Page 118 of Psycho Beasts

I kicked out like a petulant child and growled as panic welled in my chest.

“Xerxes invited me to his first heat.”

I couldn’t breathe.

Jax’s voice was frantic. “Calm down, Sadie. Please.”

I was trapped.

Focusing on the telltale tingle, I started transforming into my saber-toothed tiger. My clothes became painfully tight as my body enlarged.

“STOP SHIFTING!” Jax alpha-barked with a roar that shook the mansion.

My clothes loosened as my body instinctively stopped shifting.

“Fuck you.” I glared up at the large alpha who’d been nothing but nice and sweet.

Until he wasn’t.

A hiss rattled. “Why do you have a bruise on your cheek that you didn’t have twenty minutes ago?” Cobra asked.

I guffawed at his horrified expression. Clarissa’s backhand was the least painful thing that had happened to me today.

“What the fuck?” Cobra snarled.

Jax still restrained me, so Cobra easily grabbed my chin in his callused hand and forcibly turned my head so we were inches apart.

His frosty scent burned.

They’d already replaced me, yet they acted like a bruise was a big deal?

What was wrong with them?

Ascher and Xerxes walked up beside Cobra with scowls on their handsome faces. Ascher’s horns lengthened, and the flame tattoos on his neck jumped as he clenched his jaw.

Xerxes just stared at me with violence glinting in his purple eyes.

I could practically smell the malice directed toward me. He wanted to fight.

“Man-whore,” I spat at him.

Ascher smiled, then frowned when he realized I wasn’t talking to him. He raised his eyebrows and looked back and forth between Xerxes and me.

Cobra blocked my vision, emerald eyes on fire as he snarled. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know.”

His pale fingers were still gripping my chin, and he tightened his hold until the cold of his jewels bit into my skin. “You’re being a brat.”

I would have tilted my head back and laughed hysterically, but my head was immobilized by his tight grip.

My already broken voice was a gritty rasp as I struggled to move my jaw. “Thank the sun god I never bonded with an unfaithful prick like yourself. Now I can actually find some real alpha men who don’t act like man-whores.”

“Oh, you’re going to find some new men, are you?” Cobra’s eyes glowed bright green, and his pupils transformed into slits.

His red tongue lengthened and split into a fork.

Ever so slowly, he dragged his snake tongue across my face.

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