The Alpha King's Tribute

“For twenty-two years, Greywater called me mutt. Witch-get. The half-blood they couldn't quite bring themselves to drown. I scrubbed their floors, wore the grey wool of three dead women, and smiled while they spat - because the one thing I'd never give them was the satisfaction of watching me break. So when my pack owed the Alpha King his blood-tribute, they paid it with the blood nobody wanted. Me. A throwaway, marched up the moor road for the most feared wolf alive to put down. Good riddance. Then he caught my scent - and the monster who has terrified a kingdom went still as struck stone, those river-ice eyes fixed on me like I was the only real thing on a hillside full of ghosts. Something under my breastbone reached for him and locked. Mate, said the wolf I was never supposed to have. Kaelen Thorne should want a pure-blood queen. Instead he took my chin in his hand, turned my face to every soul who'd ever scorned me, and said the four words that burned my old life to the ground: This one is mine. Now he's dragged me into a court that wants me dead - because I'm not just his fated mate. The bloodline the wolves tried to erase still runs in me, and it's the one thing that can break the curse killing his crown. They wanted me gone. Now they'll have to come through the King.”