They make me feel like I belong for the first time since my parents were murdered. And when they touch me, my whole world sparks to flame. But they have enemies. Those who would give anything to harm what they hold dear. And while they’ll do whatever it takes to keep me safe, sometimes falling in love will put you right in the line of fire.

I’m not looking for a hero, and definitely not a fake relationship with my new boss, nightclub owner Dante Fury—over six feet of dark, hot, and dangerous. But he isn’t taking no for an answer. The plan was to run, live under the radar, survive. My life’s been destroyed by some very bad people and everything I know is gone—career, friends, family. I thought I could hide as a bartender at New Orleans’ hottest new club, Ember.

One heroic act damned me for eternity. With a name like Tor, I should have been a hero, just like my father and twin. Turns out I’m not. Not even close. Instead I’m the very thing we hunted. A depraved monster. I thought there was no escaping the curse. No hope for a future. And then I met my mate in the unlikeliest of places: Blackwood Asylum. A place for criminals. Power-hungry madmen. Supernatural outcasts. And her, the curvaceous writer who sees ghosts.

I refuse to spend the rest of my life with my childhood bully for a mate. I may be a cursed shifter, incapable of shifting—but I wasn't desperate. Not till the Alpha Supreme cast me out of the House of Fire and Fluorite for rejecting his son. Now I'm packless. Homeless. No longer under the protection of a House. Until the dark vampire king of Blood and Beryl turns his sights on me. In return for protection from my former House, I have to become his fake mate. I'll be a queen and a fraud. It's a treacherous lie to live—and I find myself forgetting what's real and what's not.

You know that saying, "Desperate times call for desperate measures." That could be the next chapter in my life. I never thought I'd call the Alpha Alliance and ask for assistance, but here we are. Somehow, that one call ended with me agreeing to go offline with four alphas. Four crazy good looking alphas that feel right. And don't get me started about the way they smell... But, and that's a big but, there are a few issues. Like the fact I've got a secret, or twenty, and being an omega isn't one of them.