Page 196 of Psycho Devils: Aran's Story 2

Everywhere.

I would have cried if I’d had anything left to feel.

Numbness swallowed me.

Maybe it was the haze. Maybe I passed out. Maybe I died but my heart wasn’t consumed so my queendom revived me. Or maybe my heart was eaten and the slave brand brought me back to life.

More tribulations.

Either way, the next thing I knew, I was lying on the shore while Orion slammed his hands against my chest in compressions.

His white-blond hair and clothes were soaking wet.

Stunning almond-shaped brown eyes were manic. Wide with terror. His pupils dilated.

Above him Scorpius loomed. He slapped my cheek and yelled, “Wake up!”

A few feet away, Malum was trying to slam his flaming fists into John.

The darkness around John shimmered like a tangible force, and he moved so quickly that Malum never landed a blow.

Salty water flooded my throat.

Orion pushed me onto my left side, and water gurgled out of my mouth.

Nose burning, eyes hurting from the pressure, I could do nothing but gag and choke.

“Sweetheart?” Orion whispered as his face hovered inches from mine. Wetness clung to his long lashes and dripped onto me.

I pushed away from him and got to my feet.

I stumbled across the rocks to where Malum was trying to hurt my friend.

When I saw an opening, I threw my aching body between them and blocked Malum.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Malum snarled, silver eyes hard as steel as flames danced off his shaved head in a creepy-looking crown.

“Do not hurt John.” I coughed up salty water.

“Really?” Scorpius yelled as he and Orion stalked toward us. “You’re going to side with the fucker who just threw you into the sea to die?”

The demons sat casually on a boulder and watched everything play out with bored expressions.

“Yes,” I said forcefully. “I will always defend him from you three.”

“He tried to kill you!” Malum bellowed to the sky.

Thankfully the angels were flying on the other side of the island and no one was around to see our legion falling to pieces.

“I deserved it,” I said through gritted teeth. “We all process trauma differently. John is allowed to hate me.”

John said something behind me, but I couldn’t hear it over the howling wind.

“What did you say?” I asked as I turned to him.

His voice was menacing as he said, “I’m not John.”

The ocean crashed across the rocks as if to punctuate his statement.

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