Page 46 of Direbound (The Wolves of Ruin #1)

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

T he castle corridors are dark as I make my way to Stark’s office, my senses heightened by my subterfuge. I don’t want to be seen slinking into his private space at this time of night—by him or anyone else.

Not because it’s forbidden, or even frowned upon, but because some creeping intuition tells me the information I’m searching for is… dangerous.

Luckily, after weeks of traversing this path twice a day for training, I know every creaky floorboard, every shadow, every hidden corner. Each time I hear footsteps or voices coming, I melt out of sight.

My mother’s journals, tucked safely under my shirt, are heavy against my skin. Like a terrible, dark secret.

Stark’s office appears empty when I push the door open and peek inside. No sound. Only one lamp is lit, casting the outer room—his sparring floor and library—in deep, flickering shadows. He must be at a late training session, or back in his quarters off the Daemos pack area. I probably don’t have much time.

I slip inside, grab the lamp from its hook beside the door, and cross straight to the shelves. I’m magnetized to a certain one with unnerving certainty. It’s that shelf with the ancient books that drew my eyes so powerfully before.

Lamplight illuminates the dusty spines in a dull orange glow.

My hand rises to one in particular. It’s visibly older than the others, its leather binding cracked and worn. My heart pounds as I slide it from its perch. The thick volume feels heavier in my hand than it should. The pages are yellowed deeply with age, their edges starting to crumble.

It has no title. No inscription. Nothing to indicate the nature of its contents.

Yet I know it’s the right book, without logic or reason.

Blood rushes in my head as I draw the cover open, fingers gentle on the brittle pages inside. There’s no title page, either. No table of contents.

The first chapter is titled simply, “The Sturmfrost Queens.”

It’s a history of Nocturna, I realize, scanning the first few pages. And it’s not even printed like a proper book—it’s handwritten , every page packed edge to edge in careful, curling script.

My eyes scan the pages rapidly, drinking the information in even as my mind struggles to make sense of it.

The Sturmfrost Queens were the original rulers of Nocturna, the book proclaims. A long matrilineal line of Bonded warriors with incredible powers who ruled the kingdom for centuries. The dates listed are long before King Cyril’s line took over.

I shake my head in silent confusion. Is this for real?

As far as I know, Nocturna has always been ruled by an unbonded human king. There must have been someone ruling over Nocturna before them, but…

I frown, realizing I don’t know the history beyond the last five hundred years. They never taught us that in school. I’ve never seen it mentioned in any history book.

In fact, we were taught that Nocturna as we know it didn’t exist before King Cyril’s ancestor took the throne. He made the kingdom of Nocturna what it is today. He brought the humans and wolves together under one rule.

I always assumed Nocturna was just a collection of human encampments before that. A scattered civilization fighting to survive in a wild, dangerous world populated by voracious predators—direwolves and Siphons who hunted us like cattle, threatening our very existence.

Then, as the legends say, the Faceless Goddess sought to uplift humans and balance the power between us and our enemies. So, she blessed King Cyril’s ancestor with the Diren Bl?d , giving him the power to control the wolves and us the ability to bond with them.

That gave us the strength to drive the Siphons off our land, thus beginning the centuries-long war between our kingdom and Astreona.

But according to this book, none of that is true. Nocturna is millennia older than we’ve been told. And the direwolves were a central part of the Sturmfrost line’s rule. They’ve always been our allies.

This can’t be real , I think, staring at the narrow script. Everything we’ve been taught… it can’t all be wrong. Can it?

I flip ahead a few pages, scanning names and stories I’ve never seen or heard before. Queens who ruled with direwolves at their sides, uniting the humans. Protecting them.

And then I find the drawings.

My breath catches in my throat.

I turn and set the book on the little table beside the shelf, pulling out my mother’s journals. I don’t need to see the drawings side-by-side to know they’re the same, but I lay them out, anyway.

It’s the crown my mother drew over and over—the twin wolves leaping at a precious gem set between them. Absolutely identical.

This is the crown of the Strumfrost line, forged thousands of years ago and imbued with powerful magic.

My mind reels. How could my mother know about this? Where could she have possibly seen it?

“Anassa?” I reach out, prodding the bond. She’s silent. If she knows anything about this, she’s not giving me a fucking hint.

I turn the page, looking for an explanation, anything.

What I find is another drawing.

Adrenaline floods my veins.

It’s an illustration of the carving I found behind that tapestry in the servant’s passage: a queen astride her direwolf, the Sturmfrost crown with the two leaping wolves perched atop her head.

Fuck. I almost forgot. That’s where I’ve seen the crown before.

But how? Why ? The questions flash through my mind in a nonsensical tumble.

This is… impossible.

And yet…

Something tugs at my memory. The carving, the illustration, my mother’s drawings… this isn’t the only place I’ve seen the crown.

The realization hits me like a blow to the head.

The arena. That flash of metal in the drain—the shape of it.

It was the crown.

Before I can even begin to process what this means, the sound of heavy footsteps approaching the door snaps me out of my thoughts.

My heart stops.

Stark .

The urge to hide the book surges through me, but something tells me it’s pointless. This isn’t just any book. He’s going to know I touched it. Like the knowledge inside has left some indelible mark on me.

That makes no fucking sense , I think, shoving my mother’s journals back under my shirt.

But it doesn’t make sense that I knew exactly which book to read, either. That this particular volume is the one that called to me. That the illustrations inside match with my mother’s drawings, her visions—and mine.

None of this makes sense.

Behind me, the door creaks open.

With my heart pulsing in my throat, I turn.

Stark’s face is unreadable, cast in heavy yellow lamplight. He looks at the weathered tome in my hand. Then, slowly, his eyes drag up to the engagement band clamped around my wrist.

“What is this?” I demand. “Is this fiction? A children’s story? Where did it come from?”

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

I nearly toss the tome at his head but stop myself in time. “The book , Stark,” I hiss.

Stark shrugs. Shrugs!

“I can’t tell you anything about that,” he says in a carefully neutral tone.

Rage floods my head. Two words burst from my lips like the crack of a whip. “Why not?”

He doesn’t answer me. Just stands there staring at me like he’s furious with me. His hand falls from the door knob, but he doesn’t step into the room. Almost as if he’s afraid to come any closer.

Afraid? I think, bewildered. Stark?

“What is going on here?” I demand of Anassa. “You know, don’t you? Is this real?”

Anassa’s caution filters through the bond. There’s a pause. I can almost feel her calculating what to say. The silence creeps up my back like a premonition, whispering something I can’t quite hear.

Her reply comes in the same tone of careful neutrality Stark used. “I also cannot tell you anything about that.”

I blink.

Also ?

ALSO ?

Why is my direwolf colluding with Stark?!

They both know more than they’re saying. And for some reason, they’re in agreement that I don’t get to know whatever it is they’re hiding—about my mother. My visions. This history, whatever it is.

I thought I was losing my mind. And all this time… they knew. They knew about this book, these supposed Sturmfrost queens—the things I saw in hallucinations.

Betrayal burns in my chest.

Anassa is my direwolf. She is supposed to be my ally, my protector. How long has she been keeping secrets from me? She, who has always treated me so abominably when she feels like I’ve shut her out. How much is she—are they , both—hiding from me?

My mind balks under the weight of everything I’ve learned in the last half hour—and everything I still don’t understand.

It’s too much to process. The dots aren’t all connected yet.

But they will be.

I hold up the book, glaring directly into Stark’s eyes. My voice comes out rough as sandpaper and caustic.

“I’m taking this.”

I expect him to protest—to outright refuse. But I’m willing to fight him for it.

His gaze flicks to the book, then back to my face, reading the threat in my posture. In a tone weighted with layers of inexplicable warning, he says, “I would be careful with it.”

The fuck?

My eyes narrow. “If you’re so worried what I’m going to do with this book, then tell me what I need to know! ”

Something flickers across his face, too swift to comprehend. He shakes his head.

“I can’t. Just… be careful.”

“Fuck you,” I snap, sweeping past him in a rage.

As I storm away from Stark’s rooms, Anassa’s thoughts brush cautiously against my own. The touch of her mind is wordless, almost tentative. As though she senses how close to the edge I am—how near to explosive violence.

“What are you going to do?” she asks.

“Oh, now you want to talk?” I snarl. “Well, too bad. Should have thought about that before keeping secrets, Anassa.”

With that, I slam the iron wall in place between us.

I can’t trust Anassa. That much is abundantly clear. What else might she be keeping from me? She’s given me only what she wants me to know the entire four months that we’ve been bonded. She hasn’t even given me a hint about who her mate is, for example. That should have been a warning sign.

Her betrayal stings like frostbite. And Stark…

I flash back on our trip to the front again. The moments he showed concern for me. The desire in his eyes when he licked me.

That bastard has been playing games with my head all along, hasn’t he?

Fuck it. Fuck them both.

Whatever is going on here—however it’s linked to my mother’s visions—I’m going to get to the bottom of it.

With or without their help.