Prologue

  Somewhere in the Southern Range, Trinidad

  One year ago

  The forest was still.

  Too still.

  Kalil stood beneath the crescent moon, the air thick with the scent of blood and iron. His shirt was torn, soaked through. Not with his own blood, but with another's. Another mistake. Another night lost to the beast he carried inside.

  His chest rose and fell slowly, the shift still lingering in his bones. The wolf in him was restless, clawing for control, but he held it back. Just barely.

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  His fingers curled around a silver pendant in his palm- small, worn, marked with ancient runes. A reminder. A curse. A vow.

  He had left the South for this very reason. To escape the mess. The pack. The blood ties he could no longer stomach. He wanted quiet. Structure. Control. He wanted to bury the beast under white coats and hospital corridors.

  But the moon never lets him forget.

  The wolf always remembers.

  He raised his head to the sky, eyes glowing faintly, a silver sheen crossing his irises as he whispered a warning into the wind.

  “I don’t want a mate. I will never claim her.”

  Somewhere in the night, the wind laughed.

  Because fate doesn’t ask.

  Fate chooses.

  And his was already on her way.