Page 64 of Court of Wolves

Her body jerked—no,hisbody jerked against the wall. Cold air scraped over his bare chest as the torturer neared, his head tilted as he assessed his victim. Considering where to cut next. Maia was going to be sick. She was going to scream. Heat and rage andpowerdrummed in her chest, a roar of fury building. She might have let it out in her body, in that distant bedroom with Bryon.

“Where are you running to, knight?” the torturer asked with a little smirk that made Maia hotter, angrier. Power throbbed in her veins, cresting like a wave, capable of destroying allcivilisation. “It’s awfully rude to disassociate when I’m giving you my undivided attention.”

Az!Maia screamed down the bond, and this time she knew he could hear her because his body jumped again. She surged through the bond, vibrating with rage, and it hit her like a solid brick wall—his pain, his endless, screaming, blinding agony.

Oh, Azrail.Maia tried to wrap herself around him, to protect him even though she knew she wasn’t really there. She could taste it now—the liquid he’d been choking on so hard that it woke her. It tasted of poison and herbs and rotten, putrid water. She felt it pumping in his veins as if they were her own, and panic made the power flow faster, furious, inside her.

Could she use it here? The second she had that thought, she was already grabbing a fistful of magic, letting the rage and protectiveness fill her, remembering the way she’d ripped up that street in Eosantha. She remembered the way her snaresong had closed all the exits in that forest, remembered the growing sense she’d had—that it wasn’t a one-off, that she could use her snaresong woven with her saint magic to change the world around her.

There are no weapons in this room,she said with complete confidence, feeling the magic tingle her tongue. It shouldn’t have worked; her magic was locked inside her body even in their new, upgraded room. Azrail’s mouth didn’t open to form the words. It tingled through her, shivered along her tongue, stinging her lips. She watched the table of weapons and… nothing changed. They didn’t vanish. They remained, a deadly threat to her mate. The torturer advanced with the curved blade in his hand.

She sank deeper through the bond, reaching for Az, growing desperate. She could feel something coursing through him, infecting him like a sickness, reaching through his veins to his heart.

The torturer is dead,she said with total conviction, letting her magic crest and spread.

In her body, she held her breath. Through Azrail’s eyes, she watched the torturer take a step, unimpeded, unharmed. Fuck! He was close enough to touch Az now, close enough that the blade gleamed as it neared his chest and—

The first crash of pain ripped her away, back into her room with Bryon. It disoriented her for long, dizzying seconds. And when she plunged back into the glade, when she raced through the dark grass and slammed her hand against the tree, it didn’t take her to Azrail. It didn’t take her anywhere. He’d shut her out.

“Maia,” Bryon was growling. “Maia!”

She opened her eyes just as a sob clawed its way up her throat. “He’s being tortured. Azrail’s being tortured and I can’t get to him.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The blackouts started so quietly and without fanfare that Azrail didn’t even notice. Maybe he’d lost a few moments before the ship and Kraeva and the vessels. He was sure he’d lost time last night after he’d been with Maia. He fell asleep in the corner with his face pressed to Jaromir’s warm fur and awoke standing against the wall opposite him. What he’d done in between, he couldn’t say, but Jaro had only eyed him with worry, not pain, not fear, so he’d tried to put it in the back of his mind.

This morning alone, he’d jolted in his body twice, like he’d woken up from a deep sleep. But he’d been wide awake, sitting on the cold stone floor. The stone was stained dark now, where the Brightwrath had cut him over and over.

The second time he jolted back into himself, it was to find himself walking through the door back into the cell, the heavy door winging back into place with a resoundingbang.

What did I do?He tried to ask Jaro, but his lips wouldn’t move, pressed into a flat, unmoving line. He tried to fight his feet as they lifted, carrying him back to the wall where he stood, arms at his sides, back straight, facing the wall opposite. Likea soldier trained to follow orders. Every bit as unemotional as those golden fae that hurt Maia in Vassalaer.

Thinking of Maia was like a dagger twisting in his soul, serrated edges grating against—

Azrail jolted, his arms swinging into his side as he marched beside Samlyn, the sensation of his hands knocking into his bloodied trousers ripping him out of a deep, sticky well of darkness. Unconsciousness clung to him like tar, trying to drag him back down, to drown him.

“Oh, that’s annoying,” Samlyn sighed, casting a sideways glance at him. He flicked his fingers and the darkness surged, swallowing Az whole.

He didn’t surface again.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

On the list of stupid shit Isak had done, following a robe-clad librarian down six flights of stairs into a dark, foreboding crypt definitely made the top five. He wouldn’t be shocked if this was a cult initiation. Nor would he be surprised to be murdered. Harth’s guards—and the burly general enforcer himself—were a lot more welcome now than they’d been an hour ago.

“How far down is the crypt?” Harth asked a few steps below Isak where he’d taken the charge with Tynenn Cassel, the old librarian.

“Ten floors below ground level,” Tynenn replied, his husky voice echoing off the tight walls so it sounded like a whole chorus of old librarians. “The tunnels were originally dug centuries ago for a purpose so old we don’t even know it. Later, they were used to smuggle beastkind into the city during the V’haivan cull, but all except this one were closed off decades ago.”

Behind him, Anzhelika harrumphed. Isak shot her a questioning look.Tell you later,she mimed.

Ten floors down. Isak’s chest squeezed, being so far from the surface making him breathless. But he thought of Maia’s small voice telling him she wanted to be free and he squaredhis shoulders, tightening his grip on his stick and ignoring the vicious burn in his leg. If she’d endured all that, the least he could do was reach this crypt and find something to get her and Jaro free. Isak also wouldn’t mind the Sapphire Knight, V’haivan prince, and the rest of her harem being indebted to him. Debts like that always came in handy.

So much for selfless heroism,Viskae drawled.

I can be selflessandget a little something for my trouble.He never claimed to be pious and kind.

Turn your head,Viskae said abruptly, her urgency making him jump.Look at that wall, focus on the carvings so I can see them.

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