The first time I saw something moving inside my husband’s ear, I thought I was about to watch him die.
It was our eighth night of marriage, and Gideon Rook was on his knees beside the fireplace, his enormous hands trembling against the floorboards.
Blood stained his collar.
His right ear had swollen nearly shut.
And something black was twisting inside it.
But the most terrifying part was not what I saw.
It was the expression on his face when he realized I had discovered something he had been hiding for nearly thirty years.
Eight days earlier, my father had sold me for fifty dollars.
My name was Rosalie Ashford, and I was twenty-four years old when my father decided I was worth less than his gambling debts.
We lived in Coldwater, a struggling mountain town where winter lasted too long and a woman’s future depended heavily on the men surrounding her.
My father, Silas Ashford, had lost nearly everything.
Our land was mortgaged.
Chapter 1: The Creature Beneath His Skin 027
