Alexander's towering frame circled Ashley like a predator stalking wounded prey, his powerful presence suffocating the space between them. Her trembling apology fell from lips that refused to meet his gaze—naive, innocent, dangerously intoxicating to a man bound by duty and cursed by desire for someone who wasn't his fated mate. "What's your name?" His hoarse voice cut through the charged silence. "Ashley," she whispered, her vulnerability driving his wolf to the brink of madness. "An apology won't suffice, Ashley. You've seen me exposed—only fair I return the favor." He dragged wet fingers through his hair, the implications of his words hanging heavy between them. With exile looming mere months away, Alexander forges a desperate bargain: a contract marriage with the realm's most scorned wolfless slave. Ashley—branded "the weak wolfless luna" by everyone except him—becomes his path to the throne. But as their arrangement deepens, so do the stakes. Can he claim his rightful crown? Will she survive the trials of being luna to an alpha consumed by forbidden hunger? In a world where weakness means death and desire breeds chaos, their dangerous alliance could either save them both—or destroy everything.