Dire Bound (The Wolves of Ruin, #1)

by Sable Sorensen

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my twenty-three years alive, it’s this: Women in pain give men confidence.

He never fails to make my fights, and it never fails to please me, having someone by my side who is unfailingly and reliably supportive for once in my life.

She’s obsessed with the idea of the Bonded. I can’t totally blame her—superhot warriors riding mystical beasts and wielding mysterious magic? It’s intriguing, if you can set aside the extreme and punishing classism.

My pulse speeds up as I clock the tattoos completely covering his neck, his hands. Not much makes me afraid, but this? Run, a self-preserving, animalistic part of me cries. Danger.

There’s nobody in it. Saela is gone.

Today, I love you sounds an awful lot like goodbye.

Oh. Oh. He’s been saving for an engagement bracelet.

But in my mind, images swirl. Anassa, running in the moonlight, racing down the mountainside, faster than wind. A sun rising, rays blinding and beautiful. A crown, its metal glinting, then drenched in blood.

I can’t mourn her. I don’t have the time.

Saela, Saela, Saela. Her name is in the pounding of my heart. In the thudding of my boots. In the rush of wind and the haunting echo of howls along the mountainside.

We shared promises. Secrets. Dreams I never believed I would get to live.

Crown Prince Killian descends to the balcony while I stand there frozen, my whole world crumbling around me. And then, seated at his father’s side, he lifts his head and looks right at me, dark blue eyes filled with regret. My heart cracks. Lee.

I haven’t seen my tattoo since I got it this morning. And it’s… oddly beautiful.

For the first time since we met, our feelings align.