Page 56 of Psycho Beasts

Dick had stalked me through those same trees. Yet somehow, they’d become my mental solace.

“Do you like it?” Xerxes asked quietly. There was a slight edge of desperation in his honeyed accent, like my answer had the potential to break him.

I smiled up at him, snow falling around us as the wind howled. “I love it.”

Xerxes’s expressionless face shattered, and an intensity lit his gaze that had me taking a tentative step back.

He stalked forward. “Let’s get you clean.”

Next thing I knew, I was standing in the bathroom. A single candle flickered against the wall. It was dark and cozy like the rest of the space, black marble flecked with gold covering everything.

It was also confusing as hell.

I stood on the cold stone and shivered at the shiny wall. Xerxes had said it was a shower, but it wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before.

A marble door swung shut and enclosed me in the narrow space, and eucalyptus trailed down the walls, but there was no showerhead or bath nozzle.

It was just smooth marble closing me in.

If I were claustrophobic, I would have been gasping in terror. The sheer quiet of it all overwhelmed my senses. There was nothing to see or feel, other than cold stone and darkness.

“Um, I don’t see any button to start the shower!” I yelled out to Xerxes.

“It’s on the side of the wall, around shoulder height. Just push it with your palm.”I ran my hands along the marble and shivered as nothing happened.

It was chilly in the mansion, and my naked, blood-crusted flesh was desperate for warm water.

My fingers shook, and I gnawed on my bottom lip as I frantically searched for some type of button.

Nothing happened.

I was ten seconds from falling to my knees and breaking down, all because I couldn’t get the hot water to work.

A part of my brain recognized that I was emotionally and physically exhausted.

That was how you knew you were at your wits’ end, when the smallest inconvenience became disastrous.

I tried to calm myself, but it didn’t matter.

Panic shook through me, and I yelled, “I can’t find it!”

Xerxes must have heard the desperation in my voice, because suddenly the solid marble door opened, and his wide shoulders crowded the narrow space.

I covered my nudity with my hands. “Um, what are you doing?” My broken voice was a squeaky rasp.

Xerxes ran his hands along the wall and mumbled absently, “Helping you.” He didn’t look any lower than my face, and his purple eyes glowed softly in the dark.

Abruptly, his palm pressed into the marble high above my head, and a low hum started.

“Sorry, I forgot you were so short.” He didn’t move.

Xerxes stood unnaturally still, and his muscles expanded like he was ready to fight as he towered above me. The scent of sugary cinnamon spiked and overpowered the fresh scent of eucalyptus.

I gasped as my vision refocused.

Abruptly, the shower whistled softly, and a thick cloud of steam swirled around us.

Xerxes was still wearing his bloody clothes.

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