Page 231 of Psycho Beasts

It was nothing new.

Shifters pawed at us, mindless in their euphoria. The mob mentality of sex, a dark drug, as nulls and betas desperately tried to lose themselves in something more exhilarating than the mundane reality they existed in.

Tried to forget they were nothing more than sheep.

In a realm that didn’t respect them.

If I were alone, maybe I would have lit a cigarette and touched them back.

Lost myself in the mind-numbing haze of sex and violence that was a little too easy to pretend to enjoy.

But I wasn’t alone.

The red shadows and desperate faces took on a sinister light as I tugged Xerxes forward, cognizant with every step of the small woman in a sheer white dress that trailed behind us.

From the set of Xerxes’s jaws, the way he looked over his shoulder constantly, he felt the same way I did.

She shouldn’t be here.

I watched her in my peripheral vision.

Sadie’s ruby eyes were wide, her lush lips parted on a silent gasp as she took in the frenzied people performing all manners of sex acts across the maze of stairs. She curled in on herself, shoulders hunched as hands grabbed and toys slapped against flesh.

But she forged forward, not looking back or missing a step as we pushed our way through.

My kitten had no idea.

She didn’t see the man that grabbed at the back of her dress.

Didn’t see Ascher gouge out the offender’s eye with his fingernails in an efficient maneuver that left the man with a gaping cavity on his face.

Someone grabbed a strand of her snow-white hair with his fingers, and Jax quickly broke his arm in three different places before Sadie could even feel the tug.

Ascher’s and Jax’s eyes glowed brightly, bodies strumming with tension.

You could see in the way the bodies shifted that people were drawn to Sadie’s stunning golden skin and shockingly unique features, but it was the edge of violence that radiated off her that made them claw at her desperately.

An ignorant fool might have said she was different and others recognized it.

But the truth was more complicated.

Sadie was out-of-place while simultaneously right at home in the dark club. If she were given enough time, she’d become the wickedest of them all.

I led us further into the frenzy.

The shifters crawled on hands and knees as we walked past, desperate to touch Sadie and to taste Xerxes.

An omega and a female alpha: two rare jewels in a cruel realm.

They were mine.

The golden string in my chest, the bond that connected me to my packmates, strummed with warning as Xerxes noticed an alpha charging behind Jax and Ascher, his eyes wide as he stared at Sadie.

The alpha’s nostrils flared as he followed.

He’d smelled cranberry wine.

The string between us panged with warning as he lunged forward with a sharp knife, intent on fighting us for her. He could smell that she wasn’t our packmate, and he thought she was up for grabs.

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