In the damned city of Hablet, where blood-mad Alphas and old gods hold sway, women are only prey to be broken beneath the full moon’s crimson glare. Sophie swore she would never kneel. She watched them strip her sister before the howling pack, saw her shattered body finally go still, and something inside her turned to cold iron.Trained in shadow by the lone wolf who once guarded her home, Sophie fought with teeth and fury when they came. But they killed her mentor and threw her into the Hunting Grounds anyway. Defiant, ready to die, she stood unflinching—until her sister’s murderer smiled and promised to keep her as his personal ruin.Then the devil walked in. Hunter, a Lycan Alpha built of slaughter and silence, painted the stones with blood. “Get your hands off my woman,” he growled, and slung her over his shoulder like conquered territory. She hates him with every bone. The mate bond, however, does not bargain with hate.When his beast begins to fray at the edges, Sophie offers a knife-edged truce: he may mark her in secret, but a public claiming means his throat opened. She will never belong to him, and if she ever loves another, she walks free. Hunter’s reply is soft as ash and just as warm: “I’ll burn this city to nothing before another male steals your heart.”Then the truth bleeds through. Her sister’s killer is his own blood. And Sophie herself is the Moon Goddess’s chosen—fated to either mend a dying line or bury it entirely. The bloody Alpha has finally claimed the one woman who might bring him to his knees.