Page 38 of Psycho Devils: Aran's Story 2

I narrowed my eyes.

Foreboding skittered down my spine.

A legion was a group of elite warriors, people whose lives were bound by more than circumstances or blood. It was about devotion and loyalty. Legions were the building blocks of war.

You couldn’t fight a multirealm war unless you had the best from all the species on your side.

My recruits fought well together, and there was no doubt they were powerful, but some days, they barely tolerated one another. From what I’d seen, they had nothing in common.

Legions were thrown into the trenches of suffering, and they usually only survived because they had one another. My recruits did not have those types of connections with each other.

I didn’t like it.

“What ties them together?” I asked slowly.

Dick arched his brow like he knew something I didn’t. “That’s above your clearance level.”

I bared my fangs at him.

“All you need to know about them”—Dick’s feathers clattered as he leaned back in his chair—“is that their connection is strong. The gods are excited to watch them perform.”

Working my jaw up and down, I stabbed my fangs into my gums until copper flooded my mouth.

I rolled it around my mouth.

Dick nodded. “I’m telling you this because the gods have ordered you to host the games. You will work beside me and the other representatives. Centuries ago, you were involved in the last Legionnaire Games, so you know how it works.”

“No,” I said harshly as I took a step back because I knew exactly how it worked.

I could see what they were doing.

They wanted to put distance between me and Arabella.

If I hosted the games, then I wasn’t allowed to interact with the competitors or assist them.

They wanted to remove her from my protection.

They wanted to tie my hands so they could make her suffer without repercussions.

Dick shook his head and smiled like my existence amused him.

He grabbed a stack of folders off his desk and said, “Glad we could have this talk. The paperwork regarding your duties will be sent to your office. The High Court is constructing the stadium on the west side of the island as we speak. The games will start in a week.”

“No,” I repeated with more force. “I will not do this.”

I might as well have been talking to the wall.

Dick kept talking. “Failure to take part in the Legionnaire Games will result in immediate extermination procedures for each person who disobeys. Disobey, interfere, or meddle in circumstances above your pay grade, and your daughter will be named enemy number one. Classification: kill on sight.”

We both knew what circumstances he was insinuating.

As he stared me down, his lips flattened into a straight line. Twenty-four years ago he’d positioned me neatly into his spiderweb of lies. Until recently, I’d had no idea just how entangled it all was.

“You’ve lied to me from the beginning,” I said. “No more.”

Dick twirled his fountain pen faster until it was nothing but a blur. His stare was hard. Uncompromising. “The truth changes nothing. Why do you care?”

“I care”—my jaw cracked as I narrowed my eyes, unsure which of the lies he was referring to—“because it’s my fucking daughter.”

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