He rejected me on the night of my eighteenth birthday. In front of the entire pack. In front of his chosen woman.I told myself I was over it. Over him. I left, rebuilt my life, and became someone stronger than the girl he crushed beneath his boot.Then he walked back into my life three years later with blood on his hands, fire in his eyes, and one word on his lips.Mine.Alpha Caden Black does not beg. He does not apologize. He commands, he takes, and the world bends to his will.But I am not the same broken girl he left behind.And this time, I refuse to be claimed without a war.The problem is, every time he touches me, my wolf screams his name. Every time he looks at me like I am the only thing in the world, I forget every reason I built my walls.He says the rejection was a mistake. He says he had no choice. He says he has spent three years searching for me.I say he is lying.But my body? My body is already his.

I came to Hargrove University on a scholarship and a prayer.I was supposed to keep my head down. Stay invisible. Survive.Then I met them.KANE. The cold-blooded captain who looks at me like I owe him something.RIVER. The charming devil who smiles before he destroys you.AXEL. The quiet giant who says nothing and sees everything.DRAVEN. The broken one who should be off-limits in every way that matters.Four men. One campus. And every single one of them has decided I belong to them.I did not agree to this.But the more they pull me in, the more I realize I am not just their obsession.I am their weakness.And someone out there wants to use me to destroy them all.I just have to survive long enough to figure out who.

He looked at me like I was nothing.Then he said the words that split my soul in two.“I, Cole Rivers, reject you, Aria Stone, as my mate.”I did not cry. I did not beg. I walked out of that packhouse with my spine straight and my heart in pieces.I told myself I would never belong to anyone again.Then I walked straight into Luca Thorne.The Black Ridge Alpha does not ask. He does not wait. He does not let go.And the way he looks at me is nothing like nothing.It feels like I was always meant to burn.

I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. One second I was cutting through the alley behind the restaurant where I worked. The next I was watching a man die and the man responsible was watching me. Dante Romano. The Don. The most feared name in the city. He didn’t kill me. That would have been kinder. Instead he took me. “You’ll stay,” he said, like it wasn’t a cage he was locking me into. Like I had a choice. Like I was anything more than a loose end he hadn’t decided what to do with yet. I told myself I would not break. I told myself I would find a way out. What I didn’t tell myself what I refused to admit even in the dark when he was all I could think about,was that some cages start to feel like home. And some captors start to feel like the only person who has ever truly seen you.