Direbound (The Wolves of Ruin #1)

Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

T here’s still a disorienting ringing in my ears. The ground’s gone unsteady beneath my feet, my body numb from the biting wind and whatever that was. My mind starts to cling to miniscule details.

The way the direwolf’s coarse fur beneath my fingers turns soft deeper down. The intermittent sting of snow slicing my cheeks. The heavy, rhythmic sound of Anassa’s breathing.

A lock of my hair, tugged loose from my ties, whips past my gaze. It re-centers my focus.

Silver. All my dark hair has turned a luminous silver-white, the same color as Anassa.

My eyes slice back to Anassa and I untangle my hands from her fur as quickly as if she’d burned me. I know what the changed hair color means.

Bonded .

Muted horror floods my veins and I glance around at the other recruits in a panic. The younger woman nearest me has dark hair. Even in the insistent tug of the wind, I can see a silver streak in it. The rest of her hair is still black.

Heart rate escalating again, my eyes jump around to the other recruits. I blink rapidly, trying to focus my mind.

Regulate my breathing, first. That’s what Igor always taught me. In and out. Slow, to trick my body into believing nothing’s wrong.

Izabel is close, staring at me with wide eyes, a silver streak in her hair. Beyond her, across the mess of crushed snow and lingering recruits, is Venna, with her blue-black streak. The others… Henrey, a tawny color. That asshole Jonah, a sickening bloody red.

All of them have only a streak in their hair to mark their packs. I yank my hair out of my tie and pull it in front of me to confirm—and yes, it’s all changed, every fucking strand. I’m an anomaly.

I glance back to the massive, silver-white direwolf at my side. She’s stock still, assessing me.

“This was a mistake,” I hiss at Anassa. “Take it back. I don’t want to be Bonded. I said I didn’t. You’re not supposed to bond with the unwilling.”

Her eerie yellow eyes narrow at me, and I remember Izabel’s warning from before, to not look any of them in the eye. What, is she going to bite me? Now that she’s forced a bond on me?

Anassa starts to pull back her lips in a growl, revealing terrifyingly sharp teeth. But before she can fully react, there’s a shift in the air.

Every recruit falls utterly silent. Even the direwolves quiet. The only remaining sounds are the howling of the wind and the occasional crunches of paws and feet in the snow. Anassa huffs beside me, making me flinch, but I can’t take my eyes off…

Him . Them.

The deathlike shadow of Stark Therion’s direwolf looms over us all from atop a snow-covered boulder. He looks even more massive than when I saw him at the base of the mountain, with his pitch black fur and dagger-like claws.

Flashes of the brutality he’s capable of—they’re both capable of—return to me. Blood, viscera, unfeeling eyes.

I wonder if they made good on their threat to chase the unwilling up the mountain. How much blood might be coating that direwolf’s muzzle, unseen in his black fur?

The wolf bares his teeth as Stark steps forward, smaller than his mount but no less imposing. There’s a reason every single person here fell silent the moment he crested the slope of the mountain.

His presence is commanding just the way a thunderhead swallows up the sky. Unstoppable, flashing with danger, a low, rumbling warning striking fear through us.

A thought emerges from the chaos of my mind. Stupid, really, but it’s there all the same.

He must be strong to ride that beast .

Stark glides his hand along his wolf’s coat, leaving it there as his dark gaze sweeps over us. When it passes over me, some instinct deep within me forces me to lift my chin and draw my shoulders back.

I’ve seen men like him before. The quiet ones. The dangerous ones. The men who don’t shout threats because they simply don’t need to .

When I look at Stark, I see a calm, wicked confidence sharp as a knife, honed from endless fights and very few losses.

The power of his towering body, the ferocity in his gaze, the scars and dark tattoos peeking out of his gear, and the ironlike set to his shadowed jaw are there for all to see.

He’s as feral and dangerous as his direwolf.

My hair whips in front of my eyes again, a bolt of light against the endless shadow of him. An energy buzzes in my muscles, electric and hot, flooding me with strength. Something in me sees all that power and wants to move . Throw a punch or take it all in my hands and twist it up.

His direwolf takes a heavy step forward and lets out a low, menacing growl from deep in his belly.

The recruits around me jostle backwards at the sound, even those with enormous wolves standing over them for protection.

Stark’s lips twitch like he finds it amusing. When he lifts an amplifier and speaks, it’s like the wind itself quiets to listen, the deep, gravely sound of his voice carrying clearly across the bloodstained snow.

“If you were not lucky enough to become one of the Bonded, you can now make your way back down the mountain via the path to report for military duty as a soldier. If you’ve Bonded, congratulations,” he says, the boredom in his voice making it clear that he’s unimpressed. “Your training starts right now with the first test of your bond.”

My mind whirs into motion again. Testing our bonds? I drag my attention from Stark’s imposing figure and dare to glance at Anassa.

She stands still, not looking at me, lithe muscles locked as her silvery white fur ripples in the breeze.

“You and your wolf must make it back to the training center in the castle before nightfall. From that point forward, you will be officially considered a Rawbond, a trainee. If you do not make it in time, do not bother trying to enter the castle. Because if you fail…” Stark goes on, leaning against his direwolf’s leg and crossing his arms, “your connection with your wolf will sever and you will die. Good luck.”

You will die .

There’s still blood smeared across my face from the people who’ve already lost their lives during the Ascent, and he stands up there and speaks of death with such complete indifference.

I hate him. I fucking hate him.

Stark is callous and bloodthirsty and dangerous . Men like that have no true loyalty to anyone but themselves. They don’t care about anyone else, not about the lives at risk or the people lost in the cracks of the world.

He lithely mounts his wolf, muscles pulling him up with a practiced grace only possible from performing the same motion thousands of times.

I clench my jaw so hard that my teeth ache as I watch Stark and his direwolf disappear into the snow, barreling down the mountain.

The mountaintop has turned into chaos. Many of the recruits are grabbing at their direwolves’ coats, scrambling to try to mount. Some of the wolves swipe at their would-be riders, snarling and stumbling away from them. Other, more patient recruits gaze up at their beasts, clearly trying to attempt to reason with them.

My head is still spinning from the absolute wrongness of this. But I did not spend all day breaking my body—watching other people fall to gruesome deaths—in order to just quit now.

If I want to survive, if I want to save my sister, I need to at least try .

Anassa won’t look at me, gaze locked somewhere in the distance, silver coat gleaming. She’s larger than the other wolves around us. More imposing. Regal and terrifying and clearly stubborn.

Clearing my mind, I try to tap back into that swimming, dizzying stream of energy I felt when she first approached me, but I get… nothing. Utter silence.

Maybe I’m doing this wrong. After all, most of the people on this mountaintop grew up watching their families communicate with wolves. Likely, they were taught how to do it.

My best guess is that I should think words at her, feel intent, open myself up to her mind. I reach out toward the place in my consciousness where I felt her power earlier.

BAM .

My mind impacts against an iron wall, steely and impassable between us. It’s as cold as her icy eyes, towering as her hulking body, and sharp as her glinting claws.

Something’s not right. The others are starting to mount properly now. Some are even bounding off down the mountain, direwolf after direwolf disappearing into the snow. This must be working for them.

Am I doing it wrong? Is this because I don’t want to be Bonded?

But then why the fuck did she do this?!

My fractured mind latches onto Izabel in the mess of bodies before me. She’s climbing onto her silver direwolf’s back, taking fistfuls of fur as her mount watches her every move closely. I don’t see Venna anywhere—she must have already started back down the mountain.

I glance nervously at Anassa and then turn to sprint towards Izabel. “Hey!”

Izabel turns and looks down at me as she settles atop her direwolf, sitting back. Her eyes widen when she sees me, and her brow pinches up. “Meryn.”

“Was he serious?” I choke out. I don’t know why I say it. Stark was obviously serious, not a lighthearted bone in his massive body.

“Yes,” she says so quietly it’s almost lost in the wind. “People who don’t make it back in time die.”

“I didn’t even want this,” I breathe, looking back at Anassa who still hasn’t budged. She’s staring at me now, though, cold gaze steady.

“I know, but you can do it,” Izabel says. Her direwolf shifts beneath her, massive muscles stretching, tail swishing. She pats its shoulder. “I have to go. It’s?—”

“She’s not talking,” I blurt, hating the vulnerability in my voice.

Izabel looks briefly horrified before she deftly conceals it. “Not talking?”

“I’m not getting anything from my wolf, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Izabel winces. “Just… try harder, Meryn. Some people die along the way because they’re not communicating well with their wolves. The packs think that it’s not worth the time to train pairs who can’t communicate.”

“So, what?” I ask. “This is some sort of twisted way of weeding people out?”

Izabel’s nonresponse is confirmation.

Because this isn’t a test, in the end. It’s an execution.

Why am I surprised? People like me die every day. In the streets and alleys. On the front lines. Scrambling up a freezing, icy mountain.

Abducted by Nabbers in the night.

No . I can’t think like that. The hope that Saela is alive is the only thing keeping me moving.

“Anassa chose you,” Izabel says, her dark eyes sympathetic, even as she looks at me like I’m a doomed cause. Well, fuck that. “That has to count for something, Meryn.”

Her direwolf starts to shift its weight, rumbling out an impatient growl.

Izabel breathes deeply and nods, jaw set. “I wish you all the best. I truly do. And I hope to see you down there.”

With that, her mount turns and races away, and she’s gone with the rest.

There are almost none of us left atop the mountain now. Those still remaining are struggling to mount. That, or they’re mounted and their direwolves aren’t moving or are trying to buck and roll them off.

There’s a massive tawny direwolf sitting in the snow across the bloody snowfield, gnawing on a severed arm, staring at me.

My stomach turns as I march back to Anassa, hands in fists. Even though my wound has healed, my muscles still ache, hot and insistent. They’re locking up and screaming at me for overworking them. My hands are basically blocks of ice. My head still pounds from the bonding.

But that’s life. It’s always been my life. Pain and persistence.

There’s only one way forward, and I’m not dying on a lonely, icy mountain. I refuse to die until I know Saela is safe in her bed again. I lean into the pain, into the indignant fury at the injustice of what’s happening. It fuels me.

Anassa watches my approach, expression unchanging, body utterly still. I stare back at her and take a deep breath, trying to ensure my voice is soothing despite the churning chaos in my mind.

Slowly, I hold out my hand to her and speak, “Okay girl, it’s just us, then.”

Her huge paws dig into the snow and her bushy tail lifts slightly, and I have the distinct sense that those two things in combination are a warning. Her eyes slice into me, and ice creeps through my veins.

“I’m trying here,” I growl, then clear my voice to calm myself, “but maybe I’m not good at this because it’s not in my blood. All I know is that we need to get down there. And quickly, for both our sakes.”

She still doesn’t move, but her muscles are taut and her flanks are twitching restlessly.

Stepping closer, I smooth my voice out, speaking in gentle tones. “Can I get on your back? Can I ride you, girl?”

Her teeth snap. A loud, menacing click strikes at my heart like a hammer. I recoil as her fangs flash, massive canines dripping with saliva. A barking growling rips from her throat, and a paw drags a huge canyon through the snow.

My heart slams in my chest. I nearly just lost a hand. Or an entire arm.

“What the fuck?” I shout up at her, furious.

She snarls at me, tail flicking restlessly. The scream gathers behind my ribs, unbearable pressure pushing outward. I swallow around the angry, terrified lump in my throat.

“Why?” I shout at her. Why did she do this? If she hates me so much, why did she force a bond on me? Why did she doom us both?

Anassa huffs at me, a gust of hot air impacting my face. She stomps one foot, then turns and runs.

I stand there staring after her, my entire body going slowly numb again. I watch as her silvery white coat disappears into the snow, blending in seamlessly until she’s utterly gone. I still have that uncomfortable pulsing ache in my head, but it hardly matters now. She abandoned me here.

And you know what?

Fuck her .

She doesn’t realize just what a stubborn bitch I am.

I’ll get down the mountain with or without her useless furry ass.

“Fine!” I shout. Then I can’t hold it in any longer. I double over and scream, fingers twisting in my silver-white hair. Awful, piercing sound scrapes from my throat, and I keep going until I run out of air.

When it’s done, I straighten and get to work.

I’ve been on my own before, and I haven’t let it kill me yet. I’m not going to start today.

Striding to the edge of the compacted snow, I find a clean patch and gather it up in my hands, bringing it to my mouth and letting it melt against my tongue. I swallow the water down, letting it soothe my raw throat and wake my mind up.

Then I slip my pack from my shoulder and dig into it, retrieving the dried meat Izabel gave me, tearing at it with my teeth and chewing without tasting. After, I don’t bother picking my pack back up. It’s too heavy, and I can’t have anything weighing me down.

Because I need to run . I need to run like I’ve never run before, if I’m going to reach the castle in time.

Maybe it’s useless. Maybe I’ll die halfway down the mountain in an avalanche or perish the moment Anassa’s bond fractures and snaps to pieces. But I’ll never stop fighting.

Not when Saela’s waiting for me.

Taking one last deep breath, I fill my lungs with freezing air and then start the descent. The safe path winds around the side of the mountain in a zigzag to create a smoother slope, but I don’t have time for the comfortable route.

I bolt past the trail of unbonded recruits making their way slowly down the mountain. Some of them jump or shout at me as I sprint past them, but my heart is pounding too hard to care.

Slipping through a gap in the trail of soldiers, I take the plunge. My body slides over a snowdrift as I launch myself headlong over the edge of the path and down into the wildness between the path’s comfortable winding curves.

Here, it’s deep snow, sudden rocky drops, massive trees with jutting branches, and death.

My clothes are soaked through immediately as I wade and fall and sprint, feet pounding over stony flats. I whip pine needles out of my face and duck under branches. I leap over logs and slide on my side at truly dangerous speeds over long stretches of icy rock, knees and elbows and feet slamming against bits of stone that jut out.

My feet impact the path again, and I sprint right through it. There are hardly any unbonded recruits this far down the mountain, so the way is clear.

Someone shouts at me as I hurtle back into the terrifying descent again. My lungs are frozen over, excruciating pain coursing through me with each icy heave of breath. My legs are shaking as I run, barely keeping me upright.

It’s just a matter of time before they give out and I’m more falling than running down the mountain.

But it doesn’t matter. The world is narrowed down to my survival. To my purpose. To Saela, alone and afraid, her survival dependent upon me reaching the bottom of this stupid fucking mountain. To my mother waiting for me to bring her home.

To Lee, and the life we can build together when this is all over.

Soon, it’s like I’m flying. Trees and rocks rush past me. I stumble and fall, spinning through the snow until I right myself, new pain erupting in my shoulder that I don’t have time to address.

There’s a body on the next stretch of path I pass through. It’s a gory spread. A woman lies on her back, staring sightlessly up at the sky. Her blood is smeared across the snow in a long line, as if she impacted the ice and slid several feet before finding her final resting place.

I stand there only for a moment, catching my breath, entire body trembling as my eyes rest on the cavernous hole where her stomach should have been.

She’s been ripped open. Claws, I think. Shredded right through her coat. Through the sweater beneath it. My sweater, I realize.

Alessandra.

She’s mutilated, eyes still as wide with fear as they were in life.

I wonder if a direwolf got her on the way down or if this was the work of that piece of shit Stark.

It’s a shame. She was a good person, I think. But it’s too cold out here. The frigid air has seeped right into my chest, ice coating my heart.

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

Turning away from her, I keep running. My lungs have never been this cold, never stung like this before even after hours and hours of training with Igor. The exposed parts of my skin burn like they’re on fire. My joints ache from the endless impact of my boots on rock and ice. I think I must be bleeding from falls and from the stinging whip of the tree branches.

My feet are beginning to crack and bleed in my boots.

And there’s no direwolf magic healing me this time—either I’m too far from Anassa or she’s choosing to withhold her help. I’m not quite sure how it works.

It hurts. Fuck , it hurts. But that’s another thing Anassa doesn’t know about me.

I’ve always used pain to fuel my anger, to keep myself going. It washes over me, burning and biting, and I swallow it down. It ignites something in me.

Something merciless. Determined. Unstoppable.

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.

Shapes shift in my peripheral vision. Trees rushing past, maybe. Snow falling. Ghosts against the endless white oblivion.

There are more bodies as I run. I see them in bizarre sharpness despite the painful blur of the world around me. The first is a man lying in a snowdrift. A wolf stands over him, black as night against the snow. I veer left to avoid them. The image of blood on shining white teeth and the terrifying red gash where the recruit’s throat should have been flashes over and over behind my eyes as I run.

The wolf glares at me as I run past it and I try to blink the image away, snow whipping at my cheeks. But I blink and blink and it won’t leave. It gets worse, and I start to see Anassa’s eyes instead, yellow and furious and unforgiving.

The next body is a woman lying face-down at the bottom of a chasm. I skid to a stop, gripping a tree branch with a numb hand and barely managing to use it to slow my momentum before I skid over the same sudden, sheer drop that killed her.

Her corpse is utterly still against the dark rock below me, white bones jutting up through her skin at her elbow and her thigh. Her skull is caved in, blood splattered over the snow and stone. Her wolf is beside her, massive and unmoving.

It’s dead too, I realize, its massive muzzle slack and its eyes unseeing. Died on impact, probably. Its fur still rustles in the breeze.

Doesn’t matter. I turn and sprint around the edge of the drop, descending over a smoother bit of snow and ice. And I keep going.

I run and run until I’m not even present in my body, until my mind starts to dissociate back to a warm bed, a little nose buried in a book, a story about a goddess who saves herself. I don’t even notice when I hit the base of the mountain. The forest we hiked through yesterday passes in a blur. I see none of it.

The light’s changed by the time my legs give out and I tumble to a slow, painful stop. I’m breathless and dizzy. Delirious, really. The sky is darkening. It will be night soon, and I’ll be too late.

I let out another strangled, hoarse scream as I fight to my feet. It sounds more like a cry, like a desperate sob. But I’m almost there.

As I pull myself to my feet, entire body one riotous frisson of agony, I realize I’ve almost made it. There are tracks in the snow. Massive paw prints leading onward. I stoke the anger in my chest and summon the energy for one final push.

Speeding past the Bonded City, I follow the tracks towards the castle. The leisurely walk past these neighborhoods feels ages away. There’s no time to stop and gawk at the disgusting wealth. There’s not even any room in my brain to hate the castle for what it is and all it represents any longer.

I only look at its hulking stone mass and think get there. Get to Saela. Survive .

The sky changes color, deepening to a lazy gray. The sun is low in the sky, dipping down to touch the dark horizon.

I reach the gate with barely any light left, every inch of my body screaming at me.

There’s a woman with dark skin and a glaringly obvious silver streak in her close-cropped dark hair. She’s one of the high-ranking Bonded that was leading the Ascent. Beta Egith, I think Stark said.

She turns when she hears me crunching closer, gait uneven because I’m limping badly. Her eyes narrow when she sees me.

I try to summon words. I’m here. I made it. Please . But nothing will come.

It hardly matters, though. She takes one look at me and says, “No direwolf, no entry.”

The scream gathers in my chest again. There’s a sudden, vicious urge to take hold of this woman’s head and plunge my thumbs into her eye sockets. I take a step closer, hands clenching into fists, endless expletives about to pour out of me.

But then a growl rumbles from behind me.

I tense and whirl around, eyes wide.

She’s there. She’s just right there . The fucking bitch .

Anassa stalks towards me, heavy paws crunching on snow, puffs of vapor huffing from her nose. She walks with her head low beneath her shoulders, her ears forward, her gaze steady on me. Coat silvery white against the snow… A ghost.

She was following me. She was right there the entire time, watching me descend.

Fury pummels my heart as the woman manning the gate perks up.

“Well, then,” the woman says, voice brighter and gaze keener. “Welcome to training, Strategos Rawbond.”