Chapter 1

The lakefront lodge belonged to Blackridge Pack, but that night it felt like the old training camp again. Former cadets crowded around a long oak table, trading stories and laughing about the years when none of us had known Ronan Blackwood was the hidden Alpha heir among us.

Someone near the end of the table raised his voice over the noise.

“Come on, Alpha. You had half the she-wolves at camp losing sleep over you. Back when nobody knew who you were, who did you actually want?”

My fingers curled against my knee beneath the table.

Ronan didn’t answer at once. His dark eyes found mine and stayed there for less than a second before moving to Chloe Hart.

“Chloe.”

The table went quiet, then erupted.

Chloe looked stunned. Her eyes widened, and tears gathered quickly.

“Then why didn’t you answer my letter?”

Ronan frowned. “That letter was for Ethan Reed.”

“I put it in the wrong training bag. You and Ethan had just finished training, and your bags were lying next to each other. By the time I tried to explain, you wouldn’t even look at me.”

Ronan went still.

At eighteen, Blackridge tradition required him to enter training camp under a false name. He was forbidden from using his family’s title, money, or influence.

To everyone there, Ronan was an ordinary wolf with no powerful family and no future beyond a patrol assignment.

Ethan, on the other hand, already had a future Beta position waiting for him.

Everyone remembered Chloe choosing Ethan. Judging by Ronan’s expression, this was the first time he had heard that the letter was supposedly meant for him.

“So you didn’t stop caring about each other,” one of our old squadmates said. “It was all because of a mix-up.”

“That’s one hell of a coincidence,” another woman said. She glanced at me. “Sera was always following Ronan around, and somehow Chloe’s letter ended up in Ethan’s bag?”

Heads turned toward me.

A man across the table lowered his voice, though not enough.

“She wanted Ronan when she thought he was nobody. Now that he’s Alpha, do you really think she’d admit she got rid of Chloe’s letter?”

My wolf paced beneath my skin. The other end of my mate bond remained perfectly still.

I looked at Ronan.

He knew I had chosen him when I believed he had no title, no inheritance, and no powerful family waiting for him. When he finally told me who he was, I had been more afraid of losing the man I loved than impressed by the Blackwood name.

Most of all, he knew I was his fated mate.

One sentence from him would have ended every accusation in the room.

Instead, Ronan picked up his glass and looked away.

“It was a long time ago. We’re here to catch up, not put the past on trial.”

Just like that, Chloe’s story became a romance stolen by fate, while the eight years I had spent beside Ronan became the obsession of a woman who couldn’t let go.

I ran my thumb over the moonstone bracelet on my wrist.

Ronan had fastened it there the night before he returned to Blackridge and reclaimed his identity as the Alpha heir. He had promised that once the transition was over, every wolf in Blackridge would know I was his one true mate.

Five years later, he was Alpha.

And my name was still a secret.