[Because she’d rather die than belong to the monster she loathes.]

Sylva never asked to be the Werewolf King’s chosen mate — let alone be forced into it. But after a planned attack drags her from the human world into the hidden realm of werewolves, she awakens to find her fate already sealed… without her consent.

Sylva Smith is a 23-year-old Biology student at the University of Exeter — quiet, sharp-witted, and perfectly content with her simple life: her mother, her books, and the strange, vivid dreams she’s long learned to ignore.

While hunting, the werewolf king Thalos Draeven discovers a wounded and unconscious human on the forest floor. Upon realizing that she is a half-witch, he takes her prisoner.

As Sylva lies unconscious, her mother — desperate and terrified — after finding out she had crossed and was taken by a werewolf, turns to the witches for help. When they demand her release, Thalos offers a cruel condition: Sylva must become his queen, and only then will the centuries-long war between their realms end.

Faced with the chance to save their people, the witches choose survival — and sacrifice Sylva’s freedom.

Now, she’s bound to a kingdom she never asked for… and a destiny she’s determined to challenge.

Thalos's hand stilled on the silver handle of the dark wood double doors, their surface marked with horizontal silver lines, and he smiled.


Lucien was familiar with that kind of smile.


"Finally… what I've been waiting for," Thalos said, his voice low, a wicked glint in his eyes.


Lucien didn't need to ask what had pleased him—he could hear it too: the deep hitch in breath that didn't belong to someone unconscious.


Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, Sylva was still sitting on the couch, her breath caught in her throat as she struggled to make sense of what she had just seen.


If everything she had just seen was real—normal, even—then she'd seen a forest. A sentient forest. One that had protected her from an insane man.


Chapter 31 - Surreal