Claimed by The Grumpy Alpha

Ivy Hartwell has one rule: never meet a stranger she can't win over. So when she inherits her late grandmother's flower shop in a town so small it doesn't show up on GPS, she throws open the windows, learns everyone's name by lunch, and starts leaving muffins for the terrifyingly large "dogs" patrolling the woods behind her property.

She has no idea they're wolves. She has even less idea that the growling, glowering, impossibly gorgeous man who shows up on her porch to order her out of town is their Alpha — and that the second she trips over his boots, something ancient and unshakable slams into place between them.

Callahan Vale hasn't smiled in four years. He runs his territory the way he runs everything else: ironclad, humorless, and completely alone. He does not have time for a woman who paints her shopfront the color of a school bus, hums while she works, and looks at him like he's something worth softening for. He definitely doesn't have time for a mate-bond he never asked for and can't make himself walk away from.

But the closer Ivy gets, the more it becomes clear someone else wants her gone — permanently — and the only way to survive what's coming is for Callahan to stop pretending he doesn't want to claim her, body and bond, in front of the whole world.

He's the growl in the dark. She's the sunshine that won't take no for an answer. And when the full moon finally calls in every debt, there won't be anything careful left about either of them.

Some bonds aren't chosen. This one bit first.

For readers who love their alphas grumpy, their heroines relentlessly sweet, and their small towns hiding a lot more than casseroles and gossip — this slow-burn, fated-mates, marked-and-claimed romance turns up the heat and doesn't apologize for it.