Taken from her people. Claimed by an alpha. Forced into a new life. In a time before tools of metal and houses of wood, tooth and claw rule the wild places of the world. The Moon People have been enemies to Netya's kind for as long as the stars can remember. They are monsters, demons, men and women who take the shapes of beasts. The murderers of her father. An outsider taken as a prize by the pack, Netya must overcome suspicion, rivalry, and the division of her own heart as she grows to realise that monsters wear many different faces. Among the Moon People she uncovers the potential of a life she never knew existed. The chance for a woman to become something more than a prize, or a mother, or a concubine. But as the alpha and others vie for her heart, the powerful huntress Vaya seeks to purge Netya from her pack. Before Netya can decide where she belongs, she must endure the trials of love, hatred, and heartbreak. The girl taken as a trophy must become a woman.

The phone call, when it came, shattered Enrico Lucchesi’s world. His mother, his brothers, all dead. Gunned down in the street by order of Carlo Andretti, capo of the Andretti family. He still couldn’t believe it was only him and Papà left. Enrico couldn’t cry, couldn’t speak past the bocce ball lodged in his throat. All he could do was stare dry-eyed at his father, who’d done nothing for the last ten minutes but sob, great shuddering wails that shook Enrico to the core. His father never cried. He’d always told his sons a capo had to be stronger, braver, tougher than other men. But here he was, the great Rinaldo Lucchesi, weeping as if he’d never stop. Enrico finally found his voice. “Papà,” he croaked, reaching across the kitchen table for his father’s hand. When there was no answer, he tried again. “Papà.” The slight rebuke in his tone—after all, how many times had his father berated Enrico for softness?—caused his father to look up, to notice him at last. Papà took a shaky breath and wiped his eyes with the handkerchief he always carried. He ignored the hand Enrico had stretched toward him, and Enrico pulled it back, all the way to his lap. In the wake of those sobs, the kitchen seemed deadly quiet, filled only with the sounds of their breathing. His, his father’s, and Dario’s. Enrico glanced at the Andretti boy, who’d sat mute and wide-eyed this entire time. That glance seemed to remind his father of Dario’s presence, and a murderous glint came into his eyes. He snatched the boy out of his chair, scattering their playing cards to the floor. Dario let out a yelp of surprise. “Per favore, it’s not my fault!” For the past three days, ever since he’d taken Dario hostage in an effort to get Carlo Andretti to negotiate, to end the feud between their families, Papà had insisted on treating Dario as a guest. A guest who couldn’t leave the house, but a guest nevertheless. Because that’s how civilized men handled things. With honor, with respect. All that courtesy seemed forgotten now as his father wrestled Dario to the butcher block in the corner and mashed Dario’s slender body against the counter. When he pinned the boy’s arm to the cutting board, bile rose in Enrico’s throat. Dario was only fourteen, tall and gangly, all bones. He was no match for Rinaldo Lucchesi, a bull of a man in his prime. Enrico was no match for him either, but he had to try. He sprang from his chair, his eyes glued to Dario’s wrist, thin as kindling under his father’s meaty hand. Papà grabbed the cleaver from the knife block and swung it up in the air. Enrico grabbed his father’s arm at the top of its downward arc and yanked it back. Gritting his teeth, Enrico strained to stop his father. Dio, Papà seemed stronger than that marlin Enrico had hooked two years ago on a sport-fishing trip. He’d been Dario’s age then, too weak to hold out against the enormously powerful fish for long, but he’d put on muscle since. Not enough though. He was still only sixteen, and his father had to outweigh him by close to seventy pounds. They seemed to struggle forever, his father grunting curses under his breath, Dario’s thin reedy voice whimpering “per favore, per favore” in the background. At last his father said something intelligible, his voice a rusty rasp. “I am your capo. Do not interfere.” “You always said we aren’t savages.” “Savagery is all Carlo Andretti understands!” Papà gave him a hard shove, weakening Enrico’s hold. Catching a whiff of his father’s cologne, Enrico flashed back to a time when his father had carried him up to bed as a boy, cradling him in his arms. Somehow he had to reach that part of his father. Somehow he had to make him see reason. Enrico’s lungs burned and his arms shook, his father’s muscles hard as granite underneath his hands. “I want Don Andretti dead too. But crippling Dario isn’t going to bring Mamma and Primo and Mario back.” His father let out an inarticulate cry of rage and stilled, no longer fighting. “I must do something. I must show Carlo I can hurt him.” “Not the whole hand. The Lucchesis aren’t cruel. You always say that.” “The little finger then.” Enrico swallowed against the acid surging at the back of his tongue. Now that Primo was dead, everything had changed. Someday, when he became capo, he’d have to make harder decisions than this. Decisions that meant life or death. Decisions he’d never wanted to make, had never pictured himself making. But Carlo Andretti had killed his brothers, had taken any other future away from him. He could no longer think like a boy, act like a boy. He had to be a man now. Enrico nodded and released his father’s arm, then stepped away and closed his eyes. He tried not to hear the thunk as the cleaver bit into bone and wood, tried not to hear Dario’s cries of pain. Tried hard to think of what he’d done as mercy.