Wild and Untended

K.P. Aubrys 1 story

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Summary

Iris has spent years building a life where she doesn't need anyone. Behind towering walls of enchanted greenery, she tends an extraordinary garden, grows impossible crops, and shares her secluded home with the wild creatures who have chosen to stay. Her life is quiet, predictable, and exactly the way she likes it. People are complicated. They lie. They disappoint. They pretend to be something they're not. And then there are mate bonds. Fated mates are supposed to be a gift from the love goddess, but Iris has watched those bonds wreak havoc on people's lives since she was a child. People fall together, tear each other apart, run from bonds they never wanted, and sometimes spend their entire lives trapped by a connection they never chose. Iris wants no part of it. She doesn't need a fated mate. She doesn't need romance. She certainly doesn't need anyone disrupting the carefully constructed solitude she's spent years creating. She's perfectly happy with her garden, her home, her animals, and the occasional absurdly oversized cucumber. At least, that's what she tells herself. Because the love goddess has never been particularly good at taking no for an answer. And Iris is about to discover that sometimes the things you bury deepest are the very things capable of bringing you back to life.