THE ALPHA’S CLAIM

When Isabella Hart flees her isolated mountain pack to escape a forced mating, she believes she is running from a man. She is actually running from a system. Within days of crossing into the city territories, she is captured by hunters and sold through the Black Howl Market, an illegal exchange where living assets are traded between packs. She is purchased by Vincenzo DeLuca, the most feared Alpha in the eastern territories. Vince does not buy her for pleasure. He buys her because her blood can crown kings. Installed inside his pack house under permanent guard, Isabella learns the truth her father died to hide: her bloodline controls the ancient compacts that decide which packs rule, which fall, and which are erased. Until she is formally claimed and blood-bound to an Alpha, the compacts remain unstable. Every pack wants her. Some want to rule through her. Some want to kill her to break the system entirely. As Vince prepares to bind her to secure his empire, his Beta, Rafael Torres, offers her a different temptation: escape. Choice. A future without chains. He promises to help her disappear before the binding seals her fate forever. But Rafael’s interest is not salvation. It is a strategy. And far beyond the city borders, a third power rises: the man Isabella was promised to before she fled, the Alpha who helped orchestrate her father’s “death,” and who now intends to use her blood to burn the entire pack hierarchy to the ground. If Isabella submits, she becomes a crown. If she runs, she becomes a war.