Page 120 of Her Psycho Beasts

Mates of the Fallen is a mental health program for beasts who have lost their mates. There’s a heavy emphasis on suicide prevention, which tells me just how worried Raquel is.

“We can’t let her out of our sight,”I say firmly.

“We’ve been taking it in shifts,”Raquel confirms.“But it’s hard, Lia. It’s going to take her a long time to recover from this.”

“You’re talking about me, aren’t you?” a soft voice startles me from looking at Raquel.

Sabrina is eyeing me from under her lashes. The thing about having telepathic conversations was that if you weren’t careful, you still made the same facial expressions and body language of regular conversation.

“Can I help you in some way?” I ask, reaching over to grasp the back of her hand. “You’ll tell me if there’s anything I can do, right?”

“There’s nothing anyone can do. Just like there’s nothing anyone can do for your mum.”

A dagger to a fresh wound. The back of my eyes prickle, but I don’t let go of her hand.

“Sabrina!” Stacey gasps in dismay.

“She’s hurting,” I say softly. “We’re all hurting. It’s natural to lash out.”

“Sorry,” Sabrina whispers.

“Me too,” I whisper back.

Connor sighs from my other side, putting his arm around my shoulders and stealing a strawberry from my plate. “We need to plan the demise of Dolores,” he says. “It’s really the only thing that’ll make anyone feel better.”

“I’ll say,” I groan. “He came creeping like a slug into my mind yesterday.”

Savage growls over his bacon while everyone else gasps.

I recount the story and we spend the rest of the day trying to distract both me and Sabrina from our own minds.

It’s but a few days later after classes that we do end up getting a bit of revenge on Dolores. Thankfully, there is no news of any retaliation from my father, nor did the Naga mansion fire makeAnimalia Today. Scythe isn’t surprised, and I understand what he’s thinking. As a crime lord, when you’re attacked, the best thing to do is make out like nothing’s wrong.

Even so, I channel energy into the shields that I have around the academy, and compared to the last few months, it doesn’t drain my energy at all.

In fact, I find that I enjoy giving my power an escape. It helps fight the new fire in my blood and keeps me calm.

One afternoon, I’m with Savage at the back of the school for our ‘private time spelling classes’ as he calls them, watching him toileting Toastie, the wombat joey, before we head inside.

“So if I get right twenty-six alphabets,” Savage says, holding Toastie away from his body with his squat legs akimbo for a wee, “that means I get twenty-six kisses.” He frowns. “But I need fifty a day to survive.”

Toastie finishes his business and Savage coos at him before tucking him safely inside his bag.

Narrowing my eyes at the treetops, I consider Savage’s words. “How about if you get the entire thing right, we skip the kisses and I give you abetterreward?” I glance down at his crotch and bite my lip.

Savage’s eyes widen, but he quickly schools his features, nodding seriously. “But Ialsoneed mouth kisses to live. What if I die just because you were too focused on my cock?”

He looks back at me, grinning. The setting sun strikes his face, suddenly lighting up his hazel eyes. He is really quite beautiful in a brutal way, and it’s hard for me to deny him when he gets like this. And Goddess, I’d missed him so much when he was gone.

“Regina?” he asks softly.

I realise I’ve been staring at him wordlessly for the last minute. Heat fills my body. “Right, sorry. How about for every sentence you traceandsound out accurately, you choose where I kiss you?”

“Deal.” A dark look crosses his face and he takes my hand. Silently, but with my heart absolutelypounding, I follow him inside and to one of the empty classrooms on the ground floor.

He removes Toastie’s sling from around his neck and carefully hangs it from one of the coat hooks by the door. I hand him the pen and he sits down at the back of the classroom,opening his speciality literacy-for-canines exercise book. I perch on the desk next to him, watching like the good little tutor I am.

One perfectly copied sentence later, Savage sounds out slowly, “Eating bin-chickens is illegal.” He looks up at me and taps his bottom lip.

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