They burned my house and spared the servants, so six other houses would see how merciful they were.I was eleven. My mother hid me in the ash pit and never came back for me.Nine years later I walked into Hollowmere myself, under a dead girl's name, with two secrets. The first is who I am. The second is that my wolf has never come.A wolfless woman cannot be mated. That isn't a custom. It's arithmetic.Then the heir of the house that killed mine read my false name off a roll, and something in me answered him.If they find out, I'm executed in the ring as an infiltrator. If he tells his father, he keeps everything he was born to inherit.He knelt to fasten my collar in front of seven houses, and the bond went off between us like a struck match.Neither of us moved."Tell me your name," he said.

I didn’t move across the ocean to create a monster. I moved to escape one. After a brutal burnout in Paris, I leave everything behind. It starts with an ad. A random Instagram post I almost scroll past. “Win a house in Blackridge.” I don’t believe in luck. And yet—I click. A week later, I’m holding the keys to a house I never paid for. In a town I’ve never heard of. Blackridge is supposed to be quiet. Safe. Empty. It’s not. On my first day, I meet him. Cold. Controlled. Dangerous. The kind of man who looks at you like he already knows how you’ll break. That night, I hear the howling. Closer than before. Too close. Something about it feels wrong. Familiar. And when I step into the forest— I find the wolf. Injured. Bleeding. With the same electric blue eyes. I should walk away. I don’t. I bring it home. I name it. I write about it. And then— it disappears. He shows up. In my house. Bleeding. Looking at me like I belong to him. He’s not just a man. He’s an Alpha. And somehow—my words are changing him. Not controlling him. But pulling him closer. In this town, nothing is random. Not the house. Not him. And I’m starting to realize— I didn’t escape my life. I was brought here. And he wants me to keep writing. Because if I stop— everything might fall apart.