Page 209 of Psycho Beasts

The crystal chandelier above our head tinkled as the girls sprinted down the hall. It swayed back and forth.

Their laughter was far away.

“I know I can be an unhinged bastard most of the time, and I don’t handle things well,” Cobra said softly as he looked over at me.

Memories of him being so sweet sometimes and so cruel other times drifted between us like a live wire.

I gave him a sad smile and a small shrug.

With my eyes, I told him—I understand you don’t shift into a beast form, that you’re always a beast.

I get it.

His behavior wasn’t always appropriate, but who was I to judge anyone, when half the time I was a hot mess?

Did I wish Cobra was an easy, nice man like the ones in the romance books I’d grown up reading? Yes.

Did I understand Cobra would never be like everyone else and would probably drive me up a wall with his mood swings for the rest of his life? Also, yes.

Emerald eyes darkened as he understood what I was saying.

There was a long pause as Cobra breathed shakily, like my silent acceptance had given him courage.

“I wasn’t always covered in jewels,” he said quietly. “I don’t remember anything before the fae queen took me, but as a child, I always had a black snake around my neck. Like how the don wears his.”

The chandelier rocked quicker, crystals clacking.

Cobra gripped the arm of the couch. “The fae queen never hid that I’d been kidnapped. She told me that her informants had taken me because they had it on good authority that I would be an alpha shifter, and since the half warriors were such a hit, she wanted to try a beast gladiator.” He breathed deeply.

“She thought my snake was a pet, so she would set it on fire, cut it, and hurt it to get me to obey her. Not knowing she was really just torturing me.”

Coffee burned my tongue.

“She wouldn’t stop hurting it, and I was so young and scared. One day, she wanted me to stab another child during training, but I refused because at the time, I hated violence. I’d lost control of my snake a few times, and it was awful. I was terrified of hurting others.”

He shuddered.

“She cut the tail off the end of my snake to make me obey.” Cobra’s voice changed, like he’d lost himself in the past. “I was only eight, and I thought I was going to die. It hurt so bad.”

Logs cracked.

“Barely conscious, I stabbed the other child through the heart. They died as I vomited and lay limp on the ground, feeling my snake bleed out as my life slowly drained from my body.”

My fingers shook, and liquid scalded my hand.

“The queen left. She’d gotten what she wanted and didn’t care about my fate. But a soldier picked me up and carried me into an empty room. He laid the bloody snake on my chest and tipped a glowing liquid down my throat, and he told me this was the only thing he could think of that would protect me from harm.”

He shivered.

“I begged him to take me away from the queen, but he said that I had to stay in this realm and learn to survive. That bigger things were at stake.”

I bit down on my tongue until I tasted blood.

“When I woke up, jewels covered my body, and when I thought about my snake, the jewels changed into shadows. Melded into my flesh, where no one could touch them. The queen was ecstatic when she saw me, convinced that the jewels were a rare beast trait and that she’d killed my snake.” Cobra’s voice deepened.

“She had me fight other children, then adults for sport, all with the end goal being the gladiator games. But they don’t have a sacred lake in the fae realm, and when I never shifted forms, she assumed I was a beta and only good for small fighting rings, and…other things.”

My stomach dropped.

---