moon-calf

Adopted into a family of revered snake-tamers, Audrey Miller was born frail and never grew properly, so her parents favored her tall, long-limbed sister Chloe. Out of favor and penniless, Audrey quietly found and raised her own snake-shifter, Damian, nursing the sickly little creature back to health over twelve years.

Damian grew into a handsome, graceful snake-shifter, yet he kept his distance, rarely touching her and flinching from her hand. Only later does Audrey see the truth: his faint smiles at family dinners were never for her, but for Chloe, whom he wraps himself around and calls his only love, mocking Audrey as a short little freak.

When Damian coldly demands an explanation and sweeps her cooked meal to the floor, cutting her calf, Audrey finally answers with a dissolution of adoption agreement, a property transfer deed and a bank card, and tells him they are breaking up. He darkens with rage, asking whether she is abandoning him, and whether she ever loved him at all.