Claimed by the Alpha: A Forbidden Desire

I was seventeen when Kaelen Thorne promised we'd run away together. I was eighteen when my father sold me to a billionaire instead.

For twelve years, I've been Alexander Vance's perfect trophy wife: silent, obedient, and slowly suffocating behind designer clothes and empty smiles. He doesn't know the truth about what I am, about the forbidden bloodline I've kept dormant with suppressants and fear.

But now I'm pregnant, and I know exactly what my husband will do when he finds out. This child won't be treated as a son or daughter. It will be treated as property. As a weapon. As his.

So I ran.

I make it three miles into the wilderness before the assassin finds me.

When he steps out of the shadows, I see golden eyes I thought I'd never see again. Kaelen didn't come back to save me. He came to kill me. He's a Silver Enforcer now, the Council's executioner, and my bloodline is his next assignment.

But instead of ending my life, he offers something more dangerous: a contract.

"Pretend to be my mate for three months. The Council can't touch you if you're bonded to an Enforcer. When it's over, you disappear. You get your freedom."

I should say no and hate him for abandoning me. But with my husband's men closing in and nowhere else to turn, I sign my name next to his.

The contract says our bond is fake but my racing heart says otherwise.

But in a world where my blood makes me a target and my child makes me a prize, trust is the most dangerous gamble of all. And the man I'm betting everything on is the same one who destroyed me twelve years ago.