Fury Bound (The Wolves of Ruin, #2) — Chapter no 14

14

STARK

rom the petulant looks on Lord and Lady Volkenfrost’s faces, you’dF think I was dragging them to Sturmfrost for a funeral, not a massive party.

As we reach the edges of the city, Cratos bounds faster to ride up next to Ephyse and Noemi. We’ve been traveling more slowly than the direwolves are comfortable with for the past couple of days, all because the nobles have to ride slow horses.

“Can’t wait to get rid of these sour fucks,” I tell her, inclining my head behind us to the large Volkenfrost party.

She glances behind us, then raises her eyebrows at me, lips pursed.

“What?” I growl. “They’ve been silent all day.”

Noemi stifles a laugh. “It’s probably hard to think of anything to say when the big bad Daemos Alpha and his direwolf are glaring at you all the time.”

I scoff. “This is just the way my face looks. You know that.”

“If you say so, grouchy,” she says. “Look, we’re basically at their dusty and underused Sturmfrost residence. I’ll see them all the way there. Why don’t you head back to the castle?”

She doesn’t have to tell me twice. Cratos and I take off quickly in that direction. Within a few minutes, the castle is on the horizon. I dismount and stalk into it as Cratos peels off to find Anassa.

The first order of business is reporting to Siegrid. As her door swings open, I note that her redecorating project has sped along. Gone are the ridiculous hunting trophies from the walls, along with the spindly, showy furniture favored by the Valtieres.

In its place, Siegrid appears to have fully moved into the regent’s

chambers. A tapestry from her house that features our family seal is on one wall, and thick curtains in the Therion colors, scarlet and white, are at each window.

They hold no sentimental meaning to me. I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve been in her house in the Bonded City.

“I hear the Volkenfrost delegation is as sizable as we’d hoped,” Siegrid says in lieu of a welcome.

“Yes,” I tell her. “Hand-delivered to you, all body parts still intact, as

ordered.”

Human body parts, at least.

Last night at the camp, I overheard Lord Erlyn Volkenfrost discussing coronation traditions with some of his male courtiers.

Apparently, the new monarch typically strips down naked in front of the entire congregation to humble themselves before the Faceless Goddess.

While naked, the Mother Priestess anoints them with sacred oils.

“Cyril Valtiere wasn’t a bad-looking man, I can say that,” Erlyn boasted.

“But just wait until our firm, young queen is displayed before us, rubbed down in oil for our pleasure. How humiliating and delicious it will be.”

I didn’t have to act; Cratos took care of it.

Before I could stop him, Cratos dragged Lord Volkenfrost’s spare mount into the firelight. Then, as Erlyn’s face paled in shock, Cratos ate the horse.

It was brutal and cruel, but even I can’t stop wolf instincts.

“My direwolf does not appreciate the idea of our new queen being humiliated,” I said lightly as Erlyn retched into the fire. “I recommend you keep that in mind before recounting any other traditions you’d like to see reenacted.”

Now, I look across the room to the Sovereign Alpha. She’s seated at the dining table amid a pile of parchment and a half-eaten breakfast of bread and fruit. Despite the early hour, she’s perfectly coiffed and in her military uniform already.

I wonder if she sleeps in it. Siegrid would never let someone see her dressed casually; she allows for no vulnerabilities. Not even for her son.

“How are the coronation preparations coming along?” I ask, curious if Cratos will try to eat any more noble steeds before this has ended.

Siegrid sighs. “Mostly fine, although the queen has rejected several of the usual traditions. She has agreed to be anointed in oil”—I still, my blood

starting to heat—“but she’s refusing to undress for it, and the Mother Priestess is greatly offended. Still, we’ll get through the day.”

Siegrid doesn’t look up, still focused on the papers in front of her. She signs off on the order she was writing out, then pulls up another paper and begins scanning it while she talks.

“Anyone give you trouble in the other fiefdoms?”

“No more than we expected,” I reply, sitting across from her and pouring myself some lukewarm coffee. “Eisenfall’s still a boorish asshole.

But he’s coming. Blumenfall’s playing it close to the chest, like usual. The rest of them will all be there. It’ll be a full room, as you wanted.”

“The rest of them,” she muses. “Not Rabenfrost, though. Did you hear their lord’s eldest daughter is personally waiting on Killian? He really has them eating out of his hand. Alpha Tormun is waiting for the right moment to strike, but he’ll be taken care of soon enough.”

Her voice is detached, assessing. She delicately sips her tea, then places the cup back on its saucer.

If she’s disturbed by the idea of Lord Rabenfrost’s twelve-year-old daughter waiting on the new Siphon host of Alistair Brightbane, who’s had a penchant for young girls over the years, she doesn’t show signs of it.

It takes some focus for me to keep my anger off my face, so her next comment catches me off guard.

“Stark, before you go, there’s something else. I’ve decided you will marry the queen.”

For a second, the room is so silent we can hear the slow drip of water as last night’s icicles on her windowsill slowly melt in the sun.

“Excuse me?” My voice comes out low and deadly.

She makes eye contact with me, challenging. “You heard me. You are to marry the queen.”

I barely have to call my strength, it comes so freely. With a swipe of my hand, I unleash an impelling blast—directed toward her but not at her so that it tips over her table. Her breakfast plate smashes across the floor, shards scattering in all directions.

Anyone else would cower in fear at the violence I have living inside me,

so close to the surface at any time.

Siegrid merely looks bored.

“I thought I made my position on this perfectly fucking clear the last

time you brought this up,” I snarl. “I’m not interested.”

Liar, slithers a dark voice in my mind. You lie.

With a flick of Siegrid’s fingers, shadows descend on the room, righting the table. It’s a clear message: However strong I might be, the Sovereign Alpha is stronger, with a type of magic I won’t know until we’ve performed her funeral rites.

“Yes,” she says mildly. “I was disappointed in your reaction. Now that I’ve had more time to work with the queen myself, I’ve formed my own opinion. She’s impossibly powerful and entirely unpolished. She will not rule well without a firm hand guiding her. If you are her husband, we can proxy-rule the throne.”

Disgust and horror rise in me so strongly that I’m nearly shaking. She doesn’t want to forcefully shape Meryn into her own image. She wants to take over the queen’s throne entirely.

“You misjudge her,” I say through clenched teeth. She will rule impeccably if I can keep Siegrid’s “firm hand” off her. If I can keep my distance enough that Meryn’s own violence stays at bay.

Siegrid narrows her eyes. “Perhaps. But as the stewards of Nocturna, we cannot take that chance. We can convince her by showing her historical records, pointing out that the ancient Sturmfrost Queens always married the mated rider. She may protest initially, but she will come around.”

“And me?” I growl.

Siegrid might have forgotten this in her hurry to seize Meryn’s throne, but she’s spent nearly thirty years forging me into a waking nightmare.

A villain has no place next to a queen.

“You need to stop being obstinate,” she says crisply. “This isn’t about your feelings on the matter. We’ve been presented with an opportunity we can’t pass up. We’ll organize a fast wedding, and you should get Meryn with child as quickly as possible.”

Her skin under my tongue. Her soft noises of pleasure.

Fuck.

Reeling in my self-control, I remind myself that Meryn is in no place to be married to anyone, least of all to someone she hates.

Someone who enjoys calling forth the darkness in her, who would nudge her toward the worst version of herself.

Siegrid pauses and looks out the window, considering her next words.

“A child born with the powers of both the Therion and the Sturmfrost lines…”

The expression on her face turns my stomach. Like she’s starving and has just been presented with an opulent feast.

I know, then, everything she’s planning. Once a child is born—her grandchild, a baby she can have entire control over and mold to her image —she’ll do exactly what she threatened in the first place.

She’ll get rid of the queen.

I’m going to kill her. I have to kill her. It’s the only way I can keep Meryn—and Nocturna—safe.

My hand inches down toward the dagger strapped to my thigh. If Cratos wasn’t currently… engaged… with Anassa, I know he’d be here immediately, ripping out her throat himself.

The Sovereign Alpha turns back toward me and says lightly, “It will help legitimize her claim, you know. With my son by her side, the Bonded will have to accept her.”

Her hunger for power has made her delusional.

With me by her side, the Bonded might accept Meryn, but the common people and the nobles would flee in droves to Killian. They’re wary enough of her as it is. They don’t need the butcher of Nocturna’s army seated on the king consort’s throne, adding fear to their caution.

Still, her words make me pause, cooling the heat that has slid over my vision.

If I kill Siegrid now, the coronation will fall apart. The Sovereign Alpha has more power and influence over the Bonded than anyone else in the entire country.

If things are to have even a chance of going smoothly, she needs to remain in charge of our forces and an ally for Meryn.

For now, at least.

“Let’s discuss this once the coronation is over,” I say, voice flat.

“Yes,” she says, smiling with satisfaction at my apparent acquiescence.

“Let’s do just that. I’ll start figuring out a date for a ceremony.”

I bow and take my leave quickly, my rage a barely leashed thing. I make it halfway down the hall before I lose it and slam my fist into the wall, shattering plaster.

The bang reverberates throughout the empty, echoing hall.

A door flies open… and there she is.

Shit.

Meryn looks startled, and she holds a dagger at the ready. When she spots me, she sheathes it, rolling her hazel eyes. Her hands come to her hips in irritation.

“Bullying walls now, huh? What did it do, look at you the wrong way?”

I take two steps toward her, drinking in her appearance in alarm. There are dark, bruised circles beneath her eyes, and her skin is wan. She’s lost weight in the past three weeks. Her face is hollow and ghostly.

What has been happening while I’ve been gone?

I could have kept in contact with her, could have reopened that dangerous river between us. Instead, I relied on reports from Grigore and Helene and the Sovereign Alpha, content to hear that I wasn’t missing anything important.

Content to keep her at arm’s length for the sake of my own sanity.

Clearly, that was an error in my judgment.

My hand itches to stroke her cheek, trace the circles with the pad of my thumb. I shove away the notion. Touching her face is a slippery slope toward Siegrid’s getting exactly what she wants.

Toward dragging Meryn down into the darkness with me.

The words just slip out. “You look like shit.”

She barks a laugh. “First, the wall, and now me? Well, it’s been great seeing you, too, Alpha Stark. Welcome back.”

Meryn turns back into her room, quickly moving to shut the door.

I stick my foot in the doorframe, stopping it, desperate to keep her in my line of sight—desperate to measure every part of her until I can untangle what’s gone wrong.

“You don’t want to hear how the journey went?” I say. “Aren’t you curious if your brutal enforcer killed any more poor, unsuspecting nobles?”

She flushes and looks away, guilt flickering across her face. Guess she hasn’t forgotten those words, either. “Fine. Do you want to come in?”

Meryn turns and leads me into the living area, but I don’t make it much farther than the door before I stop dead in my tracks.

It’s been three weeks, and she’s apparently still not letting her attendants tidy her room.

The furniture is not even visible at this point; if you didn’t know better,

you’d think that the chaise and the chairs were made in a scattered, patchwork fabric. The dining table has disappeared entirely under maps.

“Does anyone at least lift up your piles of chaos and clean underneath them?” I grind out. “Or should we expect that rodents are making their homes here? How long until we need to call for the palace exterminator?”

Meryn lets out an affronted sound. “I get it. I’m a hideous toad, and my room is a squalid pit. Did you want to talk or not?”

My eyes cut to her. She looks like she’s going through a rough patch, but even now, there’s a familiar, challenging fire in her posture. “You’re not a hideous toad.”

“I notice you’re not denying you think I live in a pit. So how would you describe me, then? An ugly sow?”

We’re starting to walk a dangerous line here. “Fishing for compliments, Your Highness?” I deflect.

“Well, when an attractive man says I look like shit, I tend to take him at his word.”

My pulse pounds at her words, but her bravado does nothing to disguise the fact that I hurt her. Fuck. “I apologize for my bluntness. You don’t look like shit. You just look like you haven’t been sleeping.”

Meryn nearly winces and presses her lips together. What is she hiding?

“It’s been a very taxing couple of weeks. But I’m fine. So, the nobles?”

“They’ve all come, aside from Rabenfrost. I just arrived with the Volkenfrost contingent. You’ll be pleased to hear that I behaved myself the rest of the trip. No more cousins were sacrificed.”

“Thank you.” Meryn’s face goes a little pink as she asks her next question. “Have you… do you need the tattoo? For that, um, cousin, I mean? I could help with that?”

The color brings some life back to her face, and an uncomfortable warmth builds in my gut. Fuck, she’s pretty when she’s embarrassed.

Something primal starts to break through my tight control. How low can that blush extend? Does it reach all the way down to the tattoo just beneath her breasts?

I give into my hunger, wanting to see how red I can make her.

“Eager to lick me, princess?”

Meryn’s eyes shoot to mine now, wide and unblinking. I don’t even think she realizes she’s doing it, but her pink tongue darts out across her

lips. I stare at the shimmering wetness, my blood heating as I imagine her lips and her tongue on me, licking where she’s caused me pain, moving lower to my— “Meryn!” comes a young voice. Saela’s door creaks open, and the eleven-year-old girl walks into the living area. “Oh, hi, Alpha Stark.”

I take a ragged breath and bow, using the moment to clear my head.

What the fuck was I doing? “Princess Saela,” I say to the dirty rug. Take another breath. And then straighten. “It’s nice to see you looking so well.”

Unlike Meryn, the girl looks significantly healthier than the last time I saw her. Her skin tone is back to a typical flush. She seems to have figured out how to manipulate her fangs, because she’s keeping them hidden.

There are no obvious signs she’s anything other than a normal child.

Meryn clears her throat. “Yes, Anassa has been keeping Saela fed regularly. We haven’t found a cure yet, but Aldrich continues his research.”

Saela looks a little embarrassed at this and slinks over to the chaise. She shoves some of Meryn’s clothes to the side and settles herself into it, pulling her knees into her chest.

Meryn watches her sister carefully, sadness lingering. “Saela’s been doing some research of her own,” she says with forced cheer. Saela just nods. “Tell Alpha Stark about it, Sae.”

Sighing, the girl looks up to me. “Have you ever heard of a Goddess Tear?”

I shake my head. “Rings no bells. What is it?”

Meryn crosses the room and sits down next to her sister. “We’re not sure. But the Mother Priestess called the opal in my crown a Goddess Tear and seemed very excited to see it. She said she thought it had been lost to the Siphons.”

Saela pulls a necklace out of her tunic, one that I recognize immediately.

The royal heirloom that has been passed down through generations of their family. The gem is sizable, nestled in a delicate gold setting, and seems to give off a faint light from deep in its depths.

“If the opal in Meryn’s crown is a Goddess Tear, maybe this is one, too,”

Saela says quietly. “I’ve been trying to understand where the term came from. Maybe it would help us learn some more about our family’s history.”

“Can’t you ask the Mother Priestess?” I ask, brow furrowing.

Meryn’s mouth twists in distaste. “She hasn’t been forthcoming with

more information, no. Let’s just say that the Mother Priestess and I have not exactly seen eye to eye over the past week.”

“I’m shocked to hear that you’re not getting along with someone,” I say smoothly.

Meryn picks up a discarded shoe and tosses it in my direction, and I dodge, smirking.

“I’ll look into it, too,” I tell them both, then bow again. “And Meryn, that thing we were talking about? Noemi took care of it already.”

Her blush is back now, traveling down her neck. “Ah, of course she did.”

“But now that I know you’re interested in performing such services, you’re welcome to do the next one. Anywhere you want.”

I turn on my heel before I can witness her reaction, but she sputters and starts to cough. As I shut the door to her chambers behind me, I can hear Saela say, “Are you okay?”

I tell myself that I said it only to get a rise out of her.

I almost believe it, too.