Page 1 of Psycho Gods

Part One

Clinomania

The games of the gods will corrupt your head.

Those who survive—were already dead.

Chapter 1

Aran

FATHERS

Clinomania (noun): an excessive desire to remain in bed; morbid sleepiness

I stumbled down the empty black marble hall of Elite Academy.

My footsteps echoed loudly.

Orion ran silently behind me. He was my escort because of the bond sickness. My silent shadow.

Crack. Lightning struck the walls, and electricity made the hair on my arms stand up as white spots danced in my gray vision.

I slipped on a patch of ice and barely kept myself upright.

Stained-glass windows mocked me—maroon was splashed across gruesome battle scenes; slain soldiers clutched their swords as their souls were taken into the valley of the sun god.

My stomach churned because the Legionnaire Games were over, and I was going to war.

Soon, I’d be the downed soldier in the window.

It would be my blood.

Today was the day we left the academy for the realm overrun with ungodly. In a few hours, I’d RJE to a military base and become a war leader.

I felt sick.

Ice crackled, spreading across my fingers, then slowly crawled up my forearms, and I curled my hands under my armpits.

I looked back over my shoulder.

Shivered.

My teeth chattered from the pervasive chill that was emanating from my bones.

There was a path of cobalt ice coating the marble floors behind me, and as I zigzagged across the hall, the ice snaked and followed me.

Orion stared at it with shocked wide eyes.

Pressure built in my empty chest.

I wanted to scream.

I’m just an angel. I know what I am—I’m just an ordinary angel.

The pressure in my shoulders from my retracted wings told another story, and I grimaced because everything was falling apart.

I’d stayed up all night, twelve hours of straining with my wings spread wide, and I hadn’t risen an inch off the ground.

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