They all were okay with standing by to watch innocents die.
Unworthy, I thought. You’re all so unworthy.
Midnight Fae in general weren’t kind. They were bad. Evil. Vile. They didn’t value life or joy or brightness. They craved the darkness inside their hearts.
I blocked all their incoming spells, the shield Zeph taught me how to make nearly impenetrable.
And behind it, I growled.
I hated all of them. I hated Midnight Fae. I hated their desire for gruesome displays of torture.
They’d all been enraptured by Constantine’s demonstration. Some of them had even applauded. Despicable. Wrong. Cruel beings.
I don’t want to be like any of you. I don’t want to be your queen, or represent your kind. You’re evil, all of you! I knelt to the ground, a spell lining my lips. I would destroy them all just the way they liked. Teach them all—
Aflora!Shade yelled into my mind, stopping me midspell and breaking through some sort of block I’d created in my mind. In the next breath, all my mates entered my thoughts, but Zakkai was the loudest among them.
It’s a trial,Zakkai said, his urgency in my mind granting me a brief moment of clarity.
It’s not real? I asked, hopeful.
It’s real,he replied sadly. But it’s still a trial.
Anrika… Emelyn...
I know,he replied.
He killed them.
I know, he repeated. He must have felt you embracing the Dark Source during training, and he chose to act accordingly. He did all this to trap you.
I’d already guessed that with the Warrior Bloods.
But I hadn’t considered the trial.
Kols told me the acting monarch could arrange the trials for the incumbent. This must have been Constantine’s idea of an ideal test. Sick bastard, I thought, glaring at his smug face through my shield.
Spells continued to bounce off of it, the edges beginning to fray.
Shadow back, Zakkai urged.
I met Ella’s frightened blue eyes on the stage, and noted Tray’s lack of a reaction again. I can’t.
She’d become one of my closest friends. She’d accepted me before everyone else. I couldn’t leave her. I’d already failed Emelyn. I wouldn’t do the same to Ella.
Because there are good Midnight Fae,I realized. I was staring into the eyes of one of them and had four more yelling in my head.
Constantine had enchanted these fae. Or at least some of them, like Tray. Now that I’d removed my fog of fury, I could see that Tray wasn’t relaxed at all but fighting the essence surrounding him, trying like hell to save his mate.
However, whatever incantation Constantine had woven over him was too powerful for him to counteract.
I longed to help him, to dismantle the spell for him, but I didn’t have time. The others were almost through my protective barrier. Taking him back to the Hell Fae realm wasn’t an option. That spell around him would trigger all sorts of alarms within Lucifer’s borders. They’d either kill Tray or deny him entry.
Either way, he’d suffer.
We’ll return for you, I promised him, then winced as the final vestiges of my shield began to crumble.
There was only one option left for me now.
I tapped into the Dark Source, allowing it to consume me like I had several times already, and this time, I granted it access to stay. I didn’t expel it. I didn’t push it out of me. I accepted it as part of my being.
Something clicked inside, a proverbial crown circling my mind, as I stood up tall and stared Constantine right in the eye. “You will bow,” I promised him.
Then I shadowed to Ella’s side and yanked her away from Dakota before the dark-haired female had a chance to react.
And disappeared back to the paradigm within the Hell Fae Realm.