Claimed by Choice

Claimed by Choice

by Lyra Thorne

Heat 5 / 5 · 21+Novella · 12 chapters28,078 words2h 2m read~3h 7m listen

Under the rain-soaked firs of the Cascades, boundary-scent mediator Cleo Keane catches what she was never supposed to find: a thread of gun oil buried beneath the familiar musk of wolf and cedar at a disputed ridge marker. She knows what logging that hunter trace honestly will cost — she has already paid that price once, in her littermate’s blood. So she writes the post clean, watches a raindrop smear the ink, and tells herself the lie is protection.

Then Wynn Ellery walks out of the dark, and the fated-mate pull between them hits so hard she nearly drops the ledger.

Wynn is a scarred ex-rival enforcer, barely trusted by Moonveil Pack and already marked as a war-dog by the council. Cleo knows exactly what claiming that bond will mean for him — and for the ridge she has just falsified. Her solution is desperate and legally thin: stand before the pack, acknowledge the pull, and file a mutual rejection. A “stability exception.” A second lie, spoken out loud in the rain.

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