Finley Steele

For years, the entire Pack mocked me as the bloated, wolfless freak of the Holder family. I thought it was just my tragic fate, until I hid in the attic and overheard my stepmother and stepsister laughing. "As long as she keeps drinking that mutated Wolfsbane soup I brew for her, her precious White Wolf bloodline will remain dead forever." My deformed body and dormant wolf weren't natural defects—they were the result of their daily poison. To get rid of me completely, they planned to sell me as a breeder to a perverse, blind old Beta from the black market. They did all this just so my stepsister Dolly could steal my rightful place and marry the legendary Alpha King, Jaxson Meadows. They thought they could step on my bones to climb to the top. But they didn't know that a year ago, during a brutal heat triggered by their poison, I had accidentally stumbled into a dark suite and given my first night to that very Alpha King. After a year of hellish detox, I finally purged the toxins, reclaiming my purebred White Wolf bloodline and my true face. Tonight, while Dolly waited in her diamond gown like a desperate clown for a man who would never look at her, I walked right past her table. I sat down directly across from Jaxson, looking straight into his golden-amber eyes. "I am Avery Holder. Let's make a deal."

I was the respected Old Lady of the Iron Legion MC, managing all their legitimate businesses from the shadows for six years. But when my President boyfriend, Jasper, returned from a deadly run, he brought a woman on the back of his bike-my seat. "She's under the club's permanent protection now," he declared in front of everyone, elevating the widow to a status right beside mine. He created two queens for one throne. When her son knocked a pot of boiling chili onto my arm, leaving me with agonizing second-degree burns, Jasper rushed to comfort the uninjured, crying boy instead. His grandmother even scolded me in front of the whole club. "It was an accident! No need to make such a fuss." Later that night, Jasper confessed he owed Brandy his life and sanity, choosing his trauma bond with her over my years of quiet devotion. I finally understood that in his ledger of debts and duties, my sacrifices didn't even register. I couldn't compete with a ghost, nor the woman who walked through hell with him. So, I dropped my claim necklace on the floor and handed the club's account keys to the usurper. What they didn't know was that the club's businesses were completely bankrupt, secretly kept afloat for years solely by my family's trust fund. I cut the financial tow line, leaving them a ticking bomb, and walked away to watch his kingdom burn.

I opened the door to my penthouse, only to see my stepsister's limited-edition Louboutins discarded on the foyer rug. Walking into the master bedroom, I caught my fiancé and my stepsister tangled naked in my bed. When I went back to the family estate to settle the score, my father didn't even care. Instead, he and my stepmother demanded I take my stepsister's place to save the family's reputation. "You will marry the seventy-year-old billionaire next month. We can't ruin your sister's life," my father ordered. Looking at their hypocritical faces, the last shred of my family affection died completely. They really thought I would just accept being their sacrificial pawn while they stole my mother's legacy. So, I pinned them down with a blackmail video of the affair, extorted my father for my shares, and walked out into the freezing night. To numb the betrayal, I went to an underground club, slept with a terrifyingly powerful stranger, and left a red lipstick note on his forehead. "Your technique sucks. Keep the change." Then, I vanished abroad without a trace. Five years later, I returned to New York with my three children, ready to take back everything that was mine. But I didn't expect that the "cheap gigolo" from that night was actually Kendall James, the most ruthless corporate titan in the city. And he had just spotted my five-year-old son—his exact miniature replica—standing right beside me.

I was the Luna of Silver Lake, yet I spent my mornings cooking eggs for my Alpha mate while his mistress, Keyla, sat in my rightful seat. I endured the humiliation for the sake of the bond, until the day my mother found Keyla poisoning the pack's water supply. To hide her crime, Keyla murdered my mother in cold blood. I screamed for justice, begging Garrison to open his eyes. But he didn't look at the evidence. He looked at the merger Keyla’s father offered. "She's hysterical," he told the guards, stepping over my mother's body to protect his mistress. To seal their alliance, he dragged me to the Great Hall and publicly rejected me, severing our soul-bond to sell me off to a sadistic Alpha for mining rights. He expected me to beg. He expected the weak, bloodline-cursed Omega to crumble. Instead, I accepted the rejection with a smile. That night, I drank a potion to erase my scent and threw myself into the storm, faking my death. Garrison thinks I’m a corpse at the bottom of a cliff, and rumors say he’s finally drowning in regret. He has no idea that the pain didn't kill me. It triggered the ancient, legendary blood of the White Wolf. Now, standing on the ridge with a Rogue mercenary army, I’m no longer the wife who cooks breakfast. I’m the monster at his gates, and I won't stop until his entire world is ash.

On my wedding day, my fiancé of ten years left me at the altar for another woman. He sent a simple text: "Haylee needs me." Hours later, that same woman ran me over with her car, causing me to lose our baby. But when I woke up in the hospital, my fiancé stood over me with a chilling demand. "Drop the charges against Haylee," he said, his voice cold. "She's too sensitive for prison. You're strong, Kira. You can handle this." To ensure my compliance, he threatened to release a humiliating video of my mother, who was suffering from dementia. I gave in, only to learn that Haylee had already tormented my mother with cruel whispers, driving her to suicide. The betrayal was absolute. He had not only destroyed my body and our child but had also orchestrated my mother's death to protect his new love. He thought he had broken me, leaving me with nothing. But as I lay shattered in that hospital bed, an email arrived from his biggest competitor. They offered me a new identity, a new life, and the power to make him pay for everything. They wanted me to fake my own death.

After ten years of devotion to my mate, Alpha Locke, today was supposed to be my coronation as Luna of the Silver Moon pack. A celebration of my unwavering loyalty. But just before the ceremony, I overheard him talking to his Beta. He called me a "barren field" and sneered that he was replacing me with his pregnant mistress, Debbie. He even made a bet that I would come crawling back within three days. In front of the entire pack, he announced Debbie as the new Luna, holding up a fake doctor's note as proof of my failure. When I tried to walk away, I was accused of attacking her. Locke's Alpha Command slammed into me, forcing me to my knees. "She has attacked your future Luna," he declared, his eyes filled with contempt. His final order was for the whips. Laced with silver, they tore my back open before his warriors threw me out like trash, leaving me to die in the forest. I blacked out from the pain and poison, only to wake up a prisoner once more. Staring down at me was the terrifying Alpha of our rival pack, Ron Moss. He looked at my tattered clothes and bleeding wounds, and his voice was a cold, questioning murmur as he repeated the words that had haunted me for years. "A useless she-wolf?"

My mate, Alpha Kaelen, was supposed to be my everything. But in his eyes, I was just a placeholder for the other woman in his life, Lyra. When Lyra claimed she was attacked by Rogues and pregnant with a bastard pup, Kaelen made his choice. He commanded me to tell the pack elders that I was the one who had been defiled. He commanded me to claim Lyra's child as my own. Then, when I discovered I was pregnant with our own pup, he gave me his final command: go to the Healer and get rid of it. Our child, he said, would cause Lyra too much stress. He gave her sweet comfort through their private mind-link while ordering me to kill our baby. I was a tool for his convenience. She was a treasure to be protected. But when his mother locked me in a silver-lined cell, leaving me to miscarry our pup in a pool of my own blood, the last of my love turned to ash. As I lay there, broken and empty, I gathered the last of my strength and let out a howl I hadn't used since I was a child. It was a sacred call for my family—the royal family of the Whitefang Clan—to come and collect their princess.

"I want the foreign correspondent position in the S-Region." My voice was steady, cutting through the quiet. It was a death wish, my editor said. But I needed out. My husband, Mark Johnson, had become a stranger. His world revolved around Sarah Hayes, the widow of his fallen partner. I cooked his favorite meal, waited for hours, only for him to say, "Sarah was feeling down. I took her to that Italian place she likes." My life with Mark was a slow, painful erosion. One night, I clutched my stomach, a sharp pain seizing me. "Something's wrong," I choked out, "Mark, help me." He sighed, exasperated. "Can't this wait? Sarah is upset." I left the apartment and drove myself to the hospital. "You're about seven weeks pregnant," the doctor said, adding that the pregnancy was unstable and risky. My mind reeled back to my previous miscarriage, two years ago, when Mark had been too busy. I looked at Mark, sitting cozily with Sarah on our couch, a portrait of domestic bliss. "The doctor said it was just a stomach bug," I lied, unable to bear their false concern. He then asked me to help Sarah cook dinner. I looked at my hands, raw from cleaning and work, and hurled a plate against the wall. "No," I said, "I will not." Sarah offered me an expensive hand cream Mark had bought her. A hot, sharp anger flared. This was my life; this was my home. I would not be buried.

The "Brewery of the Year" award felt like a cold stone in my hand, heavy with the unspoken weight of my wife, Jenny's, silence. She was the General Manager, the face on stage, thanking everyone but me, the head brewer, the one who actually crafted the award-winning beer. I was used to being invisible, just "Ethan Clark, the technician," a replaceable employee in her eyes, despite being the silent 65% owner of the brewery I started with my college roommate. At the party, a sales rep asked when Jenny and I would start a "brewing dynasty," and she laughed a sharp, dismissive laugh. "I'm not putting my career on hold to have a baby for any man. It's not worth it." Her words hung in the air, a public declaration that numbed me. Back home, I found a package from a fertility clinic addressed to her. My heart pounded as I opened it. Inside, a detailed IVF statement confirmed she was one month pregnant. Then, my blood ran cold: the donor was listed as "Wesley Todd." Wes, her "gay best friend," the man with the pitying, contemptuous gaze. The pieces slammed into place. She stormed in an hour later with Wes, scoffing at my divorce demand. "It's not about the joke, Jenny," I said, voice flat. She brazenly explained her twisted plan: "Wes's family is very conservative... I agreed to be a surrogate for him. We did IVF. We're going to have a modern family together." The audacity, the gaslighting, the sheer arrogance of their betrayal left me with a wave of pure disgust. "The divorce is final," I told them. "And I'm selling the house. You have twenty-four hours." The next morning, they tried to fire me from my own brewery, strutting in with fake authority. That' s when my CEO, Matthew, finally revealed the truth to a stunned Jenny: "He was never just an employee, Jenny. He's the boss. He's always been the boss." Why did she, the woman who claimed "visionary leadership," never bother to check who truly owned the company she flaunted? And what dark secrets about her and Wes were about to spill out?

The crystal chandeliers of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts glittered, reflecting what should have been the most perfect night of my life. My fiancée, Gabby Chadwick, stood on that gala stage, not hand-in-hand with me, but clasped firmly with Tony Johns, the very quarterback my family had plucked from obscurity. "My heart belongs to Tony," her amplified voice echoed, shattering the stunned silence and every last piece of my dignity. "Ryan and I are over." In that flash of a camera, I, Ryan Fowler, son of an oil tycoon, became a public spectacle, the jilted fiancé, left standing alone in a sea of whispers and pity. My parents, pillars of Houston society, saw not a heartbroken son, but a "publicly castrated" embarrassment, a "laughingstock." "That boy is dead," my mother declared, her eyes hard as diamonds, as my father exiled me to the brutal oil rigs, demanding I learn to build my own power. They thought they had broken me. But as I tasted the ash of their disappointment, a different kind of fire ignited within me. I swore then and there, the words a silent vow: I will come back, and I will dismantle everything the Chadwicks have ever built. I will make her regret the day she ever knew my name.

Emily Carter, a young woman battling a chronic illness while struggling in poverty, yearned for recognition from her wealthy CEO father, David Harrison. The night he received a major philanthropy award, she hoped to bridge their estrangement by presenting her research for a community health clinic, a tangible demonstration of her capabilities. Instead, she was publicly humiliated by her stepsister Brittany and met with cold, outright rejection from David. His cruel words echoed: "I'm done supporting you and your mother's legacy of shame." Unbeknownst to David, his wife Victoria and Brittany had systematically drained Emily's trust fund, sabotaged her reputation, and ensured her desperate pleas-even for her sick dog, Scout-were dismissed. Despite winning a full Johns Hopkins scholarship, every attempt Emily made to prove her worth was met with suspicion and further manipulation, leaving her isolated and ultimately, mourning the loss of her beloved companion. How could a man celebrated for developing life-saving drugs remain utterly blind to his own daughter's silent suffering and aspirations? Why did he continuously believe the insidious lies orchestrated by his new family, seeing Emily only as a burden, a "nuisance"? The crushing pain of his persistent rejection felt like a fresh wound on an age-old scar. Dying in a hospice on her 18th birthday, Emily sent a final, heartbreaking voice message to her father, asking only for him to say her name. His anonymous, impersonal text reply was the last devastating blow, sealing her tragic fate and unknowingly igniting a catastrophic unraveling of his carefully constructed reality.

For three years, librarian Sarah Miller has lived with a broken heart and a literal failing one, mourning her smokejumper husband Ethan, presumed lost in a massive wildfire. Then, a shocking phone call reveals Ethan is alive, but he has amnesia, calls himself Ash, and is building a new life with an entirely different woman who is pregnant with his child. Sarah travels across the country to confront him, only to find him utterly unrecognizable, showering a new love, Olivia, with the tenderness he once reserved for Sarah, even gifting her the silver locket that symbolized their eternal bond. The man she vowed "till death do us part" looks through her as if she's a stranger, the pain of his forgetfulness clashing with the unbearable sight of their most sacred token adorning another woman. Despite her own dwindling days and a heart shattered anew, Sarah chooses to hide her true identity, posing as his long-lost sister "Grace" in a desperate, selfless act to preserve his newfound happiness, even if it means dying in silence, forever erased from his memory.

For ten years, Liam was my world, tucked away in the grand halls of New England life as my secret love. He was the rough kid my sister Eleanor brought home, now a success in our family' s foundation, and to me, he was everything. Then a single Instagram post detonated my carefully constructed reality. Liam, radiant, with Chloe-his high school sweetheart-and a caption that twisted my gut: "Some things are worth waiting for." The air left my lungs as a decade of shared whispers dissolved into a public declaration for another woman. He dismissed it as a "drunken dare," then a "work crisis." But Chloe' s Instagram screamed their reunion, turning his blatant lies into a sickening mockery. Then, at a charity gala, he pulled her into a deep, consuming kiss-right in front of me. He abandoned me moments later when she feigned injury. How could someone who vowed such deep, secret love so casually erase our ten years, choosing instead a brutal public charade of betrayal and humiliation? The man I thought I knew was a stranger, and the vast emptiness where my love used to be threatened to consume me. With nothing left but shattered pride, I walked away that night and made a drastic decision. I would marry Ethan Prescott, not for love, but to reclaim my life. But even as I stood at the altar, ready to rebuild, I knew Liam wouldn't let me go without one last, desperate attempt to reclaim what he'd already destroyed.

My life in Austin was comfortable, idyllic even.   My parents owned a successful chain of organic cafes, and I was five months pregnant, planning a future with Kevin, the man I thought was different.   Then, sitting in our apartment, his mom Karen watched like a hawk as Kevin slid a  "Domestic Partnership Agreement"  across the coffee table.   Its terms were chilling: I'd waive all rights to his property, any large financial gifts from my wealthy parents would become "joint assets" solely managed by him, and marriage was indefinitely deferred.   My stomach twisted.   What I thought was a loving partnership revealed itself as a calculated heist.   Karen, who cooed about baby names last week, now had eyes small and calculating, her voice flatly stating it was "to protect Kevin."   They conveniently forgot my parents paid for our entire lives.   They saw me as a naive rich girl, easily separated from her family's money.   It wasn't smart; it was a brazen attempt at extortion.   How could he, and his mother, be so utterly devoid of decency, treating me like a walking ATM?   But under the shock, a cold clarity formed.   The devastation transformed into a fierce resolve.   I wouldn't just walk away; I would make them pay.   Feigning agreement, I proposed signing their predatory document after my parents' generous baby shower gift.   Then, I called my lawyer best friend, Chloe.   "You are not going to believe what these parasites just tried to pull," I told her, knowing exactly what came next: it was time for a plan, and for them to burn.

I had a car accident. Good news, I was reborn. Bad news, I was reborn as a speaker. I cried and howled day and night in sadness. Finally, I mourned for a month to accept reality. I started my life as a speaker. As a speaker with normal needs, I sang and danced every night. But... I thought the owner of this house was deaf, but it turns out he was just pretending. Later, he actually confessed his feelings to me. Hungry? Do you have a strong taste? This world has finally turned upside down.

"No wolf. No family. Harmless. Useful. The second I am done with her, the Luna title is yours." Eira Crawford heard those words through her husband's office door. For four years, she had been Sebastian Vale's hidden mate. She managed his household, entertained his relatives, cleaned up his messes, and lived on the three thousand dollars he gave her each month like charity. Even buying a new coat required an explanation. But for his first love, he casually prepared three hundred thousand dollars in research funding. To Sebastian, Eira was nothing more than a wolfless Omega from an orphanage. A quiet, obedient wife with no pack, no power, and no value beyond being useful. He had never introduced her publicly as his Luna. His family treated her like a servant. His sweetheart mocked her as a woman who could only survive by clinging to an Alpha. So Eira stopped crying. She recorded the affair, filed for mate dissolution, and placed the divorce papers in front of Sebastian. Even then, he thought she was throwing a tantrum. He signed without hesitation, certain she would come crawling back once she realized no one else would want a discarded, wolfless Omega. He was wrong. The woman he left at home washing dishes was a Stanford-trained electrical engineer. The "useless" wife he ignored was the hidden chief engineer behind a national self-developed chip project. Her movements were classified. Her disappearance could alert the federal authorities. Her name, once revealed, was enough to shake the entire scientific community. And Sebastian knew nothing. After walking out of his house with nothing but her freedom, Eira crossed paths with Killian Sterling, the coldest and most powerful Alpha in the north. He did not know her name yet, but his wolf recognized something in her that everyone else had missed. Meanwhile, Sebastian finally realized that Eira was not bluffing. He searched the entire city like a madman. For the first time in four years, he publicly called her his wife. He demanded she return. He begged for another chance. But by then, Eira was no longer waiting in his house. She was seated at the Sterling Pack's dinner table, dressed with quiet confidence, while the most feared Alpha in North America stood beside her. In front of everyone, Killian Sterling placed his hand at her back and said coldly, "Eira is not anyone's discarded Omega." "She is my Luna."

I was waiting at the Registry Hall to formalize my mate bond with Gabe, my childhood sweetheart and the Alpha of our pack. He was thirty-two minutes late. When I finally found him in a private VIP lounge, his hands were buried in my cousin's hair, their lips locked together. Hailee was supposed to be my maid of honor. Instead of apologizing, Gabe looked me dead in the eye and used his Alpha authority to publicly reject me. The severing of our ten-year bond tore my soul apart, but the nightmare didn't stop there. My grandfather immediately called, demanding I clean up a mess Hailee had made. When I refused, he disowned me on the spot, froze every single one of my bank accounts, and stripped me of my family name. Within hours, my entire pack erased my existence, gleefully announcing Hailee as their new Luna. I had given my entire life to a family and a man who discarded me like worthless trash the second I became inconvenient. I was left broken, humiliated, and utterly penniless in the blink of an eye. But as I stumbled out of that sterile hall, a terrifyingly beautiful stranger stepped out of the shadows, radiating a primal power that made my knees weak. He was Caden Sinclair, the ruthless Lycan King, and he was dodging a forced political union of his own. "You need a shield. I need a wife. Marry me." Without hesitation, I signed the Eternal Vow.

"This is Virella, my wife." Three years. And that was all Alpha Kaelen gave me. No welcome. No touch. No recognition. Just another woman at his side, carrying his child. While I ruled in his absence, I was nothing more than a placeholder. A Luna he never chose. So I gave up. And I left. One rejection was all it took to break the bond. When I returned, I wasn't the Luna he abandoned. I was untouchable, respected, and feared. And no longer his to claim. Now he watches me like a man drowning... Because the woman he discarded came back as something far beyond his reach. And this time, I didn't come alone. The Alpha of Ebonmoon stands beside me, his presence crushing, and his hand firm on my waist... "Careful, Kaelen," his voice drops, dark with warning. "Rowena isn't yours anymore." His lips brush my temple, possessively. "She's mine. If you try to take her, I'll end you."

I was the wolfless disgrace of the pack, traded like cattle to a dying monster. When a royal decree stripped away my engagement, my own father gave my fiancé to my cruel sister, Charly. My punishment for being born without a wolf? A forced marriage to Demetri Contreras—the crippled, disgraced Alpha left to rot from silver poison. They threw me into a frozen, forgotten estate, waiting for my new husband to die so I could be buried as a silent widow. Charly laughed as she stole my life, my mate, and my future. My family discarded me, just like they murdered my mother years ago. They thought this exile would break me. They thought I was a helpless pawn. They didn't know that inside this fragile body lived the soul of the top interstellar miracle surgeon. Looking at the ruined, festering Alpha bleeding on my wedding bed, I didn't see a corpse. I saw the deadliest weapon in the realm. The fallen Alpha needs a miracle to survive. Lucky for him, I am the miracle. I will drag this monster back from the gates of hell—and together, we will burn my enemies to ash.

I was the wolfless twin. The rejected bride. The daughter marked for death. They didn't realize they weren't killing a girl-they were breaking a seal. ​On my wedding day, my fated mate didn't say "I do." He said, "I reject you." ​Luke Blackwood didn't want a Luna without a wolf, so he chose my twin sister instead. Humiliated and hunted by my own father, I was forced to flee into the territory of the one man my pack feared most: Aiden Stormrider, the ruthless Alpha King and billionaire CEO of Crescent ​Aiden thinks I'm a pawn to be used against my father. He thinks I'm a weak Omega seeking refuge. ​He's wrong. ​Deep inside me, something ancient is waking up. It's not just one wolf-it's five. Five fractured personalities, each with their own deadly powers, born from a prophecy that says I will end the age of Alphas. ​As the Dragon Wolf rises, I will reclaim my throne. My sister wants my legacy? She can have the ashes. My mate wants my forgiveness? He can beg while I burn his world down. ​Aiden Stormrider wants my heart... but he'll have to survive the five monsters living inside it first. ​They wanted a sacrifice. They got a Queen.

I was born a wolfless cripple in the Richmond Pack, but by royal decree, I was engaged to the kingdom's Champion Knight, Emory. During the winter banquet, my half-sister Dessie suddenly tilted backward into the royal ice pond, screaming that I pushed her. In my previous life, I reached out in panic to save her, only to be dragged down and framed for attempted murder. When Emory dove into the freezing water, he swam right past my sinking body to rescue her instead. Once ashore, my own father and my betrothed ignored my desperate pleas. They branded me a vicious, jealous traitor. Emory publicly broke our engagement to marry Dessie, while my father threw me to the executioner to wash away the family's shame with my blood. Until my head was on the chopping block, I didn't understand. Why did my own family want me dead just because I had no inner wolf? Why did the knight who swore to protect me conspire with my illegitimate sister to destroy my life? Opening my eyes again, I was back on the snow-dusted terrace, right as Dessie was setting up the exact same trap. "A wolfless cripple like you should crawl back to the gutter," she whispered, falling backward. This time, I didn't flinch or beg for help. Instead, my fingers shot out like iron clamps, grabbing her wrist, and I dragged her into the freezing depths with me.

During the party for her second wedding anniversary, Kylie stood quietly to one side and watched her Alpha kiss his childhood sweetheart. Her life felt like a trap. She had relinquished her Alpha blood for him, and that was what she got. Yet fate wasn't finished with her. An encounter with Alpha Logan gave her a way out she hadn't expected. As the Alpha of a powerful pack, he could help her get even with her cheating mate. There was just one catch. Kylie would have to spend a year as his Luna. Accepting his offer would be a dangerous gamble, but Kylie struggled to resist her attraction to the Alpha she couldn't quite figure out. Could she bring herself to agree to his terms? What would she do if her feelings for him grew too strong to push aside?

On the day I swallowed the lethal poison, my blind Alpha husband was accompanying his adopted sister to her prenatal checkup. For three years, I ruined my face and crippled my wolf to act as his secret blood bag, absorbing his deadly silver toxicity. Yet, upon hearing of her pregnancy, he brutally forced himself on me to vent his manic rut. And the moment she whined for him, he abandoned me without hesitation, leaving me bleeding and shattered on the cold floor. "Take the money and keep out of her sight." He sneered, throwing a black card at my battered face to buy my dignity. He didn't know I was dying. I didn't cry or argue. I calmly signed the mate rejection papers and swallowed a forbidden neurotoxin that induces absolute physiological death. A month later, his sight was finally restored. But instead of the devoted Luna he loved to torture, he found only a withered, stiff corpse on the bed. The ever-arrogant, ruthless Alpha completely shattered. In the dead silence, he fell to his knees and crushed my lifeless body into his arms. He pressed his quivering lips to mine, desperately sinking his fangs into my freezing scent gland as he sobbed in absolute agony: "Stop sleeping, Gianna, I can finally see you... I'll pay you back with my life, just don't throw me away."

Talia Ashford has spent fifteen years hiding behind a glamour charm that makes her look plain, weak, and forgettable. Her stepmother, Vivienne Cress, reduced her to a servant after her mother disappeared in a mysterious fire. The pack believes Talia is worthless. On the day the Alpha of Shadowfang arrives, Celeste hits Talia and blames her for bad luck. But when Talia is called to the bonding ceremony, the bonding stone reveals a shocking truth. Talia is already bonded to Kaelen Frost, the cold and powerful Alpha of the Shadowfang Pack. Now Talia must survive her stepmother's schemes, hide her true powers, and uncover the truth about her mother – all while convincing the most dangerous wolf in the territory that she is not the weakling everyone believes her to be.

I stood outside the Pack Registration Hall, waiting to bind my future with Mark, the man I had loved for five years. But instead of taking my hand, he stopped a foot away and publicly rejected me in front of the crowd. "I can't take on your family's endless medical bills. I need a real she-wolf for a mate, not some wolfless mutt." The onlookers snickered, their whispers feeling like physical blows. My heart shattered into pieces. My grandfather was in the hospital, relying on me to settle down so he could face his risky surgery with peace of mind. Now, I was left with nothing but humiliation and a mountain of debt I could never pay off. I stared at the man I had devoted my entire youth to, his face now completely foreign. Why was my lack of a wolf a sin? Why did my family's suffering make me a burden to be thrown away like trash? Just as I was about to break, I saw a tall, intimidating stranger across the plaza, swarmed by reporters after his own high-society fiancée publicly dumped him. Driven by sheer desperation for my grandfather's life, I wiped my tears, walked straight up to this terrifying man, and blocked his path. "You need a mate to save face, and I need a million dollars for medical bills. Marry me." I expected him to laugh and push me aside. Instead, a calculating smile touched his lips, and he handed me a black card.