The Damned Return

My name's Francesca Lucia Salazar—Frankie, if you don't feel like choking on the syllables. The title I usually get stuck with? The Alpha's Bastard.

My father, Antonio Salazar, Alpha of the Queens Pack, had an affair and got stuck raising me when my mom died giving birth. Guilt made him keep me; shame made him ship me off to Colombia at thirteen. Big mistake. He thought I'd disappear. Instead, I became La Loba Blanca—the White She-Wolf of Colombia. An urban legend who hunted the monsters terrorizing the streets.

Then my mentor called. My father's dead—killed by his beta, Tian Láng—and I'm headed back to New York City to protect the family that once threw me away. But the city I return to isn’t the same. Wolves are vanishing. The ones found aren't just dead—they're poisoned in ways no one can explain.

That's when I meet Elias Láng—the God of Death. Cold, brilliant, impossible. My rival. My equal. My worst mistake waiting to happen. Then there's Angel Rodriguez—a tattooed ex-con lone wolf fresh out of Ironwood, all charm and chaos, who shouldn't care but somehow does. Between the Alpha's son who challenges everything I am and the lone wolf who sees everything I hide, I'm walking a line thinner than a blade.

I have one rule: trust no one. But when loyalty and lust start to look the same, even legends can bleed. New York's full of secrets, and I'm done being exiled from my own story. They can call me a bastard. But this bastard bites back.

Contains mature themes.