Page 149 of Her Psycho Beasts

“Damien Agnis.He is mating with Celeste by force. He has his eye on our regina. He has taken over my school. I want to rip his throat out.”

“Yes!” Savage says. “I’ve been saying this for ages. I don’t like the way he looks at Aurelia.”

“We cannot kill him,” Scythe says slowly.

I round on the shark, getting in his face. Nose to nose, we stare each other down. “He needs to die. I will not let him touch my regina.”

Scythe’s eyes darken. “We can do something better than death.”

Xander stalks into the room, exhaling smoke. “Did I hear someone say torture?”

Marduk and Yeti join us at Savage’s behest at Damien’s lodgings in his small cavern room under the school. The thick, rocky door mercifully swings open for us as we approach, and we find Damien coming out of the shower with only a towel wrapped around his slender hips. His little dragon pendant lies uselessly on his bedside table.

He shrieks like a bird to find us six males inspecting his room. We all frown in disgust before I throw an obsidian net over him.

“You cannot touch me!” he screams, leaping for his protective token. “You cannot touch me!”

Savage tackles Damien to the ground before he can reach for the necklace, cackling madly as the phoenix thrashes with all his might.

Marduk tosses me a length of obsidian chain while Xander helps tug Damien to his feet. Together, we wind the chains around him, his towel and the net, binding his skinny arms flat to his sides. Savage shoves a dirty sock into his mouth for good measure.

We march the good lord phoenix under the academy and into a cavern with a familiar pool of water, newly reconstructed. It feels like a lifetime ago that I’d locked up my three bond-brothers into the cages here after they attempted to kidnap Aurelia.

How the tables turn.

Savage sings a happy tune as I hang Damien upside down with my telekinesis and hover him over the pool.

“Fire birdy, fire birdy, come play with me.

Fire birdy, fire birdy, try not to pee!”

I crouch down to look him in his golden eyes. “You will not touch Celeste. You willnottouch my regina. You will not touch another woman without her free, enthusiastic, and ongoing consent.”

“You do not control me,” he hisses.

I drop his head into the water.

Savage counts loudly on his nine fingers. “One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.” All the way until twenty before I hover him back up.

Damien coughs and splutters. “I am aprotectedspecies.”

“You will not allow Mace Naga or his supporters into my school,” I say. “You will not speak to my reginaeveragain.”

Dropping him back into the water, I wait until Savage’s count of thirty.

The phoenix chokes, water streaming from his mouth. “Fuck you! Fuck you and your pack!”

“Can phoenixes re-grow organs?” Xander asks mildly from where he smokes, leaning against the wall with Yeti. “Even dragons can’t do that.”

“You’ll regret this!” Damien screams. “I’ll make sure you’ll fucking regret this!”

“Savage?” I ask softly. “How do you spell ‘castrate’?”

Damien’s eyes widen with terror.

“Ooh, that’s a new one,” Savage says, before snapping to attention like a child at a spelling bee, hands straight down by his sides. In only the black rugby shorts he likes to wear when he’s feeling feral, he looks ridiculous. “Castrate. C-A-S-T-R-A-T-E. Did I get it?”

“Good boy,” I say, before accepting a long, silver blade from Scythe.

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