Page 99 of Psycho Devils: Aran's Story 2

The entire academy was packed into the small bleachers. Competitors who hadn’t been chosen to compete sat in the first row. Behind them, the purple-clad royal students were crammed together on the left side of the bleachers and there was a foot wide space separating them from the green-clothed commoner students who sat on the right side.

Those who weren’t cheering for the competitors had their heads tipped backward, and they gawked at the platform floating hundreds of feet above them in the air.

The eclipse loomed behind the platform, and I squinted.

Two people sat on the floating structure: Lyla the witch and the angel Lothaire referred to as Dick.

Relief unfurled in my gut. The rumors that the gods themselves attended the event were false, and representatives came in their stead.

My shoulders relaxed.

I couldn’t face the sun god, not until we found our missing mate. He was waiting for us to complete our soul bond so we could patrol the realms and serve him directly.

His representative had told us in the devil realm that he was getting impatient.

As if to punctuate my thoughts, the two devils from the House of Dar sneered as they walked past.

I didn’t bother to engage with them; kings didn’t bother with peasants.

They were jealous because they were centuries old, yet we’d beaten them as eighteen-year-olds.

There were a million reasons the other mated Devil Houses hated us: we were too young, too inexperienced; we didn’t have control over our powers; Scorpius was blind; I had rage problems; and Orion didn’t speak. The list of our failures was long.

Lothaire stopped walking in the center of the lawn and signaled for the competitors to gather around him.

I cracked my neck back as I rested my hand on Orion’s shoulder. With our mating song gone, I constantly checked to reassure myself he was nearby.

He relaxed into my touch, and some of the flames dancing along my arms extinguished.

“Let’s go, Corvus!” a high-pitched female voice shrieked from the student section, and there was a fresh round of cheers.

I ignored the distractions and focused on my Revered. He glanced back and gave me a faint smile. I squeezed his shoulder and nodded.

We had each other’s backs.

It was going to be okay.

Orion’s gaze flickered a few feet to my right, and it didn’t move back. He stared at Arabella.

She was hunched in on herself, arms wrapped around her middle to protect herself from the stiff wind. The look on her face was vacant.

She appeared softer with her curly blue hair pulled away from her face in braids—more like a fae princess and less like the wild, snarky creature who constantly pushed our buttons.

Although princesses usually didn’t have bloodshot eyes and empty expressions.

She was born of privilege. The fae realm was the largest and most famous planet out of all the realms the High Court ruled over. We’d grown up seeing art depictions of the mad queen and her beautiful daughter.

That same daughter stared at us with sunken cheeks and a defeated posture.

Sun god, she even looked dehydrated.

I made a mental note to force her to drink more water.

Dark-blue eyes glanced over at me and Orion. She raised her brow at my expression, and I wiped the pity off my face.

I glared at her.

She’s pathetic. A mere month of fighting the ungodly had almost broken her. I reminded myself that she was the same brat who hours earlier had cuddled up with Sadie in front of her mates. She was disloyal with no morals.

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