I was Julian Cross's secret for three years. Now I'm the Dean standing between his little brother and expulsion. Theo Cross doesn't know who I am to his family. He just knows I'm the Dean everyone's afraid of, and the only thing between him and getting kicked out before his career even starts. I didn't ask for this. The board assigned him to me. One semester to fix the golden family's black sheep, or lose everything I rebuilt after his brother walked out with it.He's not supposed to get under my skin. He does it anyway, pushes back when everyone else folds, says exactly what he thinks, doesn't perform for me like his brother used to perform for everyone. One late night in my office. One line I don't uncross. Now my office isn't a courtroom anymore. It's a confession. His brother ruined me once. I'm not about to let that family take this from me too.

Six hundred wolves watched Alpha Kade Ashcroft reject me on presentation night. Not one of them expected me to survive it. I was born the flaw in a bloodline of champions — a male Omega in a pack that breeds for strength and nothing else. My father hid me for eighteen years. Kade looked at me like a mistake the Moon Goddess owed him an apology for, and then he said the words meant to cut the bond clean and send me back to nothing. The bond didn't die. It went hungry. Three days buried in the training grounds where broken Omegas are dumped and forgotten, and something older than the pack laws woke up inside me. I came back faster than his enforcers. Stronger than his Betas. Sharper than every wolf who ever laughed behind my back. Kade notices. He can't stop noticing — the bond he tried to kill keeps dragging him back to my door like it never actually let go. I'm not interested in being rescued. I'm interested in watching him understand exactly what he threw away. But whatever's growing in me isn't free. It's burning through something, and the wolf who set this whole humiliation in motion never planned on me getting strong enough to ask why. Kade broke this. He doesn't get to fix it quietly. If he wants me back, the entire territory is going to have to watch him earn it.