INTRO
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*INTRO*
The year is 1817. The moors of Blackthorn are wet, wild, and full of secrets. To the King, _Greythorn Hall_ is a dukedom in the north. To the few who know, it is the heart of the Blackthorn Pack.
Blackthorn is not like London. The roads do not stay dry. The wind does not stay quiet. The hills rise sharp and sudden, and the farms cling to them like stubborn things. Travelers call it desolate. The people who live here call it home.
They have rules here. Do not walk the hills after dark. Do not ask why the fences break. Do not ask why the Duke’s household never burns torches when the moon is full.
Sebastian Greythorn is twenty-nine. He has been away for years. Not in London. Not at court. Abroad. The details do not matter. What matters is that he is back now. The letter came. His father is dead. The title is his.
Duke of Greythorn. Alpha of the Blackthorn Pack.
To the world he is ice. Scarred across the brow like lightning struck and missed. Tall enough that doorframes feel small. Silent enough that servants learn to speak in whispers. They say he came back to claim his duty. They say he will choose a bride from the ton and give the pack an heir and leave his heart locked away.
They are right. He intends to be cold. He intends to be duty. He does not believe himself fit for love. Monsters do not deserve softness.
Greythorn Hall runs on more than coal and coin. It runs on blood. Old blood. The kind that remembers the moon. The kind that changes when the air smells like snow and rain. Sebastian was born to rule men. He was also born to hide what he is. A duke by daylight. A lycanthrope by the wolf’s clock. Alpha by bloodright.
He came back for the title. He came back for the pack. He came back to choose a suitable wife. A political match. A stranger with the right bloodlines and no fire in her eyes. Someone he could marry for duty and never touch. Never want. Never risk.
He did not come back for her.
Eliza Marlowe is the fourth daughter of six. Three elder sisters stand above her. They are older, louder, more practiced at curtsying. Eliza grew up on the poor hill farms her family has worked for generations. Human. Untouched by the ton. Naive in the way of girls who have never seen a ballroom but know how to deliver a breech birth in a storm.
She cares for her father. She cares for her sisters. She cares for the village women who knock at their door at midnight with fear in their eyes. She carries herself with a duchess’s posture she was never taught. Shoulders back. Chin up. Not because someone taught her, but because that is who she is.
She does not want love. Love is a luxury. What she wants is security. Dry firewood. A roof that holds. Enough grain so her sisters do not go hungry. Enough money so her father does not break his back in the fields. Three sisters are unmarried before her. Propriety says she must wait. Propriety says she does not get to want anything for herself yet.
She has never seen a duke up close. She has never needed to.
The rain came down hard that afternoon. The road to the King’s seat turned to mud and swallowed carriage wheels whole. Sebastian’s carriage lurched, sank, and stopped with a sound like something breaking. The driver jumped down into muck.
“Wheel’s stuck fast, Your Grace,” the man called. “Might need an hour.”
An hour. Sebastian dragged a hand through his dark hair and threw the door open. He needed air. Not servants. Not pity.
He stepped into the downpour and the world hit him all at once. Wet earth. Woodsmoke. Sheep. And her.
It was not sight first. It was scent. Faint, carried on the wind from the hills above. Wildflowers after rain. Warmth. Something soft and human and utterly out of place in his world of wolves and blood.
He followed it without thinking.
The hill rose steep, crowned with a small farmhouse and pens. Female voices drifted down, arguing good-naturedly about a stuck sheep. Then he saw her.
Knee-deep in mud. Sleeves rolled up. Wrestling with a panicked ewe while five other women shouted from the fence. Rain plastered dark auburn hair to her face. Freckles stood out across her nose. Mud streaked her cheek. Her hazel eyes—green in the storm—were bright with determination.
She should have looked a mess.
She didn’t.
She looked like fire. Like a duchess who’d never been taught to bow.
She had not seen him yet. His wolf pushed forward, senses sharpening. Her heartbeat. The quick rise and fall of her chest. The exact shade of her eyes when she laughed at her sister’s yelp.
Human, his wolf noted with confusion. Not pack.
Sebastian stepped forward and a branch snapped under his frame.
All six sisters froze. The three eldest went pale and dropped into clumsy curtsies, pulling the younger ones down with them. But she… she turned, muddy hands still on the sheep, and met his gaze head-on.
Not with fear. With curiosity. And a spark of defiance that shot straight through him.
For one heartbeat, neither moved. The rain fell between them. The moors held their breath.
His wolf did not hesitate. The word slammed through Sebastian’s skull like a war drum, ancient and certain and utterly damning.
Mine. The heir-bearer. Mine.
Sebastian went still. Twenty-nine years of control cracked down
And on this rainy afternoon, two worlds are about to collide in the mud.
