Rejected by her mate, sold by her father, Elaine Theodore is marked by Dylan Brooks, Alpha of the Nightshade Nook, not as a mate but as a vessel. An heir through cold insemination nothing more. In one year, the baby will be taken and she will be discarded. Dylan was prepared for a breeder. He wasn't prepared to feel his dead heart lurch. And he's definitely not prepared for what happens when a beast realizes the girl he caged is the only one who can tame him.