LOGINAbby Barns is about to turn eighteen and face the Capitol, where every heir must meet to try and find their fated mate. But Abby isn’t ready to bind herself to a mate she hasn’t even met, not when she’s never felt her wolf stir since she was twelve and not when her family’s secrets keep gnawing at her like a hidden ache. Her sister Melody, once lively and fierce, is presumed dead behind a veil of illness that strikes their clan with increasing ferocity. Abby’s father, Graham, clings to a truth he refuses to admit: Melody’s condition might be more than misfortune. It might be poison. With two friends who are all sunshine and all spark, Abby steps into a city of glittering banners and looming danger, where a prince is guardian to the realm but aloof to the heart. Adrian, the silent, powerful protector with the deepest green eyes, seems to deny Abby’s presence even as her own pulse answers to his almost unspoken call. As old wounds surface, a rogue threat grows louder, and the mystery of Melody’s poisoning unravels a legacy that could redefine who Abby is and who she is fated to become. As Abby discovers the truth about wolf’s bane coursing through her veins, she must decide whether trust is a risk worth taking or a trap designed to hold her forever. In a world where love is both weapon and salvation, Abby’s journey from uncertainty to a life altering bond will test family loyalties, awaken a dormant wolf, and force her to choose between a dangerous future and a love she never expected.
View MoreMelody was right about one thing in the most infuriating way possible: Heat doesn’t end because you finally give in. It just… changes shape.After we marked each other, the burning stopped feeling like I was being chased by something blind and hungry. It became focused, anchored, like my body finally knew exactly what it wanted and where to go for it. Which would’ve been comforting, except the answer was him. And heat doesn’t politely take breaks just because you’re exhausted. It could lasts anywhere from a day to fourty eight hours, Melody said. Long enough to turn time into a blur of water cups, cooling cloths, sleep snatched in short stretches, and my wolf purring every time Adrian’s skin touched mine. Long enough to make “privacy” a joke. Long enough to make me realize just how much restraint Adrian has been using, how much he’s been holding back, even after we chose each other. I don’t know
The heat doesn’t creep in anymore. It hunts.It rises in a hard, fast rush that turns my skin too tight and my thoughts too slippery, until the only thing that feels real is Adrian’s bare chest under my palms and the steady thud of his heart like an anchor hammered into my ribs. I’m straddling his lap, trembling with the effort of staying upright and staying sane, and he’s holding me by the hips like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he loosens his grip.He looks less like a prince now and more like a man barely keeping a wolf behind his eyes.His gaze drags over my throat, my pulse, my mouth, then snaps back to my eyes like it physically costs him to look anywhere else.His voice comes out rough. “Abby.”I swallow, throat dry. “What?”He doesn’t answer right away. His nostrils flare as he breathes me in, and the sound he makes is low and involuntary, like his control just slipped a tooth.Then he says, very clearly, “Tell m
The room should feel safe. It smells like him, pine, smoke, clean steel and the door is shut and the guards are outside and Melody is gone to do whatever doctors do after they drop a life altering bomb and say good luck like it’s a normal prescription.But safety doesn’t stop the burning. It just means no one can see how badly I’m losing my mind. I’m still half on Adrian’s lap, half on the bed, knees tucked against his hips. He’s propped against the headboard like a man trying to convince his own body that this is fine.It isn’t fine. Not for me. Not for him.Because the heat isn’t just heat, it’s a pull. A demand. A voice in my blood saying touch him, touch him, closer, closer, claim, claim.And the worst part is, it works. Every time my skin meets his, the fire backs off like it’s afraid of him.My cheek presses to the side of his throat and I breathe him in, shameless. I can feel his pulse under my lips. I can hear it. I can count it.
The world becomes a tunnel. Stone corridor. Torchlight. Voices that don’t matter. The pounding of Adrian’s footsteps like a drumbeat I can’t escape.And the burning, gods, the burning. It starts in my skin, then sinks into my blood like something alive has been poured into my veins. Every nerve feels lit. Every breath feels too thin. My clothes feel like sandpaper. The air itself feels wrong because it isn’t him.Adrian holds me tighter as he moves, one arm under my knees, the other locked around my back and shoulders, keeping me pressed to his chest like he’s decided my body is his responsibility and the entire capital can argue with a wall.His scent is everywhere, pine and smoke and steel, so strong it becomes my whole oxygen supply. I bury my face in his throat without thinking. The second my cheek meets his skin, relief crashes through me so hard I almost sob.Not relief like “better.”Relief like “I can breathe.”A shudder






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