Hui Zhong was not born from blood, but had been raised in it. As the daughter of one of the most feared and monstrous hunters alive, she was raised beneath the shadow of cruelty, slaughter, and a name that made entire packs tremble. Her father destroyed the weak without mercy, leaving ruin in his wake-but there was one thing he could never control: His daughter. The day Hui broke free, she did not run. She hunted. For more than thirty years, she turned her blade against the very world that made her, slaughtering hunters, defying her father, and tearing apart the organization that had poisoned her life from the inside out. By the time she was done, the empire built on blood had fallen at her feet. And then came the silence. No war. No purpose. No revenge. Only retirement. Only loneliness. Only the ghost of a love she had already lost. But peace does not last long for a woman like Hui Zhong. Because the moment she steps away from the battlefield, she is thrown into the path of a cold, powerful, maddeningly unreadable alpha whose silence hides wounds as deep as her own. Marcel is dangerous in all the ways that matter-steady, scarred, and far too easy to want. And worse- The Moon Goddess chose them as their second mates. A second chance mate. A cruel blessing for a woman who has already loved once, lost once, and bled enough for ten lifetimes. Now Hui must decide whether to trust fate again... or rip herself away before it can destroy her. He is a wolf built from silence. She is a hunter's daughter forged by war. And when grief, guilt, desire, and destiny collide, neither of them will escape unscathed. Because some love stories are not soft. Some are born from ruin.