Page 430 of Bitten By the Fae

I could sense through the source that they were dead. All of them. That this was real. That what I witnessed now was happening in real time.

Somehow, I was seeing this through the eyes of the crowd, like my link to the dark source had granted me access to all their minds.

I refocused on the stage, my lips parting as Emelyn appeared beside a stoic, dark-haired man. Tears tracked down her cheeks as she tried to plead with him, the wordfatherseeming to fall from her lips. But I couldn’t hear her, only see.

And then I gasped as Constantine struck her with a spell, yanking her soul from her body and turning her to marble like the others.

No, I thought.No!This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real!

Before I even realized what I was doing, I’d engaged Shade’s shadowing ability and I was flying through space to land in the crowd of silence. No one noticed my arrival, the onlookers too busy applauding Emelyn’s death.

The sound reverberated through my ears, my arrival allowing me to hear.

But the cheers weren’t what I wanted to experience. They were applauding Emelyn’s death.

Her dark eyes looked out upon them, frozen in time, agony etched into her features.

He killed her.

ConstantinekilledEmelyn.

My heart stopped, my world crashing to a halt. I couldn’t stop staring into her eyes, the lifeless orbs echoing a pain I felt to my very soul.

I was too late.

I couldn’t save her.

She was already gone, taken from me, from this realm, by the Elder standing stoically on the platform.

My fingers curled into fists at my sides, my ire mounting by the second.

Only for my blood to freeze in the next minute as a familiar voice screamed, “Tray!”

My neck refused to work, my eyes locked on the stage. A fae approached to remove Emelyn… by smashing her body with a large hammer, shattering her marbled form into a thousand pieces.

I covered my lips, my gasp drowned out by the booming approval around me.They’re celebrating her destruction.Tears smothered my vision, my soul screaming at the unfairness and wrongness of it all.

Then Dakota appeared, her dark hair styled in an elegant bun that somehow matched her too-perfect face. I nearly growled at the sight of her, the traitorous bitch having hurt more than one of my mates.

Except the wiggling blonde fae beside her captivated all my attention in the next breath.

Ella.

I stopped breathing, my heart no longer functioning, and I barely heard Constantine speaking above the roar in my ears.

“This Halfling traitor knowingly helped an abomination to escape our kingdom, her antics nearly taking the life of her mate, Trayton Nacht. Based on the testimonies of her male mate, the Midnight Fae Council finds her guilty on all counts and has hereby sentenced her to immediate exsanguination.”

“He’s lying!” she screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Tray, tell them he’s lying!”

But Tray did nothing.

He merely stood with the Council off to the side with an expression of indifference. A foreign energy wafted around him, rippling in hypnotic waves as though lulling him into a bizarre state of comfort.This is just a nightmare. This isn’t real.

However, it felt real.

The dark source pulsed inside me, protesting these antics. It wanted me to act, to do something to stop this madness.

“Please!” Ella cried out.