Gemma Writes

"I reject you, fatass." Dean Ashcroft says it laughing, in front of the whole pack, on the night the Moon Goddess herself picked them as mates. He doesn't even flinch. Just walks away and leaves Delaney Reeves standing there with a broken bond and a room full of people snickering behind their hands. She's done crying by the time she gets home. She's not the type. She goes quiet instead, and quiet means she's already leaving. She gets two steps off the porch before Dean grabs her arm hard enough to bruise. His mate isn't going anywhere, he growls, like he has any right to say that now. That's when the real bond hits her. Not with Dean. With the stranger standing on the porch, a man she's never met until tonight. Jaxton Cole. Alpha of Ashford Ridge Pack. Here for treaty business, not for this. Two Alphas. One woman. One bond breaks and another one lights up in its place, both in the same ten minutes. Delaney thinks the worst night of her life is behind her. She's wrong. Her body starts doing things that shouldn't be possible. Her mother's death wasn't the accident everyone always said it was. And a man who's spent decades chasing a grudge older than Delaney herself is done waiting in the shadows for what he thinks he's owed. Dean wants forgiveness. Jaxton wants forever. And something out there wants Delaney for exactly what her blood can do, whether she agrees to it or not. She's spent her whole life being decided for. Not anymore. She was never his to reject. She's about to make sure everyone remembers that.