Page 41 of Psycho Shifters

They wanted to own me, use me, and brag to their friends that they were involved with the sparkly man, the one much prettier than all the others.

The void in my soul, the one that made me cruel and harsh, was a dark, swirling abyss with no end.

Jax was the only person who could touch me without my skin crawling off my bones in disgust. He was the only person who didn’t view me as a shiny trinket to be possessed and bragged about.

I was the warrior who fought and lived beside him.

He was calm and collected and sometimes too gentle for the horrors of true leadership. When it came to violence, he turned to me for help.

Jax didn’t like me for the facade of my looks. Jax liked me for the inky depth of my rotten soul. He was the first lover to ever do so, and he would be my last.

The big alpha was my end and my beginning. My everything.

Right now, the little girl was touching Jax’s glorious skin and walking beside him like a debutante.

She was a waif with delicate features and secrets.

How dare she touch my Jax? How dare she try to take him from me?

A woman had broken me into this being of frost and darkness, but I lived to spite her.

My instincts screamed at me, I wouldn’t survive this girl.

SADIE

SLEEPOVER BESTIES

I slept like a baby. I should have been wary of sleeping in a room with three strangers. I should have been a wreck because I’d stabbed a man and watched him die.

Weirdly, for the first time in a long time, I didn’t suffer a single nightmare.

Instead of breaking into a million pieces like I wanted to, I shoved my trauma back into the deep recess of my brain, where I kept all of Dick’s bullshit.

It was the only way I had survived for so many years. I compartmentalized and moved forward, one step at a time.

The soft tinkling of an alarm clock woke me up, and I stretched my hands above my head. My large sweatshirt and fur blankets engulfed my small frame with heat, and I marveled at the sensation.

It was strange to wake up feeling warm and cozy. I had gotten accustomed to waking up frozen.

Sunlight filtered through the blinds beside me and illuminated the cozy room. It was much larger than my old room.

Nevertheless, the exposed beams, low ceiling, and large fireplace against the far wall made it much cozier.

There were two beds on the left wall and another bed across from it. My bed was at the end of the room, in a small alcove opposite the wall with the stone fireplace.

Ascher had sneered at me that I got the smallest bed in the room.

Still, I liked how the bed fit perfectly in the small space and had a window. The ground was three stories below, and I could jump out if I needed to. Cozy and functional.

“Sleep well, Princess?” Ascher’s deep voice was scratchy in the morning, and I shivered at the sound. I rolled my eyes at his absurd nickname.

He lounged in the lone bed against the right wall.

“Like a log,” I said. He was going to have to work harder to upset me.

The clock on the mantel above the fireplace read six in the morning.

Suddenly, the door next to the fireplace swung open, and Jax entered the room, fully dressed, looking like he had been up for hours.