Page 3 of Psycho Beasts

A shiver racked my frame and brought me back to the present.

What would have happened if I’d never gone? Would I have been angry enough to do the unthinkable? Would she still be alive?

I fought the urge to slam my forehead against the glass of the car. Bash it until blood dripped down my face. Until a shard speared through my skull and put me out of my misery.

“Coward,” Mother whispered.

She’s dead, I reminded myself, for the millionth time.

If only she’d stay there.

The words from that fateful night pounded into my psyche.

Mother laughed, a harsh sound, like glass shattering across stone. “I gave you what I’ve never given anyone else. I forgave you. Your little stint in the shifter realm—I blamed it on teenage hormones.”

She’d burned me alive with her flames every night since I’d returned to the fae realm.

But Mother had never paused our little sessions for a monologue before. A guard had never had to hold me down after the initial burn; I’d always collapsed onto the ground and taken her punishment silently.

Such a gift she possessed, burning a person alive without leaving a single mark upon their flesh. No one ever knew what I had endured.

It had always been that way.

It was our routine.

The guard’s harsh grip across my shoulders had been a reminder I was in uncharted territory.

I begged softly, “Please, Mother.”

“Don’t call me that.”

I’d pushed her too far. With one trip to the clinic, she’d been dangerously close to losing something for the first time in five centuries. Sure, it was my virginity. But “purity” was a way of life among the elite fae. Or whatever other bullshit they called it. I was my mother’s pawn to form a political alliance of her choosing.

If I wasn’t pure, then I was nothing.

“Hold her tighter,” she’d ordered the guards as her voice cracked like a whip.

“Please, nothing happened. I’m still a virgin.” I tried desperately to reason with her.

“No,” she said softly with the finality of death. “All you are is a disgrace.”

Then she’d begun.

“You don’t look fine,” Lucinda said softly, and I turned away from the rain-streaked window, letting the memory die inside me.

For a long moment, we stared at each other.

Lucinda’s white hair, red eyes, and golden skin were just like Sadie’s. But while Sadie was lean with high cheekbones and sharp features, Lucinda was curvy and soft.

They were so similar, but so different at the same time.

I didn’t even pretend to smile, just stared at her blankly as my back burned and the car traveled impossibly fast. The dark world outside glowed.

Eventually, Lucinda shrugged and looked away.

I kept scratching, clawing at my back, like ripping the flesh from my bones would somehow make it all better.

The neon beasts outside the window roared and contorted. Steel beams transformed into jagged teeth as they snapped at my soul.

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