On her 18th birthday, omega Aria Nightbane is publicly rejected by her Alpha mate — and claimed the same night by the ruthless Lycan King. He needs her hidden bloodline to win his war. She needs his protection to survive. But no one warned the King that the broken omega he collected would become the queen he can't resist.

Hollowmere pays the Thorn King one girl every generation. This time, the village picked her sister. Briar Ellowyn didn't come to the Thorn Court to be a bride. She came with a kitchen knife and one plan: kill the king before he touches Nessa. But the blade is already at his throat when she learns the truth — the court's cruelty is a performance, and the real monster is the throne itself. Rhydian Corvane has worn a living crown for a hundred and eighty years. It feeds on obedience. It feeds on brides. Every cruel decree he signs is a trade: his reputation for his people's lives. And now the crown wants Briar — because the thorn in her blood is the one thing it can't digest. Marry him, or her sister dies at dawn. Briar says yes. But she didn't survive the hedge by obeying anyone, and she has no intention of starting now. In a court where a promise binds both ways and the walls themselves are listening, a village girl with a scarred thumb and a stolen knife is about to do what no army ever could: starve a throne. He is the monster. The throne is the enemy. And she is the bride it should never have chosen.

Three years ago, Sloane Avery reported a senior partner for what he did to a junior associate — and to her. The firm answered with an NDA, a blacklisting, and a reputation: difficult woman. Now she's back. New name. New title. Hired by the very firm that buried her — to bury the next girl. She signed their silence clause once. This time, she's going to unbury every name on their list — starting with the man who wrote it. The firm's star investigator is watching her. The managing partner already knows who she is. And the list she's hunting is locked in a safe that only opens for one birthday. She doesn't want money. She wants the record.

Sofia Marchetti planned a hundred weddings. Hers was supposed to be the perfect one. Instead, her fiancé doesn't show up — and the man who walks down the aisle to tell her is his father. Dante De Luca is the Don of New York's most feared family. He doesn't apologize. He doesn't explain. He just sits beside her on the church steps and tells her the truth: Marco was never going to marry her. The engagement was business. And Marco has already run. But Sofia has a secret of her own. Six weeks ago, at a masquerade ball, she spent one night with a stranger she never saw again. A stranger whose voice she would know anywhere. A stranger who is now sitting next to her, holding her ultrasound photo, asking her whose baby it is. Dante's answer is a contract: marry him instead. One year. A wife in name, a mother to his heir, and a target on her back — because his son wants the throne, a rival family wants his empire, and the baby she carries is the one thing they can use to destroy them both. She was supposed to marry the son. Now she belongs to the father. And the most dangerous man in New York is the only one keeping her alive.