Page 267 of Psycho Devils: Aran's Story 2

I was flame incarnate.

Where the fire began, I ended.

There was no controlling the burn, because it was me.

Sadie would learn what happened when you pissed off an Ignis who didn’t have a completed mate bond to help control his flames.

I was chaos.

I was a king.

“Malum, calm down, please.” A garbled feminine voice filtered through the crackle of flames.

I opened my mouth to reply.

But there were no words.

Only fire.

It streamed from my mouth like a flamethrower.

Faraway voices swore.

My mates were under attack, and at the end of the day, I was nothing but a vessel to serve them. I was an Ignis. The Ignis of the House of Malum. My life’s purpose was to defend my mates, but I’d let them fall into harm’s way.

The pressure increased.

Red poured off me like every cell in my body was shedding fire.

Scarlet flickered to a dark purple.

I’d never burned so hot.

The pressure climbed, and there was nothing left to do but incinerate the world. I tipped my head back and opened my mouth.

Without the mate bond, there was nothing but a forest of quiet surrounding us.

Now it was the perfect kindling.

Peaceful.

Still.

It was the ideal landscape to release the pressure that tortured me.

Relief was in my grasp.

Arabella’s voice flickered through the inferno. “Malum, get control of yourself. Orion and Scorpius are fine. She let them go.” She sounded nearby.

That didn’t change the fact that she was close to Arabella. That they’d touched. Nothing solved that.

Muscle aches made me tremble, and a horrible sense of weakness made my head spin. I blinked, but sweat and flames clouded my vision.

“Focus on me.” Arabella’s voice was mere feet away.

I shook from the fever and wept.

It was so painful.

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