Chapter 1
When Zane left holding Ruby with her flushed cheeks, I didn’t try to stop him.
After all, this was already the tenth time he had abandoned our egg midway through incubation for Ruby’s sake.
I was long used to scenes like this.
It’s just that this time, our hatchling had already broken through its shell. Its fragile body was still covered in blood from hatching, its temperature slowly dropping…
Yet Zane didn’t even spare a backward glance.
In the cold wind, I sat alone in our nest. Only my friend Lily the rabbit secretly slipped me a seed:
“Aria, this is a seed of the Forget-Me-Not flower,” Lily said in a low voice.
“Plant it, and in seven days it will mature. If you eat it, you can conceal your aura and forget everything from your past.”
I looked down at the unremarkable seed in my hand, feeling like a thousand-pound stone was pressing down on my heart.
But in the end, I nodded.
Then Lily left too.
Inside the incubation cave, only I remained, holding the now stiff and cold hatchling, silently waiting for three days.
Zane had lied to me. He never came back.
I smiled faintly and tossed the cracked eggshell into the fire pit. The last glimmer of hope in my eyes extinguished along with the flames.
That evening, a heavy snow began to fall in the valley. The cold wind gusted into the cave, stinging my cheeks.
I buried the hatchling’s body along with the seed in the soil.
My fingers were frozen red, tears crystallizing into ice.
When I looked up again, I saw Zane watching me from afar, snow piling up on his shoulders.
I thought I must be seeing things.
But in the next instant, Zane strode through the wind and snow, pulling me into his embrace.
I was immediately enveloped by his familiar scent of winter pine, reminding me of our first meeting ten years ago:
Back then he was just a small emerald snake, nearly dead from a wolf’s bite.
It was me, newly arrived in this world, who cut out half of my own beast core to feed him.
From then on, Zane and I carried the same winter pine scent.
No matter how far apart, Zane could always find me by following that scent.
“Aria, I’m back,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Ruby’s poison came on so suddenly, I had no choice but to stay with her,” Zane nuzzled my cheek, his voice impossibly gentle.
“Don’t be angry. In just three short days, I missed you and our child terribly.”
The child he claimed to think of constantly - its corpse was already cold.
Zane pressed his forehead to mine, his breath warm, his gaze reverent.
But he was clearly wrapped in an aura of lust, his fingertips still stained with Ruby’s rouge. Yet here he was, cradling my ice-cold ankles, bending to kiss them inch by inch:
“Aria, trust me one last time. Ruby lost a fox tail because of me years ago and can never take human form again. I owe her, I have to repay that debt…”
Zane had always been gentle with me, which only made it more painful when he hurt me.
His voice lowered, tinged with careful hesitation:
“Aria… Ruby is pregnant with my child.”
“I plan to marry her and let her give birth to the baby.”