For seven years, Isla Morven loved a man made from ice. She married Alpha Dante Blackthorn thinking her devotion could thaw his frozen heart. She gave him everything—her youth, her loyalty, her body broken twice in childbirth. She even threw herself between him and an assassin's silver blade, nearly dying to save the man who couldn't meet her eyes at their own mating ceremony.
But the ice never melted. Not when she bore their daughter. Not when she almost bled out having their son. Not even in the dark when he took her body with clinical precision, as if fulfilling a duty.
Isla told herself it was enough. That being Luna of the Blackthorn Pack, raising their cubs, standing beside him—that was love. Until the night she followed her husband's smell to the forest edge and found him rutting against another woman, his mistress's heat pheromones thick in the air, his face alive with passion he'd never shown his wife.
Her world shattered totally when her five-year-old son—the boy she'd carried through a nightmare pregnancy, the child she'd sung to sleep every night—ran past her to that woman and cried, "Mommy! Daddy said you'd come back!"
Seven years of commitment. Two children. One near-death sacrifice. And Isla was nothing but a free babysitter they'd suffer until the real family could be together.
The Moon Goddess had a cruel sense of humor, but Isla Morven was done being the joke. She refused the bond, walked away from the pack that never wanted her, and disappeared into the night with only her daughter's hand in hers.
Three years later, Isla has become someone unknown. CEO of her own company, secret heir to the ancient Morven bloodline, surrounded by power and people who truly value her. She's growing. She's happy. She's found a man who looks at her like she hung the moon—Caden Rivers, the rival Alpha who's spent three years showing she deserves to be worshipped.
But Dante Blackthorn has finally woken up. His perfect lady showed her true colors. His son cries for the mother who left. His pack is breaking without the Luna who held it together. And the mate bond he ignored for seven years is now an open wound he can't live.
He wants her back. He needs her back. He'll kill anyone who stands in his way—including the man who's giving Isla everything Dante was too blind to offer.
Too bad for him. Isla Morven isn't the naive girl who married him anymore. She's the wolf who learned to bite back.

Grandmother Moira's words echo in my hospital room like a death sentence.


"Five days until Serena's execution," she continues. "The council won't delay it. Too many packs want justice."


"Then we have five days to save Kieran." I try to sit up straighter. My side screams in protest—the silver bullet wound still isn't healing right.


"You have less than that." A healer I don't recognize steps forward. "The curse is feeding on the countdown. Every day closer to Serena's death, it gets stronger. By day three, Kieran will be in constant pain. By day four..." She doesn't finish.


By day four, my son will be begging to die.


"So we do the bond restoration tonight," Dante says. He's been standing by the window, staring out like he can see Lyra somewhere in the darkness. "We break the curse, then I find Marcus and get our daughter back."


Lyra stands there. Not kidnapped. Not hurt. Perfectly fine.


Chapter 22 - Race Against Time