A Rejected Wolf And A Court Of Ash Novels & Stories

“But if I fight for you, they’ll say you’re weak.” “I’m not,” she said firmly. His eyes searched hers. “I know. But that doesn’t mean they won’t try to break you.” She leaned in and kissed him softly. “Then I’ll break first.” His lips brushed her forehead. “Not if I can help it.” The Court of Ashes was a cold, sunless place carved into black stone. A massive hall filled with towering wolves, each scarred, old, and deadly. Aria stood alone in the center.

“You could end it, you know. Pick a winner. Let them live.” I snort. If only it were that easy. “Find me one who can last past the third sunrise, and maybe I’ll consider it.” Her presence flickers in front of me, like a whisp of smoke. “You’ve gone soft. I can smell it on you.” “Must be your imagination. The only thing soft here is the ground after the corpses hit it.” She chuckles and fades, leaving the back of my skull blessedly empty. I straighten, scanning the new arrivals. A witch crying into her hands. Two wolves are already posturing for dominance. A human, brave or stupid, probably both, trying to look like she belongs. Typical.

Having been rejected by their Packs and unaccepted by others, they preyed on creatures belonging to Packs and other living beings. A rogue wolf leaped at me, and with a racing heart, I closed my eyes and waited. I waited. Nothing. Then I heard a growl and the sound of wolves fighting. My eyes flew open in surprise, and I took in the scene before me. The rogue wolf that had been about to attack me was on the ground, writhing in pain from the bite marks on its body, and standing above it was a black wolf.

The thought darkened his expression as he entered the courtroom. He barely paid attention to the meeting, his mind only half-aware as the courtiers spoke in anger and fear. A whole village destroyed by werewolves. Calls for action. Demands for a different approach. But that was exactly what they were doing. Just not in the open. When the meeting finally ended, Ares left the hall and slipped into the shadows—heading toward the hidden laboratory to meet with the king. “How is your burn?” He asked as wrote down some notes. “Hasn’t healed yet,” Ares replied, watching him carefully.

My eyes widened in disbelief as my mouth dropped open, "hellhounds!? Like the ones that were created by Hades? God of the Underworld?" Axil nodded gravely, his eyes flashing with pain briefly before he willed it away. I've read this in an old history book when I was about nine years old, I think. Wolves were basically the living version of a hellhound. When a wolf dies, their soul is sent to the underworld. Hades saw the potential in their souls and created his own version, which he called hellhounds.

A long mourning howl rose from the pack Alpha. Then, one by one, every wolf joined. The sound was a physical wave of grief, vibrating through the earth, tearing through the trees. I stood at the front, watching the flames catch the wood, but my throat remained tight. Frozen. I couldn't find the breath to join them. I couldn't howl for a man who had lied to me my entire life. Inside my mind, Ash threw her head back. She let out a fierce, sorrowful howl that echoed through my soul, mourning for the both of us. The fire roared to life, swallowing the body in a golden light.

The kind you only feel for someone you actually love. I understood, in that moment, looking at her, that whatever Renata Cassano was guilty of, whatever she’d built and buried and protected with a phone call twenty minutes ago, she had not been lying about one thing. She loved him. Whatever this was, it wasn’t villainy performed for its own sake. It was fear, curdled into something monstrous by nineteen years of practice, and she had just watched the one person she’d spent her whole life protecting nearly die because of the exact silence she’d kept.

He held my hand and pushed me in front of Rozsa who is now wearing a gray dress. Now, I realized that I am the only one who's wearing a white dress. All of them are either wearing brown or gray clothes. Women are in dresses, while men are in their simple shirt clothing. One thing is for sure, the way they dress up is quite similar to mortals, so I guess that I'll be able to cope up with them and their culture. "Today, we are gathered to welcome our newest family member. Aksha Beatrix Aslenovie, the legendary white wolf. We are lucky to have her in our kingdom as we all thought that there would be no white wolf left in our world."

RAYMOND I let out a weary sigh. Ash, being a wolf, couldn’t fully grasp the complexities of consent and personal space as humans did. In his world, a female mate would either willingly engage in breeding or be compelled through forceful submission by the male wolf. While such practices might seem like assault in the human realm, it was all instinct-driven behavior in the wolf world. That’s precisely why I was keeping a close watch on Ash; I couldn’t let him act on those instincts. He might attempt to force himself on Amber, and I couldn’t allow that to happen.

"All of it. Don't soften it to spare her feelings. She's past sparing." Corwin wouldn't look at me. He looked at the fire, at his own scarred hands, anywhere but the baby asleep on my chest. "There's a kind of wolf that turns up maybe once in a generation," he said. "Not bred. That's the first thing you've got to understand. You can't breed for it, can't breed it out, can't see it coming. Two ordinary wolves, an ordinary pack, and then a pup arrives who can do what your boy just did out there. Move things. Bend fire and frost. Close a wound with a touch. Or open one." He stopped, jaw working. "The old word is ash-born. And it's not a kind word. Because of how it ends for them."