"I don't need a shadow, Dad. I need room to breathe." I'm Liora Vance, seventeen, and the only daughter of King Edric of Marenhall. A year ago my mother died on the coast road, and I haven't slept right since. Now my father wants a guard stuck to my side day and night. His name is Torin Ash. He's tall, he never talks, and half his face is hidden behind a dark mask. He wears black gloves even in summer. In all the days he's been near me, he hasn't said one word, and it's driving me up the wall. But things are changing inside the palace. The Council is restless. Rulers from three kingdoms are coming to my eighteenth birthday ball, and everyone expects me to pick a partner who can save my father's crown. My heart wants something else. It wants the truth. The more Torin guards me, the more I want to know who he is. Why does my uncle go pale when he sees him stand? Why did my mother hide a torn diary page saying her death was no accident? I thought I was chasing a stranger's secret. I had no idea his past is tied to the worst night of my family's life, and to my future.

"You are nothing to me. You never were." Those were the last words Lena Cole heard before her world collapsed. On the night she was supposed to be claimed by the boy she loved, she watched him choose her stepsister instead — right in front of her eyes. Heartbroken and alone, she ran into the dark woods and fell into the arms of a dangerous stranger whose touch set her soul on fire. She never saw his face. She never learned his name. But he left a mark on her neck — and a secret growing inside her. Months later, Lena is fighting to survive as a marked, pregnant woman with no mate, no pack standing, and a father who would rather bury her than face the shame she brings to his door. Then he walks in. Cold. Powerful. Feared by every pack on the continent. Alpha Damien Cross — the man sent to choose a bride from her pack — looks at her like she is the only person in the room. And something about him feels terrifyingly familiar.