Chapter 1

The Timber Rattlesnake around my arm was not a pet, it was my life, what little remained of it.

A century ago, a Beaumont saved me from a fire that would have ended my existence as a nature spirit, and I vowed to protect his line.

Years passed, and I poured my essence into saving young Clara-Belle Beaumont from a sickness no doctor could name, taking this human form, binding my power, my very spirit, into this spectral snake.

Now, Clara-Belle, my wife, stood before me, her eyes cold.

Her childhood sweetheart, Beauford Landry, coughed beside her, a dry, hacking sound he' d cultivated for weeks.

He' d told her tales, old whispers from the bayou, that the heart of a spirit-touched snake could cure anything.

He pointed at the creature on my arm.

My snake.

"Elias," Clara-Belle said, her voice flat, "Beauford is dying, I need your snake."

I looked at her, the woman I had given up immortality for.

"You don' t know what you' re asking."

"I know he needs its heart," she insisted, her gaze unwavering, "Give it to me."

Beauford smirked behind his hand, another cough rattling his thin chest.

"It' s just a snake, Thorne," he rasped, "Surely her happiness is worth more."

My snake tightened on my arm, its fear a cold wave against my skin.

"Clara-Belle," I began, trying to reach the woman I married, "This snake is part of me."

"Then give me a part of you to save him," she said, her hand reaching out, not for me, but for the snake.

I recoiled, but her eyes, they were already dead to me.

"Take it," she ordered two plantation hands who stood nervously by the door.

They hesitated, looking at me, then at her.

Her glare was enough.

They moved forward.

I could have stopped them, even weakened as I was, but what was the use? The betrayal was already complete.

They grabbed my arm, their hands rough.

The snake hissed, a sound only I truly understood, a sound of pure terror.

One man held my arm steady, the other, with a hunting knife Beauford had conveniently provided, reached for the snake.

"No," I whispered, but my voice was lost.

The knife sliced.

It wasn't just the snake's skin that parted, it felt like my own chest was torn open.

A pain I hadn' t known since the fire, since the binding, ripped through me.

I cried out, a raw, broken sound.

The man fumbled, pulling out something small and dark, the snake' s heart.

He dropped it into Clara-Belle' s waiting, outstretched palm.

She didn' t look at me, only at the gruesome offering.

"Thank you, Elias," she said, her voice devoid of any emotion but a chilling satisfaction.

My vision blurred, the room tilted.

The snake on my arm went limp, its spectral glow dimming.

My strength, my connection to the living world, gushed out of me like blood from a mortal wound.

I felt my hair, once the color of rich earth, drain of all color, turning white as bone, as ash.

The pain was a living thing, coiling in my gut, stealing my breath.

I stumbled, catching myself on a nearby table.

Clara-Belle finally looked at me, her brow furrowed, not in concern, but annoyance.

"Stop being so dramatic, Elias," she said, "It was just a snake."

Beauford, holding the "spirit-heart" reverently, coughed again, a triumphant little bark.

"He'll be fine, Clara-Belle, just a bit of theatrics."

Theatrics.

I looked at the dying creature on my arm, its life fading with mine.

My debt to the Beaumonts, paid in a way I never imagined.