Page 1 of The serpent-beast despises me as a weirdo

Peter was a sickly little snake I'd adopted.

It wasn't uncommon for humans and shifters to pair and bond. My family had been bonded with snake shifters for generations. From a young age, each of us would either be gifted a snake beast-man by our parents or find one on our own.

But I was out of favor, so I quietly went and found my own little snake.

When I found Peter in a dilapidated sewer drain, he was tiny and frail. His body, having just shed its skin, was incredibly weak, and he was barely clinging to life.

I saved him, and I raised him for twelve years.

Raising a snake took immense energy, resources, and money. Raising a *sick* snake was adding insult to injury. And being an unfavored, penniless person? That was like adding insult to injury and then some.

Thankfully, Peter grew up healthy. His bronzed, muscular lines curved smoothly down, outlining his taut waist, yet his snake form kept him from looking bulky, instead giving him a certain delicate grace.

Many in my family said I'd struck gold, finding such a handsome snake-shifter.

I'd just smile, never saying a word.

Only I truly understood the bitter reality of our bond. Peter rarely initiated physical contact with me.

Even when I had to train for my snake-bonding rituals, he rarely cooperated.

He'd always be cold-faced, impatiently wrapping himself around my arm, his scales grating painfully against my skin.

I constantly reassured myself that snakes were cold-blooded, and that was why he didn't want to be affectionate with me.

Until that day I saw him, his face flushed, carefully wrapping himself around my sister Monica's calf, softly asking her, "Does it hurt?"

Monica looked helpless, gently pushing his head away.

"Peter, I know you like me, but you're my sister's companion. This isn't right for us."

His face instantly hardened, and he scoffed.

"I don't care. I only like you. Who would ever like that short little freak?"

Monica tried to protest further, but Peter moved closer, wrapping around her waist, his scales smoothed against her, playfully tickling her.

Peter was *flirting*.

Scene after scene from the past twelve years flashed through my mind. Peter rarely smiled, but during family dinners, sitting across from me, his face always held a faint smile.

Looking back now, he was never looking at me. He was looking at my sister, Monica, beside me.

The signs had been there all along, but I had just been too blind to see them.

I had thought that my adopting this sickly little snake was a mutual rescue, a fate that brought us together.

But I never imagined it was precisely *because* I was a freak that he disliked me.

It felt like my heart was being squeezed. That tiny flicker of hope I'd harbored for years, which used to tickle my heart, suddenly sharpened into a blade, piercing right through me.

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

Monica 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 Monica, made me look like a precocious little girl secretly wearing her mother's high heels.

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

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

No wonder Peter 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 Monica was conceived. And that extra care gave them every snake-shifter's dream match she grew fast and tall.

With Monica, 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.