The Heir of Moonvale

They raised her to be their Alpha's bride. They forgot to teach her to obey. At her own betrothal ball, Lady Élise Devereux is rejected by Lord Ashford in front of both packs — a public shaming intended to send her quietly home with a purse and a broken heart. Instead she invokes a Moonvale law that has not been used in eighty years: a rejected mate may claim the alpha's seat if she can survive one winter, unbonded, on the manor's lands. The pack splits. The frost wing of the estate is freezing, the ledgers are a lie, and her only ally is Rowan, the pack's disgraced enforcer, forbidden from ever claiming a mate. Between first frost and thaw they rebuild the mill, break a legal trap, and fall into something Élise was never allowed to want. When spring arrives, the pack will vote — and Élise will have to decide whether to take the seat she fought for, or leave it to the man who earned it beside her. A fated mate rejected. A winter earned. A crown no one meant a woman to wear.