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.

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

So much for the tough Alley Cat. Defeated by a tree root and some cold air.

“You know, you’re heavier than you look,” she says, and snorts. “It’s all the muscle,” I say boastfully. “Yeah, that and the humility,” Izabel retorts.

But there’s something else there, too. Something like recognition. A brief shimmer of acknowledgment. It’s a little like she’s recognized that I’m not a spindly piece of human meat only good for eating. Like she saw and felt my strength, just now, and she’s begrudgingly admitting that I may actually have something to offer her.

His presence is heavy, dark. Like pregnant clouds on a horizon, threatening a deadly blizzard. Odd that it’s also sort of comforting.

“Give me the word and I’ll tear out his throat. All the lives I’ve ever taken were just training for this moment, my queen. Make me your instrument of vengeance. Let my hands act out your every savage, depraved thought. Use me. I’m yours.”

“You’re worried?” He scoffs. “Never. You are the danger. Any person who doesn’t see that deserves what’s coming to them.”