Chapter 1

I was born with a ticking clock in my chest.

The doctors at the hospital signed my death warrant before I even took my first breath, saying I wouldn't live to see twenty.

To save me, my parents found a Spirit Fox to be my Familiar.

She was bound to my soul, growing up alongside me as my shadow.

The plan was simple: once I turned twenty, we would complete a soul-bond ritual to transfer her life force and keep me alive.

But Niana always loathed my frail, sickly existence.

She treated me like dirt, her eyes filled with a hunger for my death rather than my survival.

On my twentieth birthday, I finally gave up and broke the contract, setting her free to embrace my own end.

That was when the proud, cold Spirit Fox broke down, sobbing as if her heart had been ripped out.

"Please, don't leave me..."

1.

I've had a bad heart since the day I was born.

Modern medicine couldn't do a damn thing for me.

My parents heard that if they found a Familiar to bond with me, we could save my life by performing a physical ritual once I became an adult.

So, when I was just a kid, they brought a Spirit Fox to our home and tied our souls together.

Her name was Niana, my soul-bound Familiar.

But as my twentieth birthday loomed, Niana was never home, and her attitude toward me turned from cold to toxic.

After school today, I waited for her at our usual spot so we could walk home together.

A passing classmate smirked and teased me.

"Still waiting for your big sister? She's long gone. I just saw her at the Neon Lounge with Jace."

To ensure Niana could protect me 24/7, my parents enrolled her in the same school and told everyone she was my sister.

Every day, we were supposed to head to class and come home together.

Protecting me was her only job.

Lately, she had been skipping out on our routine more often than not.

And this wasn't the first time I'd heard her name linked with Jace Montgomery.

Jace was in my class, a rich kid with a massive ego and my sworn enemy.

He couldn't stand the fact that a dying freak like me consistently beat him in grades.

After thinking it over, I decided to go to the club to see for myself.

The moment I stepped into the Neon Lounge, I saw Niana in a skimpy crop top and shorts, sitting right on Jace's lap with her arms wrapped around his neck.

"Aren't you going home with that little brother of yours? What if the poor baby gets lost?"

Jace squeezed her waist, laughing like a maniac.

Niana swirled her cocktail, her face masked with pure annoyance.

"Can we not talk about that walking corpse for one second?"

Those words hit me like a jagged blade straight to the heart.

It hurt so much I could barely draw a breath.

So that was how she really saw me―nothing but a walking corpse.

"So what if he's dying? Aren't you supposed to save him on his birthday? You're his Familiar, after all."

Jace took a long drag from his cigarette, staring at her intensely.

My chest tightened as I realized Niana had told him the truth about our bond.

She had promised me she would never tell a soul.

"I'm not saving him. A pathetic loser like that doesn't deserve to be my man."

"I want a man who is strong, powerful, and full of life."

Niana spoke with a bitterness that tasted like venom.