Page 76 of Her Psycho Beasts

But the path we are on now, this twisted, dangerous one, held at its end an even worse fate.

Her death would have been a kindness.

But if that were true, why then do I feel a violent need to make sure that it never happens? Why do I feel the ferocious need to destroy anyone who would harm her? I had killed for her. Multiple times now. Defended her honour like it was my own.

Her mating mark shines with that infinite celestial light.

I’d fought the regina draw for so long. I had the capacity to fight it still. Had the capacity, the coldness, to arrange for her death even now.

And yet I won’t.

The horde of spectres continue their forever-march around the bedroom. Stringy-haired, malevolent-eyed, cruel. Effective. They continue their heinous dark chant. They continue to chip away at my sanity.

I do not have long. Not in this realm.

It’s not her fault. And yet it is.

So I whisper the words into the night, “I cannot give you what you want, Aurelia. And I will always be sorry for that.”

Her aura pulses a mournful blue. The smell of her tears cuts into my heart and I should not, but I brush at her cheek with the pads of my fingers, as soft as I dare. She can’t help but lean into it, letting her tears slide down her face in a silent, sad song.

“This is a story that will end in tragedy,” I tell her. Tell myself. “We cannot be anything.”

She swallows hard, and I get the strong urge to kiss her. Those lips that had sucked me so lovingly, so hungrily, and swallowed me down with perfect relish. Instead, I solidify my resolve and remain watching her.

It comes out as a halting gasp as she asks again, “But you still want me dead?”

I walk on a knife’s edge. One wrong move will send us into an abyss. And if I fall, we all fall. I can’t allow that to happen to my brothers. To her.

I lick my lips, wishing they were hers. “No.”

She closes her eyes as shades of relief wash through her auric body. Perhaps I want to give her a little light before the coming darkness, because I finally decide to lean down and brush my lips against hers.

Electricity zings between us, hot and biting. She gasps at the sensation. I taste her bottom lip, then her plump upper lip. Savouring her sweet taste, her golden scent, the softness of her mouth that yields to me as if she wishes for more. Her arousal is perfume to my soul, and I inhale it in like a drowning man, before whispering against the perfect blossom of her mouth. “I am so sorry, Aurelia.”

She doesn’t know that I mean that in two ways. And I’ve never in my life been afraid to reveal something to someone.

Because though I’ve already hurt her, what is coming will hurt her tenfold. It will cut her so deeply that the mark will leave an immortal scar.

A scar like that changes a person for good. And my beautiful, strong, little regina will have to choose the person it will make her.

Sabrina reports that she is ready to tell her story the next day. Having suspected what she’d been through, I’d given her plenty of time. We sit in the room she now shares with Raquel, Stacey, and Connor. Marduk and Yeti also sit in the big circle of chairs, Marduk with his arm possessively around Minnie.

Minnie is no longer unsure about Marduk. She trusts him implicitly. Whatever happened between them at Clawson House drew them together, just as I had hoped.

The spectres rage around me, stuffing the room and my consciousness with their presence. Today, their voices are thankfully stifled, allowing me to hear Sabrina properly.

“I was knocked out for most of the trip, then concussed afterwards,” Sabrina mutters, as if this annoys her. “I’d always thought that if I ever got kidnapped, I’d try and figure out where they were taking me. They always say not to let them take you to a second location.”

The fact that she’d lost part of her tail in the process told me just how hard she’d fought her kidnappers.

“And then when I woke up, all I could smell were felines and serpents, so I thought I was at one of their secret locations. But…” She squints as if remembering some detail. “But there was something weird about the stones the dungeon was made out of. They were all laced with faint traces ofgold.”

She shakes her head, her eyes distant.

“A jewellery thief knows her gold,” Stacey laughs, then stops herself short.

Sabrina nods seriously at her. “That’s right.”

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