Page 100 of Her Psycho Beasts

Chapter 49

Aurelia

“Are you alright?” I ask Eugene.

He blinks at me through his goggles, still vibrating with adrenaline and terror. I stroke the front of his neck, cradling him in my arms and sending my healing power through his throat. He’s rubbed it raw with his constant crowing to save us tonight. I understand why Savage brought him, but still, it’s unfair on the poor creature to be expected to hold back a force likethat. I feel sick to my stomach for multiple reasons I don’t want to think about just now.

That thing that just chased us. That just tried tokillus. The fact that Lyle, Savage, and Scythe were not running away from it to save themselves, but to saveme. I think I’ve known, always known?—

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter because all of it means that we are now in an unknown part of the underground system that is holding my mum.

Tears prick the back of my eyes. I knew it would be hard. Butthishard? I could never have imagined what waited for us down here.

Mum, where the hell is he keeping you?

I close my eyes, letting Eugene’s slowing heart ground me. It calms my breathing, centres my nerves and my poor bleeding heart. Even the incessant burning in my neck fades away as I simply listen.

This had been my home. My once place of peace. I only have a few memories of her. But I know we’d laughed together on this property, baked together, eaten together. She’d braided my hair. Taught me how to ride my tricycle.

Something old and tired stirs in my heart. My mother’s face, her quiet energy, her Boneweaver power and the way it stirred around her. Kept close to her skin, like the secret it was, but always there. It’s not something anyone can just take away from us.

Something flares in me, like fire butalive. When I open my eyes, a glimmering thread appears in the dusty air—faint, but there. Real and living. It stretches out into the shadows of the hallway beyond.

Phoenixes don’t just see bonds between mates. And what is more sacred a bond than that of a child to her mother?

“Mum,” I breathe in awe.

I surge forward, following that golden thread like the lifeline it is.

My mates call for me, but I’m stuck on this path now. The one that will lead me to her.

Chapter 50

Savage

My regina speeds onwards like a woman possessed. I leap to my feet and bound after her and Eugene.

“Don’t disturb her,”Scythe warns me as I reach out a hand.“She’s caught the bond.”

I gasp, dropping my hand and realising that my chompy princess is taken by a scent so strongly that she’s not blinking, barely breathing as she determinedly follows something I can’t see.

If my regina is on a hunt, then it is my sole job to make sure she does it uninterrupted.

I hunch into a prowl, sniffing out the path ahead for signs of the enemy. Scythe flanks Aurelia’s other side with Lyle taking the rear again.

I’m so proud of her for sending our boogeyman running back there. He’s a giant asshole, and if I have any say about it, will pay for what he’s done.

“She sort of looks like you when you’re focused on something,”I muse to my blood-brother.

Scythe glances at me but says nothing, his eyes returning to roam the back of our regina’s body.

Whether he wants to admit out loud or not, I can tell he’s falling for her. It’s the way his eyes are like a net, gathering her in, wanting to keep her close.

“Stop smiling,”Scythe says without looking at me.“Focus.”

“Iamfocused.”I can focus while smiling.

My regina’s tiny feet make quick work of the stone corridors, not even hesitating at the corners and intersections. Eugene is settled in her arms, though I want to rip him away from her and eat him for being that close. But it seems she wants him there.

---