Prologue

It was always an honor to be a sacrifice in my town, to be selected as one of Chosen.

Every year, the prettiest girl was sacrificed to the goddess, hoping to be blessed with a prosperous harvest.

To be the Chosen you had to enter the Choosing. It wasn't mandatory, but nearly every girl did. If you didn't, you were considered insecure and unwanted by most men. Almost all girls who never entered were never married, leaving them a financial burden to their family, being shamed by the community.

Every year, the vast majority of girls in my town put their name into the Choosing, hoping to be acclaimed the most beautiful and desirable girl, but fearing what that meant at the same time.

A male was also Chosen every year as a sacrifice – but not for the goddess. The strongest and bravest men were sacrificed to the Beast.

The Beast had terrorized our town for as long as I could remember. Eventually, we made a deal with the Beast. In return for him not bothering our villagers or livestock, we would tie up our strongest man and leave him as an offering.

Of course no one ever saw the Beast – or if they did, they never lived to tell about it. We didn't know for sure that the Beast was even male, but from the carnage he left before the deal, everyone knew it was. No woman was capable of producing that much pain and suffering.

No one really knew what happened to the sacrifices. We always believed the girl was taken into the arms of our loving goddess, embraced and wrapped in love.

We all had an idea of what happened to the men. They were either slaughtered where they stood and found the next day, or taken as slaves and never seen again.

That's the way things always were. One male and one female. Ages 12 to 20. Selected based on their beauty for the goddess or fierceness and strength for the Beast.

I knew better than to put my name into the Choosing, my family needed me. I was the only source of income for them. My father had died in an accident while training a horse. My mother was crippled in a fire when she was young. Being the only survivor, she was raised in an orphanage until she met my father. Their story isn't exactly the model love story every child wishes for. My mother was only using him to get out of the orphanage and my father was only using her to get a family; somehow they fell in love along the way.

My family is large, with six of us total. Marla was the youngest – only eleven when my dad died, Tray and Alex are next at only thirteen, then Lee who was fourteen, and me who was sixteen.

Of course my mom was older then all of us. I never really knew how old she was though, before my dad's death she would always joke and say that she just turned twenty one. For the longest time I believed her. Then one year I realized that she had been turning twenty one for the last five years. Now that my dad is gone, no one even brings up her birthday. It took me nearly a year to figure out why, but I finally did. My dad was injured while working with a horse, training it for a neighbor. My dad was officially pronounced dead the day after, which was my mother's birthday. Ever since then, her birthday stopped being mentioned and might as well of stopped all together. She never celebrated and instead spent it out at the cemetery with my father.

Being sixteen at the time, I already had a job – as was ordered in our small town of Terrence.

At a measly sixteen, I became the only source of income.

Lee was only fourteen at the time. In Terrence, once you turn sixteen, you must get a job. At fourteen, you are able to start working if you'd like. Lee had begged me to let him work, but I refused to let him start working officially until he had to. He tried begging my mother but his pleas fell on deaf ears. She was only a shell of the happy loving mother she once was.

I'll just go ahead and admit it. We were poor. We were barely surviving at times. Without my job, my family would have starved. We nearly froze during the winter!

There was no way that I could have entered the Choosing.

Not that I would ever be selected. Definitely not. I wasn't beautiful. My looks could never compare to Bethany's or Josephine's. Perfect figure, Perfect blonde hair, Perfect well respected families, Perfect dresses that were never torn.

No, I would never have been Chosen.

No matter what, my family would always have a steady income from me, even if it was barely enough to survive off. Just the six of us, we were doing just fine. I wouldn't allow my siblings to have a steady job but they still helped whenever they could.

Marla and Alex helped my mom sew and paint. My mother could draw well, even with her crippled hands. She occasionally would sell a drawing. Mainly, she designed clothes for the upper class and had Marla make them. Momma said she knew from the time Alex was little that she would be a talented painter. My mom slowly molded Alex's talent into perfection, selling every painting she ever made.

Tray and Lee became as much of a father as I was a mother. They made sure we had enough food and didn't freeze during the winter. They cleared brush for long hours with little pay in exchange for the wood they chopped to feed the fire. When they weren't clearing brush, they were hunting. Waiting patiently for anything to feed us, even a mouse, sometimes coming home with nothing but a tangible disappointment.

Even though they were young they were strong.

We all were. We had to be. We had no choice! But I wouldn't have had it any other way.

My life wasn't perfect. Not like Bethany's, not even close to it. She always had the perfect clothing, only made from the highest quality. Her family was so wealthy, they could have bought out the town if they wanted too. But I would get to stay with my family while she would be sacrificed to the goddess so that my town's people could have enough food to eat.

I was just fine with my non-perfect life.

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