The characters are highly complex and they exist in a world that values strength over compassion, only the strong survive. The life inside the pack mimics that of a real wolf pack with a strict hierarchy that is established through fighting and power. It is also comparable to a medieval court, the king holds his divine right to rule and the queen exists solely to please and support the king. Throw in scheming courtiers with the ability to change into wolves with sharp claws and fangs and you have the pack construct. As the characters are basically wolves housed in a human skin and the story is laced with animalistic references and traits displayed by all. We first meet the main characters Meela and Grey it is on a bloody battlefield where they recognize each other as their soul mate, and Grey takes Meela as tribute for his pack's help in her brother's fight. From this point on Meela belongs to Grey, and in this world, a highly spirited female with a propensity for impulsive actions matched to a dog stubborn, self-assured, dominant male is going to cause problems. We follow Meela in her journey to become the pack's Luna, a pack who are even more wolf than the one she comes from, and with a mate who has set the highest standards for her to reach as his Luna(female Alpha) and will accept nothing less than perfection. In the midst of all this and the struggle they face to form a personal and public relationship, there is one incident that will change them both and the fate of the pack completely. From that point on both Meela and Grey are inevitably changed and for them to be together, either one or both needs to change, but when you live in a world where you are taught that weakness is easily exploited and to admit defeat can potentially lead to your destruction. Thank you @chortle for the great summary

Book One of the Downworlder Series ~~~~~~~~~~~ Do you know what it feels like to have your current reality torn from your grasp and a new one shoved in its place? Neither did Sutton Kendrick. Sutton had lived on Haven her entire life, floating above earth and the beasts that inhabited it. They were strange creatures. Half beast, half human. They were animals as far as she was concerned. Haven was safe. It was for the preservation of the purity of the human bloodlines. However Sutton's reality ends when after her eighteen birthday she discovers she has a beast of her own under her skin. Her world ends in a night of pain and the bang of a gavel because she is no longer human. No longer pure. She is thrown to the wolves. Her life changing in an instant. She has to learn how to survive, how to run, and how to live on a planet that is hellbent on devouring her whole because those that go to the downworld never return.

2016 Watty Award Winner for Most VORACIOUS Read Sample only. This book is PUBLISHED! How do you tell yourself not to breathe? He is my mate, and she is his everything. But he chose her, against every single instinct that we both know. For that, I have been whipped, shunned, shamed, disgraced, and broken. All for one moment of madness, I could not control. After two years, I left, unable to bear the pain and loneliness anymore. That was then. This is now. I am back, and I am not the juvenile I was. I am now a fully grown female. I feel his eyes on me, but I can't. I won't. I shouldn't. Time has healed my wounds, but not the deep scars the whip seared into my flesh or his indifference to my heart. Each breath is a pain, and his scent overwhelms me. But I can smell her in it. He still will not give her up, despite his own body crawling with a deep, physical desire that only a mate can satisfy. I breathe: I exist, barely. I am a midwife. I bring life into a cruel world that haunts me every day, and the Doctor I work with is the only one in this pack who holds faith in me. He is the one person who stands up for me - and I feel light again when I am with him. What kind of life is this when two mates cannot be together, yet every part of their primal soul yearns for it infinitely? What kind of cruel moon would torture a she-wolf like this? I can't go on, but I must. Whatever happens, I must attend to my purpose and give my miserable life some meaning; perhaps I can snatch some joy in pieces, but now I see that he needs me - but he also wants her too. How do you tell yourself not to breathe?

If you can see them, then you're already dead. If you can hear them, then you're not far from it. If you can smell them, like the forest they live in, then avoid danger at all conceivable costs. Because they're the monsters in the shadows of Harvey Hill's forests, and their king needs his queen.