Page 75 of Psycho Devils: Aran's Story 2

She was the antithesis of Corvus’s quiet control.

Arabella was chaos.

She was annoying.

A nuisance.

Who couldn’t breathe correctly? It was the first thing children learned and mastered.

Now, as we jogged as a legion around the island, everyone else was fine, but Arabella was panicking.

Yet again.

For the sixty-eighth time in the last hour, Arabella choked as she inhaled.

I fisted my hands until my knuckles cracked.

Dug my nails deep under my skin until pinpricks of pain calmed me.

Water splashed beneath my feet, and I displaced pebbles with each step I took. The small rocks clanged against one another. The salty ocean soaked the bottom of my sweatpants.

The sensations were familiar. Calming.

The howling eastern winds that blew off the sea weren’t the only noises. High above, I’d estimate a few hundred feet in the air on the north side of the island, there were loud flapping noises. Shouts.

Feathers clattered together.

Ice swords cracked as they clashed.

Orion had whispered that the angels were training in the air above us.

However, even the sounds the angels made weren’t enough to distract me from the small, pitiful noise Arabella made in the back of her throat.

Abruptly she stopped panting.

She fell silent.

I waited, but there was no loud, rattling whoosh, the one she always made when she exhaled.

It never came.

Arabella’s footsteps didn’t falter, and she continued to sprint beside John a few feet behind us. It was easy to distinguish her gait from the rest of our legion. She was much lighter on her feet and favored running on her toes.

I cocked my head to the side and focused.

Nope, she still hadn’t breathed.

Corvus was pushing us at a sub-five-minute mile pace, and we were over twenty miles deep into the run.

My Ignis trained hard. Always.

As his Protector, it was technically my duty to protect the rest of my mates. Foremost, I was conditioned to lay my life on the line to ensure my Ignis and Revered stayed safe.

The slave tattoo had warped my natural instincts to protect and made me want to focus on Arabella.

It was also probably because I’d never met a person who needed so much safeguarding in my life.

Arabella needed safety from herself.

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