A Rejected Wolf and a Court of Ash (Eden and Azriel) novel Chapter 43

The days aren’t making sense anymore. I can’t tell how much time has passed since I was thrown in here. Days? Weeks? Maybe eveti a macina

I’m so cold.

The stone floor bleeds the warmth out of my body, and no matter how tightly I curl into myself, I can’t stop shaking

My stomach growls, begging for food no one is going to bring me. Not since I have yet to apologize to Paris for the milk thing, which i will never d

I press my throbbing head to the wall, teeth chattering. I try to summon my fox magic, but nothing happens. I’m too tired to use her sticky, golden trickery magic.

Am I going to die in here?

Footsteps scrape down the hall, and two guards come into view. I recognize them instantly. Their cruel smiles, lazy power

“Still stubborn, huh?” one sneers.

I lift my chin but say nothing.

The door creaks open, and they step inside. Rough hands grab me, yanking me up. My arms hurt where they touch me, bruises blooming on my skin from their latest beating. They are here to give me another laugh when I stumble from the exhaustion that’s taking over my body.

“Why aren’t you talking?”

“Is it because you think you’re better than us?” one of them spits in my face, and then his boot nudges my ribs hard enough to steal my breath.

I squeeze my eyes shut. Don’t fight back. Don’t give them a reason to make it worse.

But they do anyway.

I’m hit and slapped. Kicked and laughed at.

By the time the pack warriors leave, my world has turned into one of pain. I can barely sit up. Barely breathe without feeling like a knife is cutting into my lungs.

I hate this.

Hours later, a familiar mist fills my cell.

– Azriel.

My heart lurches when he appears. Not because he is beautiful, though he is, with lethal, carved grace. But because when he sees me, something in his face shatters. He seldom shows emotion, but the thing in his purple eyes tonight looks a lot like fury.

Three strides, and he kneels in front of me. “Eden,” he says, his long fingers already bringing up my chin.

I smile when our eyes meet. “You’re late.”

He doesn’t joke back. His attention are on the bruises on my skin and I swear his gaze darkens.

“Who did this?” he growls.

His voice is pure violence. The kind that promises slow, lingering death.

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Chapter 43

I shrug, trying for casual. “The welcoming committee was feeling generous.

His chest heaves.

The scent of his cedarwood and dark magic crashes over me, and it takes everything I have not to lean into it.

“Ask me to save you,” he says, voice low. “Give me permission. I’ll end this.”

My heart aches when I see the furious set of his jaw. He wants to take me away from here, and I want to say yes. To tell hins to burn this place down To ask him to choose me.

But I shake my head.

“I can’t let you save me,” I whisper. “Not if it means leaving Axel behind.”

Azriel flinches, then looks away, his mouth a grim line.

“You know I can’t take him,” he says, so quietly I almost miss it. “Saving him would ignite a war. A real one.”

“And saving me wouldn’t?” I ask bitterly.

He turns back to me then, and the way he looks at me steals a piece of my heart. It’s as if I’m a precious thing he can’t afford to touch. Like touching me would break him.

“You,” he says, voice strained, “are already claimed. Your life belongs to the fae. You’re ours once you turn eighteen, but Axel… He is with the Valentine pack. Saving him would get me in trouble with my sister.”

My eyes narrow. “So that’s it? I’m just supposed to accept Axel can’t be saved?”

Azriel looks away, almost ashamed. Then there’s silence, one that can’t be filled.

I close my eyes and bite down on the painful ache in my chest. “Bring me food,” I whisper. “If you can’t save us both, then…bring me food.”

Azriel looks up again, his lips curling at one corner though his eyebrows remained furrowed. It feels like a lifetime, then he’s gone in a ripple of mist and shadows.

I fall back against the wall, tapping my fingers against my bruises knees. I don’t expect Azriel to return to soon, but he appears within minutes. I almost jump out of my skin when I find him sitting beside me.

A bag from McDonald’s sits in his lap, and he passes it to me wordlessly.

I take it from his lap, fingers brushing his, and the moment our skin touches-

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