Page 117 of Moon Cursed

They didn’t ask any more questions. Dumping the food, Orion, Edric, Paxton, and Nyx each grabbed a limb. Badr grabbed her head. Pulling her spread-eagle across the carpet, the guys held down the broken, bleeding mess that used to be Nia.

I spared a look at Hope, who was sound asleep in her crib, and I erased the distance between us.

“D-d-don’t,” she croaked. “S-sorry— I’m... s-sorry—”

“Who gives a shit? Give your confessions to the lost souls you trapped in hell.” I gave her the same dead-behind-the-eyes smile. “They can’t wait to see you again.”

Raising my claws high, they fell.

Boom!

I blew off my feet, tumbling head over heels.

Hope woke from sleep with a wail, her distress ringing louder in my ears than the actual ringing.

“What was that?” Paxton cried.

“What’s going on?”

Dust and rubble blanketed the air, stealing into my lungs. I made out the clear, beautiful sky above me, but my brain refused to compute it.

A hole? A hole in the ceiling? Did Nia do that? Did she have another power? How could—?

A figure moved through the dust, coming to a standstill beside me. The haze cleared, and my breath stopped.

Beautiful.

That was the only word for him, so it was the word I used.

Long strands of golden spun silk flowed past his neck. Chiseled jaw; full lips; eyes the color of chlorine swimming pools; a strong muscled frame that his armor couldn’t conceal; and long, pointed ears.

“No,” I whispered, eyes widening on his ears.

“Daciana Volana, you are charged with breaking the first law of the cursed mundanes—revealing your wretched affliction to the natural mundanes,” he stated, his voice dripping from his lips like water dancing among the riverbed. “You will be taken to a place of execution where you be burned until you are dead. This charge nor your sentence can be argued, commuted, or appealed.” He stepped aside, making way for four more unnaturally gorgeous creatures. “Take her.”

“No!”

“It— It wasn’t just her,” a thin voice croaked out. “They helped her. They’re her mates.” Nia tried to point at Edric and the guys. Her hand made it an inch off the floor, then flopped down. “They helped her film the video and put it online.”

“Shut up, Nia!”

“They were laughing about it!”

“Hmm.” Pool Eyes observed my mates as they tried to get on their feet. “Take them too.”

“What?” I cried. “No! You can’t do this. You don’t understand—”

One of his men clapped golden handcuffs on me and I stopped. Literally... stopped.

I stopped moving. Stopped blinking. Stopped talking. Stopped moving my jaw.

It hung open and frozen in mid-sentence as a strange, shiveringly cold sensation spread through my limbs, and shut them off.

“Argh!” Badr charged.

Pool Eyes vanished. In the space of a millisecond, the cuffs were on Badr’s clawed hand, and he was still.

Fast. So fast.I no sooner finished that thought than all of my fates were cuffed and frozen before they had a chance to think about attacking.

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