Chapter 1

My mate-mark was burning.

Not the warm, golden hum of a bond — but a searing, rotting ache that told me one thing: Kael had marked someone else.

I pressed my hand against my neck, feeling the raised scar pulse with rejection, and stared at the woman asleep in my bed.

Her scent — jasmine and something sickly sweet — was everywhere. On my sheets. On my pillows. On the shirt my husband had worn to our mating anniversary dinner last night.

The dinner he never showed up to.

I had waited for three hours at the restaurant, in the dress I'd bought with my last paycheck, watching candles burn down to nothing. The waiter had finally asked, with pity in his eyes, if I'd like the check.

Now I understood why.

The woman stirred, and the sheet slipped from her shoulder, revealing a fresh mark — crimson and glistening — on her neck.

An Alpha's mark.

My Alpha's mark.

My claws extended before I could stop them. Every wolf instinct in me screamed to tear her throat out, to reclaim what was mine.

But then I heard his voice.

"Selene. Step away from her."

Kael stood in the doorway, shirtless, his dark hair damp from the shower. He didn't look guilty. He didn't look ashamed.

He looked annoyed — as though I were the problem.

"You marked her," I whispered. "In our bed."

Kael's jaw tightened. "She's a rogue omega. She had nowhere to go. I was helping her."

"By giving her a mate-mark?"

He crossed the room in two strides and gripped my arm — not gently.

"Vivienne was dying, Selene. A mateless omega in heat, alone — do you know what happens to them? I did what any Alpha would do."

The woman — Vivienne — sat up now, clutching the sheet to her chest, her wide doe-eyes brimming with tears.

"I'm sorry," she breathed. "I didn't mean for any of this. He saved my life."

Kael's expression softened instantly when he looked at her.

A softness I hadn't seen directed at me in months.

"Don't apologize," he murmured to her. "You did nothing wrong."

Then he turned back to me, and the softness vanished.

"Selene, she'll be staying with us in the pack house. I've already informed the council."

"You informed the council before telling your own mate?"

"Because I knew you'd react like this." His voice was cold. "Jealous. Irrational. You always are."

I looked at the mark on Vivienne's neck, then at the fading one on mine.

A wolf could only carry one true mark.

Mine was already beginning to fade.

And he hadn't even noticed.