Wild Instinct

Mara Callahan has a system. Graduate on track. Career solid. Personal life: intentional and adequately managed, thank you.

Then a man sits in her section and stares at a forty-dollar steak like it owed him an apology, looks up at her with amber eyes that do something she can't account for, and the system develops a variable she didn't plan for.

Callum Reed is new to the city, enormously built, unnervingly calm, and in possession of the kind of focused attention that makes her want to recalibrate everything she thought she wanted. He says true things without spin. He waited outside her work to ask one question. He is, objectively, a problem.

He's also a werewolf—alpha of the Stormridge Pack, thirty-seven wolves strong, headquartered six states away—and the moment he walked into her restaurant, his entire understanding of his own future rearranged itself. Fated mate. His. Already decided by something older and more certain than either of them. Mara feels the universe ran a process on her without her input and generated a result, and she'd like to register her objection. Callum's vote is the only one that matters, and his is already in.

She's annoyed. She's not done. There's a difference.

But while Mara processes the personal implications at her own methodical pace, a rival pack is pushing into Stormridge territory—and they've already sent someone to confirm she exists. The leverage concern is now active. The timeline is no longer entirely hers.

And Callum Reed, who has been patient for thirty-two years, is done letting other people set the terms.

Wild Instinct is Book One of the Stormridge Pack series. Dual POV fated-mates wolf shifter romance with explicit heat, a heroine who needs to understand the subject before she processes the implications, and a rival alpha with very unfortunate timing. Standalone HEA with a series arc. Perfect for fans of Jaymin Eve, Leia Stone, Eva Chase, and anyone who thinks the heroine should get a full, informed vote on the fated mate situation.