Page 22 of Her Psycho Beasts

“What need would I have to harm you?” Scythe asks calmly. “The students answer to me, however, and I could make your stay here very difficult, if I so choose.”

And a majority of the guards.

Damien’s lips thin out. “We shall see about that.” He turns back to Lyle. “I need to discuss the Boneweaver.”

“Her name is Aurelia,” Lyle says through clenched teeth.

Damien smiles, and it’s quite an unpleasant thing to look at. “Yes, your troublesomeregina.” He takes a deep breath as if stabilising himself. “I understand this is a delicate situation, but I also understand that her multiple legal issues are, in fact, ongoing. I will take over her counselling from you, just as I will be counselling all the difficult students.”

“You will not.” Lyle steps forward. “She is mine. She will always be mine. I have been managing the legalities with my lawyer. No male will be interfering with our regina.”

Damien passes Lyle a droll look. “Mind yourself, Lyle. This is highly uncivilised. If you are to remain a teacher here, you need to be a good example of control and civility.”

“I am perfectly in control,” Lyle grits out. “If I weren’t, you would be bleeding out right now.”

Damien gives him a cold smile. “You would die trying.”

Lyle is at the desk in a heartbeat, gripping the edges so hard the wood cracks. He leans over to sneer at the phoenix. “Andyouwill die trying to bed Celeste. She will never take you as a mate. She willneveraccept you. Nor will this school.”

With that, he turns around and storms out. I’m tempted to do a slow clap, but refrain because Scythe would disapprove.

Damien’s ugly smile turns into a sneer. Well, well…we’ve struck a nerve.

“Now you’ve done it,” I remark.

Damien dismisses me with a deliberate turn of his head, something my sister used to do when she was angry with me as a child, except she’d also pout and cross her arms.

Scythe says, “I will be taking Aurelia out of the school in a couple of weeks. She will be returned safely of course.”

“For what possible reason? She is aconvictedfelon.”

“For business.”

“Absolutely not!” Damien says as if that’s the case closed.

“I will be taking her whether you like it or not.”

Usually, for Scythe, negotiations mean head on a platter, or body in a splatter. Because when you hear his feet approaching, it’s too late to run. But Damien is a special case.

“Arrogant of you to assume I would allow that.”

Scythe’s eyes glitter as the room drops in temperature at least twenty degrees. “You would regret the moment you tried to intervene.”

But Damien just tosses his head, letting his golden, phoenix eyes glow, casting heat in a shimmer around himself. “However, I am willing to negotiate.”

I raise a brow.

“I understand that Lyle is newly mated and…touchyabout his regina.” He waves a hand as if that is all very beneath him. “He may come between me and my observations, and I would like to see Aurelia shift into a phoenix.”

The room is quiet now, a sour wind sweeping up what is left of the oxygen. Scythe stares at Damien.

“Why?” I ask.

“I simply want to see it,” he shrugs. “Celeste and I are amongst the last of our kind. To see another is a rare and, frankly, wonderful thing. All would be blessed to look upon my own order.”

A dark rainbow of understanding flutters around Scythe’s aura, and I wonder if he’s had the same thought. Wondered what Aurelia would look like as a Great White shark.

“None of this is for us to decide,” Scythe says slowly. “It will be up to Aurelia whether she agrees to this or not.”

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