Page 268 of Psycho Devils: Aran's Story 2

Disorienting.

I tipped my head back and screamed.

All my life, I’d lived with the burden of aching bones and delirium. For twenty-nine years, I’d suffered from fevers.

My life was characterized by blistering pain.

I was supposed to be the strong one.

That was my job.

The leader.

But I was so tired of hurting twenty-four seven. I was exhausted from the countless sleepless nights, the endless quest to push my body to an extreme where the dark thoughts couldn’t find me.

I ran to get away from the intrusive voice that constantly told me I’d never find my missing mate, I’d never have control, the fevers would never stop. Life would always be torment.

A part of me feared that my missing mate knew who I was.

Had I unknowingly met them in the past and they’d chosen to walk away? Run. Hide.

Maybe they’d seen how destructive my flames were and how harsh my personality was and they’d been disgusted.

Ignises were special because they wielded the flames of the soul. They were great healers, artists, Renaissance men who pushed culture forward. Sure, they were also elite soldiers because devil culture was brutal and emphasized male discipline and endurance.

Ignises were usually more. They had something to offer the world.

Yet I had nothing.

I wasn’t more.

I was fire. Incarnate.

How was I supposed to live with that?

Maybe our missing Protector would rather spend an eternity suffering than an eternity in my presence.

Maybe he’d heard the stories about the dark history that tainted the House of Malum.

I was the dark history.

It was disturbingly simple: I’d cried as a baby and engulfed my fathers in flames.

Did my missing mate know that I’d killed my biological father and all his mates? Did he know that the famous Ignis who’d led the House of Malum for centuries had been murdered by his infant son?

Did my mate think I was an unworthy Ignis?

After all, someone like me could never defend my Protectors and Revered. I was destructive.

My father was the proof.

Death by fire.

A dishonorable way to die.

What I’d done was unheard of.

My father had been an extremely powerful Ignis who’d wielded healing fire expertly with his mates by his side for centuries. Yet he’d been burned to death by a mere babe.

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