LOGINShe wasn't running from fate—she was running toward freedom. Laney Thorne spent years trapped under her father's control, her wolf suppressed, her power locked away. When she escapes to Iron Fang Pack territory, seeking passage to safety. What she finds instead are twin brothers who make her wolf stir for the first time in her life. Alpha twins, Cade and River—protective and dangerous, bound by blood and brotherhood—recognize her immediately. Mate. The bond snaps into place for both of them, a rare triad that should be celebrated. But Laney's emergence comes with a price. Her father, Alpha of a rival Pack, won't accept her defiance. She has been bartered off to a ruthless Alpha of Black Talon pack who wants Laney as his breeder. They claim she's been kidnapped, influenced, and held against her will. It's a lie—and every shifter with eyes can see the mate bonds blazing on her skin, proof. But lies don't need to be true to start a war. When her wolf finally emerges, it triggers the opportunity for war, the conflict with the Iron Fang Pack her father has been waiting for. He allies with the Black Talon pack and launches an attack on territory under the guise of "rescuing" her. Now Laney must stand before the Council and prove what her father refuses to accept: she chose this life. She chose her mates. She chose herself. The mate bond marks are a source of strength when enemies breach their borders. A promise that she will never be caged again. This isn't a story about a helpless woman claimed by fate. This is a story about a woman who claimed her freedom and her mates—and she will burn down anyone who tries to take either from her. When a wolf finally breaks free… she fights.
View MoreThe council chamber didn't look like the end of ten years of blood and trafficked routes. It looked like paperwork, cold and fluorescent and utterly unglamorous. That was the point. Men like Josiah spent their whole lives being feared. The least he deserved was to end the way he should've been treated all along — as a line item.Elizabeth stood at the podium with a stack of filings thick enough to bury a man, because it was about to. "Petition to strip title and territory, corroborated by direct testimony, independent documentation, and four days of real-time evidence gathered under full council authority." She set the stack down with a weight that seemed to echo through the whole room. "Motion to dissolve the northern corridor in its entirety — not transfer, not restructure. Dissolve."That word mattered more than most people in the room understood. A takedown by force leaves a vacancy, and vacancies get filled — some ambitious wolf with a grudge and a gun steps into the empty seat w
The call about Josylyn came at 3 a.m., four days into the operation, and it could not have picked a worse — or better — time."She's in labor." Elara's voice was tight over comms; Moss Thorn pack house was loud and chaotic behind her. "Full labor, Laney. Marc's with her, the birth team's fifteen minutes out, and I don't know what to do with my hands.""Where's Sirus?""Sitting on the kitchen counter eating crackers like it's a Tuesday afternoon." A short, disbelieving laugh escaped her. "Laney, he's five, and he is currently the calmest person in this house. He told Marc to stop pacing because it was — and I quote — 'not helping anybody.'"That tracked. Sirus had been through more in five years than most wolves saw in fifty, and somewhere along the way he'd come out the other side of it with a stillness that unsettled grown warriors. Nothing rattled that kid. Nothing was allowed to.Fifteen minutes was a lifetime when you were also running the biggest legal takedown in a decade, and I
With Voss gone, it was Josiah's turn to answer.He didn't get to walk away clean the way he'd planned it — sign a few papers, disappear north, let the council forget his name in a decade the way councils forget things when there's no body and no headline. Not after ten years of running the largest smuggling corridor in shifter territory. Not after what he did to my sister to get his revenge in the first place. Ten years we knew about. God only knew what we didn't.I looked at Elara across the annex and felt my chest tighten. Two men had spent years turning her into a chess piece — Voss, who'd used her body against her will and left her carrying the proof of it, and Josiah, who'd used her pain the same way, arranging her like a piece on his board because it served his own war. Voss was already gone. Handled. Buried under his own trafficking charges with eleven kids recovered and his name erased from every registry that mattered.Today, it was Josiah's turn. And I got to watch my sister
The clearing was exactly where Elara said it would be.We came through the eastern tree line in the gray hour before full morning, the three of us moving at an even pace, close enough that our shoulders nearly touched. Josylyn on my left. Elara on my right. The ground was soft from two days of rain, and the logging stumps that ringed the clearing's edge were older than I was, mossy and low and offering nothing in the way of cover.Voss was already there.He stood at the far edge of the clearing with seven wolves ranged behind him in a loose formation that was meant to look casual and was not. He was taller than I'd expected — broad-shouldered, the kind of physical presence that had probably served him well his whole life, the easy authority of a man who had never once been the smallest thing in a room. His eyes found me immediately and stayed there.He didn't look at Elara.He didn't look at Josylyn.That was his first mistake."Laney Ashwood." He said my name as if he were identifyin
I don't know how long I stood there, trying to process what was happening. Long enough that the sun climbed higher in the sky, long enough that the heat in my body finally started to fade, leaving behind a strange, electric hum that I could feel in my bones.Long enough that I heard the sound of en
"Good luck, honey. Whatever you're running from—I hope you make it." Carol said, wearing her jacket, and twenty dollars she'd kindly given me stuffed in my pocket. I was grateful. I opened the door and stepped out into the cold. The air bit at my exposed legs, my torn feet, but I didn't flinch. I
The ride was a blur of sensation—wind tearing at my hair,River’s body was solid and warm in front of me, the rumble of the engine vibrating through my bones as I slid in behind him. My arms wrapped around his waist, fingers splaying over the hard planes of his stomach—every subtle ridge and flex sh
Two men sat in a booth in the corner, half-hidden in shadow, and even from across the room I could feel the weight of their presence. They were twins—fraternal, not identical, but close enough that you could see the shared blood in the line of their jaws, the set of their shoulders.The one on the l
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