"You're a warrior she-wolf, Nora. You smell like motor oil and frontline mud. Alphas don't marry foot-soldiers who build stone huts; we marry ladies who rule empires. Pack your bags and get off my lands before you embarrass me." Nineteen years ago, Nora Hammond believed her fated mate, Alpha Jace Remmington, was the center of her universe. She bled for his border skirmishes, patched his armor, and drew the tactical blueprints that saved his pack from ruin. In return, Jace shattered their mating bond, stripped her of her pack crest, and discarded her into the freezing wilderness for a wealthy socialite Luna. He told her she would freeze within forty-eight hours. He told her she would never amount to anything. He was dead wrong. Nineteen years later, Nora Hammond is dead. In her place stands Alpha Nora Rosa the sovereign Alpha of the Black Rose Pack, owner of a multibillion-dollar defense conglomerate, and the architect behind the unbreachable, rune-shielded fortresses protecting the Royal Lycan Court. Her wolf, Rosa, has awakened into an ancient obsidian predator. Her scent is no longer dust and wildflowers, but frosted pine, cold ozone, and lethal Alpha command. When rogue clans dismantle Silvercrest's obsolete defenses and the Wolfen Council threatens to strip Jace of his lands, he arrives at Rosa Engineering in Denver, desperate to hire the legendary female CEO. He sits right across her mahogany desk. He shakes her hand. And the blind, arrogant fool doesn't even recognize her. To Jace, his discarded ex is an insignificant ghost from a low-born grave. He sees only a breathtaking, untouchable billionaire Alpha Queen he desperately wants to conquer. As Jace signs a twenty-million-gold contract mortgaging his ancestral territory to pay for her walls, an ancient prophecy from a blind witch whispers through Nora's mind: “He will beg you to build the walls that keep him safe... and with your own hands, you will lay the bricks of his cage.” Jace thinks he is securing the fortress of his dreams. He has no idea he just hired his ex-mate to build his tomb.