All Chapters of Claimed by my Rejected Mate: Sold to the Brutal Alpha: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

JESSICA’S POVI was screamed at by the silence at first.It wasn't a peaceful silence. It was not the silence of a forest at dawn or the gentle silence of the Den, after a night of passion. It was a thick, stuffy vacuum--a vacuum without air, a vacuum that was sterile, and could squeeze my eardrums until they burst.I opened my eyes, however, and it was black as black. I was lying on a surface so cold and so smooth that it seemed to be ice, and still it could not melt even under the heat of my body. It was obsidian. Black, volcanic glass, polished until it felt like a mirror."Kai?" I whispered.My voice didn't echo. It simply collapsed, and was lost in the walls of the stone.I called to my mind, seeking the golden fibers of the triad bond. I reached for the steady, rhythmic drum of Kai's heartbeat, the sharp, electric spark of Ryder's wit, and the deep, grounding warmth of Jax's protective aura.Nothing.The space in the back of my head--the space that had been occupied by three pow

KAI’S POV "Eat it, or don't. You will be as dead in any case.” The voice of the guard was a gravelly rasp, which resonated against the damp obsidian walls of the Null-Cell. I didn't look up. I couldn't. This was because my arms were stretched open and hung by silver-plated shackles which buzzed with the biting frequency. And each breath the Iron Collar around my neck sharpened its teeth, and pulled the strength out of my marrow, making my Alpha wolf a sniveling, caged cur. I was Kai, King of the North, now he was a piece of meat in a dark hole. But the physical agony was nothing in comparison with the silence in my head. The triad bond, the golden threads that had joined me to Jax, Ryder and her was cold. Frayed. Silent. I pushed her away. That was a knife blade in my stomach. I had renounced the tie, to protect her against my foes, and, on the contrary, had betrayed her into the mouth of the devil. The groan of the heavy iron door had opened. I didn't expect food. I expecte

Ryder’s POV The courtyard smelled like old blood, wet stone, and the kind of cold that sinks into your marrow and stays there. They’d dragged me out at first light, the chains rattling like a bad joke and chained me to the whipping post in the center of the training yard. Arms stretched high, wrists wrapped in silver-laced leather that burned every time I flexed. Shirt long gone. Back already a map of yesterday’s lashes. Fresh welts from the recruits’ practice blades crisscrossed my ribs like drunken poetry. Thorne’s new pups circled me like jackals learning to hunt. Young, eager, stupid. Most of them barely old enough to knot, but they swung wooden training swords with all the confidence of boys who’d never tasted real pain. “Again,” barked the drill master, a scarred bastard with one milky eye. “Aim for the ribs. Make him feel it.” The first recruit stepped up, chest puffed, sword raised. He was shaking just enough for me to notice. I grinned through split lips. “C’mon, kid.

RYDER POV The darkness in the Drip-Cells wasn't just an absence of light; it was a physical weight. It pressed into my lungs, thick with the stench of stagnant water and the rot of men who had given up. I hung from the wall. My arms were jerked upward by "Null-Magic" shackles. They ate into my wrists. Every time I sagged, the silver-lined iron bit deeper. It sent a sickening, numbing pulse through my nerves. It was designed to keep the wolf suppressed. It felt like my soul was being held underwater. "Still... breathing... Ryder?" The voice came from the cell across the narrow, flooded walkway. Kai. He sounded like he’d been swallowing gravel. I couldn't see him, but I could hear the rhythmic clink of his chains as he shifted. "Takes more... than a few... whips to kill... a ghost," I managed to rasp. My chest felt like it had been put through a meat grinder. The guards had been thorough. They wanted to see if a rogue Alpha’s skin broke the same as a commoner’s. It did. But my s

Jessica’s POV "You are beautiful in the firelight, Jessica, he thought, glimpsing at my rumpled shape, the red silk of my dress squeezing about my knees. And although you have the fever of the Root churning through you, you have a dignity in you that the ladies of this court could not have dreamed of imitating.He filled a glass and set to my side, the aroma of costly spice and antique oak permeating the air between us. He huddled forward, with the glass. "Drink. It will cool down the heat. I do not want you suffering to-night. I want you... present."I would prefer to choke on the dust of this floor, I purred, my voice like broken glass.Thorne laughed, a deep, low laugh. He put the glass aside, and put out his hand, his fingers running along the edge of my jaw. I shuddered, yet he seized me under my chin, and I was looking at him. His eyes were dark, and there was a swirl in them which gave me the creeps.Why you struggle with what is inevitable? he said, bringing his head nearer s