Page 60 of Psycho Beasts

I was no stranger to violence, but it didn’t mean I liked it. Didn’t mean it was okay.

On pure instinct, I jackknifed my heel against the side of his knee.

There was a loud crack as his legs gave out beneath him.

The water poured over his clothed form, and Xerxes didn’t move, just stared unsteadily at the wall.

His scent was sharp, burned cinnamon, eyes unfocused.

He was no longer present with me.

My heart hurt, and my alpha instincts screamed at me to comfort him. Xerxes was an omega, and he was hurting. I wanted to wrap my arms around him in his fluffy bed and run my hands over his back until he calmed.

“I didn’t mean it,” I whispered, my voice an uncomfortably harsh rasp. I’d meant it as playful banter.

A joke.

Xerxes’s head hung forward, shoulders rounded like he was cowering into himself. He didn’t acknowledge that he’d heard me.

Slowly, I reached my shaking hand out to reassure him.

I stopped.

He’d thrown his fist inches from my face.

It wasn’t my job to fix someone.

I was barely holding on to sanity myself.

With the last of my strength, I jumped up and pushed the button above my head. The shower turned off.

I grabbed two plush towels and gently placed one around Xerxes’s shoulders. He didn’t move, just knelt on the cold floor with his head hanging forward.

Thunder boomed.

Flashes of yellow highlighted unfocused purple eyes and a clenched jaw.

Xerxes was far away.

“It will be okay,” I mumbled awkwardly as I wrapped myself in a towel.

Then, with one last backward glance, I sluggishly stumbled out of his nest, back to my room.

My legs trembled as the sound of marble cracking played on repeat in my head.

It was too intense.

I stumbled down the hall in a daze, and when I finally got to my room, Aran startled awake in the bed.

“Everything okay?” she asked with narrowed eyes.

Okay. There was that fucking word again. It will be okay was the most frequent lie ever told.

I leaned against the wall and sighed. “No.”

Aran itched aggressively at her back. “It never is. We just gotta stop being surprised.”

I nodded in agreement and barely mustered enough energy to grab clothes from the closet.

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