Page 176 of Psycho Devils: Aran's Story 2

As I was paralyzed, splayed on my back, hot spray splattered across my skin. The grunts and slaps became more fervent like the violence was intensifying.

Somewhere far away, gods watched as men fought beside my broken figure.

Did the gods know how tired I was?

Did they care?

I opened my mouth to tell everyone to shut up, but my jaw cramped, and a spasm racked my body. I convulsed from the effort.

My eyes rolled back in my head.

I tasted copper.

Darkness swallowed me.

Whole.

Chapter 26

Aran

HONOR

Metamorphosis—Day 34, hour 20

I fluttered my eyes open.

The first thing I noticed was the high-pitched ringing sensation that burned my ears.

The second thing I noticed was that I was laying in John’s bed, under the covers. Dark-red light filtered through the open windows, and a fire roared in the hearth.

The third thing I noticed was that I had not passed out in the middle of a shopping trip in the fae realm and hallucinated the events of the last two years. Shocking and upsetting.

Tensing, I held my breath and waited.

I blinked.

There was no pain.

“She’s awake!” John yelled, and the ringing in my ears intensified.

I grimaced as a damp, wet cloth was dabbed against my brow.

“What happened in the shower, Arabella?” Malum snarled as he stood up from where he’d been sleeping on the floor, with his head resting at the end of the bed where my feet were.

“Nothing,” I croaked out. “It was an aftereffect from the challenge. I think the pain in my ears made me seize.”

I tried to prop myself up and look casual.

The magnitude of the lie burned my lips.

It felt like the universe shook its head in disagreement because something had happened in that shower. I knew it.

Bones had broken and moved inside my back.

It didn’t take a genius to figure it out.

The fae law of Occam’s razor—“plurality should not be posited without necessity.” There was no need to speculate when a simple truth existed.

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