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For everyone who’s turned their pain into power
I like it more than I’d ever admit, having someone to take care of me.
Who needs a coat, anyway, when panic is setting your blood on fire?
The Bonded are the king’s most elite forces, soldiers who have mental bonds with massive, fearsome direwolves. They ride the wolves into battle and, rumor has it, the riders can even tap into the magic that the direwolves wield.
carbon copy of fourthwing
People idolize the Bonded as much as they revile them.
The Siphons might be our enemy, but I’m certain this man is the true face of evil.
My heart warms and then stutters. It’s too normal. I try to ignore the thought that it can’t last and just enjoy the comfort.
But I’m going to protect you, and I’m going to protect your sister. Let me.”
Mother sounds lucid, sane. As if losing her daughter has shored up what reserves her mind has left.
The idea of disappointing him makes me want to shed my own skin.
“I do understand,”
“If anyone can survive it, it will be you,” he tells me firmly. Courage catches like a bonfire in my chest. “Fight, Meryn. Win. Find Saela and come back to me.” “I will. I—I love you, Lee.” “I love you, too,” he says, reaching out to cup my cheek gently. We’ve said the words to each other before, but today they sound different. Today, I love you sounds an awful lot like goodbye.
raise my head to catch his sharp look. He doesn’t need to speak for me to understand: We both know this could be our last chance to be together like this for… for a long while.
It’s only goodbye for now, he assures me. We’ll see each other soon, he insists.
Will this be the last time I kiss my mother?
A pang goes through my heart thinking of my father’s military kit. Mother gave it all back to the army to reuse. Said she couldn’t stand the sight of it. I wish I had something of his to carry now.
My heart clenches. I know the fear of losing your sister only too well.
Cowardice will get you killed.”
I’ve become a stranger to myself.
Lee.
CRAZIEST PLOT TWIST
My beloved. He said he loved me. He made me promise to come back to him. The thought of returning to him, to our lives together, to the future we were going to build—it’s been one of the things getting me through these confusing, brutal days. He fucking lied. Our gazes meet again. I know he can read the betrayal in my eyes, but he doesn’t look away. The pain in his eyes makes me want to retch, acid rising in the back of my throat.
DISGUSTING
Tears of rage and failure burn my eyes. I’ve failed Saela.
“My love for you is as unwavering and steady as the winds from Mount Wolfsbane. I’d give it all up if you told me to. I’d abdicate tomorrow.” I scoff, folding my arms over my chest again, trying not to flush at his words. Because truthfully, I love him, too, even as I hate him. The warring emotions threaten to crater me where I stand. “You’re the most powerful woman in Nocturna, Meryn.” The certainty in his deep tone heats my blood, makes me look him straight in his glittering eyes. “You can bring this kingdom to its knees with just a word.”
I’d do it again, for Saela.
I thought you didn’t want this life.”
He pokes the bruise again, pain lancing through me. Fuck this guy. I pull my head back and spit in his face.
YESSSS
And I realize that the burning danger in his eyes is directed at me. Not for resisting him but for belittling my place in his life. “You are more precious to me than you could ever imagine,”
“I love you, too. Even if you’d never come back to me, I would have kept on loving you.”
“If I die tomorrow, find Saela for me. Get her to safety.”
“I’m so sorry that I haven’t been well—that I couldn’t be the mother you deserved.”
You are the new Strategos Alpha.”
You touch her again and I’ll cull you myself.”
“Who did this to you?”
“Kill you?” he exclaims, then glances over his shoulder toward the entrance of the dungeons and lowers his voice. “I’ve been doing everything in my power to keep you safe!” My cheeks are on fire. “Wh—” “Who moved you to your own quarters when someone tried to kill you in the night? Me!” He thuds a fist against his chest. “Who has been training you and strengthening you at every turn? Me!”
“Do you know how hard it was to see you with him?” he rasps. “To know who you were, even when you didn’t, sickening magic silencing me? To endure our wolves’ mate bond on top of it all?”
“Do you have any idea what it felt like to watch you at the Forging Ball in the dress I picked for you”—What?!—“swirling in your lover’s arms and bowing to his traitor father?”
