Page 24 of Her Psycho Beasts

She grins. “It’s just a shame we don’t have a pack of centaurs or a giant we can feed him to.”

My eyes slide around the gathered students. Some of the males here could pass for giants at well over six and a half feet, but the tallest of them… I easily find Xander up in front, the back of his long locks shining black-blue under the halogen lights. He had to be almost seven feet. “Giants maybe not,” I mutter to Minnie. “Maybe we could convince a dragon to gobble him up?”

Connor snorts from Minnie’s other side. “You’d have to do a littlegobblingof said dragon to convince him. Whatdoesdragon cum taste like anyway, Lia?”

Minnie chokes, forcing Yeti to thump her on the back before she loops her arm through mine in solidarity.

A completely unwanted image flashes through my mind. Me. On my knees before Xander, towering god-like above me. A look of pure, unadulterated pleasure transforming his harsh expression into something magical…

“Probably spicier than a jalapeno,” I darkly mutter back. “But he’d definitely charcoal chicken my ass for trying.”

“You think I can’t fucking hear you?”comes a volcanic breath into my mind.

I slap a hand over my mouth in shock. We know Xander’s hearing is better than anyone else’s, but the fact that he can hear that far ahead, with a noisy crowd between us, is astonishing.

My animas stare at me while all I can do is stare at the back of Xander’s big head. All my blood rushes to my face and I know I’ve turned bright pink.

Minnie seems to understand first. She clears her throat. “Anyway,make sure your phones are hidden in your bras,” she mutters. “I wouldn’t put it past Dolores to do a pat down.”

When we get to the head of the queue, I get my first closeup of Damien Agnis. He looks almost exactly like an oversized bird that’s had all of its feathers plucked. His bright red hair is perfectly styled and combed into waves falling onto his large forehead, the white spectacles framing his darting golden eyes like headlamps. He stands stiffly with that big stick up his ass, wearing a maroon shirt and business pants, in the middle of a row of our academy guards in their tactical gear. It’s obvious this is all quite specifically done to intimidate us.

If I hadn’t eaten a crushed man’s head between my jaws a week ago, I might have been scared. Suddenly, I wonder what Savage would have to say about all of this. He probably would have gotten himself locked in the dungeons by now and I smile wistfully at the thought.

Damien’s eyes dart down my body in a scientific manner, and I immediately feel like I’m some weird specimen on a petri dish being observed by a team of scientists.

Today, I’m wearing a lovely black blouse with poofy sleeves and a pink miniskirt, which I can’t pull any lower without risking thong exposure, and that might give the geezer a cardiac arrest.

On second thought…

“Borderline,” Damien Agnis announces. His voice sounds a little nasally, and I wonder if he has sinus issues. A phlegm over-producer, perhaps.

“Which part?” I ask innocently.

“The part where you’re begging for every male in the room to look at your legs.”

His response is so unexpected that I barely have time to gape at him before one of the guards throws a new lanyard around my neck and shoves me along and down the corridor.

Everyone complains about it all the way to etiquette class. Minnie got told off for her cleavage, Stacey got sneered at for her signature pigtails, Connor got attitude about his long acrylic nails, and Raquel wouldn’t say what they were cautioned about. It made me miss Sabrina. She would’ve gotten detention for sure and still loved every second of it.

When I take a look at my new student lanyard, it’s a unique black one. Where the previous one declared me a ‘Flight Risk’, this one declares me a: ‘Convicted Felon: Grand Arson and Murder.’

I make a strangled sound and show my tag to Minnie, who goggles her eyes. To our great misfortune, our second class of the day, normally human studies with Theresa, is hijacked by the phoenix lord.

“I have been looking at your alternative therapy projects with great interest,” he declares, commandeering Theresa’s desk and shuffling our project booklets. “And have been extremely disappointed to find some rather disturbing proposals.”

We glance at each other, wondering what the hell the old bird is on about.

“Swaddle therapy, colouring therapy and sound therapy were all acceptable, if not laughable, projects. However, theTwerking as Therapystruck me as particularly nonsense material.”

“That’s Sabrina’s project!” I hiss to the animas. “It was her version of somatic release therapy!”

Raquel and Minnie shift in their seats.

“What was that?” Damien frowns at our table.

Minnie rescues me. “Sir, we were just saying that Sabrina, who is currently kidnapped, in case you didn’t know, was?—”

He snaps, “What makesyouthink I do not know?”

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