Maren spent three years as Shadowhollow Pack's most unwanted Luna — mocked for her size by the same pack she was supposed to lead, married to an Alpha who looked at her like an obligation instead of a mate. Caspian rejected the bond the night of their mating ceremony, in front of the entire pack, choosing his "perfect" beta-blooded mistress instead and letting Maren keep the empty title because exiling her outright would look bad to the council. She stayed anyway. Not for him. For the omegas he didn't protect, the pups his mistress mistreated, and the pack members too afraid to speak against an Alpha who'd stopped caring what kind of leader he was the day he decided Maren wasn't worth being a good one for. Three years of being talked over in pack meetings she technically ran. Three years of his mistress "joking" about her weight in front of the whole inner circle while Caspian said nothing. Three years of building a quiet network of allies who saw what she did for this pack even when their Alpha refused to. Then the border attacks start. Then the pack's real enemies — old enemies, patient enemies — figure out exactly how weak Shadowhollow has become under an Alpha who spent three years humiliating the one person actually holding it together. And Caspian finally has to watch the wife he discarded become the only reason his pack survives — built by a woman who never once needed his approval to be exactly who she is.