Todd Hewitt

After fleeing an abusive ex, Holland Williams starts over at Smith Automotive and is warned to avoid its young owner, Remy Smith. One touch ignites impossible “sparks”; Remy, Alpha of the Sage Moon pack, recognizes her as his mate, but Holland rejects the werewolf truth—until her ex, Robbie, tracks her down and Remy is forced to shift to protect her. While Holland slowly trusts Remy and the pack (with Gamma Todd quietly building her safety net), Robbie sobers up, learns the town’s secret, and undergoes a brutal, forbidden ritual to become a “defective” wolf. Remy courts Holland carefully; she moves into the pack house just as Angel—Remy’s elegant ex—returns claiming to be his true mate. A staged misunderstanding drives Holland away, and Robbie kidnaps her. Angel manipulates Remy into thinking Holland ran; days later, shame and a witch’s locator spell (Mallory) send him on the hunt. In an abandoned house, Holland survives Robbie by stabbing him with dull silver; Remy arrives, kills Robbie, and must turn Holland to save her life. Against all expectations, she doesn’t become defective; healers can’t explain it. Remy marks her; they complete the mating ceremony and marry. Soon after, Holland is pregnant with their first pup. In the epilogue, Angel—revealed as the architect of the kidnapping—flees to raise an army of defective rogue wolves, vowing to destroy Sage Moon if she can’t claim it.