The Alpha looked at me the way men look at tools they have not yet decided to use. Cold. Assessing. Already planning the discard. "Don't make this complicated," he said. "You carry my heir. You leave. That is all you are here for." I almost laughed. A week ago, my uncle was standing in my living room with movers and an ultimatum. Sleep with him whenever he wanted, or lose the house by morning. I chose the Alpha's contract instead. Damien Ashford was everything the rumors promised. Ruthless. Feared. Bound to a dying mate he clearly adored and a throne his enemies were circling like vultures. I was not supposed to matter to him. I was a surrogate. A body. A clause in a legal document. But Damien had a habit of standing too close. Of watching me in ways he never explained. Of intervening in situations that had nothing to do with the contract. And I had a habit of forgetting that men like him always had reasons that had nothing to do with you. I knew how this ended. I had read the fine print. Hand over the child and walk away. The problem was nobody warned me what would happen in the space between arrival and departure. Nobody warned me I would stop wanting to leave.

They say Alpha King Darian Voss has no heart left to break. That whatever lived inside him died the night of the Blood Vow, along with every woman foolish enough to believe she could reach it. His name alone clears rooms. His silence is more terrifying than any command. And his mark, the one burned into his skin like a brand, is a death sentence wrapped in desire. I am Sera Calloway. No wolf. No rank. No worth, according to everyone who raised me. My own father traded me to settle a debt. To the worst possible man alive. I was supposed to be afraid. I was supposed to be nothing. But the night I walked into Blackmere Keep and the most dangerous Alpha alive looked at me like I was the only thing in the room that didn't bore him, something shifted. He doesn't do mates. He doesn't do mercy. He burns through women like they're kindling and the whole kingdom watches and says nothing. Too bad for him. I've been surviving without a wolf, without a family, without a single person in my corner for twenty-two years. I don't need saving. What I need is a way out. What I keep finding instead is him.