell was waiting for me.

I used what little was left of my strength to beg Dad to spare me, but my words didn't move him. He said heartlessly, "These are the rules. You must not desecrate the hill."

He tossed me into a tank of boiling hot water.

It felt like my very soul had been scorched, but a pair of hands kept me firmly in place, depriving me of any room to struggle. It wasn't until a layer of my skin had blistered and peeled that Dad finally hauled me out of the tank.

Beads of blood seeped through my raw, pink skin. The extreme pain was branded into the back of my mind; it was the tenth time I'd been blanched in hot water until I'd shed a layer of skin.

Every time I brought a fiance home and headed to the hill behind our town to get married, they'd end up bewildered the moment they entered the hill. When they looked at me again, it was with contempt, like I'd committed some major atrocity.

I'd once cried and begged Dad to tell me the reason behind all this. However, he'd only sympathized with me in return, then gave a resigned explanation that only outsiders could enter the hill.

We, as the cursed townsfolk, must not enter the hill at all.

After that, he'd toss me into boiling water because I hadn't successfully married.

As for Isaac, he'd spoiled me every day when we were in love. When I was pregnant, he grew even more protective and suggested that he come home with me so we could get married.

His love made me believe he was different from the others.

Alas, I was mistaken. I was forced to meet the same disappointing fate.

I gave up. I'd rather stay mute forever than endure this torture.

As I lay on the ground, practically at death's door, I had someone summon Ms. Lewis from the clinic in the next town. She'd been Mom's best friend when my mom was alive.

Upon hearing I'd been wounded, she hurried over with a medical kit.