“As much as I ached to devour her, I needed to savor the moment she decided to let the monster in.” Ilona came to Cutwood to escape control, but one encounter with Larz, a mysterious, tattooed, split-tongued scorpion‑shifter woman forces her to face an impossible decision she never thought she would have to make: surrender to a claiming that binds her forever, or risk losing the only love strong enough to fight the shadows of her past. This book contains mature content and is intended for readers 18+ Please read trigger and content warnings below. If these are too much for you, please take care of your mental health and skip this one! Trigger Warnings: Violence/Guns Blood/injury Character death Stalking/Voyeurism Near-death experiences Body transformation/shapeshifting Psychic/mind connection Explicit sexual content Blood play Power dynamics in intimacy Claiming ritual Grief/fear of loss Death and afterlife references