Page 71 of Psycho Devils: Aran's Story 2

Jinx scoffed.

Her body posture was casual like she wasn’t a small child standing in the middle of an arena built for war, surrounded by powerful warriors two times her size. She narrowed her eyes at me and said, “I almost didn’t recognize you. I forgot how pathetic and unintimidating you look as a woman. You’re barely stronger than Sadie. You need to train harder.”

I made a mocking face and pretended I wasn’t offended. She’d attack if she caught a sniff of insecurity.

I tried discreetly to lift my shirt and wipe my face to show off my six-pack abs.

Jinx gaped at me like I was an idiot.

I pushed my shirt down as I realized I was acting like a douchey male. Apparently, the enchanted disguise had really gotten to me.

Unsurprisingly, I’d become the problem. Again.

Scorpius chuckled behind me in line, and it took me a second to realize he was laughing at what Jinx had said about me looking pathetic as a woman.

Does he agree with her?

From what I’d seen, John and the kings were bisexual.

It was stupid, but I wondered if they all secretly wished I was a guy. In the hall, the kings had said they thought I was disgusting as a woman, but I’d assumed they were trying to get a rise out of me.

What if they meant it?

They had constantly called me pretty boy, but no one had called me pretty since I’d revealed I was a woman.

I grimaced at my ridiculous train of thought.

My vampyre father was standing in the middle of an arena designed to test people for war. I was about to compete against angels, devils, leviathans, assassins, and shifters for leadership positions in an inter-realm war.

Yet I worried about whether men I hated preferred what gender I was?

This was 100 percent why Jinx bullied me.

I rubbed my hands over my face and took a deep breath, determined to focus on what mattered. Surviving the next forty days.

“Where’s our substitute, sir?” Malum asked, and it pulled me out of my thoughts.

Lyla had only RJE’d with five people, and there were six teams.

I looked around the arena and realized there was no one else arriving.

We were missing our substitute.

Lothaire looked unconcerned and said, “Your substitute is making arrangements to be present, and it will take a few weeks. All of you have met him before and know him well.”

John made a choking noise behind me.

How could a human, an undercover fae queen, three devil kings, and two demons all know someone?

It made zero sense.

Except. Oh shit.

There were only four men in all the realms that all of us knew: Horace, Noah, Shane, and Demetre. All of them were dead, each death because of me.

My stomach cramped.

The gods were involved in these games, so it wasn’t impossible to think someone had been brought back from the dead. Maybe?

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