Page 304 of Psycho Devils: Aran's Story 2

I slapped my hand over my throat as I felt the eye tattooed on my neck start to open. No. Not now.

Lothaire would die by my hand.

We just needed time.

To figure everything out.

I’d thought I’d known rage when Orion had explained that Xerxes shifted and Arabella used her body to protect him. For hours. The coward had hid beneath her instead of helping her.

She’d been stabbed with glass shards for hours.

It was a miracle that she was even conscious.

I shook my head to clear my jumbled thoughts as the room fell apart around me. Everyone was freaking out and forgetting the important part.

“We need to help her. Orion, bring the first aid kit. Now!” I shouted, and the room went quiet as everyone stilled.

It took a second, then everyone started rushing around, trying to find supplies as they realized Arabella was bleeding out and all of us were having meltdowns.

I took a deep breath and went into the bathroom to fill up a bucket of water to clean her wounds.

My hands trembled, but I forced my mind to stay calm and analytical.

I was a Protector for a reason.

And my teammate needed protection, so that was what she was going to get.

We’d iron out the logistics later because there was nothing we needed to discuss now. It was simple. People would die.

Arabella wasn’t the spoiled princess we’d stupidly assumed she was.

She’d been tortured.

Warm water sloshed over the side of the bucket as I absentmindedly seethed over what had been done to her.

I knew firsthand how cruel people could be. How they tormented with words and bludgeoned with fists.

The realms were not nice places.

The bucket cracked as I squeezed the sides tightly.

Suddenly it made so much sense why she’d disguised herself as a boy and hidden from her queendom.

She didn’t kill for power; she’d killed for revenge.

She wasn’t a pampered despot; she was an abused woman on the run.

We’d never been so wrong about someone.

A wave of relief washed over me as I rubbed at the snake-and-chain tattoo on my hip that tied all our lives together.

Thank the sun god we were connected.

It was obvious that no one was protecting her, that no one had ever protected her.

She forgot to breathe, sucked on her enchanted pipe, mumbled under her breath, and drank herself into oblivion because she was suffering without help.

Not anymore.

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