Page 188 of Psycho Gods

Most Revereds wanted to be sheltered. Their nature was the perfect balance that fit within the Ignis and Protectors’ powerful urges to shelter them.

But we weren’t a normal devil house.

We were the ancient House of Malum.

We were the right hand of a raging god with more power inside us than the devil culture had seen in eons.

It made sense that our Revered would subvert power dynamics.

“So, this isn’t a dream?” Arabella asked with confusion, and my stomach nose-dived.

I wished it were.

I wished we could take back what we’d done.

“No,” Scorpius whispered shakily. “It’s real.”

She exhaled. “You’re the worst grovelers in the history of grovelers.”

“We’re trying,” Scorpius said softly, “but we know.”

“I’d hate to see what not trying looked like.” She chuckled. “You’d probably just bash me over the head with a shovel.”

Both Scorpius and I recoiled at her graphic words.

“Never,” Scorpius snarled, and I nodded in agreement.

“So where do we go from here?” she whispered like she thought we could still move past this.

She was a woman who’d grown up facing horrifying violence. She didn’t cower from us. She didn’t submit.

Arabella embraced suffering to the point of recklessness.

It was who she was.

I tangled my shaking fingers in her unruly curls and breathed in her icy scent. She smelled like a blizzard at midnight and holding her was akin to walking through a quiet, snowy forest under starlight.

Scorpius traced trembling fingers across her dark brows, his jaw clenched and neck muscles twitched like he was holding back a scream.

We were soaked to the bones and our clothes were heavy. Pink water pooled at our feet.

Minutes turned into an hour.

No one spoke.

Arabella’s eyes stayed closed, but her lashes fluttered, and she rocked back and forth from time to time like she was thinking. Her mouth was pursed, but no words came out.

We held one another.

Desperately.

Nothing among us but regret.

Our history was barbed wire wrapped around our necks strangling all of us, and for the first time in my painful life, I was hit with an overwhelming urge to cry. Suddenly all I could think about was Arabella’s definition of toxic in the truth journals.

She’d said it was what we had.

The twins would never lose control like we just had.