Page 129 of Her Psycho Beasts

It’s even more impressive seeing it in person. Xander lands on the helipad with what I think is an unnecessary rough thud and shake. This time, there’s no Lyle to levitate me down, and I don’t yet trust my telekinesis to safely move my entire body. Scythe easily crawls around me and slides down Xander’s leg, fireman style. He turns around and holds his arms out.

“Come on, Aurelia.”

“What do you mean?” I squeak.

“Jump.”

“Not a chance.”

“One,”Xander says threateningly.“Two.”

Without another thought, I throw myself at Scythe feet first. He catches me around the waist with a grunt. Xander shifts a moment later, his naked, towering form stalking towards us, glowing eyes flashing. Under the harsh lights of the helipad, with those rippling muscles, the full sleeve tribal dragon tattoo on his arm, Xander looks like some immortal dragon god. Or perhaps a modern god with his headphones still in place and the dangling black cross earring that seems to shift with him by some dragon magic I’ll never understand.

Scythe puts me on the concrete and I straighten my jacket and smooth down my hair while Xander gets dressed in a professional shirt, business pants, vest, and business jacket.

They lead me to an elevator and we head down multiple floors. Xander leaves us on an upper floor, stalking out without so much as a goodbye.

The elevator doors slide closed and we continue downward.

“Where’s he going?” I ask.

“Xander is the CFO of The Lily Sanctuary. He has a few things to take care of.”

“I didn’t think he had the temperament for that sort of thing,” I say under my breath.

A whisper of a smile curves his lips. He seems to be doing that lately. “You’re more alike than you know. That’s why you trigger each other so much.”

“What do you mean by that?” I ask, crossing my arms.

His eyes roam my face until the elevator stops on level two and he leads me out. The corridor is empty at this time of the evening, the soft warm lights so unlike regular harsh hospital lighting. He’s paid attention to every detail.

“I knew you’d been seeing our memories from the beginning, Aurelia. I didn’t know if it was from your Boneweaver side or serpent side, but I knew.”

I stop dead in my tracks. “How?”

Scythe shrugs his broad shoulders. “I could sense it in your auric field.”

“You see auras?”

“Yes. You probably could too.”

Now that I’d shifted into a shark. But I hadn’t seen something like that come up yet. “It’s from my serpent side,” I say quietly. “Serpents can see their mates’ memories and sometimes even visions from the present. It’s not something we control.”

He exhales slowly. “There are some uncomfortable memories there. Things that no one should have to see. I’m sorry if?—”

“I haven’t seen anything like that,” I say quickly. I briefly describe the memories I’d seen from him, the one about his mother, going to The Jewel of the Jungle for the first time, his first meeting with Marduk.

He visibly relaxes. I understand what he doesn’t want me to see and why, and it makes the backs of my eyes burn to think about it.

Scythe gestures to a map of the complex on the wall next to the elevator.

“Originally, this place was going to be just for marine shifters stuck here away from home, but the idea grew into something bigger. We treat all shifters now, and we’ve just built the human wing. They’re separated into wards that focus on treatments specific to their illness. Sabrina will stay in the Starfish unit.”

Starfishes can grow new limbs. I nod, taking this all in. The amount of work that must have gone into planning a place like this. Pride wells in my chest. My mate built this. But one thing catches my attention. “Is that how you see it? The ocean is your home?”

He graces me with a curve of his lips just enough to be called a smile. “I feel at peace there. Is that not a place you would call home?”

“And you named this after your mother.”

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