Page 74 of Psycho Devils: Aran's Story 2

Malum chuckled meanly. “Arabella is the problem, not me.”

John’s voice was bitter. “Do you really think that? After everything she’s been through. She’s proven herself.”

“Please!” Malum glared back and forth between John and me. “She doesn’t need you defending her.”

I pushed John behind me. “Don’t talk to him that way.”

Red flames multiplied along Malum’s arms. “Grow up. You think you can—”

Malum ranted on and on, but I didn’t hear another word he said as I compartmentalized everything we’d learned.

I only had to survive four competitions.

Then an intergalactic war.

Wonderful.

Chapter 11

Scorpius

OBSESSION

The Legionnaire Games: Day 13, hour 5

We were running as a legion around the perimeter of the island in our usual formation.

It should have been a routine exercise, but it wasn’t because of one person—Arabella. She wasn’t okay.

I could tell she was mentally struggling.

Not that I cared.

I just could tell.

I’d been listening to her long before she’d revealed herself to be a woman. Before she’d been branded as our slave. There was something about the way she breathed, spoke, ate, slept that made it impossible to ignore her.

Over the last few days, my fixation had gotten worse.

I couldn’t stop myself from listening to every stupid, uneven breath she took.

Arabella was a mouth breather and just all around a pathetic, annoying person with too many issues to count.

She was also loud as fuck.

The loudest person I’d ever met.

So many noises. A small catch in the back of her throat when she was panicking and forgot to breathe. Shaky inhales as she sucked on her pipe and it clattered against her teeth.

Her stress was loud.

And she was always stressed. Twenty-four seven.

It was driving me mad.

The worst of all her mannerisms was the numbers: she constantly counted under her breath. Sometimes it was prime numbers or square roots, and other times it was odd numbers.

With how many times within a minute that she sucked on her pipe, choked on air, and muttered to herself, it was obvious Arabella had no control over herself.

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