Direbound

Published in 2025, Direbound is the first installment in the Wolves of Ruin trilogy by Sable Sorensen (the pen name of coauthors Eliza Phillips and Annie Paige-Stone). Initially self-published, the book was republished the same year under Hachette Book Group’s imprint, Requited. Direbound is a work of dark romantasy set in the kingdom of Nocturna, where direwolves each choose a human as their bonded rider. After ancient Siphon monsters kidnap her sister, common-born Meryn Cooper enters the Bonding Trials to try to save her. Exploring themes related to social class, false historical narratives, and human objectification, the novel traces Meryn’s love and dedication to family amid merciless political machinations.

This guide refers to the self-published e-book edition published on February 26, 2025.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, death, child death, sexual violence and harassment, physical abuse, emotional abuse, mental illness, self-harm, gender discrimination, sexual content, and substance use.

Plot Summary

In the kingdom of Sturmfrost, Meryn Cooper (as the Alleycat of the Eastern Quarter) adds a win to her undefeated streak in the illegal fighting ring. When a betting man threatens her, blaming her for his losses, Meryn easily subdues him. She then learns that the “Nabbers” (likely Siphons, ancient monsters who are enemies of the kingdom of Nocturna) kidnapped another child. She rushes home to check on her younger sister, Saela. Saela is safe, but the Nabbers’ constant threat troubles Meryn, so the next day, she discusses training children in self-defense with her mentor, Igor. As she retrieves Saela from school, they see Stark Therion and his bonded direwolf kill the man who threatened Meryn. Determined to help her community, Meryn begins training children with Igor, but when she steps away with her boyfriend, Lee, Saela is kidnapped.

Devastated, Meryn enlists in the army to search for Saela at the front, in enemy territory. She tells Lee that she’s leaving, and he doesn’t dissuade her, instead warning that the king will soon call for Bonding Trials, humans’ only opportunity to bond with direwolves and become part of the elite forces. At the enlistment center, Meryn is forced to participate in the Ascent, a perilous climb up Mount Wolfsbane. She doesn’t want to bond with a direwolf but knows that those who survive the Ascent can go to the front. Before she starts climbing, she sees a brute, Jonah, attack a woman, Venna, and saves her. Venna and her twin, Izebel, invite Meryn to help each other during the trial.

As the three women climb, other recruits fall to their deaths. Twice, others attack them, hoping to pilfer gear and eliminate competition. The three reach the peak, exhausted. Venna and Izabel bond with wolves, earning a streak of hair color identifying their pack membership. Meryn tries to avoid the wolves, but a powerful wolf named Anassa forces Meryn into a bond, and her hair turns fully silver. Meryn demands that Anassa rescind the bond, but Stark, the Daemos pack’s Alpha, announces that they must reach the castle gates before sundown, or they’ll die. Though Anassa refuses to carry Meryn, she arrives at the gates in the nick of time, with Anassa trailing behind, and the Strategos pack welcomes her.

Unnerved by the Bonded City’s opulence, Meryn resolves to escape after learning that she must train with the other Rawbonds (newly bonded riders); that night, she slips from her dorm but collapses in pain at the gates. Venna and Izabel find and retrieve her, explaining that since her bond to Anassa is new, they can’t be too far apart, or the bond will sever and both will die. Meryn despairs, thinking of Saela, but is soon swept up in preparations for the Presentation, a ball wherein nobles appraise the new Rawbonds and the king selects his companion for the training period. At the ball, the nobles’ salaciousness disgusts Meryn. When the king and his son, Crown Prince Killian Valtiere, enter, Meryn is shocked to see that the prince is Lee. By secret message, he asks to see her, and that night, he explains how he concealed his identity, fearing that she wouldn’t accept him. Meryn, however, won’t forgive him, especially since he didn’t try to stop the Nabbers. As she returns to her room, a Rawbond attacks her, and she kills him in self-defense.

The next morning, Stark demands to know who broke the rules and killed a fellow pack member. Meryn defiantly describes the attack, and Stark berates her before tattooing her kill on her neck. As is customary, he licks it when he’s finished, and the sensation is a bewildering mix of erotic attraction and disgust for someone whom Meryn sees as a killer. After training that day, Egith, her instructor, tells her that she was given a private room. Meryn fears that this will make her a target, which proves true when she’s bullied in training. She tries to connect with Anassa, but the wolf remains aloof, mentally blocking their telepathic connection. During the Voice Trial, however, Anassa must communicate her intentions, and Meryn finally feels that they’re making progress. Nonetheless, everyone notices that they’re at odds, and Meryn is warned to remediate the situation, lest she be identified as a weak link in the pack and culled in the Purge Trial.

Meryn visits Anassa, and they discuss their bruised egos, extend a sage offering, and reach a tentative truce. Training becomes easier, and Meryn excels, despite Stark’s efforts. Upon returning to her room one day, she finds a note from Killian: He has an update on the Nabbers. As she runs to him in the castle’s secret passage, shadows move, and she hears voices. After seeing a carving of a woman on a direwolf with a twin-wolf crown, she loses consciousness, and when she wakes, Killian tells her that they captured a Nabber and takes her to him. During the interrogation, she and Killian learn about the warehouse that the Nabbers use, but the man can’t speak to Saela’s whereabouts, and Meryn becomes enraged and kills him. Amid her grief and anger, she rekindles her relationship with Killian.

She and Anassa argue the next day, as Meryn insists on the privacy of her mind when she’s intimate with Killian. That night, amid nightmares and terrifying visions, she wakes in the arena and worries that, like her mother, she’ll have an inherited mental illness. When the Purge Trial begins, she’s initially targeted as a weak link but survives along with her friends. Three bonded pairs die, however, and Stark finds Meryn again to tattoo her neck. All Rawbonds have a rare day off, and Meryn visits her mother, elated that she’s well and happy. After dinner, her mother gifts her an opal necklace, insisting that she wear it for protection. When Meryn returns to the castle, preparations for the Forging Ball are underway. Venna, Izabel, and Meryn don gowns and go to the ballroom. Meryn is horrified at how the king nakedly displays his Rawbond companion to show power. When nobles crassly express interest in Meryn, Stark intervenes, whisking her away and commenting on her necklace. However, their dance is short-lived, as Killian cuts in. When Stark tries to reject him, Meryn publicly asserts her relationship with Killian.

After a private moment with Killian, Meryn reestablishes her connection with Anassa and finds her pack mourning the death of their Alpha in battle. Meryn’s friends and pack members disparage her relationship with the prince. As they debate who will become Alpha, the Sovereign Alpha (and Stark’s mother), Siegried, summons Meryn and informs her that the direwolves have convened and named her the new Alpha. Meryn, along with Egith, doesn’t believe that she’s ready to lead at the front of the war. She nominates Egith as her temporary proxy while she finishes training, which now includes private daily Alpha sessions with Stark. The training is brutal, with Stark pushing her to her limit. In his office, she notices a stack of books.

Meryn trains for weeks, learning to appreciate Stark’s wisdom. When she sleepwalks to the arena again, she spots a wolf-shaped metal object through the gutters. She asks Venna for assistance since she’s in the Kryptos pack and has stealth abilities. Before Meryn can explain what she saw, a messenger informs her that the missing children were seen at the front. Meryn leaves for the city of Grunfall, and Stark insists on accompanying her. They stop for the night in the town of Linsfall, where Meryn notices the people’s respect for Stark. In Grunfall, she and Stark lead a covert mission to infiltrate the Siphons’ outpost. They kill many Siphons, but the children have been moved. Back at camp, Meryn reveals the real reason why she enlisted with Stark. After returning to the castle, Meryn goes to visit her mother but learns that royal guards killed her in the street.

Meryn is devastated, and Killian comforts her. When she mentions that Saela is now her only family, he proposes. Anassa tries to dissuade her, but Meryn accepts his engagement band. They hold a funeral, and while clearing her old home, Meryn finds her mother’s journals, containing scribbles and drawings from her visions. Anassa tells her to hide them from Killian, and when Meryn asks why, Anassa says that she can’t tell her more. Angry, Meryn retrieves the books she saw in Stark’s quarters. They are handwritten and describe the era before Killian’s family’s rule, a long-buried history about the queens of Sturmfrost. Meryn discovers a drawing of the queen and realizes that the metal object beneath the arena is her crown. Called to the Unity Trial, Meryn must show that she can command all three packs against the Daemos pack. She succeeds, but Henrey, the other common-born Rawbond, is fatally wounded; out of mercy, Meryn must deal the final blow.

As everyone celebrates the upcoming graduation, Meryn asks Venna to find out what’s under the arena and retrieve the crown. After joining the revelry, Meryn and Killian have sex. Late that night, Venna leads her beneath the arena to a marble door. Behind it are the missing children, including Saela. The sisters tearfully reunite, and Saela describes her four-month ordeal: She was beneath the castle all this time, and the king selected children every few weeks but never returned with them. Promising to save Saela, Meryn finds Killian, despite Anassa’s warnings. They scheme to kill the king, which Meryn enacts during the graduation ceremony.

Killian, however, betrays Meryn and has her locked in the dungeons. When she wakes, he claims that they never schemed together and that she killed his father because, like her mother, she has a mental illness. Meryn consults Anassa, who uses her mate bond to Cratos to call forth Stark and Venna and retrieve the crown. Slipping it on, Meryn has a vision of Alistair Brightbane, a Siphon, murdering the last queen of Sturmfrost and of her youngest child surviving. When she removes the crown, she realizes that this child was her ancestor and that she’s Nocturna’s rightful queen. Stark and Anassa confirm her lineage and explain the Siphons’ blood curse that blocks the kingdom’s memory of it.

Meryn plans to steal the Diren Blæd (the magical sword that the king used to control direwolves) by fooling Killian into thinking that she believes him. Her plan goes awry, however, when she discovers that Killian has become a Siphon and is Alistair’s vessel. Killian escapes but first activates the engagement band that Meryn still wears, sapping her power, and promises her a gift. Unable to remove the band, Meryn feels herself weakening. Fortunately, because she has assumed her birthright, the truth is dispersed across the pack. When she returns to Saela, however, her sister lunges for an attendant’s neck, and Meryn realizes that Killian’s “gift” was making Saela a Siphon.