LOGINRiley Harper finally has the quiet life she fought for—her shop, her kids, her peace. Until a powerful Alpha from her past shows up and turns everything upside down. Knox Blackthorn is richer, colder, and far more dangerous than the boy she once loved… yet he looks at her like he’s been searching for her for years. Old wounds reopen. Old fire sparks. And the secrets Riley has protected with her life start slipping through her fingers. Because Knox didn’t come back to say sorry. He came back because something isn’t adding up—and he’s not leaving without the truth… or without her.
View MoreRILEY
My smile widened with each anticipating moment. Today was the day I would tie the knot with my childhood sweetheart—Knox. Despite all odds against us, we fought through and our love only became stronger. I was looking forward to spending the rest of my life with him.
The Blackthorn estate. That's where we held our wedding—and I was amazed to see that his father agreed to our union. I wasn't born with a wolf and have been cast aside for so many years. But it was different with Knox. He had never looked down on me.
Staring at him, those gorgeous silver eyes piercing into mine—I feel happier than ever. He stood gorgeous, in his black tuxedo, his eyes locked on mine like I was the only person in this world.
But I couldn't help but notice his eyes held something different—I couldn't explain it. But it wasn't those exciting eyes I had been relishing all these while. My kind scattered, fear of him getting cold feet.
But he was here. That's all that matters.
The priest's voice disrupted my thoughts. “Do you—Riley Harper— take Knox Blackthorn as your lawfully wedded husband? To love and obey unruly death do you part?”
I immediately nodded,unable to withhold back my excitement.
We were seconds from saying ‘I do’. When his father rose from his chair and cleared his throat, all attention turned to him. For a flick moment, I noticed his eyes staring back at Knox.
Knox's face went pale. I reached out for his palm, caressing him softly. He gave me a small smile, but I could tell that they held something so much more.
“I do,” I responded finally.
The priest repeated the vows to Knox. But he remained quiet, the silence stretching through the room. My heart pounded hard in my chest.
“Knox?” I called softly.
He remained quiet for a moment. Multiple thoughts went through and fro in my head, wondering what could be going on in his. Wondering why he suddenly chose to be quiet. Was he having cold feet?
He looked at me, a cold glare on his face. He marched up to the mics and took one of them. My breath got heavier with each passing minute, wondering where this was leading too.
He cleared his throat. “I'm sorry for this abrupt interruption, but I have an announcement and it's directed to my lovely wife-to-be,” he stated.
I forced a smile, trying not to let the nerve kick in. “What's…going on, Knox?” I asked him.
He didn't look at me. Not once.
“I, Knox Blackthorn, Alpha heir of the Blackthorn Pack, reject you as My mate and Luna.”
The bond snaps like a bone snapping inside my chest, and I screamed loudly in front of the most wealthiest werewolves gathered to share this joyous occasion with.
The pain felt like something was ripping me in half. I screamed loudly again, blood pouring from the fresh mating mark as the rejection tears it open.
The second he said those words my whole body just… broke. Like someone took a hammer to my ribs. I screamed so loud my ears rang and I dropped straight down, knees banging the floor hard. Blood started pouring out my neck like a faucet, hot and sticky, ruining the pretty white dress in seconds. I kept grabbing at the bite mark tryna stop it but my hands just got slippery red.
Knox was still holding the mic looking like a stranger. He wouldn’t even glance at me. Then he said it again, louder, “She’s nothing but a weak human I used for fun.”
And everybody laughed.
Not like a little giggle, like full on losing it. People were bending over, slapping their legs, wiping their eyes. One girl was literally screaming and laughing. I heard one go “oh my god” and then start cackling too.
My mom was fighting the guards tryna run to me but two big guys held her back and she was yelling, “Let me go, that's my daughter!”
But nobody cared.
I was on the floor crying and bleeding and tryna breathe but it hurt so bad. “Knox please,” I kept saying, “please look at me, we can fix this just talk to me.” My voice sounded gross and wet. He finally looked down for half a second and I thought he was gonna help me but then his dad coughed again and Knox just… turned off. Like a light switch.
He dropped the mic and it made this huge banging noise and started walking away.
I tried crawling after him, dragging the heavy dress, leaving a long red streak behind me. “Knox wait wait please dont leave me like this!” I was screaming and sobbing and snot was everywhere.
People were stepping over my dress like it was trash. One lady actually said new and lifted her skirt so it wouldn't touch the blood.
He never turned around. Not once. Just kept walking till he got to the big doors and disappeared.
The doors slammed.
I don't even know how long I stayed there. Everything got blurry. I think I passed out for a minute cuz next thing I know I’m outside on my side and my mom is finally next to me crying and tryna hold me up but I’m too heavy with all the blood. Everybody else was already leaving, chatting and laughing like they just watched a funny movie.
I somehow crawled out the side door. My nails were broken, my knees were messed up, the dress was basically red now. Outside was cold and I threw up right on the steps, roses and champagne and blood all mixed.
His bike was gone. Just tire marks.
He promised he wouldn't do this to me. Today was supposed to be the happiest day of our lives, but it became a nightmare.
I sat in the dirt hugging myself, blood still dripping, and looked at the moon and said the only thing I could think of.
“I’ll never let you find me again.”
Then everything went black.
RILEYI thought about what I had been carrying for years and what it felt like now.I had been carrying the management of everything — the shop and the twins and the housing and the logistics of a life being built under significant pressure from multiple directions. I had been carrying the incomplete picture of who Knox was and what the years had been and what the bond meant. I had been carrying the incomplete picture of who my father had been and what had been done to him and what the correct response to it was. I had been carrying the weight of being the first person in my bloodline to have the full picture, to know what the Harper-Wren name meant and what it had cost and what the work of finishing it required.I was still carrying most of that.The carrying did not stop. The weight did not go away. What had changed was the distribution of it — some of it carried by Knox, some by Grayson, some by Daria and Elena and Cassidy and Theo and all the people who had found the work and done
RILEYThe pack land was outside and the firs were in their best-green and somewhere on the east side of the land Grayson was already at his desk in the framework office because Grayson arrived before everyone else and stayed after everyone else and had been doing this for two years without ever making it a performance. The community center was going to open in an hour. Rosa was going to arrive at nine-forty-five for the ten o'clock class and she was going to be early because Rosa was always early and she was going to check the kitchen setup with the specific thoroughness of a woman who took her teaching seriously and found that the setup always mattered.The twins were asleep. Hunter would come down in twelve minutes with his notebook already open, because Hunter processed the previous night's thinking in the morning and needed to transfer it to paper before he could be fully present in the day. Luna would come down four minutes after that with Gerald and the particular morning qualit
RILEYOn a Tuesday morning in May — Nora six months old, the twins finishing the school year, the policy session's formal documentation transmitted to all regional council bodies the previous week, the Beacon Hill shop full, the community center running, the east wing expansion on schedule, Hunter's oral history project at sixty-two interviews and growing — I made the coffee and sat at the kitchen table and Knox came downstairs and sat across from me and put his foot against mine under the table.That was the morning.Not a significant morning. Not the morning after anything important. Not the morning before anything that needed preparation. Just a Tuesday in May with the pack land outside the windows in its late-spring fullness and the firs at their best-green and the twins asleep for another twenty minutes and Nora doing her morning inventory of the ceiling.We had been doing this for two and a half years. The foot under the table. The coffee. The morning quiet before the day made i
KNOXThe Blackthorn-Harper pack's second anniversary of formal establishment happened on a Thursday in April, eleven days after the policy session.Riley had not planned anything. The anniversary was in the record — Grayson had noted it, as he noted everything — but there was no ceremony attached to it and no gathering scheduled. The community center's common kitchen had its regular programming. The workshop rental spaces were occupied. The legal aid clinic had its Thursday appointments.The pack was just running.I found this, standing in the community center office at nine in the morning, to be the most satisfying thing I had observed in two years of building. Not the policy session, not the seven-to-two vote, not the twenty-nine-page legal response or the annual review or any of the specific things that had been built and defended and preserved. The pack just running. The ordinary Thursday of a community that knew what it was and was doing it.Rosa's tamale class starting at ten. T






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