Page 57 of Direbound (The Wolves of Ruin #1)

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

S tark waits for Venna to come and signal that the way is clear again, and then they depart. He’s promised to have Saela waiting for me when I’m done with Killian.

My heart bleeds at the thought of delaying my reunion with Saela, of trusting anyone else with her rescue, even Stark. But I know she won’t be safe until I deal with Killian’s threat.

After they leave, I give it twenty or thirty minutes—time is passing strangely down here—pacing around the dark cell before I finally call for the guards.

The two men who come look repulsed by me. Who can blame them? I’m covered in the dried blood of their king.

“Please,” I say, getting on my knees before them in the cell, and trying my very best to look weak. “Please, get Prince Killian for me. He was right. My mind is unwell. I need him, I need his help. He loves me and he’ll fix me. Prince Killian will know what to do.”

“King Killian,” one of them corrects me curtly.

“King Killian,” I agree, though the words barely make it out of my throat. “Please.”

The guards look at each other warily and then leave without saying another word.

But my pleas must have worked, because a short while later, they come back and let me out of the cell. Then they escort me roughly up the stairs, up and up and up, through passageways until we finally reach the hall outside Killian’s room.

I assumed he would come to me, but of course he wants me here, where he can entirely have the upper hand.

The guards open the door to his room and then shove me in. “Don’t try anything funny,” the second one growls at me. “We’ll be right outside the door.” Then he slams said door in my face.

“ I’m at Killian’s rooms, ” I tell Anassa. “ Are you still in the cell? Have Stark come get you, now, while the guards are here. They’re standing sentry so I doubt anyone will notice you’ve gone. See if Stark can get that collar off. ”

“ He’s on his way, ” she responds. “ We’ll come to you as soon as you summon us .”

Turning around, I start when I realize I’m not alone. There are two servant women here—an older one wearing a scowl, and a very young one who winces at me in fear.

“Let’s get this started then,” says the older woman.

They spend what might be hours fixing me up—stripping the bloodied uniform off my body, shoving me into Killian’s beautiful tub, scrubbing my body raw and washing my silver hair. When I’m clean enough by their measure, they then treat me like a doll. They dry my hair and arrange it beautifully, lotion my entire body. They put makeup on me and shove me into an elaborate gown in a beautiful shade of deep blue silk, lacing it so tightly that I can barely breathe.

Not a word from either of them, the entire time. And when I’ve met some level of acceptability, they leave. And I’m alone—waiting.

Killian’s chambers look different to me now.

I go and sit at the window seat, watching tiny flakes of snow land on the glinting roof beyond the glass and instantly melt on contact. Curling my legs close, I hug them to my chest and let the delicate heels the servants gave me thud to the floor. The dress feels like it’s going to swallow me whole.

All around me there are silent reminders of what I’ve learned. I hate that I once looked around these rooms and found it beautiful. Comforting, even, because of the eternally burning hearth. And because of him , always standing there waiting for me with a knowing smile.

My skin crawls. It hasn’t stopped since Stark left my side.

I rub my arms and try to forget the touch of the servants’ hands fluttering over me. But I’m grateful that they’ve made me look like a beautiful object.

He wants a weak bride-to-be. Someone unquestioning. Someone he can control.

So I’ll give that to him.

The doorknob turns and I immediately draw my shoulders up, huddling into a ball like the cold is sinking into my bones and frostbite is setting in. Briefly, for only a second, my thoughts flit to Stark. It’s long enough for that simmering awareness to return, but the sound of the door opening jolts me from my thoughts.

I have to focus. Killian is a coiled viper.

“Meryn,” Killian breathes, shutting the door behind him. He’s still wearing his father’s sword—no, my sword—at his hip. His face floods with open emotion. Relief, concern, love.

It’s an intricate process, transforming my rage at the sight of him into vulnerability. I’ve done it before for other men. I’ve let them look at the tremble in my hands and assume it’s because I’m afraid, not because I’m imagining wrapping those hands around their throats.

But those men weren’t Killian. His engagement bracelet is still clamped on my wrist, glittering gold and red and black against the shimmer of silk blanketing my knees.

“You look beautiful, kitten,” he says, crossing to me.

The nickname almost makes me break my facade. Kitten . I see what he was doing, now. To the rest of the world, I was a fearsome alleycat, but to him… only a pathetic little kitten.

I reach up and sink my fingers into my hair, tugging slightly. As he reaches me, I let a more violent shiver wrack my body.

“Killian,” I croak, leaning into the role of mentally ill. “I think you’re right. I really thought…”

His face collapses as he settles next to me on the cushions. His fingers rest on my ankle, and his warm touch curdles my blood. I don’t let it get to me. I pretend it’s a snake twisted around my skin.

“I can’t believe I’m losing my mind like my mother,” I breathe, voice whispery.

That sickly feeling returns. My throat stings. I wish I’d never had to say those words. Mother wasn’t mad. Neither were all the women in my family before her. The visions, the voices… all of it was just our unfulfilled birthright screaming, clawing to the surface.

A fresh wave of grief hits me, sudden and jarring.

Killian sees it and reaches for me. I squeeze my eyes shut as his arms settle around me.

It’s all wrong. All of it, just like the room around us, is different now. His touch is still familiar, but when I feel it, I think of the way he looked at me as we stood over his father’s body. His feigned shock. His brief, triumphant smirk.

And I have to fight down bile.

Leaning into his embrace, I cling to his shoulders. Soon, his hand slips over my back, tangling with the perfectly curled ringlets of my hair. His fingers sink deep, guiding my head.

And he kisses me.

I sever myself from my body, opening my mouth but reaching for Anassa. I pour myself into my bond with her, letting Killian kiss me deeply and relying on Anassa’s waiting presence.

If I’d known, if she’d been able to warn me about the mask Killian wears, I’d never have consented to being with him. There’s rage there, too, that he took so much from me.

That I gave so willingly, let him see the gaps in my armor, when all along he was this person.

This vile creature who would kiss a woman while she trembles with fear.

It doesn’t matter now. Or, it does, but I can’t confront my personal wounds. This moment is about more than just me.

And it’s working, I realize. Killian’s fingers pull at the tight laces on the back of my dress, slowly loosening them as he kisses me.

I run my fingers through his hair and focus on Anassa’s murderous satisfaction. Killian is crawling into her jaws, and she’s anxious to taste his blood.

“It’s okay,” he breathes huskily against my mouth. “I’ll take care of you, Meryn. I always will.”

I shiver. It sounded like a threat, somehow, though there’s nothing in the shine of his eyes that hints at anything sinister. He closes his arms around me and pulls me close, but I shift my legs and stand.

“I’m… not okay,” I say, chest rising and falling rapidly.

He lets me take his hand and pull him to his feet. When he stands, he cups my cheek and uses his other hand to loosen another lace on my bodice.

“But… when I’m with you, I feel better,” I lie, looking up into his eyes. I lean into his chest, gripping his lapels like I’ll fall without it. “Make me feel better.”

Killian’s next breath is hungry. He leans in and molds his mouth to mine, closing his hands around my hips. I step backward, pulling him with me towards the bed. His eyes flash with lust.

There’s something almost victorious in his smile, and I quickly look away from it as I turn to guide him by the wrist.

Once I’m beside the mattress, I take hold of his shoulders and push gently. He sits back and lets me slip into his lap, fine silk gliding with a whisper over his legs. He sighs and reaches down, closing his hands around my delicately adorned thighs and squeezing.

When Killian arches his neck, I kiss him again.

It’s like swallowing poison.

None of the pleasure I once found in this reaches me through the pain and anger. When he slips his hand under my dress and slides his touch up my thigh, I lean my weight into him. He grunts and lets me push him back against the mattress.

I lean over him, kissing him, biting lightly at his jaw. He pulls me closer and kisses my neck. I force myself to grind over him a few times, moving my hips until he starts to harden beneath me.

Then I slowly reach up to guide his hands lower on my thighs. He thinks I’m asking him to touch my ass and reaches out.

The moment he does, I push his arms down and pin them beneath my legs with my full weight. I rip my mouth from his and sit up, ice crystallizing in my veins.

No more.

His eyes widen, but he’s too slow. I’ve trained for this.

When he attempts to break free from the compromised position I have him in, yanking his arm, I slam my fist into his throat. He chokes as his face turns red. I use the opportunity to hook my leg around his dominant arm and reach down.

And I slide the Diren Bl?d from his hip.

Then, before he can blink, I press the blade against his throat, relishing the flustered noise of surprise he makes.

Killian’s eyes are moving over the position I have him in. My bare thighs are clamped around his arms, my blade at his throat. But he only seems… amused .

“Kinky,” he says, cold eyes rising to meet mine. “You trying to behead a second king with that sword? Two in a day probably sets a record.”

I put pressure on the sword at his throat. He doesn’t even flinch as it bites his skin. My eyes dart briefly to the thin trail of blood sliding down the side of his neck, then return to his icy gaze.

“You’re no king,” I hiss. “And neither was your imposter father.”

He lets out a chuckle of amusement. “Ah. So you’ve figured it out.”

“Did you know who I was the entire time?” I demand.

“Of course, I knew,” he says, his smile lingering.

Something in my chest dies when he says it. I expected the answer, but it still cuts deep.

“What, you were hoping that it was just a coincidence that the current crown prince and the heir to the original royal line happened to meet in a market one day and end up in a relationship?” He shrugs. “There are no such things as coincidences.”

Fuck. Fuck .

“Whispers said Queen Chiara kept her baby alive. My ancestors decided it hardly mattered, since no one remembered her, anyway. But I had a plan for the Sturmfrost royal,” he says, his smile turning sharp.

He strains from the mattress to press his own neck against the blade. There’s something wild in his eyes.

“I hunted you down. I sought you out. I made you mine.”

It takes all of my self-control not to slice his throat right now. Instead, I say, “You fucking monster . I loved you! And the whole time you were just… using me.”

The icy edge to his eyes softens. “You wound me, Meryn. I wasn’t just using you. I love you. Everything I’ve done, it’s for your own good. For our good, and the good of the kingdom.”

And the fucked up thing is, I think he believes what he’s saying. This may be the only genuine thing he’s ever told me.

My grip tightens on the blade. Magic whips through me like a hurricane, tearing up my roots and leaving me adrift. Unmoored, I can’t stop the thought again. It would be so easy. I could kill him right here. Just a twitch of my wrist, and he’d stare up at me with the life draining from his body, knowing his prey had turned predator.

But I’m not done with him yet. “My mother?”

“You have to know, I didn’t feel good about that. But if you were going to be my queen, her powers needed to pass to you. It was her time.”

Powers. That must be the responding magic I feel when I hold this blade. The sensation coursing through me when I wore the crown.

The Sturmfrost royals have magic—magic that has been suppressed for centuries.

Kill him, kill him, kill him, my heart beats. KILL HIM.

“I needed you, though,” Killian’s saying. “So I let you..li…”

Something strange starts to happen.

Killian’s pupils start to expand and contract alarmingly rapidly. His mouth drops open, and his irises roll backward until I can only see the whites of his eyes behind trembling lashes. Then, in an instant, his gaze snaps back to me. The voice that comes from him isn’t Killian’s.

“Killian got greedy,” he says, voice echoing hauntingly. The sound of it is all wrong. It crackles with age, with overuse. The desiccated sound of it doesn’t match Killian’s youthful face.

I recoil, horrified. It feels like spiders are crawling all over my body. I press the sword firmly to his throat, disoriented and confused.

“Who are you?” I demand.

His grin stretches unnaturally wide, teeth bared. I watch as his canines elongate into fangs and draw blood from his own lips. “Alistair Brightbane.”

Brightbane.

The Siphon who killed Queen Chiara. How?!

“Bring Killian back,” I growl, leaning over him. The same thing happens. A trembling of his pupils. A seizure of his body.

His eyes roll back down, and he lets out an appreciative hum. “Yes, my beloved?”

“What are you?” I say. When he does nothing but raise a brow at me, I press the blade deeper, and he hisses. “Are you a Siphon? Were you always?”

“No, Meryn,” he says, with a smirk. “Not always.”

I used to love hearing my name from his lips. Now all I can see are the fangs.

“When it was clear that you were onto my father,” he continues, “Alistair demanded to be transferred. He’s passed this way for the last five hundred years. Each new king in our line serves as his vessel.”

My shock makes my grip momentarily slip on the sword and I scramble to push it back against his throat. “How is that even possible?” I demand. I’ve never heard of anything like this before, ever.

“Transference magic,” he says, “a particularly complicated type of Siphon blood magic. Only someone with the great power of Alistair Brightbane could pull this off.”

The usurper king—never gone, after all. He’s been here this whole time, hiding in plain sight. My mind is spinning and I blink, trying to bring myself back into the plush room.

I need to keep asking questions. I need more answers.

“So your father was a Siphon?” I say.

Killian’s smile grows. “Yes, and he turned me into one, the day of the graduation ceremony. Thanks for killing that commoner Phylax, by the way. I was very thirsty after I’d transformed.”

Henrey . Ugh. So that’s what happened to his body—Killian drained him. That’s why the servants took him beneath the arena.

Killian’s eyes flash with that eerie blue color—the same color of his father’s—and I realize now it must be related to the transference magic.

A monster, hundreds of years old, is inhabiting Killian’s body with him. And the entire time we were together—his entire life—he knew this would be his fate.

“And the kids? My sister?” I ask. “Was your father draining them ?”

“Yes, love.” His tongue touches his fang. His voice continues to echo and crawl, violating, into my ears. “Transference magic is tough to hold, particularly during Bonding Trials when we also need to control so many wolves. Only the strong blood of children could give us the power we need.”

It’s enough. That’s enough .

“It stops here,” I breathe, lifting the blade to put force behind the blow. I can already picture it. Just like his father died, his head will roll from his shoulders. Blood will spill over the sheets.

What we once had between us could never stop me.

But the moment my blade is in the air, strength saps from my muscles. Killian laughs again, the sound vibrating through the room.

The shadows all around us start to twist and writhe like serpents. They warp away from the legs of the furniture, from the corners of the room. They move like they’re alive and hungry.

Then, somehow, the shadows grab me, wrapping around my wrists and ankles. I’m yanked off of Killian with jarring force, thrown to the ground and pinned there.

He stands from the bed and brushes his suit off, then walks slowly toward me as I lay trapped.

“Surely you must know I wouldn’t let you kill me. After all, I’m your future husband.”

I kick my legs toward him, trying to keep him away from me. “Like fuck you are! What are you doing to me?!”

Fear courses through me for the first time since we’ve been alone together, and I reach out desperately to Anassa. “ Now. You and Stark need to come NOW!”

Killian kneels down on the floor next to me and strokes my cheek. “Kitten, I’m serious. I love you. You’re not in your right mind right now—” Oh, not this shit again. “—but once you have some time to think about this, I’m sure you’ll see how good we are together. I can rule the entire world with you at my side.”

NOW , I shout over the bond.

The door slams open with a thundering crack.

Stark bursts in with both of our wolves, whipping his body with precision. He unleashes a blast of Daemos power. It picks Killian up and slams him against the wall. The shadows dissipate and my body is freed.

I scramble to my feet as quickly as I can muster.

Then Stark tosses me the crown. I catch it with my left hand as I simultaneously lift the sword back up, getting into a fighting stance.

The moment the crown slides into place, power surges through my body. It’s like plunging into a vast, dark forest, miles of endless shadow all around me. Energy pulses from my body, too big for my skin, roiling like the chaos of boiling water. It presses outward, alive, trying to push the boundaries of my mind.

My magic .

And just the same, there’s a vast part of this forest of power that is severed from me. This blood-boiling, endlessly expansive magic is only a fraction of a deeper reserve.

When Anassa senses it, she projects a warning that feels like she’s closing her teeth around my scruff, yanking me back to her side. But I don’t have time to analyze her concern.

Killian stands from where he fell against the wall, and he begins to laugh.

Anassa snarls. His eyes move to her, then to Stark, who’s standing between the two towering wolves in a readied stance. Killian arches one brow with something that looks almost like appreciation.

“You kept secrets from me, Meryn,” he says scoldingly, as if he hadn’t kept a thousand of his own. “I didn’t realize your wolf had a mate. What a pity. Although, I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

I lift the blade higher, and think to Anassa, “ Get ready to charge him. ”

But then the shadows move again, more viciously than before, rising all around us in an endless swirling storm. The light in the room dims as Killian stalks toward me.

Stark attempts to use his Daemos powers again, to swat at Killian or at the shadows, but it backfires. The surge of energy slams backwards into him and he stumbles into Cratos. The black direwolf lets out a threatening growl.

“Tsk, tsk,” Killian says cooly. “Don’t you know that you can’t use your little direwolf powers against this magic? After all, your powers are rent from mine. Well, from Meryn’s, technically.”

A headache begins to build behind my eyes as my mind unravels his meaning.

Killian reaches me and grabs my face roughly, forcing another kiss on me. Anassa lunges and snaps, but he moves out of her way with inhuman speed— Siphon , I remember stupidly. He’s a Siphon now.

“Thank you so much for my new power, beloved,” he says, sliding his gaze from Anassa to me. “As a parting gift, I’ve left you a little surprise. I’ll see you soon, I’m sure.”

I scream and plunge the blade towards him. But just before the metal connects with his throat, the shadows dart across the room at an impossible speed. They wrap around his body like a cocoon, freezing against my bare skin.

Wind whips through the air, and with a sharp pop like a limb dislocating, Killian is gone.

“What the fuck did he do?” I whisper, staring at the space he just occupied.

Weakly, I turn to look at Stark. He’s come right beside me, his hand half-suspended between us. His brows are twisted upward, his eyes wild.

He’s staring at me in abject horror. I open my mouth to ask, but then his hand closes around my arm, his grip painfully tight like he’s trying to hold me to the earth.

I follow his gaze down, right to my left wrist. I lift it slowly.

The ruby ring set into the engagement bracelet is mottled with shadows. They stir within the stone as if they’re swimming through blood.

“Take it off,” Stark snaps. His voice shakes with urgency as his grip tightens further.

It’s obvious to me now, too. The bracelet is what’s sapping my strength. Killian has been channeling my magic with it—magic I wasn’t even aware of—through the stone.

I throw the sword aside and reach up to unclasp it.

But when I do, it constricts painfully around my wrist. The metal warps, threatening to cut off my blood supply.

“I can’t,” I choke out. A claustrophobic panic spikes through my body.

“Meryn—”

“I can’t!” I shout, pulling again. It tightens even more. It’ll break my bones at this rate. Mangle me.

Anassa snarls and butts against Cratos. “ The bracelet is enchanted and bound to you ,” she tells me urgently. “ It allows the usurper to channel magic from wherever he has gone.”

I let out a strangled cry. Quickly, I start strategizing—no sword could cut through this, but perhaps a blacksmith can melt the metal. But even as the thought comes to me, I know. In my bones, I know.

There’s nothing that I can do to get this bracelet off, not without the Siphon magic that created it.

This is what Killian’s done to me. Sunk his fangs deep, right to the heart of me. Stolen my crown, stolen my powers.

And now he won’t let go.