Page 119 of Her Psycho Beasts

To my dismay, it awakes her, and she opens one eye to glance my way, her aura flashing yellow at her delight to see me.

There are very few beings on this planet who flash yellow when they see me. Sometimes I see it in Lyle’s aura these days, and Savage has had it forever. But Aurelia’s aura lights up like the sun. It sends a quiver through my tired arteries and gives me a boost of energy.

“What’s your plan, Scythe?” she asks sleepily. “About my… Mace Naga?”

I nod in approval at her correction, but I’m seriously distracted because she’s adorable when she’s sleepy like this. Almost irresistible. She makes me want to pull her away from my brother and cradle her in my arms, inhaling the curious, enthralling scent she has this week. It could never be as maddening as her heat scent, but it’s luring me in just the same.

“Never tell anyone your plans, Aurelia,” I reply, smoothing a hand over her feet. Her toes curl and I brush a thumb over the pad of her big toe. Connor was painting everyone’s nails a few weeks ago in exchange for pocket money, and Aurelia had chosen a deep navy blue.

“Tickles,” she murmurs as Savage adoringly strokes her hair, a lopsided grin on his face.

Aurelia was right to worry. Burning down the house of royalty was not done without consequence. But I’d made sure in my handling of this that any retaliation would comemyway.

She might have her own walls of protection around the school, but I am the wall between her and the criminal underworld. Every beast and his hunting creatures is after her, and now that Mace has faced an attack, everyone’s hackles are up.

Xander is currently flying around the local area, patrolling for any sign of retaliation from Mace.

There has been none just yet, as I predicted.

But next week, Mace will target one of my biggest warehouses and try to pull the rug out from under me. He’ll try and recoup his lost assets by stealing them back. But I’ve already sold that entire warehouse to the falcons, ensuring Mace will have a new enemy once he launches his attack.

Aurelia nods in her sleep as if she understands completely.

I close my eyes and just sit there, stroking Aurelia’s foot and tolerating the swarm around me.

Part of me had hoped Aurelia’s mother would appear as a ghost to my sight. That she would try and talk to us, impart some crucial information. But she hadn’t. Perhaps her time here had already been too long and painful, and she’d gone to the Wild Mother without looking back.

I sigh a long breath and open my eyes against the whispers filling my head.

Not just a swarm, I realise with a jolt, looking at the apparitions circumnavigating the room. They make a clock. A ticking clock.

A dark feeling wraps around my heart like a shroud.

I raise Aurelia’s foot to my lips and kiss her toes, then her arch, then her ankle. She squirms in my grip, her eyes drifting open.

She sees a strong mate. Her Great White shark that will destroy anyone that tries to harm her. That tears himself apart every day to devote himself to her and the pack.

Whatever is left of me by the end of this, I don’t want her to see it. Not me at my worst. Not me mad and raving, lost in the reality of my own mind. I can’t subject her to that.

She will have me completely sane, or not at all.

Chapter 61

Aurelia

The next day, we meet my animas in the dining room. My mates get shoved aside as I arrive at the table, and Minnie, Stacey, Raquel, Connor and Sabrina crowd around me in a group hug. I cry again, but they hide me from the rest of the dining hall and fix my makeup afterwards so it’s not a total disaster like the rest of my life. Minnie holds my hand as we eat and is a good sport about Savage’s constant grumbling that he doesn’t get to sit next to me. I think she might have even enjoyed annoying him.

Sabrina, still wearing the same black hoodie we brought her back in, nods absently while the others tell me about the goings on in the academy. Marduk’s classes are a hit with the animuses, and he’s become somewhat of a celebrity with his scary and bizarre stories. Apparently, there was even a story about how he’d killed someone with only a vegetable peeler. Minnie blushes any time his name comes up, and I’m glad she’s warmed up to him—apparentlymorethan warmed up to him if his scent on her skin is anything to go by. Damien had disappeared for two days and then returned in a happy mood, even agreeing for a group of student wolves to DJ at the upcoming ball.

The animas are working on organising their dresses for the ball since Damien had closed the village. It had made all the animas extremely irritable and more than one of the senior girls had detention scrubbing the communal toilets to make up for it.

“I’m making my own dress,” Stacey says. “Sabrina is helping me with the embroidery. We’re going for sunflowers.”

Our leopard gives us a wan smile before silently returning to her dry toast. It was the fakest smile I’ve ever seen.

“How’s she been?”I mentally ask Raquel.

“She’s having counselling every day,”Raquel replies,“with Theresa and Dolores, and is on at least two types of medication. But I don’t know if any of it’s been helping. Dolores won’t let her into the MOTF program. We’ve been begging him, but he refused, saying that the council ordered her here for her crimes and she needs to serve out her sentence. It’s fucking bullshit.”

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