A year after two rival wolf mafia dynasties brokered an impossible peace, diplomat Dimitri Voss has spent every day since proving that peace was worth eight years of guilt. Sasha Volkov has spent that same year proving to her own pack that loyalty and softness are not opposites. Neither of them has let themselves want anything simply for its own sake, not since the night Sasha nearly died brokering the truce that made them family in every way except the one that matters most to either of their hearts. When a cell of old-blood loyalists resurfaces, plotting to free the imprisoned matriarch who once orchestrated a war between their families, Sasha and Dimitri are the only two people positioned to stop it. The only way in is undercover, posing as a newly bonded mated pair before a gathering of extremists who test loyalty in blood. A ritual oil can mask the fact that they are not truly bonded. It cannot mask, for very long, the fact that neither of them is entirely pretending. As the mission accelerates into a five-day countdown, a coerced informant, a traitor's grief-stricken cousin, and a wolf council's own dangerous blind spots all converge on a single violent morning that will either cement the fragile alliance forever or shatter it beyond repair. Sasha and Dimitri must decide how much of themselves they are willing to risk when the performance stops being performance, and the danger stops being hypothetical. A fast, fierce, slow-burn-that-isn't-slow-for-long romance about two people who have spent a year being careful with everyone except themselves, and the mission that finally forces them to stop. Perfect for readers who love fake-mates tropes that collapse almost immediately, found-family alliances between rival crime dynasties, and heroines and heroes who choose each other freely, in blood and under fire, rather than by accident of instinct alone. "The oil could disguise a scent. It couldn't disguise the truth." "Pretend to be mated. Try not to fall in love doing it. Fail spectacularly at the second part." "One mission. One disguise. One truth neither of them was ready to admit." "She'd die for the alliance. She just didn't expect to fall for the man standing beside her while she did it."