"A forbidden spring. A fugitive soldier. A beast queen who should have killed him on sight.
When Kaelen crashes into Lyra’s sacred forest pool, he expects death. Lyra is the feared queen of the beast clans — sharp claws, colder eyes, and every reason to hate humans. Ironvale’s army has burned her dens, chained her children, and hunted her people through the woods. To her, Kaelen is just another enemy wearing a human face.
But Kaelen is not hunting her. He is running.
Branded a deserter after refusing to drag beast children in chains, Kaelen carries a truth that could destroy both kingdoms. Hunted by his own soldiers and trapped in Lyra’s hidden forest, he must prove he is more than the uniform he once wore. Lyra hides him only to protect her people, not out of mercy — or so she tells herself.
As soldiers close in, secrets surface. A deadly army prepares to burn the forest. The beast clans are starving, divided, and desperate. Lyra cannot abandon her people, and Kaelen cannot undo the blood on his past. But when survival forces them side by side, hatred turns into trust, trust into sacrifice, and sacrifice into something far more dangerous than love.
Because Kaelen may not be just a deserter.
And Lyra may have saved the one human powerful enough to change the fate of every beast clan."
