Page 232 of Psycho Beasts

His mistake.

I yanked Xerxes’s leash, giving my kitten a show. Distracting her.

Sadie might fight like a warrior and bathe in the blood of her enemies, but there was something so innocent about her violence.

The void beckoned me closer, and I schooled my expression at the terror that always gripped me when I thought of my kitten.

It was why I hadn’t fucked her yet, the reason I held myself back from ravaging her.

The world was already too cruel, and I refused to be the one to break her.

Knife in his hand, the alpha made his fatal mistake as he tried to swipe at Ascher and grab Sadie from our protection.

Shadows danced.

I tugged Xerxes’s handsome face closer and dragged my tongue across it, making sure Sadie’s attention stayed fully on us.

Jax shifted to shield the violence happening behind her.

Ascher dislocated the alpha’s shoulder and took his knife. In a flash of steel, he slit the man’s throat, then kicked the body off the stairs.

Leather bodies gyrated and fucked, desensitized to violence.

It all happened in a split second.

The gold thread that had been screaming with tension between us instantly quieted with relief.

We eliminated the threat.

I pulled Xerxes’s leash forward, both of us relieved that Sadie hadn’t seen her attacker, as I led us further up the stairs into the masses.

The gold platform spun slowly high above, a beacon and a curse, taunting me with what we were here to do.

With each step toward it, the void screamed at me, bellowed at me to stop.

We couldn’t do this to Sadie.

I sent images of love and support to my shadow snake that lived on her flesh—the favorite part of myself.

In my peripheral vision, the corners of Kitten’s lips turned upward, and she sent me love back. My knees wobbled because she knew what she was doing. Knew that I was there and who she was technically talking to.

To me, no woman had ever been so perfect, so sweet, and so fucking vicious.

I straightened my shoulders and led us onward.

We would pass this third trial because my kitten’s life depended on it.

Failure wasn’t an option.

The void screamed.

Gold thread no longer offered the warmth and support they usually did; we all were out of our minds with stress over what we were having to do.

Fuck.

I almost stopped and demanded we go back, tell Sadie we weren’t fucking doing this.

That we’d find another way.

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