Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87502 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87502 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
I came to claim my inheritance…and found her instead.
For twenty years, Vivienne Jamison endured a loveless marriage to a cruel and heartless Alpha. I've seen the scars he left behind—the way she flinches instinctively, doubts her own beauty, and blames herself for things that were never her fault.
The Pack sees a barren widow whose best years are behind her—I see a strong, beautiful woman who deserves to be cherished.
From the moment I met her, I felt drawn to her in a way I've never experienced before. Every instinct inside me wants to protect her, care for her, and give her the happiness she's been denied for far too long.
Too bad Pack Law says she's forbidden to me.
My heart was in the grave…until he came.
After twenty years of being blamed for something that was never my fault, I thought my life was over. Then Corwyn arrived.
This new Alpha is everything my late husband wasn't—kind, protective, and impossible to resist. However, the BlackRidge Pack is governed by ancient laws and cruel traditions—they expect me to remain single and alone, honoring the memory of a man I never loved.
When I come into my first real Heat at 40, staying away from Cor becomes harder than either of us imagined. It doesn’t matter that he’s ten years younger than me—I want him and he wants me.
The Pack says we're forbidden. Our hearts disagree. But if we’re caught, we’ll pay the price.
For breaking the Unbreakable Laws carries only one punishment— death .
The Widow's Forbidden Heat is a steamy Omegaverse romance featuring a curvy older heroine, a devoted younger Alpha, fated mates, forbidden love, small-town secrets, protective hero vibes, emotional healing, and a guaranteed happily ever after
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ONE
VIVIENNE
The man in the casket was my husband, but I felt nothing when I looked at him.
Carter Jamison had been a cold man, and I mean that literally. Every time he touched me his hands were like ice. Just thinking about it made me shiver.
But he was cold in other ways too—cold and aloof, never interested in anything I had to say. I had been sold to him when I was barely twenty—a virgin who had been sequestered for years to keep me that way—and he’d never shown me a single spark of warmth or affection.
I was so innocent on our wedding night, I had no idea what was coming. I was only told I must hold still and submit to my husband and do whatever he told me.
That might not have been a problem if my husband had been a kind man—one who cared about his wife’s pain or the terror I felt when I first saw the crooked shaft of his manhood with its ugly, bloated knot coming towards me.
Closing my eyes, I remembered the sharp feeling inside me—like someone stabbing with a knife—and the way my eyes had filled with tears. My eyes with the Royal Golden Rim—the thin ring of gold around each iris that proclaimed I had some Royal Were blood in me. They had marked me as special—as a woman who would bear the man who was lucky enough to mate with her many strong sons.
It was a promise I never fulfilled for Carter, despite the prophecy.
Not that he didn’t try to get me pregnant. Every month during my Heat Cycle—which was never very strong—he tried. After a time, I stopped dreading the encounters and got used to the grunting and thrusting on top of me. For all its ugliness, his shaft wasn’t very big. After those first few times, it didn’t hurt anymore. And a year or so after that, I barely noticed it in me. I was able to close my eyes and imagine myself someplace much more pleasant—the beach maybe, or the mountains.
I have always wanted to travel, but Carter preferred to stay put. He ruled the Blackridge Pack with an iron fist, and he didn’t like leaving his territory in case someone might get out of line. The few times he went to multi-Pack meetings in other states, he refused to take me.
“You’ll only get into trouble,” he’d grunt, when I begged to go with him so I could see someplace new. He called me ungrateful for pleading to go away. After all, hadn’t he given me a mansion to live in?
Wolverton Manor was a grand home, I had to admit. It has turrets and towers and battlements—just like a castle. It’s not a “McMansion” as Carter scornfully called the other grand houses in our small town. Parts of it were brought over from England—they used to be the walls of a monastery before Carter bought them and brought them here.
But the Manor was built long before I was born—back when he was still in his “exploring phase” as he put it, the few times he talked about his adventures in Europe and the Far East. By the time we wed, he was nearly sixty and had had his fill of traveling.
“I just want to stay home by my own fire,” he would growl, when I mentioned how nice it might be to go for a vacation somewhere. “Stop your prattling, girl! I don’t have time for your nonsense!”
Carter had never had time for my “nonsense” or any other part of me, except what was between my legs. As time went on, though, and he failed to get me pregnant, he grew bitter and angry.
He would complain about it often though and curse me for not giving him an heir. He said the soothsayer who had made the prophecy about the “girl with gold-ringed eyes who would bear many strong heirs to a male of the Jamison line” was nothing but a liar and a thief who had taken his money when he asked for a Truth Saying.
Of course, he sent me to a fertility clinic—though he refused to go himself. They poked and prodded and studied me and though they admitted that my Heat Cycle was extremely mild, there was nothing actually wrong with my womb. So there was nothing to be done but bring me home again and try some more.
They even gave me fertility drugs to take—not that they did any good. I just couldn’t seem to conceive, no matter how I tried. Eventually Carter cursed me and called me “barren.”
I didn’t dare to suggest that he get tested too—even though the forbidden internet searches I did explained that the failure to get pregnant might not be my fault. A man his age might have a low sperm count, after all, but Carter would hear none of that. He was an Alpha—who ever heard of an Alpha with a low sperm count?