Tallowridge Pack: Wanting Me Is a Crime

He tells me I’m nothing to him. My pulse doesn’t believe a word. I came to Tallowridge with a bag, a fake name, and a man’s promise to find me. The pack lets me clean the wolf pens for cash. Their alpha, Rhett, looks at me like I’m a stain and a meal at the same time. Then he says the one thing that could ruin me: not his mate. Not ever. But he keeps me under his roof. He growls when another man smiles at me. When he touches me, his hands shake. I want him to choose me without shame. I’m scared he’ll call it a mistake again. There’s a rule in this pack. No mates. No softness. No claims. Rhett says he’ll send me away before he breaks it. But someone from my old life is at the gate, and Rhett is not the man I thought he was. He calls me his mate. I don’t know if that means rescue or one more cage.