Page 107 of Her Psycho Beasts

He sees us in my mother and Eko: an inevitable future laid out for us like paving stones that, once stepped on, fall away into an eternal abyss.

Chapter 54

Scythe

Aurelia tears her reddened eyes away from mine and returns her stare to the corpse of her mother, lit by new, powerful flames.

Something uncomfortable worms around my stomach as I watch her hold my mentor’s hand, as Savage sits mournfully at her feet and as Lyle stands like a stoic warrior behind her.

It should also be me standing there with her.

Instead, I watch from the sidelines, as I always have, as the red-orange flames turn her face a brilliant molten gold.

One Boneweaver regina had made a series of decisions that led her here to a pyre.

And another Boneweaver regina must decide her own fate.

Before my eyes, Aurelia’s body trembles. But not with grief, not from mourning.

From rage.

Revengeis a songher bones sing.Vengeanceis a beat her heart drums. A scorching wind stirs the loose waves of her wild hair, making her look like the Wild Goddess herself. Lyle and Savage look at her with alarm as our regina’s power slices through the air with a blade so sharp it might have killed us if we weren’t the other pieces of her soul.

Eko looks at me sharply, dropping Aurelia’s hand and stepping away.“She’s stronger than Athena,”he warns.“Like the Boneweavers of old, her power may consume her.”

The earth trembles, making the beach slide and shift. A feral wind whips up the sand on either side of us, creating tornadoes of power.

Out to sea, I feel the cursive power of a whirlpool opening.

Aurelia speaks with her mental voice. Commands it with a timbre that makes the very strings that hold me together shake in riotous anticipation.“There is no force in this world, or in any other, that will stop me from rippinghimapart bone by fucking bone with my own teeth. I swear it to you.”

And so she has made her decision.

“Stop, Aurelia!” Lyle cries, struggling to maintain his footing as Savage grabs onto her legs.

But our regina is staring at her mother’s funeral pyre, unblinking, her eyes like lapis lazuli. The fire blazes higher, hotter, more powerful than before, scalding my skin. I have to take a step back.

“Someone stop her!”Xander cries, launching himself into the air.

Even his powerful wing beats don’t suffocate the flames.

“Regina,”I command into her mind.

Her head snaps towards me. It’s the first time I’ve used the word in my human form. And the way her face crumples with a mix of devastation and joy would have completely ruined me, if not for the fact that she collapses a moment after.

Chapter 55

Xander

There is an inferno of thoughts in my mind as I shoot through the cold night air, letting my dragon completely steer us. All I know is that I have to get away from Serpent Spawn and the fetid energy she gives off like a malodorous, carnivorous flower that lures in prey with a pretty scent then destroys them.

If I’m not fucking careful, that’s exactly what she’ll do to me. That’s why my wing beats lead to the place that’s furthest away from her.

Drakos Estate is easily five times as big as Animus Academy. Dragon estates are always huge, to accommodate all the dragon bodies and associated hiding places comfortably, and my father’s is the biggest in the country. It has the hollow feel of a creature wanting to swallow you up and spit out the bones. An old beast, broody at best, vicious at worst.

The only reason I’m able to sneak under the air-protections around the estate is because despite my parents banishing me, my sister did not. And whatever my father thinks about females, the ancient laws of our kind, and hence the estate itself, allows me entry.

I shift into my human form as I reach the top floor bedroom, leaping in through the open window with the ease of many years of practice. I’m almost too big for it now, and we’d learned the hard way that I need both stained-glass window shutters open, but my entry is blessedly smooth and I land in a crouch on the plush navy blue carpet.

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