Page 26 of Her Psycho Beasts

I return Damien’s stare, trying to match his confidence.

“Sit down,” he commands. “I won’t oblige your penchant for attention seeking.”

“Fucker,”Raquel mutters into my mind.“Don’t let it get to you, Lia.”

My ass isn’t halfway into my seat before Damien snaps, “Who was that?” He points to our table. “It’s coming from your table yet again!”

I blow out an exhale. Granted, you had to be pretty powerful to detect telepathic waves in your local vicinity, but none of the many teachers ever called the wolves out for their mind-conversations.

The wolves sitting by Xander bristle in their seats, casting their eyes around the room and back at Damien.

“It was m-me,” Raquel says flatly.

Damien regards my friend with disdain, taking in the beautiful silver brow, lip and nose piercings gracing Raquel’s face.

“What were you saying?” Damien sneers. “You will share it with the group.”

Raquel tosses their head. “I-I was j-just telling L-Lia how m-much Ihatebullies.”

Damien shakes his head, making the fiery strands look like living flames. “Clearly you haven’t been taking your speech pathology classes seriously. This will go onto your record.”

We all make choked noises of disbelief while Yeti shakes his head. Raquel just stands there, though their body is stiff.

“A night in confinement will help you learn some manners.”

Three tables—ours, and the two wolf tables—erupt into an outburst of loud protest.

“Unfair!” Connor shouts, pounding the table with his fist. “You don’t even feed us down there!”

At the mention of no food, the rest of us start pounding our tables too.

Damien leaps to his feet and whips out a walkie-talkie, muttering something into it.

It’s only when Eugene squawks loudly from where he’s hiding under our table that us animas shut up in alarm.

Eugene, being poultry, gets flashes of the future five seconds ahead. He’s a good alarm that way.

But in that five seconds it takes me to bend down to look at him through his be-goggled eyes, no less than ten academy guards sweep into the room with their rifles raised.

The class quietens their shouting enough for Damien to point to us and yell, “Take them all downstairs!”

Chapter 12

Scythe

Eleven years ago

I’ve always been big for my age, but it doesn’t take full effect until a growth spurt in my early teens. Seemingly overnight, I shoot up a foot, and the men and women at the parties my dad takes me to start talking to me differently.

It’s no longer a cooed, “What a pretty boy,” but a silken, “Come here, love.”

I’m too big to sit in anyone’s lap anymore, and instead, they want to sit inmylap.

On Thursday nights, Dad makes me walk around the edges of the fighting ring and I have to run my fingers through my elbow-length silver hair in just the right way. He walks behind me, watching out for anyone who might get too bold. He teaches them with a quick fist. My protector in all ways but the most important one.

Something lovely and golden spreads through my chest every time he swats a beast away from me. But it’s always quick to fade. I admire him in a lot of ways. The way he commands aroom, the way other beasts seem to grow smaller in front of him. I want that effect on people. I want people to be scared of me too.

But instead of cringing away from me, beasts lean towards me.

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