Thrown to the wolves at eight and worked ten years as a servant in a noble house, Wren is dragged to the mate selection at eighteen, the one night the crown prince must choose. Kael walks past every pure-blood lady in the hall and stops in front of the human girl on the floor, and when his father orders her killed, Kael puts his claws through the old king's chest. He chains her with silver, swears she is the girl who bound his wounds in a blizzard years ago, and fools the elders waiting outside his door for the scent of a mark by cutting open his own hand. She makes him promise a wedding in the human world, then spends the day climbing out of a bridal shop's air vent, back to the boy she grew up with, who sells her in a dark web cage as a half-human, half-wolf virgin. Kael buys her for a hundred million dollars and kills the boy. Then the rebels take his castle and chain her to a stake, and the wolf king walks out unarmed and kneels.
