She carries the marks of his curse on her face. He is the only man alive who can get her killed.

When the mate-marks of the Wolfhaven Alpha King appear on huntress Isolde Vael overnight, she does the only sensible thing: she buries her real name, rides to his fortress, and tells no one — including him — who she actually is.

Draven Ashkore has watched the bond destroy every woman who has carried his marks. The curse his enemy built two centuries ago was designed for exactly this: pull the mate close, let the mechanism tighten, and let her die before the bond can complete.

He has one rule. He will not let it happen again.

But Isolde isn't the woman either of them expected. She's the last surviving daughter of the house the crown destroyed. She carries suppressed wolf-blood, a rare gift called the wolf-sight, and the only ability in the known world capable of seeing the curse's lock and turning the key from the inside. The curse was not just designed to kill Draven's mate — it was specifically designed to keep Isolde from ever becoming whole enough to break it.

To survive, she has to stop hiding half of herself. To save her, he has to stop governing himself away from the one thing he's never let himself have.

Neither of them is good at the thing they most need to do.
A slow-burn paranormal romance set in a dark medieval wolf kingdom, this story features a sharp-tongued huntress operating under a false name, an alpha king who falls first and hard, a two-hundred-year curse built to exploit their specific fears, and an ancient forest that has been waiting for both of them longer than either has been alive.

Built around the tropes of fated mates, enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, and secret identity — with a hero who falls completely and a heroine who earns every inch of her story — this is a dark paranormal world where the magic costs something real and the love costs even more.