Briar Easton returns to Nightfall Ridge to sell her late mother’s abandoned cabin and finally cut the last thread to a town that only ever gave her storms and silence. But on her first night back, something in the trees hunts her like it already knows her name—and the man who saves her is worse than any warning she ever heard.
Grayson Wolfe is the pack’s ruthless enforcer: scarred, disciplined, and built like a threat. He tells Briar the truth she refuses to believe—Nightfall Ridge is ruled by a fractured wolf court, their alpha is missing, and the Crown of Nightfall, a relic that binds power to blood, has been stolen. Without it, an enemy court will seize the land… and everyone Briar meets will become collateral.
Briar tries to leave, until she finds her mother’s hidden pendant beneath the floorboards. The moment she touches it, magic wakes. A mate mark blooms. And a sealed registry names Briar as heir.
Now the attacks turn personal. A “random” fire erases the cabin hours after she finds letters meant to stay buried. A witness vanishes. A body is left at the border with Briar’s name carved into the dirt. Someone inside the pack is feeding her location to the enemy, pushing a forced coronation before Briar can learn who she really is.
As Grayson drags her into pack politics, moonlit rites, and a bond neither of them wanted, their connection turns feral—heat and hunger wrapped in danger. He swore he’d never claim a mate because mates are leverage. But Briar is the key to the crown… and the trap.
Because the crown doesn’t just choose a ruler.
It demands a sacrifice.
