Chapter 3

When I returned to the mating residence to collect my documents, all my belongings had been dumped across the living-room floor.

My sister descended the staircase wearing my white bonding gown.

Her snow-leopard ears resembled mine, though hers were smaller and softer. She deliberately lowered them to look innocent while her tail arched proudly behind her, betraying her triumph.

My husband had designed that gown himself.

His black-serpent crest and my silver snow-leopard markings were embroidered along the inside of the skirt.

My sister told me he had already agreed to give it to her.

After losing my baby, she said, my body had changed. I would never fit into it again.

I did not lunge at her.

I did not tear the gown apart.

I simply told her it was worth thirty million dollars.

If she wanted something that belonged to me, she could pay for it.

Humiliation twisted her face. She raised her hand to strike me, only to trip over the heavy skirt and fall.

My father and brother rushed in at the sound.

My father did not ask what had happened.

He slapped me across the face.

My head snapped to the side. My silver ears jerked, and the ring on his hand sliced the tip of one ear open.

Blood beaded through my fur.

He pointed at me and called me greedy, vicious, and no better than my dead mother.

He said I did not deserve to belong to the snow-leopard family.

My brother stepped between us.

For one fragile second, hope rose inside me.

Then he said coldly, “Do not hit her where people can see it.”

“If she shows up bruised at the registration ceremony, she’ll embarrass our sister.”

He threw a black card containing thirty million dollars at my feet and told me to take it and disappear.

I stared at the card.

Then, under all their eyes, I bent down and picked it up.

I told my brother that the gown, the furniture, the jewelry, and everything else I owned inside that den now belonged to him.

I would take only my identification.

From that day forward, I was no longer my father’s daughter.

And I was no longer my brother’s sister.

I turned to leave.

My sister called me back.

She said there was still one thing I had not surrendered.