Page 139 of Hell Fae King

And Camillia had shoved all that energy into?—

“I told you he wouldn’t help you,” Vivaxia murmured, her cooed words dragging my focus away from my own thoughts.

Because a fog had crept into the room.

A lethal one.

“I warned all of you, didn’t I?” she went on, her words seemingly pointed as the smog thickened. “And now you see it for yourselves, hmm? Your king hasweakened.”

What?Who the fuck was she even talking to? Nos?

He was almost dead.

And not from the slit to his neck.

It was Vivaxia’spower. She owned his soul now. His very being. And she was extinguishing his essence through her own force of will.

A horrible way to die.

Painful, too.

While he might deserve it after what he’d done to the fae under his command, it wasn’t her punishment to give.

Yet I couldn’t move. I was being forced to watch her dismantle his soul right before my eyes.

What the fuck is happening?I marveled.Why does it feel like she has control over me?

I hadn’t agreed to one of herpetspells. Nor was I a creation she could control. Our deal had never been aboutownership. Just a soul-bond. One that my soul had rejected, thereby nullifying the entire agreement.

Which was where herblood paymentclause had come into effect.

Regardless, that didn’t grant her authority over my spirit.So why the fuck can’t I move?

“See how he struggles?” Vivaxia infused a hint of sadness into her tone. “It’s so disappointing to watch, is it not?”

The fog began to lift, revealing the room once more.

And all the Strigoi inside it.

Breathing Strigoi, I realized, noting that over half the bodies on the ground were no longer there. They were standing inside, their alarmed gazes fixated on me.

“What game are you playing?” I demanded, my words for Vivaxia.

“It’s not a game so much as a trial,” she replied. “A trial of your strength. And I think you might be failing, sweet Typhos. Just like you failed to extinguish those portals in the other realms. Just like you failed to handle the whole Monsters Night debacle correctly. Just?—”

Just like I failed to protect my mind,I thought, cutting off whatever she’d been about to add. She kept talking, but I stopped listening.

Because I suspected this was also a distraction—hence the reason Nos hadn’t died yet. She could have ripped him apart in seconds.

She wanted this to last, which implied she possessed a nefarious purpose for this prolonged charade.

So what are you really up to?I wondered, trying to decipher her motives.

The fae in the room all appeared to be real, yet they were clearly being controlled. Perhaps because of her ties to Nos.

She’d bound him by that slave spell, and they were bound by the hive mind.

Or had Vivaxia done something to turn them all into puppets?