Seven women entered Kane Croft’s private wing after midnight. None made it to sunrise.

The iron gates of the Croft Estate rose out of the Pacific Northwest fog like the black ribcage of a ancient leviathan.

It was 12:45 a.m.

I sat in the back of a blacked-out SUV, my fingers laced tightly in my lap to stop them from shaking. Outside, the pine trees of the Cascade Range swayed beneath a bruised, midnight sky. Every werewolf within five hundred miles knew what sat atop this ridge: Blackwood Keep, the private domain of Alpha King Kane Croft.

And everyone knew what happened inside his private wing after midnight.

Seven women had passed through those double mahogany doors over the last seven months. Seven candidates sent by desperate packs seeking political favors, debt forgiveness, or royal alliances.

None made it to sunrise.

Candidate One had fled screaming into the forest, found three miles away babbling incoherently about a beast made of shadow. Candidate Four was carried out on a stretcher by medical attendants, her nervous system completely shattered by the raw, uncontrolled pressure of an Alpha presence that had gone wild. Candidate Seven—a fearless warrior from the North—had lasted less than two hours before triggering the emergency alarm and begging to be locked in a steel cell just to escape the psychological suffocating air of Kane’s quarters.

Now, I was Candidate Eight.

"We have arrived, Miss Hayes," the driver said, his voice flat, stripped of any empathy.

The SUV ground to a halt before the massive stone portico. Standing near the entrance were two burly guards dressed in tactical combat gear. Beside them stood two medical attendants in white coats, holding heavy stainless-steel cases. I knew what was inside those cases: military-grade tranquilizers and broad-spectrum sedatives, ready to subdue a raging Alpha or sedate a broken woman.

They expected me to panic. They expected me to weep, to beg for mercy, or to claw at the leather seats.

I took a slow, deep breath, smoothing down the skirt of my simple dark green dress.

My name is Harper Hayes.

I was not a warrior princess or a polished high-society debutante. I was the eldest daughter of Thomas Hayes, Alpha of the struggling Cascade Pack. Our territory was dying. Our timber mills had gone under, our winter reserves were empty, and three weeks ago, my father had made the catastrophic mistake of tying nearly three million dollars of our pack’s remaining liquid assets to a failed venture with Croft Industries.

When the contract defaulted, Kane Croft’s ruthless corporate advisers swooped in. They were ready to seize our lands, evicting over four hundred pack members—families, elders, orphaned pups—into the freezing winter darkness.

Unless...

Kane’s chief adviser, a cold-eyed man named Silas Mercer, had presented my father with a single, terrifying alternative:

The debt disappears entirely if your daughter spends one full night in the Alpha King’s private wing as a formal candidate.

Everyone knew what that meant. My father had wept on his knees in our kitchen, begging me not to do it. But I couldn't watch four hundred people lose their homes. I couldn't watch my pack crumble into dust.

So I packed a small duffel bag and allowed Silas Mercer’s men to escort me to the monster’s lair.

"Remember the rules, girl," one of the medical attendants muttered as he opened my car door, his eyes scanning me with cold pity. "The red panic button is located beside the master bed. The moment his aura begins to fracture your skin, press it. Do not attempt to fight him. You won't survive."

"Thank you for the advice," I said quietly, stepping out into the freezing night air.

The heavy oak doors of the Keep opened with a low groan. I walked through the grand foyer, my boots echoing against the black marble floor, guided by two silent guards up a grand spiral staircase toward the restricted eastern wing.

At the end of a long, dimly lit corridor lined with antique tapestries and ancient wolf-head sconces, stood a massive set of silver-reinforced doors.

"Inside," the guard snapped, pulling the left door open just wide enough for me to slip through. "Until sunrise. Good luck, candidate."

THUD.

The door slammed shut behind me. The heavy brass deadbolts clicked into place with finality.

The air inside the room was suffocatingly hot, thick with the scent of ozone, crushed pine needles, and raw, bleeding power. The aura hit my chest like a physical weight, forcing a short gasp from my throat. It was the aura of an Apex Predator—an Alpha King whose mind was fraying at the edges.

I stepped deeper into the room. The private wing was enormous, dark, and littered with evidence of violence. Shredded leather armchairs lay in corners. Massive oak bookshelves were cracked in half, their ancient texts scattered across Persian rugs soaked in spilt wine and shattered glass.

Then, a movement stepped out from the shadows near the far balcony.

My heart hammered against my ribs.

Kane Croft stood barefoot on the marble floor.

He was massive—easily six-foot-five, with shoulders broad enough to block out the light of the fireplace behind him. He wore only a pair of dark trousers, his chest covered in silver battle scars and glowing, jagged veins of red power that pulsed beneath his bronze skin. His hair was black and wild, falling over a jawline carved from granite.

But it was his eyes that caught my breath.

They weren't human. They were pure, burning liquid gold—swirling with an intense, agonizing madness.

His giant hands were clutched into fists at his sides, trembling violently as he fought to suppress the crushing weight of his own monstrous aura. The air around him shimmered with heat haze, threatening to drop me to my knees where I stood.

Kane raised one massive, trembling arm, pointing a clawed finger toward a glowing silver panic button mounted on the wall beside a massive four-poster bed.

"Press it," Kane growled, his voice a deep, demonic rasp that vibrated straight through the floorboards into the soles of my shoes. "Press it now... before I break you like the rest of them."

I stood frozen. The air was heavy, screaming at every instinct in my wolf to run, to scream, to hit that silver button and let the medical crew inject me with sedatives.

I looked at his face. I looked past the terrifying power, past the glowing veins, past the reputation of the monster who destroyed everyone who stepped near him.

I saw the tight, strained lines around his golden eyes. I saw the deep purple hollows beneath his cheekbones. I saw the way his breath came in short, jagged gasps, as if he had been running a marathon for seven straight months without a single second of rest.

Behind the rage... he wasn't trying to hurt anyone.

He was drowning.

I didn't run. I didn't reach for the panic button.