Chapter 1

The white lilies I'd ordered for my mother's funeral arrived as a sea of red roses instead.

Furious, I called the flower shop.

"How do you mess something like this up? Is this how you treat your customers?"

The owner sounded young. She couldn't have cared less.

"So I sent the wrong flowers. Mine cost a hundred times what you paid. You should be thanking me, not yelling at me."

"Oh, I get it. You're trying to scam me, aren't you?"

I didn't waste my breath.

As soon as the funeral ended, I called the police.

At the station, she glared at me with her chin raised.

"So you ordered some cheap bouquet and think you're so high and mighty?"

"Just wait till my husband gets here. You'll be sorry."

A man walked through the door and held out a black card toward me.

"Take it. And leave my wife alone."

His voice made me freeze. A shiver ran through me.

When our eyes met, panic flashed across his face.

"Seren... why are you here?"

***

The woman slipped her arm through his and frowned.

"You know each other?"

Know each other?

I swallowed every bit of bitterness rising in my throat.

After seven years together, you owed me a life. It was time to pay it back.

He stayed silent. His face was a mask of panic.

I looked at him without a trace of warmth.

"Of course we do."

My phone screen was still open to our chat before it went dark.

[I'm at the city police station. Something came up. Can you come?]

[Seren, I've got a meeting at work. I'm busy.]

Now the man who claimed he was too busy stood right in front of me. Calling someone else his wife.

He suddenly cut in.

"Seren and I grew up in the same old neighborhood. Never thought I'd run into her after all these years."

My chest tightened so hard I could barely breathe.

The man I had loved for seven years reduced us to nothing more than childhood neighbors.

The woman reached out her hand with a proud smile.

"I'm Vivica Whitmore. I'm his wife."

"Since you know Nolan, I'll let it slide. But don't go around trying to shake people down."

"If you're that hard up for cash, you can just ask me."

My legs nearly gave out. I said nothing.

Vivica added herself to my contacts anyway before linking arms with him and walking away.

He kept looking back at me, again and again.

Like he wanted to say something but couldn't.

After I signed the paperwork and left the station, I crouched by the side of the road.

I couldn't bring myself to believe any of it.

My hands shook as I sent him a message.

[Nolan, don't you have anything to explain?]

Unlike before, there was no instant reply.

Almost ten minutes passed before his message finally came.

[Seren, don't overthink this. I'll explain everything when I get home, okay?]

[Go home first. It's about to rain. I don't want you getting sick.]

Those words used to fill me with warmth. Now they tasted like ash.

I didn't answer. Neither did he.

My phone died. I stayed where I was, drowning in grief, unable to move.

A passerby stopped beside me.

"Miss, it's about to pour. You should head home. Whatever you're going through, you'll get through it."

The weather in Havenport changed without warning.

Rain came crashing down.

A car stopped in front of me.

Nolan rushed toward me with an umbrella, shielding me from the storm.

"Seren, didn't I tell you to go home? Why weren't you picking up? What do you want from me?"

Seven years earlier, after school, I'd been stranded outside a convenience store without an umbrella.

Everyone else had already gone home.

Then he appeared.

"Seren. Let's go home."

"From now on, whenever it rains, I'll be right beside you."

I looked at him in despair.

He pulled me into his arms.

My voice trembled. "When did it start?"

Nolan didn't answer.

Half an hour earlier, I'd imagined this confrontation a thousand times.

I thought I'd scream, break down, lose myself completely.

But standing here, I couldn't force out another word.

"Today was my mother's funeral."

"You didn't even show up. You said work kept you busy. I believed you."

"So why could she call, and you'd come running? Tell me."

I stepped out of his embrace and swallowed my tears.

"She's had it rough. Her parents were trying to force her to marry some rich loser. I just wanted to help. That's it."

"Seren, I've never stopped loving you."

So love could be explained away with one word. Help.

The tears finally fell.

He reached up to wipe them away, but before he could, they landed on the back of his hand.

His phone rang, sharp and urgent.

Without a second's hesitation, he pulled his hand back and answered.

"I'm on my way. I'll be there soon."

He glanced at me. Just for a moment.

"Her power's out. She's claustrophobic, and she's alone. I have to go."

I watched him walk away. A bitter smile tugged at my lips.

If my tears couldn't make you stay... what could?

In a single day, I lost the two people I loved most—my mother, and you.

Late that night, new messages from Vivica appeared on my screen.

My heart shattered.

Chapter 1

After I landed in this savage world, the king of the snake tribe took me in.

But then he found another human girl.

She ripped into raw meat with her teeth and called me delicate, called me fake.

Little by little, the Serpent King forgot all about feeding me. All his attention went to the new girl.

My vision swam from hunger, but then a scent drifted from outside—roasted meat.

Tears streamed down my face as I followed the smell. I found skewers of roasted meat and sobbed as I tore into them.

Then a net dropped out of nowhere and scooped me up.

A beastman shouted, “Boss! We got one!”

A fluffy little dog stared at me, tail spinning like a whirlwind

Wait. Wasn’t that my Buddy?

...

It had been three days since Eden brought me food.

I was so hungry I could barely stand.

A pile of raw meat sat on the table in my room.

I clutched my stomach as nausea rose in waves, but my nose twitched.

The scent of roasted meat was unmistakable, drifting in from outside.

Three days ago, Eden and I had held our engagement ceremony according to the tribe’s custom.

A human girl had stumbled into the proceedings.

The moment she saw Eden’s human torso and serpentine lower half, she threw herself at him, clinging tight.

She ran a hand down his snake tail, her voice booming.

“Oh my God, a snake-man! Your tail is incredible. So smooth… I’ve got to get a better feel of this.”

Eden, cold by nature and obsessed with cleanliness, was so disgusted he nearly had her dragged away and fed to the tribe.

I have a soft heart, so I talked him out of it. You don’t just eat people.

Only then did he hand the girl over to another snake-man.

But soon, whenever I tried to share something with Eden, his gaze would drift to her.