The Mate They Rejected

She was their fated mate. They rejected her anyway. Mara Calloway turned eighteen, and the bond she had waited for her whole life finally arrived. By morning, her world was upside down. No explanation. No mercy. Just words that left her on the floor of a packhouse that was never truly hers, with a father who watched and a secret already growing inside her that would change everything. She didn't run immediately. She stayed long enough to confirm what she already suspected. Then she disappeared. Five years later, a deadly plague is carving through the packs, killing wolves of every age and rank, and the Blackthorn Alphas are running out of options. The one healer brilliant enough to stop it is a composed, untouchable woman named Dr. Sloane Davis—a stranger with cold precision, no pack allegiance, and a guarded past that doesn't quite hold up under examination. Caine Blackthorn is the kind of man who commands without asking and breaks without bending. He doesn't know why the new healer unsettles him. He doesn't know why her scent threads through his instincts like something he was supposed to remember. He doesn't know about the three boys she brought with her, each one carrying a secret written in blood and bone that the pack cannot see—yet. She came back with a mission in one hand and five years of consequence in the other. She did not come back for them. But the bond they shattered has a memory of its own, and the plague threatening to destroy everything they built may have been born from the same betrayal that took her from them in the first place. What happens when the woman you destroyed becomes the only one who can save you—and she already knows exactly what you're worth?