Every wolf on Ninebark ground knows my place: pack-debt, salt-girl, the daughter of a woman who walked into the lake and never came back.Tonight I stand at the foot of the Alpha's chair and swear I have no fated mate. It's a lie the whole pack is meant to believe - until the bond snaps into place under the ice, and it isn't the Alpha's golden heir standing at my side. It's the wolf no one has a name for. The one who was never supposed to want me.Ninebark law calls a bond forged outside blood and rank a heresy. The Alpha wants it broken. His son wants it broken worse. And the pack that starved me for eighteen years wants me gone before moonrise finishes.I have one night to choose: kneel and lose the only claim I've ever owned, or stand beside a stranger with a mark on my skin I never asked for and a debt on my back I can't pay.He says he'll burn Ninebark ground before he lets them take me. I believe him. That might be the most dangerous thing I've ever done.A fated-mate rejection, forced-proximity, marked-by-a-stranger slow burn - Book One of The Winterbound Wolves trilogy.
