Freya has no wolf. At the bonding ceremony, in front of every pack in the Alliance, the Moon Spring stays silent—and the man she loves drops her hand like it burns: "I won't take a wolfless girl." Her stepmother strikes her name from the family. Her stepsister takes her place. Barefoot, she is dragged past the gate and left in the Wolfless Waste to die. That night something wakes in her: a cracked pendant, a golden moon-mark across her chest, and silver fire that brings a raging black wolf to its knees. That wolf is Lucas—the cursed Alpha they call monster and wife-killer. He does not rescue her. He claims her. Because twenty years ago House Lunaris burned to the ground, and everyone believes its last heir died with it. They are wrong. The moon never rejected her. It was waiting.
