THE ALPHA SHE REFUSED

She came to the Gathering to kill the Alpha who conquered her pack, and the fated bond lit between them in front of three hundred wolves, so she refused him out loud, never knowing that a refused Alpha's bond is the thing that slowly kills him, and that she now holds his life in the one word she swore he'd never earn.

Two years ago Highfen took Greymoor, killed Sable's father, and stripped her people of their name. She spent every day since preparing to walk into the Accord Gathering and put a blade in Alpha Soren Vayle. She never planned for the fated bond to light between them, or to learn that refusing an Alpha's claim doesn't kill the mate, it kills him, slowly, over one moon. Now the law binds her inside his household for the Claiming Trial, her open refusal is already killing the man she came to destroy, and the rival who engineered the whole thing is waiting for Soren to die so he can seize Highfen and finish Greymoor for good. Refuse him and her people burn with him. Save him and she betrays the vow she made on her father's body.