Page 6 of Psycho Beasts

Even as I gnawed on my lower lip and pressed my face against the cool glass, I could taste my mother’s anguish, her gore still on my lips.

I liked it now.

I’d liked it then.

Under the scorching suns, the darkness in my soul had swelled, and for the first time in my life, I’d willingly let my monster out of its cage.

My clean, neatly trimmed fingernails had elongated into razor-sharp claws. A sheen of ice had formed around them and hardened into serrated edges.

I didn’t know how I knew, but there was certainty in my bones that there was nothing sharper in the universe.

Without hesitation, I’d stabbed through my mother’s back and ripped out her beating heart.

As I’d consumed her, a swell of satisfaction had burned through my veins.

Nothing had ever felt so right.

Like extinguishing her darkness was the best thing I’d ever done.

Euphoria.

For a moment, a male had spoken like he was standing behind me. “I approve.”

His praise had been a shot of euphoria straight into my blackened soul. But when I’d turned around, no one was there. I’d had to swallow the urge to laugh from the sheer bliss of it all.

I’d been hallucinating.

Ironically, the situation was heinous for so many reasons.

One of them being that no fae had claws. Ever.

But I did.

Until this moment, I’d never thought about my lack of a father. Who or what he was hadn’t mattered. Some fae male who’d had the terrible judgment of procreating with my mother.

All I’d known was her abuse. She’d provided enough of a parental experience for me to know that I didn’t need another one.

Now I wondered just what the hell he was. What was I?

My back burned unbearably.

As I contorted and dug my nails across my skin, a part of me hoped the claws would erupt again and that I would score my flesh.

I couldn’t be queen. I fucking refused.

A wet, sticky substance trickled across my fingers, and I looked down at my hand. I’d scratched so hard with my blunted nails that blood dripped off them.

My vision blurred.

Suddenly, my mother’s heart was in my mouth, and a million fae fell to their knees.

The echo of fae prostrating themselves before me would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.

They bowed to me because, under fae law, I was their ruler.

The seat of death was my throne to defend.

The longer I stared at my bloody hand, the more the neon steel beasts outside growled. The more my monster rattled against its cage.

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