Cassia Phoenix always dreamed her mate would be her refuge—the one to give her the home she never had, the life she craved. But fate is cruel, and dreams are lies wrapped in pretty promises.

When she finally finds her mate, it’s not salvation. It’s a sentence. 

He’s already claimed by another, and she's nothing more than a mistake he’s determined to erase. Every day, he reminds her that she is unwanted. Unworthy. Unloved.

Being an omega, She spent her life on the fringes of her pack, invisible and expendable. But this? This is worse. 

So she runs.

To Winter Lake, a place that shouldn’t exist, where the rules of the world don’t apply. There, she might find a sliver of peace—if her mate doesn’t hunt her down, and if the powerful alpha of this forbidden pack doesn’t discover the truth about who she is. About what she is.

Staying is dangerous. Impossible, even. But then there’s him. The brown-eyed shifter who saves her from the storm, whose strength and promises make her question everything she thought she knew about fate, loyalty, and belonging. He makes her want to stay. To fight. To believe.

But when she’s spent her entire life running, how does she stop?

I thought Daniel would have caught up to me by now. But hours spent hiking through the dark forest are hours longer than I believed I'd be out here.


He would have been watching the house. There's no way he couldn't have been after the newspaper clipping suddenly appeared on my pillow yesterday.


I halt as a thought strikes me right between my eyes.


What if he doesn't know I've gone? What if he was off somewhere else and still thinks I'm at the house?


I angle my head back the way I came. Like most of Winter Lake, Eris's house borders a sprawling public forest. Even with the benefit of shifter sight, there's no way I'd see it. I've been walking too far to see anything. All around me now are towering trees, bright twinkling stars in the night sky above me, and thick, spongy grass under my sneakers.


Chapter 99 - How You Feel