Page 85 of Her Psycho Beasts

“Well, he never planned on me staying there.” I say slowly. “I figured his intention was to kill Healfeather and take his money.”

Scythe nods. “It’s a Halfeather fertility specialist that’s been helping him experiment with the treatments for your mother. That was the debt he spoke about the first time you entered the dungeon. Do you remember that?”

“How could I forget,” I murmur.Consider your father’s debt repaid. “I thought he’d meant me healing the secret patient was the payment. But he meant the marriage, didn’t he?”

“We think Mace was no longer happy with the Halfeather treatments failing. He wanted to take him off the table. The less people who know about him keeping Athena the better.”

“But the Clawsons know, don’t they?” I say, remembering the snide conversations at the poker table. “And the Lady Hyena.”

They’dallknown at that table. My fists clench as I realise that I had been the last person to find out.

Marduk nods. “Mace had no choice but to involve a few choice people. He had Cain Clawson organise the death of hisown brother. They wanted all of your mother’s mates off the table.”

I’d had the same realisation. “They were powerful enough to go up against him. Cassius had came to the house once. I hadn’t known who he was, but my mother had been furious to see him there. But …” I consider the memory of ramming my tricycle into the big, half-naked man. “Looking back on it, she was scared for him. Her mate.”

“But why?” Savage says, glancing at Xander and Lyle. “They were bond-brothers. Mace and Cassius. Equal in power.”

“Mace wanted to be a rex,” Xander says darkly. “It shamed him to have to answer to a female and other males.”

As it had been with Titus and Minnie. And—I glance at Xander, who is determinedly staring ahead—as it is with Xander. It shouldn’t surprise me that my father would have it in him to destroy a pack-brother, but it does now add salt to an already brutally sore wound.

The image of the man I had known as a father is corrupted forever. I didn’t know I could hate this strongly. I didn’t know hate could turn my body into a pressure cooker of poison that wanted to spill out and destroy.

My own feelings frighten me.

I inhale a slow breath to try and help my concentration. “So, do we know her exact location?”

“Celeste was able to find her during her examination through the astral plane,” Lyle says, stepping forward and indicating a red circle on the deepest level.

“How the hell are we going to get her out of there?” I whisper.

“And now,” Savage says, looping his arm through mine, “we come to the part where we tell you why I went to Blackwater.”

“Mace has enemies aplenty,” Marduk says. “Many of them were just in the wrong place.”

“You freed the Dabu pack onpurpose?” I ask, horrified.

Savage flashes his dimples at me. “Clever regina. They’re really nice animas once you get to know them. They were there for a psychology course. The same one Lyle took.”

“Incidentally, I know their regina, Hyacinth, quite well,” Lyle says wryly.

“My nanny told me scary stories about the Dabu pack to scare me into not wandering into the underground part of our house. Said that Dad had one chained up there.”

“An old feud,” Scythe says, “which we’ll now take advantage of. They’re going to cast a counter-spell to help us breach the initial protections Mace has set up against us. They’ll…just need a bit of your hair to do it.”

My skin crawls at the thought of a bunch of hyena witches chanting around a cauldron with a lock of my hair in hand. “Do I have to? I’m sure I could?—”

But Marduk is raising his brows at me. “Are you prejudiced against witches, Lady Boneweaver?”

“What? No! I just?—”

“There are plenty of bad hyenas,” Savage says. “I met lots in Blackwater. But there are plenty of good ones too.”

“They’ve detected protections around Naga House, specifically set up against one person,” Scythe says frankly. His eyes bore into mine.

My mouth drops open. “Againstme?”

“He knew you’d try and get in there at some point.” Scythe says gently.

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