Page 78 of Her Psycho Beasts

Savage gets up to open the door. Outside, one of our guards stands panting, a red envelope in his hands. “It’s the Headmistress,” he says breathlessly. “She’s awake.”

A trickle of dread stalks through my body. I glance at Aurelia, memorising the last whisper of innocence in her face.

Because I’m about to wipe that away forever.

Chapter 37

Aurelia

We leave Sabrina’s meeting for Celeste’s office. The guard handed me the red envelope, which states that the headmistress needs to see me immediately. To my surprise, Scythe glances at Lyle, Xander and Savage, and they all silently accompany me to the academy’s central building and up the elevator to one of the top floors. There’s an air of solemnity as we silently stand in the cramped space. Four males tower over me, the tension in the room so thick I could bite at it. I try to catch their gazes, but only Savage smiles lovingly down at me, brushing his pinky along the back of my hand.

When the metal doors slide open, we find Celeste waiting for us in the boardroom of her offices, sitting at the head of the ancient conference table.

The guard said that she had ‘awoken’, though from what type of sleep that lastedweeks, I don’t know. She doesn’t look well rested at all. In fact, she looks more weary than I have ever seen her. She is a beautiful middle-aged woman in a light pink pant-suit. This time, her crimson hair is straight and long down her back. She wears very little makeup today, and the slightly bluish circles under her eyes stand out to me. Despite this, her powerpulses as strongly as ever around her, that wave of energy all mythic orders seem to have, marking them for what they are.

I smile at her tentatively and am surprised when her own smile is strained. Practically forced. It’s then that a feeling of great unease rears its head around me like a cobra’s hood.

“Take a seat, Aurelia.” She nods at the others and greets them by name.

“Are…you alright, Celeste?” I ask softly, hoping that it’s not rude to ask. “We haven’t seen you in ages.”

She nods seriously. “I am sorry about that. But I have been caught up on the news.” She nods to Lyle. “A Cliff’s Notes version of it anyway.”

I find that I am reluctant to sit, struck by a sudden coil of shadow around my heart. Unease turns into something else. It’s dread, I realise. Dread is in me. Around me.

“Regina,” Lyle says softly, pulling out a chair. “You need to sit.”

Why?something in me screams.For what?

But I stiffly sit in the offered chair anyway, clasping my hands in my lap to stop their trembling as my senses heighten with brutal sensitivity. The room is suddenly too sharp, the sounds of every movement of my four mates registering in my brain like a gong as they all sit.

Every instinct in my body tells me that something very bad is about to happen.

“Would you like to begin, Scythe?” Celeste says softly.

Scythe, to my surprise, pulls his chair around to sit between me and Celeste. He leans forward and speaks in a new, gentle rasp. “I need to tell you something, Aurelia. And it’s going to be very difficult for you to hear.”

Savage comes forward to take my hand, squeezing it comfortingly. My heart pounds. Why does it feel like they are about to tell me someone has died? But everyone I care about ishere, at the academy, all alive and well. Is it my dad? Is it Uncle Ben?

“Please, just tell me,” I whisper.

And then four words from the Great White shark turn my world upside down. “Your mother is alive.”

Blood roars in my ears. The entire room narrows down into the single point that is Scythe sitting before me.

My own voice sounds distant. “What?”

Lyle squeezes my hand.

Scythe inhales. “She is with your father at Naga House. Where she has always been.”

I stare at him, shaking my head from side to side. “Impossible. Why the fuck— I was at the funeral, for fuck’s sake. What are you…” My voice trails off as I try to understand why the hell they’re telling me this. That they’re wrong. That they’re?—

Suddenly, I’m back at Naga House in a flash of memory. I was five at the time and only have the one impression of the event. But the casket was white, and I’d stared at it from where it sat in front of my father’s throne room. The seats were packed. Every member of the court had turned up. But there was absolute silence as the priestesses of the Wild Goddess sang their funeral hymn, swinging the incense back and forth like magic wands. My father had wrapped his cold fingers around my sweaty one and taken me to the casket to see her for one last time.

“Say goodbye to your mother, my sweet,” he’d said quietly.

My tears had fallen thick and fast, but I’d still seen her. Raven-haired, pale-faced, surrounded by flowers. Perfect. Serene. There were no blue eyes to see that day, only pale, pale lids.

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