After being burned by TikTok and Bookstagram so many times having been told “this is the next big thing to read” for the book only to be mediocre, I had sworn off influencer recommendations. But being a big time wolf fan since my Game of Thrones days and an even bigger Fourth Wing fan, after seeing raving reviews of Dire Bound by Sable Sorensen and having unstoppable FOMO, I gave in.
Dire Bound is nothing like Fourth Wing other than being set in a magical academy and legendary creatures being present. I found it derivative and unfinished. The main character is angry, and despite being in the Ravenclaw of this universe, she refuses to listen to common sense. The half-finished plot is tied together with random dream sequences and characters who brood and growl a lot.
Read our complete summary and review of Dire Bound by Sable Sorensen. This post contains spoilers.
Dire Bound
Description
Only the worthy survive the Bonding Trials. She’ll risk her life—and her heart—to be one of them.
Meryn Cooper has always hated the Bonded, elite warriors who form mental links with the massive, vicious direwolves they ride. While they live in luxury, Meryn struggles to keep her family out of poverty. When her little sister, Saela, is kidnapped—stolen across the border by the immortal monsters her country has spent centuries fighting—Meryn’s world falls apart.
Desperate to cross the front and save her sister, Meryn enlists in the army and is thrown into the deadly Bonding Trials, where any mistake will cost her life.
Now Meryn must survive four months of training at the castle. She is bound to a feral direwolf who refuses to communicate. The other trainees would love to spill her common blood. And her cold and beautiful instructor, Stark Therion, is eager to punish any weakness.
Everything is a competition, and everyone is out to get her—everyone except the dangerously handsome crown prince, whose attention adds another target to her back. In the castle, every smile hides a knife…and the halls hide dark secrets.
It’s bond or bleed. Duel or die. Failure is ruin.
Dire Bound contains mature content including depictions of graphic violence, and is therefore recommended for readers 17+. For a full list of tropes and TWs, please visit the author’s website.
Readers are already falling in love with Direbound:
“ONE OF THE BEST READS OF THE YEAR! This book was insanely good.” Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“Stop it right now… I’m actually quite feral for the next book…” Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“The plot was THICK, the tension and banter? Flawless. And the world with the wolf bond, and trials??? NEED MORE NOW.” Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“I just finished and still trying to mentally and emotionally recover to what just happened to me. You need to read it IMMEDIATELY.” Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“If you’re into dark romantasy with high stakes, fierce characters, and just the right amount of emotional wreckage, Direbound is your next obsession.” Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“What an incredible read!! … I am blown away. … The romance, the anguish, the BANTER! I love a book with good banter and this was FULL OF IT!” Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“I. Am. OBSESSED. … Left me spiraling in the best way possible. The morally grey anti-hero? Perfection. The slow-burn tension? Electric. … I was completely immersed.” Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Perfect for fans of:
- Slow burn romance
- Found family
- Morally grey characters
- One bed
- Touch her and die
- Who did this to you
- Enemies to lovers
- Forced proximity
- Vampires vs. wolves!
Tropes
- Military
- Vampires
- Wolves
- Fated Mates
- Forced Proximity
- Love Triangle
- Slow Burn
- Bonded / Animal bond
- Lost Heir
Review
Was the Fourth Wing comp earned or insulting?
Was the Fourth Wing comp earned or insulting?
Overall Impressions 😊
I wanted to like Dire Bound. I’m a sucker for strong FMCs and animal companions. But the animal companions don’t really influence the plot and are silent until halfway through the book. Meryn is hard to cheer for, maybe near impossible. Her character is unreasonably angry and immature.
I was bored and almost DNF’d multiple times. It’s a long training sequence with little to no FMC growth.
Every character is one note. Meryn is badass and angry. Stark is growly and broody. Killian is polished and slimy. Nobody has a second mode.
I’m tired of the first-book love interest trope. I can sit with it if the second love interest grows, but Stark’s character is just “broody and hot,” which doesn’t add much depth.
The plot and lore don’t come together. Everything unexplainable is solved with dream sequences and random visions. The author’s battle writing is lacking. We get it, the Strategos pack (lol that name) is strategic, so she strategically reaches for the strategic battle move while strategically thinking.
There are so many spicy scenes without any plot development that I started skipping them. They feel dropped in for the sake of being there, not because they earn their place in the story.
It reads like a passable first draft. A mishmash of tropes with no real story to back it up. This book doesn’t do anything I haven’t read before, and it doesn’t even do that well.
I’ll keep reading. I’ve heard Fury Bound gets better, and I’m committed to covering the rest of the series. I enjoy animal companions and pathetically down-bad MMCs, both of which are promised to be more prominent in book two. So stay tuned.
Perfect For Fans Of… 🌟
Just because I was snobby about this and found it lacking doesn’t mean it’s not a fun time. I’ve been wary of romantasy lately, feeling like fast fashion keeps being served to us. If you liked Quicksilver, which has lots of romance and doesn’t lean on strong worldbuilding, this is probably a fun time.
It has a strong FMC, no doubt about that. Meryn is flawed, which is good, but everything kind of falls into her lap. None of her “progression” this book feels earned. She’s a good fighter and angry all the time. She gives big time Oraya, except Oraya survived as a human in vampire land. Meryn is the token assassin FMC, but their personalities are similar.
And lastly, there are wolves in the book. You don’t really get to hear about their magic or how they bond with the humans. Like I said, everything is explained away. But there are still magical cool creatures who are sassy and present.
Stark’s POV at the end was genuinely entertaining. If you enjoy mean-to-everyone-but-cinnamon-roll-to-her MMCs, the broody and hot instructor who is pathetically down bad, you’ll enjoy the book. I’m going into book two for Anassa, Stark, and Cratos.
Characters 👥
It’s been a second since I disliked an FMC as much as I did Meryn. I’m tired of the assassin/fighter FMC who’s caring for her family out of poverty while doing dangerous work and is angry all the time. It would’ve been fine if she showed any signs of growth, but Meryn is disrespectful and ignorant most of the book. Her ending in book one feels cheap. She’s basically a nepo baby.
She keeps insisting Stark Therion hates her and is a monster, and that Anassa is awful to her, with no critical thinking skills or facts to back it up. She suffers from main character syndrome greatly, and for the life of me, I don’t understand what she’s doing in the “smart people” pack.
Stark doesn’t really have a personality in book one other than looking hot and broody. We’ll skip it for now, hoping book two fixes that.
Killian is intriguing as a villain, but he suffers from the blond man curse. For a reason I can’t put my finger on, he feels slimy from page one. I think it’s because he is glaringly too good to be true, and insists on calling Meryn “kitten.” No grown woman should be called that.
I did like the found family with Izabel and Venna.
Anassa is a queen among us, and for the life of me, I don’t understand why she puts up with Meryn. She steals the scene every time she’s on the page.
My favorite character right now is Cratos, Stark’s wolf, even though he had like two lines in the epilogue, which should tell you everything you need to know about this book.
Plot 🗺️
I’m not exaggerating when I say there wasn’t any plot movement until like the last three hours of the book (I listened to this in audiobook format). The rest of it feels like one long training montage with Meryn being angry and unreasonable.
And none of Meryn’s choices make sense. Her sister is taken by Siphons across the border, so her solution is to enlist in the army? Did she not expect there to be training? The math doesn’t math.
The training scenes themselves add nothing most of the time. It’s like the authors watched American Ninja Warrior and the Hunger Games movies and tried to mash them together. Random obstacle course energy with no story payoff.
Dire Bound follows the predictable romantasy beats we’re used to. First-book love interest. Lost heir. Betrayal. “Enemies to lovers” except we find out he was in love with her the whole time. The twists were expected. I did find Saela’s twist intriguing, and I’m curious where they’re going to go with that.
With the off pacing, I was frustrated because there was so much great material to work with. Vampires and direwolves always deliver, but it just didn’t come together for me. I’m hoping the wolves play a much bigger lore role and the editor insists on a better magic system, rather than explaining things away with dream sequences. Right now, it gives big time Wattpad energy.
My Favorite Quote📣
“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.”
Sable Sorenson, Dire Bound
Synopsis
Which character are you actually here for?
Which character are you actually here for?
Sturmfrost’s Eastern Quarter
Meryn Cooper fights in the underground pits in the Eastern Quarter of Sturmfrost. She fights under the name Alleycat. She’s undefeated, and the silver she wins keeps her family fed. Her mother is sick. The illness comes and goes, and on bad days her mother doesn’t recognize anyone. Her younger sister Saela is still a child. Their father went to fight in the centuries-long war against the Siphons across the border, and never came home.
Meryn’s boyfriend Lee works as a messenger. He meets her after every fight to clean her up and walk her home. Igor, an older man from the neighborhood, is the one who trained her to fight.
Children have been disappearing from the Eastern Quarter. The Siphons send agents called Nabbers across the border to steal children and drain their life force. The other quarters of Sturmfrost don’t lose children. Only Meryn’s neighborhood does.
Meryn fights another match. Lee walks her home. They argue about something small outside her door, and when Meryn goes inside to check on Saela, the room is empty. Saela has been taken. Meryn searches all night. The neighborhood searches with her. Saela is not found.
After days of nothing, Meryn decides to enlist in the army. The army is the only way to get to the front, and the front is where the Siphons took Saela. Lee is sad but he supports the decision. He takes her shopping so she doesn’t have to use a dead soldier’s gear. The next day she signs up.
The Bonding Trials
It’s a bad year to enlist. This year is a Bonding Trials year. Every new recruit has to climb a mountain of ice and meet the direwolves at the summit. The wolves choose who they bond with. The bonded become the elite warriors who ride them into battle.
Meryn doesn’t want to bond. She tells herself she’ll climb the mountain and refuse every wolf that comes near her. She wants to get to the front. That’s it.
At the base of the climb, a recruit named Jonah is strangling another girl. Meryn intervenes. Two twin sisters named Izabel and Venna see her do it and offer to climb with her. They come from a Bonded family and have been training their whole lives for this. They know routes the commoners weren’t taught. Meryn accepts.
The three of them climb together. Bodies fall past them the whole way up. Meryn saves Izabel from going over the edge once, and the twins repay her by getting her up the ice wall. They make it to the summit.
The direwolves are waiting. Recruits start bonding, and when they do, a streak of their hair changes color. Meryn keeps her mind closed and rejects every wolf that approaches her. Then Anassa comes.
Anassa is the oldest and largest wolf on the mountain. She hasn’t bonded in over a hundred years. When she walks toward Meryn, Meryn’s chest wound heals on its own and her vision floods with images she doesn’t understand. She drops to her knees. All of her hair turns silver. Not a streak. All of it.
Meryn didn’t want this. Anassa can tell, and Anassa is furious. The bond stays shut. Izabel and Venna get her down the mountain. When Meryn tries to leave the castle grounds entirely, the bond turns on her. The farther she walks from Anassa, the more it feels like she’s being torn apart. She collapses at the threshold. The twins find her and bring her back inside. She can’t leave. She’s stuck here for four months of training. Saela is still gone.
Presentation Night and the King’s Demonstration
The new bonded are cleaned up and dressed for Presentation. It’s a parade. The nobles inspect the new recruits and pick concubines from the bonded ranks. The twins help Meryn get ready.
The king arrives with the crown prince. The prince is Lee. Lee is Killian Valtiere. He never told her. The man who walked her home from every fight is the heir to the kingdom and the whole time he was hiding it.
Meryn feels gutted. She decides it’s over. Killian slips her a note while the king inspects the line. The king takes an interest in Meryn. Stark Therion, the alpha of the Daemos pack, steps in and tells Meryn to ask the king if he’d like to see what the recruits can do. It’s a distraction. Meryn doesn’t see it for what it is. She’s too busy hating Stark.
The king uses the dire blade. The dire blade is an ancient sword with a wolf-shaped pommel that gives the wielder control over the direwolves. The king commands the wolves to hunt the weakest member of the new pack. The wolves lose themselves. A fight breaks out. A young recruit who bonded last falls off his wolf and dies on the floor. That’s how Presentation ends.
Meryn goes back to her room while the rest of the castle parties. She’s grieving Lee and grieving the version of him she thought she knew. A man attacks her in her room. She kills him, cuts off his hand, and shoves it in his mouth. Killian assigns her a private room after that.
The Cold Months
The training months begin. Meryn keeps butting heads with Stark. Anassa still won’t talk to her. Meryn learns more about how the bond is supposed to work. The bonded are openly promiscuous with each other because if you sleep with a rider whose wolf is your wolf’s mate, you’ll feel it through the bond. She also learns Anassa won’t heal her injuries until the bond opens. Right now it’s closed.
She tries writing to Anassa. Anassa ignores her. Meryn starts calling her a bitch in her head. Things do not improve.
As punishment for killing the man who attacked her, Stark gives her a tattoo on her neck. It’s a rite, a way to honor the killed. Meryn decides Stark is a violent monster and leaves it at that. She finds out his mother is the Sovereign Alpha, the alpha over all the alphas.
Killian visits her room through a secret hallway between his quarters and hers. He brings her healing salves Anassa won’t provide. He tells her he’s looking for Saela. He tells her the Eastern Quarter is the only neighborhood that loses children to the Nabbers, and he doesn’t know why yet. He keeps confessing his love. He says she could bring the kingdom to its knees. Meryn asks for space.
The first trial comes. Anassa cracks the bond open just enough to show Meryn what move to make next. They survive on Anassa’s pride. The second Meryn thinks “if she had just listened to me sooner,” Anassa slams the bond closed again.
That night the pack throws a party. Meryn gets drunk and accidentally tells Izabel and Venna she has a lover in the castle who broke her heart. The next morning they’re hungover and they will not let it go.
Edith, the beta of the Strategos pack, calls Meryn into her office. She tells Meryn she’s been rejecting the bond the whole time and disrespecting Anassa. Meryn realizes she’s been an asshole. She climbs to the wolf terraces with an offering of sage and apologizes. Anassa lets her in, cautiously. They start working together. Communication improves. They start performing well in training and on the battlefield. The pack bond starts to form.
The Tapestry, the Nabber, and the Visions
Killian asks Meryn to meet him in his rooms. She takes the secret passage between their quarters. Something carved into the wall catches her eye, a tapestry of a wolf queen riding into battle. Shadows close in on her senses. She thinks she’s going mad like her mother. She blacks out.
She wakes up in Killian’s room. He tells her they caught a Nabber. Meryn goes with him to interrogate the man. The Nabber admits he steals children, takes them to a warehouse, and someone else moves them from there. He doesn’t remember Saela. Meryn tortures him and kills him. Anassa, quietly, tells her some men deserve violence.
Meryn sleeps with Killian for comfort. She shuts Anassa out during it. Anassa gives her attitude after. Meryn promises to be more open and asks for privacy when she wants it. Anassa agrees.
In the next trial Meryn starts having visions of what the trial arena was actually used for. The visions hit her so hard she takes the whole pack down with her. The pack is furious. Edith warns her she could get them killed.
Meryn finally tells Anassa about the visions and the shadows. Anassa says the visions matter. She says Meryn has more control over her mind than she realizes. Anassa also says Meryn needs to sleep with another bonded so she can find her own mate. Meryn had thought Anassa was upset about Killian for some other reason, but no, it’s this. Anassa knows her own mate and won’t say who. Meryn decides to work on her mind so the visions stop crashing the pack.
The Forging Ball and Becoming Alpha
Meryn and Anassa keep working together. Meryn and Killian keep meeting in private. Killian asks her to let him claim her publicly today. Meryn says she loves him.
The next trial arrives. Meryn takes out one of the cruelest girls under Anassa’s command. Meryn is unified and in control and the whole field sees it. People die. The pack loses members. They get one day off before the Forging Ball.
Meryn goes home to see her mother. Her mother is lucid. She hasn’t had an episode since Meryn left. She doesn’t know why. It’s as if she had a purpose and it’s been fulfilled. She gives Meryn an opal necklace. She tells her it needs to be seen. The necklace is warm. It feels almost alive. Meryn promises to wear it.
Killian leaves a dress for her on the bed. Emeralds. Meryn wears the dress and the opal. Stark approaches her at the ball and asks her to dance. They dance, and he says strange things about the necklace. He almost accuses her of stealing it, then walks it back. He tells her the opal isn’t something just anyone has, and she should look it up. Killian cuts in. Stark tries to keep talking. Meryn announces she’s with the prince. The whole room reacts. Her pack thinks she’s a status climber. They give her the cold shoulder. She spends the night with Killian and snaps the bond with Anassa closed for privacy.
She wakes up to news. Marco, the alpha of the Strategos pack, has died in the night. The wolves need to select a new alpha. The pack is already cold to Meryn for cutting Anassa off and for choosing a royal. Meryn is apologizing to Venna and Izabel when Stark’s mother, the Sovereign Alpha, calls her over. She tells Meryn that Anassa has been chosen as the new Strategos alpha. Meryn and Anassa, as a pair, are alpha now.
Meryn is shocked. She thinks there’s a mistake. Anassa tells her she meets the rule and she needs to step up. Meryn agrees. She grieves Marco and grieves the version of training she’ll never get. Edith looks at her with respect when Meryn asks if she should go to the front until she’s ready. Meryn announces the news to the rest of the pack. She tells them she doesn’t know why the direwolves chose her, but she’s learned not to question them. The pack accepts her. Stark tells her alpha training starts at dawn.
Stark’s Library and the Border Mission
Meryn expects weapons and severed heads on spikes. Stark’s office is full of books. They train. They go back and forth. Meryn keeps having dreams. She’s drawn to certain books in Stark’s office. Stark tells her the books are from his family line.
Meryn and Killian see each other when they can. Meryn improves enough at training that she starts beating Stark in spars. She gives him a list of things she wants to learn from him. She still thinks he’s a monster, but she starts seeing him as a leader.
Meryn becomes convinced something is wrong inside the castle. She thinks the king is hiding something. She asks Venna to investigate what’s underneath the drains. Before Venna gets far, a letter arrives from Edith. They’ve spotted children at the border.
Meryn decides she’s going. Stark tries to stop her. When he sees she means it, he leaves with her. Meryn writes Killian a note. They ride day and night. Anassa is behind Meryn on this completely. Saela is the priority.
They stop overnight in a northern town and share a room at an inn. Nothing happens between them, but it’s there. Meryn learns that Stark saved the lives of most of the people in this town. The town treats him like he’s holy. Her opinion of him starts to shift.
They reach the border town. Meryn agrees to follow Stark’s orders. They find signs of children at a temple, exactly where Edith said. Stark coordinates the assault with brutal efficiency. Meryn is impressed. They storm the temple. They kill Siphons. They get to the dungeons. The children aren’t there. The dolls are still on the floor. The food bowls are still warm. The Siphons knew they were coming.
They capture a Siphon. Meryn tortures him for information about Saela. He gives her nothing. She kills him. She falls asleep in bloody clothes. The next day Stark gives her a kill tattoo. They’re alone in his quarters. They touch each other. They almost kiss. Someone interrupts. Meryn feels horrible. She’s engaged to Killian in everything but the public announcement. They ride back to the castle empty-handed.
Her Mother’s Death and the Engagement
On the way back, Meryn asks Stark to stop at her mother’s house. The neighbors tell her what happened. Her mother had an episode in the city square. The guards killed her trying to subdue her. Meryn falls apart.
Back at the castle, Killian is waiting. He says he did everything he could to get to her in time. He couldn’t. He proposes. Meryn doesn’t want to be alone. She loves him. She also feels guilty about almost kissing Stark. She says yes. Anassa protests. Anassa is shut out of the moment and can’t reach her. Killian slides a bracelet onto Meryn’s wrist. The shadows that have been pressing at the edge of Meryn’s senses go quiet for the first time.
The funeral happens. The whole pack comes. Meryn goes to clean out her mother’s house. She finds a stack of old journals. Anassa tells her to keep the journals hidden from Killian. When Meryn presses Anassa for an explanation, Anassa says she’s told Meryn everything she can. Meryn needs to research the rest on her own. Meryn remembers Anassa was very interested in some of the books in Stark’s library.
Meryn goes back to Stark’s office and finds a book about the Sturmfrost queens. The official history of Nocturna says Killian’s father and his ancestors were blessed by the three-faced nameless goddess to protect humans from the Siphons. The book says something different. The history Meryn was taught is wrong.
Stark walks in. He’s not angry. He’s watching her read. Anassa is speaking to someone over the bond who isn’t Meryn. Anassa tells the other party she can’t say anything about what Meryn is reading. Meryn realizes Stark and Anassa have been colluding around her. Meryn gets angry and shuts Anassa out.
Izabel comes to her room later. Meryn tells her about the engagement. They head to the kitchens with Venna and Thomason and celebrate. The unit trial comes and goes. Jonah attacks Henrey. Henrey is badly hurt. Meryn is supposed to be reading the Strategos pack from the sidelines but she puts Jonah down herself. The pack graduates. They pass the trials as a unified pack. The bonding ceremony is next.
Dire Bound Ending Explained
Killian visits Meryn’s room. Izabel walks in on them. The three of them hang out instead. Stark is moody about the engagement bracelet. He keeps looking at Meryn’s wrist. Meryn notices the shadows haven’t pressed in once since the bracelet went on.
That night Meryn sleeps with Killian. Venna comes to find her. Venna has found something. They go down into the tunnels under the castle. There’s a dungeon under the castle. The children are in the dungeon. All of them. Including Saela.
Meryn finds Saela in a cell. She was taken by the Nabbers and brought into the castle the whole time. It was the king. It has always been the king. Meryn promises Saela she’ll get her out. She knows she can’t take her right now, they’re too deep in the castle and Anassa can’t reach her down here. The bond feels strange in this part of the castle, almost suppressed.
Meryn goes back upstairs and tells Killian everything. Killian is shocked. He’s furious. He tells her that at the bonding ceremony tomorrow, he’ll kill the king himself. Meryn agrees. She wants the king dead too.
The bonding ceremony begins. The king has different plans. He uses the dire blade to start one final trial. An all-out battle. The arena erupts. Meryn holds her pack together. The Strategos pack survives. Meryn and Anassa cut a path through the fight to the stage. Meryn takes the dire blade from the king and kills him with it.
Killian’s face changes. There’s a flicker of satisfaction. Then he orders the guards to arrest Meryn for treason. She’s been played.
Meryn wakes in a dungeon cell. The engagement bracelet is still on her wrist. Anassa has a collar. The bond is intact but they’re cut off from the pack. They talk. Anassa admits she didn’t fully trust Meryn. Meryn admits she didn’t trust Anassa back, because Anassa kept hiding things.
Killian comes down to the cell. He tells Meryn she’s gone mad. He tries to convince her they never had a conversation about killing the king. He’s wearing the dire blade now. He leaves. Meryn knows he’s lying. She knows he’s hiding something larger than the throne.
She tells Anassa to contact her mate, whoever that is. Anassa can’t break the order on her own. Meryn makes it an order. She also tells Anassa to send word that the leaping wolves crown buried under the sewer needs to be brought to her. Anassa says it’s done.
Stark arrives at the cell. Stark is Cratos’s rider. Cratos is Anassa’s mate. The pull Meryn has felt with Stark from the start is the mate bond bleeding through. Stark hands Meryn the crown. When Meryn puts it on her head, she’s pulled into a vision. A queen with silver-white hair, ruling alongside the direwolves. A baby in the queen’s arms. Alistair Brightbane’s forces breaking into the castle. The queen handing the baby to Anassa with the opal necklace and telling her to run.
The queen is Chiara Sturmfrost. The last Sturmfrost queen. The baby is the start of the Cooper line. Meryn comes out of the vision. She is the Sturmfrost heir. The Coopers have been the hidden bloodline this whole time. Stark bends the knee. He says welcome home, my queen.
Stark’s family has been watching over the Cooper women for generations. The private room, the dress, all of it. The bloodline can control shadows. If a Cooper woman doesn’t bond with a direwolf, she goes mad. That’s what was happening to Meryn’s mother. That’s why her mother went lucid the day Meryn bonded with Anassa. Her purpose was done. The blood magic curse on the Bonded keeps them from speaking about the Sturmfrost queens. Stark and Anassa physically couldn’t tell Meryn. The dire blade and the leaping wolves crown together can break that curse.
Meryn understands. She needs to take Killian down, and she needs to take the dire blade off him to do it. She has to catch him unguarded. Meryn calls for the guards. She tells them she believes Killian. She plays the part of a woman going mad. She goes to Killian. He thinks he’s won her back. They start to hook up. Meryn climbs on top and pins him.
Killian is stronger than he should be. Killian is Alistair Brightbane. The Siphon king who killed Chiara has been inhabiting the bodies of the Nocturna kings ever since. The engagement bracelet has been letting him channel Meryn’s magic against her. Anassa, Cratos, and Stark arrive. Meryn can’t use her shadows because of the bracelet. Killian smiles. He tells her he left her a gift. He vanishes into shadows.
The bonded are told who Meryn is. Anassa is now connected to every direwolf in the kingdom, not just the Strategos pack. The wolves bow. The bonded bow. The children are sent home to their families. Meryn finds Saela. She tells her everything. Their mother. The line. That they’re princesses. Saela starts convulsing on the floor. Killian’s gift is that he turned Saela into a Siphon.
Meryn swears she’ll find a way to heal her sister. She swears she’ll kill Killian. She announces herself as the Sturmfrost queen. She announces she’ll rebuild the kingdom, starting with tearing the Bonding Trials down and building something better.
Bonus Chapter: Stark’s POV
The final chapter is from Stark’s perspective. Stark has been watching over the Cooper women his whole life. He hates that he’s bound to royal duty. He hates himself for it.
He sees Meryn for the first time at a pit fight. Cratos pulls toward her immediately. Stark feels his body respond to her like they were meant for each other. He hates it. He doesn’t want to want her. He’s been paying Igor’s wife to spy on Meryn. Igor’s wife hates Meryn, which is why she took the job.
Stark watches Meryn fight in the pit. He sees Killian in the crowd, watching her too. He knows Killian is using her for something. Stark swears to keep watch and let Cratos’s bond run its course. He acts out the only way he knows how. He drags a deserter through the city square in front of Meryn to make a scene. He wants her to see him. He hates that he wants her to see him.
Spicy Chapters
Are you reading Fury Bound?
Are you reading Fury Bound?
How Spicy is Dire Bound: The Wolves of Ruin (Book 1): 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Whether you want to get to the heat or want closed-door modifications here’s the list of spicy chapters below.
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 29
- Chapter 34
- Chapter 39
- Chapter 50
Bond or bleed. Duel or die. We’re in 🐺✨
That’s everything… So, what did you think of Dire Bound? Is my critique unjustified or do you think it’s overhyped as well? Tell us in the comments!
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