Perswaysion

Ila Hardin, I was supposed to marry Blaise Greer, the healthy and powerful son of the Stonefang Pack's Alpha. But on my wedding day, my cousin Asha Hardin handed me a cup of sweet herbal tea. When I woke up, my limbs felt like lead, and I was locked in a dark, dusty storeroom. Outside the heavy door, I heard the maids excitedly whispering. "Miss Asha did it. She's mated to Master Blaise now! Now she won't have to marry that living corpse, Amos." She hadn't just stolen my place at the altar, she had condemned me to be the placeholder mate for the comatose, dying Alpha Amos Greer. I remembered her muttering about a "second chance" from the Goddess. She was a reincarnator. She knew Amos was destined to die, so she used her knowledge of the future to steal the healthy brother. She thought I would just quietly accept my tragic fate and fade away in a dead man's wing.But she made one fatal miscalculation. The weak, submissive Omega she remembered was gone, replaced by the soul of a top trauma surgeon from the twenty-first century. I won't be anyone's sacrificial pawn. I'm going to cure my "doomed" husband, expose her treacherous crimes, and make her pay for everything she stole.

Asher Carter was my childhood sweetheart, the man I was destined to marry. Our powerful families were intertwined, our future was set, and I trusted him with my entire soul. Then he brought Bailee into our lives. She was a striking look-alike, and he used her to stoke my jealousy, turning my love into a weapon he could wield against me. He watched, amused, as I spiraled into a caricature of myself, consumed by insecurity and rage. While I fought for a love that was already a lie, he systematically destroyed my family's business, driving my parents to their deaths in a "tragic accident." He painted me as a venomous, obsessive woman to the public, using my own past feelings to justify his cruelty. I died a pariah, completely alone. Until my death, I never understood how the man who promised to protect me became the architect of my ruin. Then, I opened my eyes. I was back at the annual gala, the night it all began. This time, there would be no tears, no scenes, and no second chances for him.

Chloe was just a charity-case student surviving on the Beaumont family's trust fund, but she made a fatal mistake: a secret one-night stand with the untouchable Wall Street king, Arthur Beaumont. She begged him to forget it, but the ruthless heir treated her like a cheap transaction, throwing a penthouse code, a Birkin bag, and a sugar baby contract at her. When she threw his limitless black card back and chose to run away, her nightmare truly began. A malicious photo of her being shoved into his luxury car was leaked to the entire university by a jealous socialite. Overnight, Chloe became an absolute pariah, cyberbullied and publicly humiliated as a dirty girl kept by some ugly, old loser. Even Arthur's mother, the terrifying matriarch, began interrogating her, threatening to marry her off to a random man just to crush her dignity. Pushed to the edge, Chloe decided to fight back on her own, publicly pointing out the multi-million-dollar watch in the photo to expose her bully's lies. "Do you want me to call the police and have them investigate exactly who that man is?" But before the crowd could react, the Dean and Arthur's lethal bodyguard suddenly stormed into the classroom, instantly expelling her bully and crushing the girl into terrified silence. They weren't there to save Chloe; they were ruthlessly protecting Arthur's flawless identity. Standing in the dead-silent hall, watching the bodyguard's fleeting shadow, a suffocating chill ran down Chloe's spine. She finally understood the terrifying price of provoking capital, and she knew exactly what this meant: the devil was never going to let her go.

Eleanor Sinclair always knew her stepmother and stepsister were leeches, but she never expected their betrayal to reach into her private study. In the dead of night, she caught the family's trusted nanny of twelve years photographing confidential trust documents. The mastermind paying her off was Lillian, Eleanor's stepmother, who had been secretly embezzling estate funds and bribing tutors to deliberately ruin the academic future of Eleanor's younger brother, the only legitimate heir. Emboldened by their deceit, the parasites grew arrogant. Her stepsister, Isabelle, deliberately flaunted her secret affair with Eleanor’s billionaire fiancé, sobbing fake tears while waiting for Eleanor to suffer a humiliating nervous breakdown. When the tension finally peaked, Lillian played the victim so perfectly that Eleanor's own father, a powerful U.S. Senator, stormed into the room with a raised hand, ready to strike his own daughter. "You will apologize to your stepsister immediately! I will not have this family harmony destroyed by your petty jealousy!" They actually expected her to be a weeping, heartbroken girl. They thought cheap hotel affairs and stolen pennies could outsmart the true Sinclair bloodline. Did they really believe a few fake tears and a weak-willed father could strip her of her empire? Eleanor didn't feel anger; she felt the cold, detached fascination of a biologist observing doomed insects. She calmly pulled out the forensic audits, locked down the estate's exits, and prepared her stepmother's psychiatric commitment papers. The merciless purge of her family had officially begun.

I thought I was the center of Michael’s universe, carrying the heir to his shipping empire. That illusion shattered the day I found his journal. It turned out I was just a "vessel" to launder money, while his "cousin" Selena was his true love. The cruelty peaked at lunch. When a tureen of scalding lobster bisque tipped over, Michael didn't lunge for his pregnant wife. He threw his body over Selena to protect her silk dress. The boiling soup soaked my stomach. As I screamed in agony, feeling the life slip from my womb, Michael only glared at me. "Stop making a scene, Liv! It would have ruined her outfit." That fall killed his son. But I didn't tell him. Instead, I watched him panic when Selena went into kidney failure days later. He begged me to get tested as a donor. "She's family, Liv. Please." I asked him, "If it were me dying, would you ask her to cut herself open?" "No," he whispered. "I wouldn't let anyone hurt her." That was the answer I needed. I agreed to the test just to distract him. While he liquidated his entire fortune to buy her a black-market organ, I finalized the divorce, emptied the accounts, and vanished. I left him with nothing but a medical report on his desk: *Fetal Demise due to abdominal trauma.* He saved her dress. But he killed his heir.

My mate, Alpha Santino, brought another woman into our home. She was a pregnant Omega, the widow of his fallen Beta, and he swore to protect her above all others. He gave her my seat of honor, left our bed cold each night to soothe her feigned nightmares, and ignored me completely. I was the Luna of the Blackstone Pack, but I was becoming a ghost in my own life. The final betrayal happened in my own bedroom. She stood over my vanity and deliberately shattered my mother’s sacred moonstone necklace, the last piece of my family I had left. When Santino burst in, he didn’t see my heartbreak. He saw only her fake tears. “What did you do to her?!” he roared, his voice laced with the Alpha’s Command, a sacred power he used to crush my will. Then, for her, he did the unforgivable. He raised his hand and struck me, his mate. In that instant, the love I had desperately clung to turned to ice. The man I had sworn my life to had not only betrayed me but had defiled the sacred bond the Goddess herself had blessed. As the pain of his betrayal ripped through me, something ancient and powerful awakened in my blood. I rose to my feet and spoke the words that would destroy his world and begin mine. “I, Alessia Bianchi, reject you, Santino Moretti, as my mate.”

For three years, I was the Luna for the powerful Alpha Kaelen. He showered me with gifts but never with love. When he touched me, his eyes looked through me, searching for a ghost I couldn't see. When my human father was dying, I reached out to him through our sacred mind-link, begging for my Mate's comfort. He blocked me. I called for him ninety-nine times while my father died alone. Two days later, our Beta sent me a vision of Kaelen in Paris, holding my aunt, Lyra, with a tenderness he had never once shown me. When he returned, he lied effortlessly, blaming the distance for the broken link. I found the truth locked in his private study. It was a shrine to her. His diary revealed everything: our first meeting, the rogue attack where he saved me—all of it was a lie, staged so he could have a substitute for the woman he truly loved. I was just a vessel for her bloodline, and the pup I carried was conceived from that lie. So I tricked him into signing two scrolls. The first was a protocol to magically hide my pregnancy. The second was a blank rejection form, which I signed and filed with the Elders before walking onto a ship bound for a new continent, erasing myself from his world forever.

My five-year relationship wasn't just with my CEO girlfriend, Olivia; it was with the company we built from scratch. I poured my heart into both, from the late nights debugging to the vision of an empire. Then her entitled nephew, Liam, an intern who knew nothing, pushed a catastrophic error into our live system. It was a million-dollar mistake that could cripple us. When I confronted him, he whined to his aunt. Olivia called me into her office, her voice cold. Liam sat there, feigning tears. She snapped that I was bullying her nephew, who was "just trying his best." Her solution? A choice: either I get demoted to Liam's personal assistant, mentoring him and taking full responsibility for his incompetence, or I clean out my desk and move out of our shared apartment. I signed my resignation, printing it from her own printer, and slid it onto her desk. "I choose option two," I said, handing back her apartment key. "We're done." Olivia, stunned, ripped up my resignation, screaming that I was fired. As I walked out, Liam, emboldened, pointed and yelled that everything was my fault, that I had sabotaged the company. I just kept walking.

My husband, Michael Miller, was cheating on me. I knew it like a storm on the horizon; the air between us had grown cold and quiet for months. Tonight, on my birthday, I found him at a rooftop bar with his ex-girlfriend, Brittany Blake, a social media influencer he' d long desired. They looked like a perfect couple, and his words, "Sarah? Oh, she's probably at home. You know how she is. A little boring. A little...needy," cut through me like a knife. Public humiliation felt like a physical blow. Hours later, in agonizing pain from a miscarriage, Michael, smelling of Brittany' s perfume, abandoned me in a pouring rain to rush to her side. He believed her fake emergency, leaving me, his bleeding, pregnant wife, alone on a dark street, just blocks from the hospital. His casual cruelty was staggering. "You didn't fall. You were pushed. And you deserved it. You tried to attack Brittany." When I finally uttered the words "I'm pregnant," he sneered, "You're lying. You're making it up to manipulate me." The pure, unadulterated selfishness of it was staggering. Then, at the hospital, as I mourned our lost child, he asked me to make soup for Brittany. I understood everything. He saw me as disposable, a placeholder. It was then, looking at the beating heart I had saved, that I declared, "I want a divorce."

Six years. An engagement ring on my finger. A future designed together, just like the buildings we drafted. All of it shattered when Mark, my fiancé and professional partner, coldly declared, "It's not working, Ava. I'm with Chloe now." My world crumbled further as Mark and his new, younger intern, Chloe, began a calculated campaign to erase my contributions at work, culminating in Chloe taking credit for my projects and Mark accusing me of mental instability to sideline me professionally. The betrayal escalated when, after I tried to confront Chloe about my vandalized portfolio and missing belongings-acts I knew she committed-Mark brazenly defended her, painting me as the aggressor. "You' ve gone from pathetic to dangerous," he sneered, publicly suspending me and demanding I leave the premises. Shoved into a dark storage closet by security, alone and overwhelmed, I overheard Mark' s contemptuous voice: "She's faking it. She's just looking for sympathy. Leave her there. It's what she deserves." Then Chloe appeared, her face close to mine, venomously whispering, "You should have just stayed broken. He was mine. This job was mine. You had your turn." She pressed down hard on the bruise Mark had left on my arm, a chilling, triumphant smile on her face. Just as I thought I couldn' t bear another moment, a new voice cut through the air outside, loud and utterly unfamiliar: "I'm looking for Ava Miller. Her fiancé sent me to pick her up. Where is she?"

My grandmother, Eleanor Vance, a woman who curated lives as meticulously as her art collection, had decided my future: marriage to the influential gallery owner, Daniel. My dream, however, was to attend the prestigious Blackwood Art Academy, a dream she' d promised to fund-on the condition of this union. But then, my cousin Olivia, ever the delicate flower, executed a theatrical faint at the dinner table, perfectly timed with the announcement of my tuition. She claimed a rare heart condition, and my grandmother, blind to the obvious manipulation, diverted my entire academy fund to Olivia' s supposed treatment, even suggesting I become her "assistant." The injustice burned, the audacity of Daniel-my supposed fiancé-proposing I become his mistress after he secured the Vance fortune through Olivia, was breathtaking. Was my art, my entire future, to be sacrificed for a transparent charade? Just as I believed all hope was lost, a mysterious letter arrived: a full, anonymous scholarship to Blackwood, the exact academy I had been barred from, exposing Olivia' s deceit in front of the city' s elite.

My first life ended in a sterile hospital room, watching my own sister, Jessica, and husband, Leo, gloat over my dying body. "You and your kid were just in my way," Jessica whispered, her words a venomous hiss right before the heart monitor flatlined. I gasped, ripping back into consciousness, but this time Leo was beaming, telling me we were pregnant, surrounded by the familiar scent of his cologne. It was the very day my perfect life had first begun its slow, agonizing crumble into a nightmare, unknowingly orchestrated by the two people closest to me. How could the man I loved and my own sister conspire to destroy me, to silence me and my unborn child so coldly? But this time, I wasn't just back; I was back to rewrite the ending, with every betrayer poised to walk straight into the traps I'd already set.

The funeral was a grand affair, fitting for a hero. My husband, Michael, a decorated NYPD detective, was killed in the line of duty, they said. I stood by the open casket, three-year-old Leo clutching my hand, expected to be a shattered, grieving widow. But I felt absolutely nothing. Because the man in that casket wasn't Michael. It was his identical twin, Mark. And the man openly sobbing beside my mother-in-law, the one they called "Mark," was my husband, Michael. I knew this because I' d lived this nightmare once before. In my first life, I' d exposed his lie. His response? He had me committed, claiming my grief drove me mad. From a barred window, I watched him marry his high school sweetheart, Ashley. That night, he gave our son, Leo, 'sleeping medication.' A week later, Leo never woke up. The loss of everything-my child, my freedom, my entire life-was too much. I ended it, regretting only not calling my kind college friend, David. Then, I woke up. I was back, standing before the casket, Leo' s warm hand in mine. I remembered Michael' s chilling words to his mother: "Chloe is strong. She'll manage. I'll take Mark's place." He thought I' d quietly raise our son while he lived happily ever after. He was terribly wrong. This time, I wouldn't be strong for him. I would play his grieving widow. And I would burn his entire world to ashes.

My daughter, Chloe, had just won the National Science Medal. I swelled with pride, our family's future seemingly shining bright. But my wife, Victoria, saw only betrayal. Her eyes, cold as stone, fixed on Chloe's medal, accusing her of ruining her cousin's life. In a fit of twisted rage, Victoria locked Chloe, claustrophobic and terrified, in our freezing wine cellar, turning down the thermostat to Arctic levels. Then, she had me dragged and sealed inside a blasting steam room, forcing me to watch through the glass as my brilliant daughter gasped for her last breaths, turning blue from cold and panic. My desperate pleas for help echoed uselessly. Every call was sabotaged, every rescue attempt blocked by Victoria's ruthless power and influence. My heart screamed. How could a mother do this? How could my own wife become such a monster, deliberately torturing her daughter to death, leaving me helpless? The sheer injustice was a searing blaze hotter than the steam engulfing me. Yet, even as my world crumbled, a flicker of defiance ignited. Though Chloe was lost, her grandpa, the family patriarch, stripped Victoria of everything and bequeathed his entire empire to me. Now, fueled by grief and a burning need for justice, I, the once-powerless father, rise to forge a new legacy from the ashes of our shattered family, ensuring no one ever forgets Chloe's name, or what was done to her. Victoria herself met a grim, solitary end.

The applause roared like the ocean, but my world felt silent. On stage, my twin sister, Stella, was smiling, delivering the salutatorian address at Northwood University. She was using my name, Ava Davenport. But this wasn't her life. It was mine. I knew because I' d lived this moment before, watching from a dark room, right before the police arrested me for a murder I didn' t commit. This time, I was here, walking down the aisle towards her. The murmurs started, questions of two identical girls. Dean Harrison demanded to know who I was. "I'm Ava Davenport," I stated, clear and steady, pointing at the impostor. Chaos erupted as my biological parents, the Davenports, stepped forward. They embraced Stella, claiming she was their daughter, and called me a disturbed impostor. Stella produced pristine ID with her face, bearing my name. My mother then revealed the "definitive proof" : a star-shaped birthmark on Stella' s left wrist. Ethan, the high school quarterback, vouched for Stella, his words echoing my conviction in a past life. My foster parents, brought by the Davenports, labeled me a "pathological liar" obsessed with my "real family." Security guards advanced. The weight of their orchestrated lies was crushing, turning the crowd' s whispers into a deafening judgment. They saw a crazy stalker, a criminal. Every detail was identical to my previous nightmare, a life where I endured and lost everything. But this time, my heart wasn't racing. It was cold, heavy, and ready. "Just one more piece of evidence," I declared, calm and collected, reaching for my phone.

In the fifth year of marriage, Rylan had an affair with a somewhat famous internet celebrity. His friends asked him, "If Stella finds out and wants a divorce and half of your assets, what will you do?" He laughed disdainfully while smoking, "Stella, she's just someone who throws herself at me, loves me to death, and can't leave me." Later, when I presented him with the divorce agreement, he cried and tried to hold on. But, cold wine can still be warmed, how can a cold heart be warmed?

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.

For three years, I poured my blood, sweat, and tears into building Blackwood Group for Alec, my Alpha and the man I thought was my mate. But on the day of our work anniversary, I stood outside his office door and heard him talking with his Beta, shattering my entire world. "Kay is just a wolfless Omega, useful for paperwork," Alec sneered coldly. "The bonding ceremony is just a show for the elders. The real Luna, the one who carries the bloodline that matters, is Breanne. I'm transferring all of Kay's core project files to Breanne tomorrow. Let her take the credit." He even texted me later, telling me to wear a blue dress to the upcoming gala because it made me look "obedient." I had turned down a Wharton scholarship for this man. I had spent countless nights fixing his mistakes, building his empire, and giving him my youth. Yet to him, I was nothing but a disposable placeholder, expected to smile and bow while another woman stole my life's work and my place by his side. The agonizing pain in my chest didn't break me; it forged me into ice. I didn't cry, and I certainly didn't beg. Instead, I wiped his servers clean of every strategy I had ever created, left a wax-sealed resignation on his desk, and accepted a job offer from his most ruthless rival.

Fear follows Alpha Samson wherever he goes. As the ruthless leader of the Blackthorn pack, he and his beast, Savage, bow to no one. But when a haunting scent leads him to a neighboring pack's dungeon, he finds his fated mate-bloody, broken, and chained to the wall. Alora is a half-wolf, half-witch hybrid falsely accused and left to die. But her abusers made one fatal mistake: they touched the mate of a monster. Rescued by the fierce Alpha, Alora begins a journey of healing that uncovers a lifetime of lies. She isn't just a survivor; she's a weapon. Together, Samson and Alora will unleash hell on those who wronged her, unearthing dark family secrets and claiming the crown that was stolen from her birth.

I was three months pregnant when the car hit me. Lying there, barely hanging on, I called my husband-Alpha Ethan-over and over. No answer. When I finally woke up from the pain, I saw a post from his first love, Ivy. "Thank you, Alpha, for knowing how scared I am of the dark and staying with me all night. He even cleared his whole schedule today to take me to the auction, just to give me the best gift in the world. I'm so happy!" Right then, it hit me. While I was fighting to protect our child, he was with another she-wolf. I calmly liked her post and put my phone away. Since he chose his first love, I chose to let go. Seven days from now, I'd leave his world for good-with our child.

Emilia Taylor was the most unwanted daughter of the Frostridge Pack. She had no wolf, no status, and no one who truly loved her. After failing to awaken at the age of twenty-two, she was betrayed by her lover, abandoned by her family, and finally sent by her father to the Silver Moon Pack-to become Sebastian Simons' seventh bride. Sebastian was the Alpha everyone feared. Rumor had it that none of his first six wives had met a good end, and every woman who married him eventually became another name on the list of the dead. Everyone was waiting for Emilia to die. But they did not know that her failed awakening had not left her with nothing. Instead, she had gained the ability to read minds. She could hear the malice and lies hidden behind every smile. Everyone's thoughts were open to her. Except Sebastian's. She could not hear his mind, nor could she see through his secrets. When a wolfless girl abandoned by everyone meets a cold-blooded Alpha haunted by the mystery of six dead wives, will she become his next victim-or the only one who can break the curse?

"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."

For years, Elara Park endured being called "half-breed" and "weak blood" at pack meetings. Because she was a hybrid wolf, she trusted Zack Blackwood's sweet promises. Then he rejected their fated mate bond moments after claiming her body. Before she could even breathe through the soul-crushing agony, the news was already celebrating his engagement to her vindictive stepsister, Selina. The headlines gushed about their "perfect pureblooded union." Her mother's call came like a final blow: "Elara, you're twenty-three now. It's time you contributed to the family." Marry the worthless second son of a prominent Alpha family or lose her father's empire forever. They had her trapped, ready to steal her birthright and leave her powerless. But as the heartbreak bled out, ice-cold determination took its place. Elara went to the arranged meeting at the city's most exclusive club, determined to turn her mother's matchmaking scheme to her advantage. She would agree to marriage-but on her own terms. When she found who she believed was Damian Sterling in the private suite, she cut straight to business: a contract marriage with clear boundaries, separate lives, and a guaranteed escape route. What she didn't know? The devastatingly dangerous man who'd just signed her contract with a predator's smile wasn't the pathetic playboy she expected. He was Dominic Wolfe-the Alpha King who'd been relentlessly hunting her for years. And now, she'd just signed herself over to him completely.

Accidentally murdered the bride? Check. Forced to marry the cursed Alpha who's lost six wives? Check. Now wearing her dress, dragged to his bed, while the pack waits outside for proof he's fucked me raw? Double check. Remi was just trying to catch her cheating boyfriend in the act. Instead, she tripped, ripped lace, and cracked a skull. Now Alpha Nero Blackwater owns her. "Bride for bride," he growls. "You owe me a wedding... and a womb." The curse kills his mates before dawn. Unless he plants an heir fast. But something's wrong. What if there was never a curse at all? One night to survive. One claiming to break everything. One Alpha who'll fuck her senseless... even if it's the last thing she feels.

Tomorrow was supposed to be our third anniversary. I had spent three years believing Cason and I were fated mates, until I overheard him telling his Beta that our bond was entirely fake. He called me a "controllable tool" used to appease the Pack elders, and confessed he was about to formally reject me to marry his true love, Karin. From that night on, the humiliation only escalated. Karin roasted my beloved pet falcon and served it to me on a silver platter, yet Cason violently shoved me to the ground for daring to yell at her. When the hospital called to tell me my father was dying and needed emergency surgery, Karin dramatically clutched her chest, faking an illness. Cason didn't hesitate. He scooped her into his arms, abandoned me, and deliberately froze all my bank accounts to punish my "disobedience." "Be a good, obedient Luna, and your father's bills will be paid." I sat in the freezing hospital corridor, unable to afford the deposit to save my only family, realizing the man I had loved was an absolute monster. Three years of marriage was nothing but a cruel, calculated lie. I stopped shedding tears and stopped begging for his scraps of affection. Instead, I slipped a legally binding Declaration of Spousal Rejection into a thick stack of Pack land grants. Exhausted and distracted by his lover, Cason signed his name without even reading the title. Now, with the irreversible document locked away, I just had to wait for the grand Pack banquet to burn his world to the ground.

For years, I belonged to him. Not his mate. Not his love. But his bedmate. His Gamma. His shadow in the night. Alpha Calhoun made sure no man dared touch me, no wolf dared look at me. I was his possession, his secret, his sin wrapped in skin. And I endured it all-his rough hands, his dark devotion, his kisses that tasted like fire and chains because at least, for a while, he was mine. Until she returned. His destined mate. His so-called true love. And suddenly, I was nothing. Cast aside, silenced, left to wither in the shadows of a love that had never been mine to claim. But the thing about being claimed by a man like Calhoun. is that he never truly lets you go. "Try to leave me, Elodie," his voice had been a snarl against my throat, his grip bruising my waist. "I'll burn down every border, tear apart every wolf that stands in my way, until you crawl back to me. You're mine, even if the Moon Goddess herself wants to rip you away." He didn't know then that I already had one foot out the door. And when I finally left his pack. I took more than just my broken heart with me.