He rejected her once to save his crown. Her body never forgave him. Her heart never forgot him.

Seven years ago, the Lycan King spoke three words that shattered a bond neither of them chose and both of them felt in their bones. Josephine Bellamy walked away from Cindermoor with a scar over her heart and never looked back, building a quiet life as Farrow Ridge's healer, stitching up trackers and tending clinic dogs in the small town below the mountain, far from crowns and councils and the man who discarded her.

Then a sickness no remedy can touch starts killing wolves on her territory, and the only authority with the power to stop it is the King himself. Gideon Okonkwo arrives at Farrow Ridge and does the one thing his council never sanctioned: he insists on staying in her cabin, under her care, close enough that the old scent-recognition roars back to life the moment he crosses her threshold. He never stopped wanting her. He never explained why he let her go. And now they're trapped together until the outbreak breaks or one of them does.

Every hour near him proves the mate bond was never the thing that failed her.

Can a King who chose the crown once ever be trusted not to choose it again?