Kaelira Viremont has been living her whole life in the shade of rejection, as a child of a scandal that turned her into an outcast in her own pack and a victim of a stepmother who never allowed her to forget it. Kaelira looks forward to nothing but another part in the background of a life she was never supposed to lead when her sister, Serenya, is selected to be mated to a strong Alpha who will become ruler.However, a single night of prohibition alters all that.Kaelira is drugged and taken into an early heat and escapes into the forest and finds herself in the arms of a stranger in an isolated cabin. It is only too late to learn his identity, when she realizes that he was Draeven Kaelrith, the Alpha who was to be mated to her sister. Even worse, he has already branded her as his mate.Silenced and terrified, Kaelira is a spectator as Draeven takes her sister in a political marriage and has his own secret child in the shadows. However, secrets do not remain hidden in a pack where power and bloodlines reign, and as the truth about Kaelira starts to emerge, it sets the ball rolling and leads to betrayals, loss, and unimaginable decisions that shatter all her ideas about family, loyalty, and love.When the pack breaks and the price of survival is even greater than ever, Kaelira must choose to be the secret that no one wants to admit they made- or the truth that kills them all.And in a world where fortune makes marital choices, hers can be the most tabooed of all.