Direbound (The Wolves of Ruin #1)

Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

E ventually I get back into the baths, scrubbing the blood off my skin for so long and so hard that it begins to hurt, a comfortable sort of pain that I let flood my senses. It gives me something to focus on other than the cavernous hole in my chest where my heart used to be.

After a while, the bathroom quiets and I realize I’m the only one left. I get out and dry myself in those ludicrously fluffy towels, and then pull on undergarments and a clean set of nightclothes: a starchy white button-down nightshirt and some unbelievably soft white nightpants that cling to my body like a second layer.

When I get back into the bunk room, though, I realize it’s quiet, nearly empty. That’s fine by me; right now, I’m operating through a fog, and I can’t make niceties with the people who celebrated that gory scene in the arena so passionately.

I keep seeing flashes of the Kryptos boy behind my eyes. Hearing his horrible screams. His death hangs over me like a cloud, leaving a bitter, metallic taste in my mouth.

And when I’m not thinking about him, my mind is on the prince wearing my lover’s face. I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do, his note now tucked into the pocket of my nightpants, frayed from the amount of times I’ve opened and closed it.

But I still want to check on Izabel and Venna and say goodnight to them. They, too, seemed shaken by the boy’s death, even if they’re used to this world and knew that tonight held the possibility of violence.

Following the sounds of voices, I head to the Strategos anteroom but that’s empty too. Then I push open the door to the Rawbond common lounge.

And my mouth drops open in disgust.

Rawbonds from all the packs are here and they’re… partying. Commoner servants circle the rooms with trays of deep red emberwine, so close to the color of blood that I just washed from my skin. Platters of meats and cheeses are set out on the dining tables and people are draped sensually over the couches, the chairs, and each other.

The mood in the lounge is heady, as if everyone has taken their pent-up aggression from tonight and they’re channeling it into something hedonic. Many people are plainly drunk already—talking loudly, laughing, shooting sultry glances across the room.

Rawbonds have coupled off, too. In more than one corner, I spot tall, beautiful people locked in erotic embraces. One couple is making out in plain sight on a chair in the central area; the woman is straddling the man’s lap, grinding against him while he tongues her neck, his hand up her shirt and obviously massaging her breast.

My face flushes hot at the sight. I’m no prude, but I can’t believe people are behaving that way out in the open, and after everything we’ve gone through tonight.

Finally, I spot Izabel and Venna seated on a couch with several other Rawbonds I don’t recognize.

“Hey, you made it!” Izabel exclaims when I reach them, her eyes bright. “D’you want a drink?” She holds up her glass of emberwine, the ruby liquid sloshing over the rim.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” I hiss.

She follows me to the edge of the room, and I gesture at the scene before me. “What the fuck is going on here?”

“Hmm?” Izabel looks around the room, dazed, wavering slightly where she stands. Great, she’s just as drunk as the rest of them. “Oh, it’s a celebration. We survived Presentation. Hooray!” She lifts her glass again, more liquid spilling out of it and onto the floor.

I scoff. “And watching a man get torn apart puts people in the mood?” I ask, looking pointedly at the couple on the chair. The man has now pushed the woman’s shirt over her chest and her high, pert breasts are exposed to the whole room as he laves her nipples with his tongue.

Izabel shrugs, the color high on her cheeks. “It’s as good of a stress reliever as any. Plus, you might help your wolf find their mate.”

I blink. “Mate?”

“Yeah, direwolves have mates. Or they do sometimes. Well, not that often, actually,” Izabel babbles. “But it’s a thing that used to be more common, wolves would have a mate bond with another wolf, and it would give them extra powers, like they could talk to each other even if they weren’t in the same pack, and the riders would feel their heightened emotions. I’m not sure how it works, really, but when riders have sex, it can help their wolves figure out if they’re mated or not. So of course everyone uses the Trials to try to find their direwolf’s mate. Cool, right?”

“Cool,” I deadpan, turning away from the party and heading back toward the Strategos quarters, my mind reeling.

“Where are you going?” Izabel shouts after me.

“Bed,” I say, not bothering to turn back around.

I cannot believe how these people act. I know they are inured to death, raised to find it acceptable and to glorify these Trials.

Being comfortable with bloodshed is one thing.

Celebrating it by fucking as many people as you can is another.

I know I need to be here, to fix my bond with Anassa and survive the next four months. I need this, if I’m ever going to find Saela and bring her home.

But goddess-be-damned, I refuse to behave like one of them.

Back in the Strategos anteroom, I spot a figure in a high-backed chair by the fire; I must’ve missed her on my way out. It’s Nevah, the woman who told me about the king earlier tonight.

She’s staring blankly into the fire as the flames throw flickering shadows against her brown skin. She looks ethereal, and deeply sad.

“Not interested in joining the orgy outside?” I quip.

Her gaze drags slowly up to me. She stares at me for a moment, unseeing, and then blinks into focus and tersely shakes her head. “There’s only one person I would want to see out there, and he died on the Ascent.”

She goes back to gazing into the fire, my presence entirely forgotten. How horrible, to have gone into this process with a partner and lost them during the first trial.

My indignation towards the Rawbonds in the lounge starts to soften. How many other people out there lost friends, family members, or loved ones?

Maybe we all just cope in different ways.

I’m still thinking about that as I lay in my bunk, the evening growing late. People have been trickling back into the bunk room for the past several hours, and now it’s grown quiet.

I lost someone during this process, too—Lee. The Bonding Trials have ripped him away from me for good, even though I now know he was never really mine. I’m not sure if I should be mourning him or grateful that I now know the truth.

Certainty drops into my stomach like a cold stone. I’ll never be able to sleep again unless I talk to him, confront him.

And maybe sucker punch him in his beautiful face. That might help me cope.

At nearly midnight, I slip out of bed, putting my fighting skills to use as I creep out of the Rawbond quarters, unheard and unseen. The corridor outside is dim, the air still. I used to enjoy being awake late at night when everyone else was sleeping. I’ve always found it peaceful.

But the castle isn’t peaceful at all. The quiet is… heavy. And the shadows move strangely, as though alive.

I get lost twice on the way to the east garden, though I passed it on my ill-advised escape attempt earlier. Egith pointed out the entrance to the gardens during our orientation tour.

When I finally find the door and push it open, I forget all about being sneaky.

My gasp echoes in the warm air.

The garden is a sprawling, moonlit wonder—it’s not just a garden, it’s a greenhouse. A glass ceiling arches above me and the whole room is heated. It’s a sumptuous extravagance. Rosebushes line the path and cling to the high stone walls. Everywhere I look I see huge crimson blossoms made velvety black by the moonlight.

Their scent is everywhere, sweet and fresh. I’ve never smelled or seen anything so beautiful.

I wander for a while, almost forgetting why I’m here, then pause to look at the graceful marble figure poised at the center of a huge fountain.

She’s twice the height of a human woman and a hundred times more beautiful. Voluptuous and powerful, her elegantly muscled arms upraised as though in dance.

“Kitten.”

The strong, familiar voice sends my heart surging into my throat. I spin around and there he is, standing a few yards away in the shadow of a vine-choked arbor.

Lee .

My heart squeezes.

No. Not Lee. His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Killian Valtiere .

His blond hair is darker in the moonlight, his eyes deep pools. He looks like a stranger in his royal clothing, all white and velvet and bright, braided gold. But when he moves toward me, the confidence in his step is utterly familiar. I used to love to watch him striding toward me, knowing I was his to touch. To kiss.

To love.

It hurts so much I can hardly breathe.

As he nears, I take a step back without thinking. He stops, pursing his lips.

“Thank you for coming,” he says. “I’m sure this has been… a shock.”

Anguish swells through me at his words, and I cross my arms, looking tough but actually needing to hold myself together in front of him.

This person I know intimately and also not at all.

“Why did you do it?” I ask, trying to sound strong. Putting steel in my voice so he can’t see the way he’s shattered me. “Why did you hide who you were? Why did you get involved with me in the first place… your highness? ” The words taste acidic on my tongue.

When I was lying on my bunk, imagining this moment with him, I thought I’d be a terrifying sight to behold—the Alleycat of the fighting pits in all her glory, spitting mad. But face-to-face with him, I can’t ignore the grief throbbing behind my breastbone.

“Mer,” he says, stepping toward me again slowly, hands held out in a quelling motion. I’m reminded of the day we met and the way he calmed the wild horse. “I never wanted to hurt you. The moment I first set eyes on you, rushing up to me and your sister that day in the market—I knew instantly, Meryn. You had this alleycat fierceness, this spark to you, that was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. You were the blinding beauty of the sun personified.”

He’s close enough now to reach out and touch me, and a traitorous part of me aches for that, for the arms I know so well to fold around me once more, comforting me.

I squash it. Fuck that feeling. Instead, I shoot him a glare that stops him in his tracks.

“I would’ve done anything to spend time with you, kitten,” he says quietly. “Anything to have the honor of holding you in my arms.”

Straightening to my full height, I say, “So you chose to lie.”

Lee—Killian—runs a hand through his thick hair in frustration. “What should I have done instead? My title has always defined me, but I didn’t choose this life. I hid the truth about my identity so you could get to know me, the real me, without the unbearable weight of the crown bearing down on us from the start. Aside from my job and the details about my parents, everything I’ve ever told you about myself has been true. But if you’d known I was the crown prince, you never would’ve given us a chance.”

Heat burns behind my eyes and I realize that, mortifyingly, I might be on the verge of tears. He’s right, we never would’ve been together if I’d known he was the prince. That perfect year together, feeling like I finally found a match, an equal—it would’ve never existed.

But maybe that’s the way things should’ve been. “You took my ability to make that decision away from me,” I say, my voice cold. “And it changes nothing, in the end. You’re still my future king and I’m still commoner scum, even now that I’m Bonded.”

His gazes grows stormy at that. “You’re not scum .”

I laugh bitterly. “If that was true, you would’ve been honest with me. The fact that you didn’t even tell me after I’d enlisted, when you were telling me all about the Bonded Trials?—”

“Would that have made things better for you?” he says, cutting me off, the volume of his voice rising. “You had just lost your sister. You had made a life-altering decision. Should I have piled onto your misery by exposing myself, right as you were putting your life on the line? Goddess, Meryn, I never in a million years expected you to bond . I didn’t think you’d be coming to the castle. I assumed I had plenty of time to tell you the truth when you’d come back from the front with Saela.”

Hearing him say her name breaks the dam holding back my tears. They come fast down my face, their heat burning my cheeks.

“And speaking of that,” I say, tasting salt. “Why the fuck have you not done anything about the Nabbers? You knew! You were staying in the commoner quarters regularly, you knew exactly what has been happening to our kids!”

The rage has finally reached a breaking point inside of me, and I close the gap between us with two quick steps, pounding my fists on his chest hard enough to bruise.

“Why haven’t you fucking stopped them? My sister is gone !”

Lee wraps his arms around me, pulling me closer to him, even as I continue to rain my fists on him. He yanks me into a tight embrace, my tears running down the front of his shirt, his chin tucked over the top of my head.

Pine, he still smells like pine , I think stupidly. Every part of my body wants to press itself against him, lighting up at this familiar scent.

“Kitten,” he says, his breath warm on my hair. “Of course I’ve been trying to stop them. I’ve had my guards hunting them since the very first time you mentioned them.”

He pulls back and I look up at him. His eyes are pained.

“I’m responsible for Saela’s disappearance,” he says. “I didn’t do enough. And I’m going to continue putting any resources I can into finding her until the day we bring her home.”

Lee reaches up, brushing the tears off of my cheeks, and the motion only makes me weep harder. My stomach is a twisting, writhing mess. I both need him and loathe him in the same breath, and it hurts .

“There’s no we anymore,” I spit at him. Then I press my hands against his chest and push . He stumbles backwards on the dirt path, and when I meet his gaze again, he lifts his chin.

“Don’t you realize?” he says ferociously. “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.”

My stomach bottoms out and I look away from him again. I’m not sure what might come out of my mouth if I look him dead-on. “I’m here for Saela and Saela only,” I say, reminding him and myself at the same time. “That’s all that matters to me.”

“I know,” he says, his voice filled with regret. “And I’ll do everything I can to protect you and help you find her while you’re here.” I hear his heel turn on the dirt and he starts to walk away, but then stops. “I don’t expect your forgiveness. But I hope to earn your understanding.”

With that, he leaves me to chew on my regrets and the fragments of our hopes, our promises. The fragrance of the roses has turned cloyingly sweet, choking. A thin veneer of beauty covering up an unending cavern of misery.

I wait a few minutes after Killian leaves, wanting to put as much space between us as possible—and also because I need some time to pull myself together. Then I make my way back through the darkened halls toward the Rawbond quarters.

In the corridor right outside the dorms, the attack comes.

I’m not ready for it—more fool me. My thoughts are still tangled up with Killian, and Saela, and the exhausting day I’ve had. I don’t even hear my attacker coming until his fist is in my hair, yanking me backward with brutal force.

I don’t scream as he starts to drag me away. Plenty of people were not happy I survived the Presentation. I’ll be damned if I’m going to alert the whole fucking compound to my predicament so they can come and help finish the job.

Instead, I twist silently in my attacker’s grip, ignoring the searing pain in my scalp as I try to get my feet back under me. I need leverage—and to see my target so I can kick his fucking balls into next week.

He’s strong . Much stronger than me. Fast, too. He senses me twisting and gives my head another brutal yank. It feels like my hair is about to rip clean off my scalp. But I’m thinking fast even as my feet scrabble and drag against the polished floor.

The violence is clear. Intentional. This guy is going to kill me, rules be damned.

The knowledge pushes me over the edge of an emotional cliff I’ve been dangling from since I realized I couldn’t leave this place.

Shadows move over my vision and enter me, expanding in my chest. A darkness overtakes my mind as one thought crystalizes, the only thing that matters: this is not where I die .

As if possessed by something I don’t totally understand, I pull my knife from its hidden sheath and slash at my own hair. The silver strands split instantly. The man, unprepared, loses his balance and tumbles forward.

I’m on him before he hits the ground, one knee on the back of his neck while I bring the knife down hard on the hand still clutching my severed hair.

It’s like my common sense has blacked out and my body has been taken over by rage personified.

When my dad was still alive, he used to take me hunting. He taught me the proper way to dismember an animal. The key is working your knife into the joint just right, and then all it takes is a practiced twist?—

A hoarse masculine scream echoes through the corridor as my attacker’s hand separates from his wrist. Hot blood sprays my face. I taste salt and copper and boiling fury.

His eyes are wide in the dim light, mouth gaping around a wheezing gasp as I lean down to show him his detached extremity. Distantly, I recognize him as one of the Daemos boys that hangs around with Jonah.

“You fucked with the wrong woman,” a voice growls—mine, I realize belatedly—as I tear his jaw open and slam his own severed hand into it.

He chokes and gags, eyes widening as I push it deeper down his throat. Cartilage crunches under the pressure. His body starts bucking underneath me, a desperate ploy to shake me off, to free me, to save himself.

I’ve held men down enough times in my life to know how to do it right.

The iron wall in my mind swings open. On the other side is Anassa, her feelings bare to me for the first time.

There are no words. Just a rush of cold, bloodthirsty approval.

Snarling in disgust, I slam the wall down again.

I don’t need your fucking approval .

Beneath me, my attacker gurgles loudly, choking to death on his own blood and fingers.

I’ve never killed a man before. I never dreamed myself capable of this type of violence; I thought I’d skate through these Trials by avoiding being killed, not by becoming a killer.

But something has unlocked inside of me, a monster I didn’t know existed. I’m not sure if it’s been formed out of the seething, quiet wrath that’s been building in me all day, or if this is some side effect of bonding with a bloodthirsty beast.

Instead of disgust at my own actions, all I feel is… calm. Horrible, stony calm.

That’s not right, is it? I shouldn’t feel calm. I should feel… anything .

What kind of horror is this place making me into?

When I finally find my sister again, will she even be able to recognize me?