Chapter 1

My mother stared at the unsigned bond papers in confusion.

After a moment, she looked up at Rowan Vale and asked carefully, “Are you claiming Clara?”

I was Clara Hart.

The question made sense. Rowan and I had grown up together, and everyone in Silver Ridge Pack had always assumed that, sooner or later, its Alpha would claim me. Once, I had believed that too.

Now I knew better.

I was still looking at the papers when Rowan gave a small nod and said, “If it’s Clara, I can accept the claim.”

My mother frowned. “That isn’t an answer. Are you naming her or not?”

Rowan’s expression did not change.

“It means,” he said, “I can bond with Clara.”

That was enough.

“I won’t,” I said.

Silence fell over the room.

In my first life, he had answered the same way. I had mistaken that careful, distant wording for restraint and pushed my mother to accept before he could change his mind.

That mistake cost me eight years.

At first, life in the Alpha house of Silver Ridge Pack seemed normal enough. The only thing I could never keep up with was carrying litter after litter. Rowan always said he wanted a strong bloodline, enough heirs to secure Silver Ridge Pack, enough pureblood pups to keep the Alpha bloodline unchallenged. I took that for love.

It wasn’t.

He needed my body.

The moment I recovered from one birth, he was after the next. In seven years I gave him six heirs, and by then people had stopped praising my fertility and started envying my bond. They said no Alpha would keep returning to the same woman unless he was obsessed with her.

I believed them.

Then came the winter of my eighth year.

I nearly died giving birth to the seventh pup.

The healers were still trying to stop the bleeding when Rowan sent them all out. Before I could even ask why, he crossed the room, lifted a healer’s cup to my mouth, and forced down three swallows of wolfsbane tincture.

Only when I was dying did he tell me the truth.

If it were not for the fact that only a daughter of the Hart bloodline could bear pureblood Alpha heirs, he said, he never would have claimed me at all.

I had been useful for one thing only.

Heirs.

Now that he had enough, I had none.

I remember clawing at his sleeve and asking the only question left that mattered.

Then who did you want?

For the first time, Rowan hesitated.

Then he said, “Fine. I’ll tell you. The one I wanted was your—”

I died before he could finish.

That memory still lived in my bones. It made me cold, but it also left me sharper than I had ever been.

So I looked at my mother and said again, “I won’t bond with him.”

She stared at me in disbelief.

That was fair. She had watched me want Rowan for years. She knew I had waited for him near the northern patrol line, sat up through his injuries, and ignored every warning she ever gave me about pride and self-respect. As far as she knew, Rowan was the one male I had never been able to refuse.

“Clara,” she said carefully, “you used to swear you would never accept anyone else’s claim.”

“That was years ago,” I said. “I was young.”

Then, because I needed the refusal to sound final, I added, “Besides, someone else intends to claim me. He’ll be bringing his own bond papers soon.”

That startled her badly enough that she shot me a sharp look before turning back to Rowan with a strained smile.

“If Clara isn’t willing, there’s nothing I can do,” she said. Then her gaze shifted to my sister. “What about Ivy? She’s cared for you just as much.”

Ivy stiffened beside me.

Then she said, far too quickly, “Not me either.”

Our mother’s patience snapped. “What is wrong with both of you today?”

Ivy darted a glance at me, then lowered her eyes.

“I have someone too,” she said. “He’ll be making his claim soon.”