Aria couldn’t keep her hands still.

She had scrubbed her counters until they gleamed, stacked her jars twice over, and even taken to chopping herbs she didn’t need. None of it quieted the storm inside her chest.

The mark beneath her collarbone pulsed like a second heartbeat. Worse, the memory of his eyes—dark, sharp, unyielding—wouldn’t leave her. He hadn’t even given her his name, yet somehow he had stolen the air from her lungs.

Her fingers brushed the mark through her shawl. The glow had faded to a dull shimmer, but the heat lingered. She hated that she wanted to feel it again.

“Get yourself together, Aria,” she muttered. She was no foolish girl to be undone by a stranger’s stare. She had survived on her own since her mother’s death, kept her cottage and shop running with her own two hands. She didn’t need a man—least of all one who radiated danger like a storm waiting to break.

And yet… that howl last night. The way it had echoed inside her chest. She felt as though her life was no longer her own, pulled by invisible strings she couldn’t cut.

She tried to push the thought away. The Miller’s boy needed more salve for his fever, Mrs. Carter had ordered more lavender, and winter was creeping closer each night. Ordinary problems. Manageable problems.

But even as she forced herself to work, she couldn’t shake the sense that someone was watching her.

Damian stood at the edge of the trees, cloaked in shadow. His wolf prowled beneath his skin, restless, furious, demanding.

Mate.

The word pulsed in his blood like fire. He had known the moment he saw her across the market. The mark glowing faintly at her throat had confirmed what his instincts already screamed: she was his.

And that terrified him.

He had sworn he would never accept the bond. Fated mates were a weakness, a chain around the neck of an Alpha. He had seen what it did—how it broke his father when his mother died, how it hollowed strong warriors when their mates were torn away. He would not let the Goddess dictate his heart, nor his power.

But Aria Vale had stepped into his world like a spark on dry tinder, and now he burned.

He clenched his fists, forcing his wolf back, though the beast snarled in protest. From this distance, he could smell her—wild herbs and honey, threaded with the faintest trace of something forbidden. Something old.

And that was the greater danger.

The mark on her skin was not just a mate’s sign. It was the curse, the brand of a bloodline his pack had been taught to fear. If he claimed her, it would not only bind him. It could destroy them all.

“Alpha.”

He turned. Rylan, his Beta, emerged from the shadows, pale-eyed and wary. “The patrols are restless. Rogues on the northern border again.”

Damian’s jaw tightened. Rogues were growing bolder, circling closer to Ashwood’s edge. And now, with her here—his cursed mate—they would scent opportunity.

“She doesn’t know what she is,” Damian said quietly. “Not yet.”

Rylan’s gaze flicked toward the cottage beyond the trees. “Do you mean to tell her?”

“No.” The word was sharp, final. “She’s safer not knowing. The less she’s tied to me, the better.”

His wolf snarled again at the lie, but Damian ignored it. He would resist this bond. He had to.

Even if every instinct in his body screamed otherwise.

Back inside her cottage, Aria tried to convince herself the unease in her bones was nothing more than fatigue. She lit a candle, the golden flame chasing shadows from the corners of the room. Yet as the night deepened, the feeling only grew stronger.

When the howl rose again—closer this time—her breath caught in her throat. The mark seared hot, and though fear should have frozen her, she found herself drawn to the window.

Beyond the glass, the forest loomed dark and endless. She swore she saw movement between the trees, the brief flash of gold catching the moonlight.

Her pulse raced.

And for reasons she could not explain, she whispered into the night:

“Who are you?”