For eight years, Lara Quinn has lived with an unrequited love for her cold, untouchable boss, Marco Blackwell, the powerful CEO of Blackwell International Holdings and heir to an ancient bloodline. He is brilliant, ruthless, and already engaged to his elegant childhood sweetheart. To everyone else, he is untouchable. To Lara, he is the dream she can never have.

Lara does not believe in supernatural beings or in the legends that speak of humans bound to creatures born of the moon. Until one night changes everything.

During the company's annual team building in the mountains, a violent storm traps them together beneath the Blood Moon. When desire breaks through restraint, Lara gives herself to Marco, unaware that one night of passion will awaken a bond older than time itself. By dawn, she bears his mark, and her life is no longer her own.

The following morning, Marco returns to being cold and distant, treating her as if she means nothing after what happened between them. It breaks her heart, though she tries to hide the pain behind quiet smiles and lowered eyes.

Back in the city, Marco proposes marriage. For one blissful moment, Lara believes her dream has finally come true until he tells her the truth. Their marriage will be nothing more than a contract, an agreement made to appease his clan and fulfill a prophecy that demands an heir. Once she gives him the child destiny requires, he will end their marriage and reward her with a fortune before marrying the woman he truly loves.

Lara refused his proposal and threw the engagement ring at him out of anger, her voice trembling as she told him she would never marry someone like him.

Still, she was left with no choice and said yes when life cornered her once again, forcing her to depend on the one man who had broken her heart. Even if it meant swallowing her pride and pretending she felt nothing, she wanted to stay by his side a little longer. It was foolish, she knew, but a part of her still hoped that one day, he might learn to love her too.

But when she discovers she is pregnant, her fragile hope turns to fear. Determined to protect her child from the darkness that surrounds Marco's world, Lara runs. Yet Marco Blackwell is not a man who lets go of what is his, and now he will stop at nothing to find his wife.

He thought fated mates were only a myth. But under the Blood Moon, one choice bound their souls forever. 

And now, as danger closes in, she must make an impossible choice: protect her child from the world that hunts them, or protect her heart from Marco Blackwell.

Cassian was peacefully sleeping in the crib beside me, his tiny breaths steady and soft, but no matter how many times I watched his chest rise and fall, I couldn't calm my own. My eyes burned, my mind refusing to rest. Every thought dragged me back to Corbin and Cammie. 


I kept seeing the way Corbin's expression shifted when he sensed danger, the way Cammie's eyes darted toward the window before they whisked me and my son away. I just wished they were alright. If anything happened to them, I would never forgive myself. Their lives were at risk because of me... because of who I was... because of this prophecy I never asked to be part of.


I hadn't seen them since we left. I hadn't heard a single whisper, not even from Cammie, who usually found a way to let me know she was still breathing. The silence wrapped around my ribs until it hurt to breathe. I kept glancing at the door, hoping the knob would turn. Hoping someone would say they were safe.


Chapter 54 - Helpless