Page 171 of Her Psycho Beasts

“No, you’re the crazy one,” Lyle says roughly, “I’m the…” He frowns in thought.

I caress his freshly shaven cheek with my thumb. “You’re mine,” I say firmly. “And you’ll always be mine.” Lyle searches my eyes as if he can find something important there and I glance at the clock again, my stomach twisting. “But this pain,” I say, touching my chest. “It’s never going to go away. Not until I’ve done what I promised to my mother.”

“I know,” Savage says.

My keen ears pick up the expected sounds. Multiple car doors slam shut outside. I think I’m going to vomit as I cast my power around my two mates.

“Because of that,” I whisper. “I am so sorry. I hope you can forgive me.”

Lyle’s gaze sharpens as all his senses go on alert. “What for?”

On telepathic wings, I send a message across the Coral Sea. A missive of vengeance.

From a regina to her mate.

The doors to the hall slam open, and no less than ten armed serpents, all dressed in tactical gear, run inside, automatic weapons pointed.

That’s when the chaos starts.

Chapter 92

Scythe

I’m gliding through the cold reef, watching a school of rays rush past me, headed to warmer waters, when I feel it.

A primal roar travelling through the ether, female and all-furious. In truth, I had expected it long before now. The radio-silence of the past few weeks had almost been unbearable. I hadn’t even gotten an impression of her emotions.

Except following my regina’s roar are words, clear as a gong, in a voice I always crave to hear, scraping down my spine in a sharp and demanding caress.

It makes my cold blood turn to ice.

“You left. So I’m leaving too. But I’ve made a promise to my mother. A vow over her dead body, and I have every intention of keeping that. There is only one way to end this. Sometimes you have to head into danger to get what you want. This all started because you went into your enemy’s lair to bring him down from within. And now, that is what I must do. Goodbye, Scythe.”

No.

No, no, no, no.

Not like this. Not when I’d planned everything out meticulously. Not when I’d given them all an out.

I’m already thrashing tail back to the shore, the force of all my power behind me. My frozen blood thaws, becoming dangerous molten anger.

She is punishing me.

And I’d completely underestimated her calculation.

I blast my power into my tail, charging through the ocean like a torpedo, the water near cold-burning my skin from the velocity of my speed.

I hit the sand with human hands and feet, stumbling, then sprinting across the sand, lungs burning as I suck in air for the first time in over a week. My mating mark burns like hellfire as I seek out my brothers’ minds.

“Savage, Xander, Lyle, what’s going on? Where is Aurelia? Where is my regina?”

I get no reply.

Gasping, I make my feet work faster, moving up the sandy incline to the main road. I need to get back to the academy. I need Xander. I need?—

But I am not alone on the dark road by the beach. No less than ten vans and SUVs block my path, and standing before them are figures all dressed in black. All of them carry a mixture of handguns and crossbows.

The smell of serpent and tiger and hyena saturates the air. How many did they bring? Thirty? Forty?

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