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My book, Wingbound, is a romantasy (romantic fantasy) novel about identity, forbidden power, and the fire that awakens when fate chooses someone who's never been seen. It follows Kaelrin, an orphan girl raised on the edges of an empire that values lineage, power, and control. She expects nothing from life — and is given even less — until the day the ancient Bondstone unexpectedly chooses her. In a sacred ceremony meant to pair elite warriors with their fated magical partners, Kaelrin is shockingly bound to Commander Thorne Valis, the empire’s most feared and revered warrior. This bond is illegal, impossible, and dangerous — yet unbreakable. Now forced into a world of politics, war, and ruthless expectations, Kaelrin must hide the truth of her fire-born powers, confront the mysterious force growing inside her, and survive the brutal trials that come with being Thorne’s match. Thorne, meanwhile, must navigate a bond he didn’t ask for — one that threatens to unravel both his control and his loyalty to the crown. At its core, Wingbound is about two broken souls bound by fate and fire, learning to trust, to fight, and ultimately… to burn the rules that caged them.
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Seitenzahl: 84
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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CF. LARK
WINGBOUND
When fire chooses you, it never lets go
Copyright © by CF. LARK
Cover design by: CANVA
Publishing label: Favvy_MRC publications
Printing and distribution on behalf of the author:
tredition GmbH, Heinz-Beusen-Stieg 5, 22926 Ahrensburg, Germany
This work, including its parts, is protected by copyright.
The author is responsible for the content. Any use without his consent is prohibited.
The publication and distribution are carried out on behalf of the author, who can be reached at: No 13, Balogun Road, 200242, Ibadan, Nigeria.
Germany Contact address according to the EU Product Safety Regulation
C.F.LARK asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. This is a work of fiction and the names and places are not real but entirely coincidental.
First edition
Editing by Favvy_MRC Publications Typesetting by Reesdy.com
First edition
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> For the girls who wanted the monster,
the villain,
the winged thing with blood on his hands
— and still would’ve let him touch them.
For the readers who crave the dark parts of love,
the ones that hurt and heal in the same breath.
This story isn’t about soft landings.
It’s about falling,
burning, and learning to fly anyway.
You’re not too much.
You’re just wild enough.
> “The bond doesn’t ask for permission. It takes what it wants—and what it wants… is you.”
Ancient Virellian Proverb,
Forbidden Wing Texts.
Prologue
Before the Fire
They told her to stay quiet.
That was the first lie.
Kaelrin Dusk was nine years old the first time the flames answered her call. She hadn’t spoken a spell. Hadn’t read a scroll. She’d simply raised her hand when her brother screamed—and the fire had risen like it knew her name.
It didn’t burn the way stories said it would.
It listened.
And in that moment, Kaelrin had known two things:
She was different.
And different things didn’t survive in the empire.
—-
They came for her a week later.
Silver-robed mages. Black-armored guards. A woman with smile lines carved so deeply into her face, it made the way she said “accident” sound like a prayer.
Kaelrin didn’t run.
She stood in front of her brother. Barefoot. Scared. Glowing.
The flames at her feet crackled, ready to protect her.
> “She’s untrained,” one mage whispered.
> “No,” the woman said. “She’s Fireborn.”
That was the word that turned her mother’s face to stone.
The word that made the neighbors pretend they’d never known her name.
Fireborn.
Not bonded.
Not chosen.
A threat.
—-
The empire didn’t kill her.
Not right away.
They separated her. From her brother. From her name. From the fire.
Locked her behind stone. Tested her blood. Watched her sleep.
And when she didn’t break?
They erased her.
—-
No records.
No origin.
Just a quiet, powerful girl no one remembered unless she burned something.
She didn’t cry.
She didn’t speak.
She waited.
For the day her fire would no longer flicker.
But roar.
—-
When the bond found her, years later…
When Thorne Veyr looked at her with those gold eyes and said mine—
Kaelrin didn’t fall in love.
She remembered.
And this time?
She didn’t stay quiet.
1
Chapter 1
The Bond Cliff
The chamber pulsed with breathless magic.
High above, stained-glass skylights filtered afternoon light onto the platform, where two dozen bond-seekers stood in perfect formation—each one waiting for fate to claim them.
Kaelrin didn’t belong here.
She wasn’t nobility. She wasn’t trained. And she definitely wasn’t supposed to be this close to the bondstone—a towering shard of obsidian veined with firelight that called to the strongest souls in the realm.
Only a few touched it and lived.
Even fewer bonded.
She hadn’t planned to step forward.
But when the bondstone glowed for her, every rule the empire had tried to bury her beneath unraveled.
—-
She walked toward it slowly.
Each step forward made her pulse louder, her skin hotter, her vision sharper.
She could feel it now—a pull. Not gentle. Not cruel.
Just inevitable.
And across the chamber, she saw him.
Commander Thorne Veyr.
Shadowwing. Crown weapon. Highborn. Untouchable.
He looked just as surprised as she felt.
Because the stone wasn’t glowing for one of them.
It was glowing for both.
—-
> “She shouldn’t be here,” someone whispered from the crowd.
> “That bondmark—did you see it flare?”
> “She’s a streetblood. Impossible.”
But no one moved to stop her.
Not when the stone shuddered under her fingertips.
Not when Thorne—who had never bonded, who was said to be immune to the stone’s call—stepped forward and placed his hand against the other side.
And when they touched it together?
The bond didn’t just snap.
It detonated.
Light exploded through the room. The force knocked the priests to their knees. The chamber walls cracked. And Kaelrin fell—
—into darkness—
—into fire—
—into him.
—-
She woke gasping.
Not alone.
Because somewhere in the next room, she could feel him—in her chest. In her spine. In her blood.
Not touching her.
But tethered.
2
Chapter 2
The Bond That Shouldn’t Be
Kaelrin woke to silence.
Not peaceful silence—the dangerous kind. The kind that comes after the explosion, when people are too afraid to say what they’ve seen.
Her skin burned softly beneath her collarbone.
She looked down.
The bondmark was there. New. Gold and black and burning.
Not a brand.
A signature.
And then she heard him.
A throat clearing. Boots shifting. The subtle sound of a weapon holstered but not abandoned.
She turned her head—and found Thorne Veyr sitting in a chair beside her bed.
Watching her.
—-
> “You’re awake,” he said, voice like stone and smoke.
She swallowed.
> “What happened?”
> “The bondstone took us,” he said. “You and me. No one else.”
She blinked. “That’s not possible.”
> “Tell that to the empire.”
—-
He stood and began to pace. She noticed then how tightly his fists were clenched, how his movements weren’t cold—but controlled.
> “You shouldn’t have been in the room,” he said.
> “You shouldn’t have been chosen.”
> “So we’re agreed,” Kaelrin said dryly.
> “I’ve tried to nullify it.”
That made her freeze.
> “What?”
> “I went to the Scribes. I said the bond was a mistake. They gave me a release verse and a nullstone. I tried to sever it.”
> “And?”
> “It didn’t work.”
—-
Silence stretched between them.
She could feel him in her chest. Not touching her, but present. A steady pulse of heat in the back of her mind.
> “You feel it too,” he said. “Don’t lie.”
She nodded once.
> “It doesn’t feel like magic.”
> “No,” he said. “It feels like something older.”
—-
Outside, the bells rang—a low, deliberate sound.
A summons.
Kaelrin swung her legs over the side of the cot and stood. Thorne was already reaching for his armor.
> “They’ll want to test it,” he said.
> “To see if I’m a fluke?”
> “To see if you’re a threat.”
He turned to her then, his gold eyes sharp.
> “They’re going to try to control you.”
Kaelrin met his gaze without blinking.
> “Then let them try.”
3
Chapter 3
The Trial of Flame
The arena was shaped like a sunken bowl carved into black stone, its edges charred from centuries of combat. Massive obsidian spikes jutted from the ground at random, slick with dried blood and ash.
It wasn’t a place meant for training.
It was meant for pain.
Kaelrin stood in the center, breathing hard, heart pounding. The heat of the bond still simmered beneath her skin, low and pulsing like a second heartbeat.
And he was watching.
Thorne.
High above in the commander’s tier, wings folded, arms crossed over his broad chest. Eyes glowing.
He hadn’t said a word to her since that moment in his quarters — just ordered her into this trial by flame without blinking.
The commandant’s voice echoed across the arena.
> “Dusk. You face Cadet Ryel in this trial. Survive for five minutes. Or yield.”
Ryel was already circling her — tall, lean, cocky, and dripping with the kind of noble arrogance that made her teeth itch. His bond-wing flicked behind him, scaled and grey, but twitchy — like it didn’t like this any more than she did.
> “Didn’t think the Commander would actually bring his little rebel to the yard,” Ryel sneered.
“Thought you’d be locked in his bed, not out here.”
Gasps rippled from the crowd of cadets.
Kaelrin didn’t answer.
She just pulled her training blade from her hip and let the heat inside her start to rise.
Not the bond’s hunger. Her own.
Ryel came at her fast — but sloppy.
She ducked the first swing, twisted, and slashed low, slicing the strap of his armor across his thigh. He hissed.
> “Little bitch—”
He charged again, but she rolled behind him and kicked hard — right between his shoulder blades.
He fell, hard.
Cheers exploded.
But then he turned.
And his blade came down — not in a training strike. This one was aimed to cut.
Kaelrin raised hers just in time, steel ringing out against steel — but the impact knocked her to the ground.
Pain flared up her ribs.
And then—
The bond surged.
Her vision went gold at the edges. Her ears rang. Her skin burned.
Something above roared.
And then he landed.
Thorne.
Wings spread wide, eyes lit with fury, his voice a deadly growl.
> “This wasn’t a sanctioned kill strike, Ryel.”
> “I slipped,” the cadet lied, backing away.
> “So will your spine if you touch her again.”
Ryel’s face paled.
Thorne stepped between them, slow and terrifying, and Kaelrin swore the temperature in the arena dropped ten degrees.
> “This is my bond,” he said, his voice loud, final, echoing across every inch of stone.
“And I don’t share.”
Gasps. Whispers. Eyes locked on Kaelrin like she was a prize — or a threat.
