Exclusive Direbound scene & more updates!

A little Christmas gift for you all: a sneak peek at Direbound!

Direbound has been sent to beta readers!

We hit a huge milestone yesterday — our amazing beta reading team (the folks who volunteer to read extra early, even before the ARC, to give editorial feedback before the book is done) have now received our latest draft.

Side note— if you signed up to beta read and did not receive the draft, reply to this email and I’ll make sure it gets to you!

In honor of this milestone, and because it’s nearly Christmas (Merry Christmas if you celebrate!), I thought I’d share a sneak peek at Direbound with you all! What follows is a scene from early in the book, introducing both the Bonded (the elite warriors who ride and bond with direwolves) and also one particular key character…

Hope you enjoy!

Please note this scene is from a draft of Direbound that is NOT FINAL. Further edits will still take place between now and publication.

Excerpt from DIREBOUND, chapter 2:

After I leave work in the late afternoon, I head to the Central District to pick up Saela from school, weaving through the crowded and mostly clean streets.

She used to attend primary school in our neighborhood in Eastern, but she was always top of her class, and last year her teacher recommended her for a more advanced secondary school in Central, which is a tonier district.

It’s not convenient and it costs money—not much, but anything is too much for us these days. The sacrifice is worth it for my sister, though. She’s not going to end up like me, dropping out and working herself to the bone just to stay alive. In a world full of dead ends, I’m going to make sure she has options.

Saela’s different than me. Bookish, hard working. An optimist. An innocent. She’s got a smart mouth on her, which I take credit for, but the rest of it? Must’ve been from dad, because she just came out that way.

She’s standing alone outside the school building when I arrive, dark hair plated down her back and eyes narrowed in annoyance.

“Late again,” Saela says, looking pointedly at me.

“Sorry, kiddo,” I say, swinging my arm around her shoulders. “Guess you’re just going to have to accept that your big sister is bad with time. How was school today?”

We approach the Central Market. While every district has their own market square, Central’s is the biggest shopping area in the whole city, filled with everything from fishmongers and bakeries to specialty perfume stores. There even used to be a jewelry store here, but that was decades ago, before everyone was encouraged to give extra funds to the war effort in the name of patriotism.

Saela and I like to window shop on our way home, our daily ritual. We daydream about what sweets we would buy if we could.

She sighs, staring into the bakery display and pointing to a glistening pastry topped with deep purple fruit. “I think I’d take one of those plum cakes.”

“Noted,” I tell her, thinking again about her approaching nameday. This would be a good surprise.

Before I can offer up my own fantasy order, there’s a commotion behind us. Saela and I turn. A crowd has amassed around the square.

“What’s going on?” I ask a man nearby.

“Bonded,” he says. “Riding through.”

What? Why would the Bonded be coming through here? It’s rare that they ever set foot in the commoner side of Sturmfrost, other than coming and going from the front—but even then, they usually skirt around the edges. Their part of the city is on the other side of the castle, bordering the mountain range from which their fearsome direwolves hail.

Saela looks up at me, eyes sparking with excitement. “Can we go watch?”

She’s obsessed with the idea of the Bonded. I can’t totally blame her—super hot warriors riding mystical beasts and wielding mysterious magic? It’s intriguing, if you can set aside the extreme and punishing classism.

I sigh and then grab her hand. I would do literally anything to see this kid smile. “Fine, but stay by my side.” Then I tug her behind me through the crowd, elbowing my way to a spot at the front of the square.

The crowd hushes as the Bonded emerge from one of the streets leading into the square. The streets are narrow here, not quite big enough for the direwolves they ride, which only serves to make them look larger.

People idolize the Bonded as much as they revile them. Technically anyone can become Bonded, and during Bonding Seasons, when the direwolves have enough young to Bond en masse, all army recruits from all of Nocturna are given the chance.

But everyone knows that the direwolves almost exclusively choose people who come from Bonded families. Privilege begets more privilege, a never-ending cycle.

There’s nothing magical about the riders themselves, but because of generations of natural selection and, of course, never having to go to bed hungry, they just look different than the rest of us.

Taller. Beautiful. Honed fighting machines.

Today, there are four of them, all wearing black riding leathers. A stern-faced woman with dark skin on a silver direwolf leads the way, followed by a pale man with a shock of blond hair on a tawny wolf, an older woman with olive skin on a grey wolf.

My eyes barely register the fourth direwolf and its rider—I’m too busy gawking at what they’re dragging behind it.

Or…who.

Gasps go up in the crowd as people visibly take a step back in horror.

It’s a commoner man, hogtied and bumping against on the cobblestones. His face is bloodied and bruised but he’s not fighting against his shackles. He looks resigned. He’s given up.

Rage ignites in my blood. How dare they?

The direwolves and their riders edge toward the middle of the square just as the breath leaves my body.

I know that man. He was the dumbass who threatened me at the fight last night.

My gaze skirts back to the direwolf dragging him around. Massive is an understatement—the direwolf is easily taller than the most battle-ready horses the commoners ride in the army. His fur is midnight black and he has a feral, bloodthirsty look in his gaze. His teeth are bared, each one sharper than a dagger.

The direwolf’s rider matches him in ferocity. He’s in his late twenties, I’d wager, with light brown skin and dark, messy hair. Like every Bonded I’ve ever seen, he’s undeniably beautiful, with deep brown eyes and scruff framing his chiseled jawline. But…

My pulse speeds up as I clock the tattoos completely covering his neck, his hands. Not much makes me afraid, but this? Run, a self-preserving, animalistic part of me cries. Danger.

Even us commoners know what those are. Kill tattoos.

For someone to be so thoroughly cloaked in them…

He’s killed hundreds, easily. Maybe more.

Monster. A fucking psycho killing machine.

My gaze slides up to his face and my stomach bottoms out as I make eye contact with him. The Bonded man practically glowers at me from a distance. His lip rises up in a sneer. Maybe my fear of him is written all over my face. I avert my eyes.

Power radiates off of him in waves. Whoever he is, he’s someone important in the king’s forces. It would be impressive for someone as young as him… if he wasn’t absolutely terrifying.

The Bonded man hops off of his vicious direwolf with practiced grace. For the man’s large size, he moves like water. In two fast steps, he’s reached the commoner tied to the back of his wolf.

He grabs the man off the ground with one hand, displaying an inhuman level of strength. The Bonded riders are able to tap into their wolves’ magic, or so the stories go.

“This man,” the rider calls out, his rumbling deep voice echoing over the silenced crowd, “is a deserter from the front. The king takes deep offense to anyone who would dare abandon their comrades in arms. Do you deny the charge?” he asks the man.

“No,” the man mumbles between his split lips.

The rider continues, “We have brought him here today to make sure all the citizens of Sturmfrost are aware of what happens to cowards.”

He lifts the man higher and I suddenly know what’s about to happen. I have no love lost for deserters, and especially not this piece of shit. But my sister cannot bear witness to this.

“Cover your ears,” I whisper quickly to Saela, who complies. My hands slide over her eyes, holding her warm, small body tight to mine.

The rider grabs a dagger with his free hand and guts the man from navel to neck. His pained screams echo, bouncing off the buildings around the square. Then the Bonded man sticks his hand into the deserter’s belly and yanks out his entrails. The man is not dead yet, gurgling in pain, blood bubbling out of his mouth and dripping down his chin.

The Bonded man tosses the deserter forward to his wolf, who snaps him out of mid-air with his powerful jaws. The direwolf spits the deserter onto the ground and then snaps at him again by his neck, shaking him once, twice. The man—the body—has stopped moving.

The direwolf feasts on him, blood coating his muzzle.

I make myself watch for as long as I can, determined to sear the image into my brain, to remember this for the rest of my life.

To remember how absolutely fucking cold-blooded the Bonded are and how unfairly the cards are stacked against the rest of us.

Eventually the sight starts to turn my stomach and I look away, only to make eye contact with the brutal, maniacal Bonded rider again. He’s looking at me assessingly. I wonder if he gets off on making people feel fear and pain. If this is fun for him.

I lift my chin higher. I’m not afraid of you, asshole, I tell him in my mind even as my hands tremor, even as his bold-faced unblinking violence shakes me to my core.

There’s no emotion in his dark eyes, none at all.

The Siphons might be our enemy, but I’m certain that this man is the true face of evil.

…

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