Chapter 1

On my way home, I passed a clothing store and couldn’t help but stop.

Chloe had one of the dresses displayed in the window.

The sales assistant looked hesitant but, seeing my persistence, handed me a set of clothes.

The girl in the changing room was small, barely reaching half the height of the full-length mirror. My chest was flat, my limbs slender and weak – the body of someone too frail to properly bond with a snake-shifter.

That outfit, which looked absolutely stunning on Chloe, made me look like a precocious little girl secretly wearing her mother’s high heels.

Images of Chloe with her shifter automatically flashed through my mind.

Tall, with long limbs, Chloe looked incredibly beautiful when she bonded with a snake-shifter. Damian wrapped around her, they looked perfectly matched.

No wonder Damian didn’t like me.

From the day I was born, even my own parents didn’t want me.

I hadn’t developed properly in the womb, born with a frail constitution. I grew slower and stayed shorter than everyone else.

Even as an adult, I still looked like an eleven or twelve-year-old child. Others would mock me: “A freak of nature in a family of revered snake-tamers! She’ll probably snap her arm just trying to handle one.”

Those cruel words pricked at my heart like thorns that couldn’t be removed, and they brought shame to my parents’ faces too.

They learned their lesson and were extra attentive when Chloe was conceived. And that extra care gave them every snake-shifter’s dream match – she grew fast and tall.

With Chloe, they cared for me even less.

It was as if they were a complete family of three, and I was just a poorly-nurtured burden.

I stared at my small hands, angrily digging my nails into my palm, then curled my fingers into fists, silently sobbing.