Page 251 of Psycho Beasts

She shouldn’t be alive.

After aggressively hacking, Aran choked out, “Ow.”

Everyone chuckled.

“You stupid fucking cunt,” I snarled, perspiration still half blinding me as my muscles burned.

Aran held up her arms and inspected the bullet holes covering them. “Shit.” Frost radiated off her, a cold mist that crackled in the air in a white fog.

“How dare you get yourself shot like this.” My voice trembled with anger as I glared at her.

“Shit,” Aran repeated as she looked around with wide eyes.

Her face fell as she took in my haggard appearance.

We both knew she was powerful; even if she avoided it, there was darkness inside her.

There was no way she’d been taken by surprise by a hail of bullets. No way she couldn’t have done something in that split second of gunfire to avoid them.

She looked down guiltily.

We both knew it.

I grabbed her by the tattered collar of her sweatshirt and pulled her close to my sweat-stained face. “You don’t get to leave me.”

Crystal-blue eyes sparked with fire as she stared back at me.

Hands tried to pull me off her, but my fingers didn’t release.

“Promise me!” I screamed into her face, shaking her with desperation. “Please,” my voice cracked with another sob.

Ever so slowly, she nodded, her mangled arms resting gingerly around my shoulders as she pulled me close.

“I’m a coward,” she whispered. “My back, my mother, the fae realm. It was all too much.”

I squeezed her back, and she trembled beneath me.

“But I promise. For you and the girls. I promise.”

“Um, Sadie.” Lucinda tugged at my arm, and I realized the pressure on my back was the five Ortega brothers hugging us.

I gagged, ordering them to get off. My mindless puppets stumbled away.

“The ball is in less than one hour. You have to go or you’ll fail the third trial. Your lives are still at risk,” Warren said frantically.

“Who’s that?” Aran asked.

“That’s Noodle, the ferret,” I spat in his direction and glared at him.

I still remembered him running around with underwear on his head.

It didn’t matter if the don gave him to Jinx to protect the girls like he’d claimed. The man was a pervert.

Aran swore vehemently, summing up the situation. “Why is he still alive?”

I shrugged. “He saved Jinx’s life. But I think Jax is just waiting to kill him.”

Warren paled.

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