Dire Bound (The Wolves of Ruin Book 1)

by Sable Sorensen

and no matter how many times I shifted around, I couldn’t get away from the rocks and roots that stuck into my back at jagged angles. So much for the tough Alley Cat. Defeated by a tree root and some cold air.

“I’m sure I look frightful,” I say. “You’re the most beautiful you’ve ever been.”

His heavy, muscled legs wrap around my hips, pinning my pelvis in place so I can’t kick him again, and he presses a forearm against my throat—hard, then harder. Psycho. Fucking. Asshole. I’ll show him. But then his fingers come up, pressing calluses against my lips. “Thinking about spitting in my face again, princess?”

And in case my implication is not crystal fucking clear: You touch her again and I’ll cull you myself.”

“I can fix it, if you want. But it will hurt.” It usually does, where he’s involved. And what’s the alternative, going around with a cabbage for a nose for the rest of my life? “Break it again,” I hear Anassa say through the bond. “I’ll heal it right after.” That’s that. I square my shoulders. “Hurt me then, Alpha Stark.”

“Who did this to you?” he demands ferociously, one calloused hand clamping hotly on my thigh.

His eyes darken, jaw drawing tight. “Congratulations on your engagement,” he says instead. “You’ll make an incredible queen.”

“I’m the rightful queen of Nocturna, aren’t I?” I ask. Stark’s eyes spark, he takes a single step back, and he bows down on one knee, hand to his chest. “Welcome home, my queen.”

“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?”

“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.” Mine. My psycho asshole. My bloodthirsty killer.

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

I am Meryn Sturmfrost, Queen of Nocturna, and I will use the twisting dark in my bones and my blood to hunt Killian Valtiere to the ends of the earth.