Page 75 of Psycho Beasts

“What did you just say?” I growled at my kitten, who was backing away with wide eyes.

Sadie shook her head. “Any relationship between the five of us is over. It has to be this way.”

Xerxes chuckled harshly, his entire demeanor hardening.

The menace that had radiated off him when he’d worked for the fae queen was back as he snarled at her, “You’re a coward.”

Sadie’s ruby eyes sparked with anger. “This is literally what I’m talking about. If you guys would just grow up and act realistic, we could talk about this like adults.”

Ascher cracked his tattooed knuckles, his horns expanding larger on his head. “You never listen to us anyway, Princess. So why the fuck does it matter what we have to say?”

For the first time, I agreed with Ascher.

Jax ran his hands roughly through his braids. “Everyone needs to calm down. And you don’t mean that, Sadie.” His gray eyes were clouded with betrayal.

The new bond among all four of us literally strummed with agony, with devastation.

We were breaking.

How could she tell us it was over before it had begun?

Sadie was giving up on all of us.

My kitten was giving up on me.

She was rejecting me.

Sadie sighed heavily and gave Jax a watery smile that made me want to beat someone until their brain splattered.

Her voice cracked. “It’s nothing personal. I just think it might have been for the best. Jala pointed out that most things happen for a reason, and I think that’s true in this case.”

I scoffed. What a load of fucking shit.

Nothing happened for a reason. The world was a dark, cruel place; it either fucked you over, or you rose from the ashes and fucked it.

That was it.

Jax’s soft voice had a hard edge. “And what did Jinx say?”

Sadie chuckled weakly, tears tracking down her cheeks. “She said that men were mostly useless, and I was saving myself a lot of unnecessary emotional energy.”

“Do you agree with her?” Jax asked slowly, the razor-sharp edge in his voice making the skin on the back of my neck prickle.

You didn’t piss off an alpha bear.

Sadie avoided making eye contact with any of us. “I think we’re all better off as friends. We can still pass initiation and work together to survive this realm.”

I hissed at her.

“You guys are my teammates, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. But I’m still only twenty-one, and I need to focus on what I want out of life. I can’t do that if I’m your guys’ possession. Plus, the don took the choice away from us.”

Jax’s gray eyes were sharper than the knives Xerxes was twirling dangerously fast through his fingers.

He asked softly, “Did he really take the choice away?”

“Yes,” Sadie said, her chin clenched with stubbornness.

She’d come to her decision.

---