What if the monster you were sold to wasn't the real danger?

They call him the Monster. Nine wives. Nine graves. No heirs.

I was supposed to be the tenth.

Sold by my family to save a sister who betrayed me, I thought survival meant staying invisible.

 But when I healed Alpha Kael Cinderclaw in the snow, I accidentally bound us together, a mate bond neither of us wanted and neither can sever.

Now I feel his rage like fire beneath my skin.

 He feels my fear like a blade against his throat. And the fortress that buried nine wives is watching us both.

My family wanted me erased.
His enemies want me dead.

And Kael? He looks at me like I'm the one thing he can't afford to want—but can't let go.

They wanted a sacrifice.
They're getting an awakening.
In a world where power is everything, the wolfless girl just became the Alpha's greatest weakness, and his most dangerous obsession.

Chapter 128 – The Fortress Starts Watching Back


I had learned that there were different kinds of silence.


There was the silence of peace, when a fortress settled after a long day and the wolves inside it finally stopped carrying the weight of their duties. There was the silence of fear, when everyone knew something was wrong but no one wanted to be the first to say it aloud. Then there was the silence that had settled over my fortress since the twins were born.


Through the bond I shared with Liora, I had become accustomed to sensing pieces of her world even when I wasn't physically beside her. Her emotions reached me first, sometimes as faint impressions and sometimes with enough force to make me stop whatever I was doing. Her exhaustion, her fear, her moments of peace, even the strange disturbances surrounding the twins all passed through the connection between us.


Chapter 128 - Chapter 128