Page 344 of Bitten By the Fae
All of them would pay the ultimate price.
Because I couldn’t protect them. Because I’d failed them. Because I’d missed what was right in front of me this whole time.
Tray,I whispered, my twin, my other half, weeping in the distance. He was inconsolable. His sounds pricks of pain against my ears.
I reached for him, my spirit longing for his familiarity.He’s gone. They’re all gone.
The Council was vile and depraved. So fucking corrupt. So horribly behind the times.
I can’t die like this!I thought, searching for the last of my reserves, needing to do something,anything, to hold on.
But there was nothing for me to grasp.
Everything had gone dark.So. Fucking. Dark.
No source.
No Midnight Fae essence.
No magic.
I was a shell of a fae. Left to wither and die alone. Because I’d never finished the mating bond. I had no one. ExceptNight.
A caw in the distance answered my call, black feathers touching my cheek as my familiar curled against me with the god-awful sound of death leaving his beak. It shattered the last of my reserve, knowing I’d failed him too. My sweet, loyal crow. So beautiful. So full of life. So… so… still...
No,I wept, clutching him to me as tears rolled down my face.Not you, too.
The injustice of it all curled in my stomach, my world disappearing in a cloud of torment.
“Nooo!” The scream pierced my ear.Aflora.I desperately tried to see her, to tell her to run. But I couldn’t move.
Aflora,I thought, trying to picture her beautiful face and failing. Why couldn’t I see her? Because we weren’t mated. Not fully. She was never mine. And for the life of me, I couldn’t remember why. It was a horrid twist of fate.
There would be no coming back from this.
Run,I whispered.Run, sweetheart. Run.
Silence fell, and regret threatened to overwhelm me.
We never had our chance. I’d chosen duty for too long. Arrogance had consumed me. An endless life of immortality. But sometimes fate plays tricks on us all.
Aflora...
My story was the punch line of a cruel joke. I took it all for granted. I should have known.
There’s so much… I would have done… This can’t be the end…
I choked, the last of my breaths escaping. I used it to breathe her name, my apology and regret whispered on the wind.
Leaving me alone with a withering soul and my dying crow.
Staring into the abyss.
Of a starless.
Everlasting.
Night.
