Page 81 of Psycho Beasts
Jinx’s dark eyes were cruel. “So you admit you’re probably going to die in this realm because you have no idea what you’re doing, abilities you can’t control, no idea how to maintain a relationship with men, and confusing circumstances surrounding your existence that probably indicate you won’t live to see your next birthday?”
Jala groaned and pressed a pillow over her face, fluffy pink hair sticking out.
Jess kicked Jinx. “We talked about this.”
Aran laughed and climbed off me, so she was no longer violently smushing me into the bed.
After a long, tense moment where I tried to regain a semblance of dignity after being emotionally assaulted by a child and thoroughly outwrestled by my best friend, who was blindfolded, I pointed out the obvious. “You don’t have many friends, do you?”
Jinx opened her mouth, probably to rip my last shard of self-esteem to shreds, but Jess slapped a hand over her sister’s face.
Before I could gloat, Aran slapped me on the top of the head. “Stop provoking the vicious, but entertaining, small child.”
“Ow, I was just speaking my truth.” I groaned, face burning as I realized my younger sister was lying next to me silently, ruby eyes wide.
So much for being a paragon of wisdom and maturity.
Aran harrumphed.
Still raring for a fight, I snapped at her, “At least I’m speaking my truth and trying to do something about our circumstances.”
Aran ripped the sleeping mask off and glared at me with steel-blue eyes. She had her mother’s gaze.
“Sadie, sweetie pie, you want my truth? You want to know how I ripped out my mother’s heart and ate it?”
“Um.” Suddenly, I was hyper aware that I’d been acting immature and there were four impressionable young girls, and one beautiful ferret staring at me. “Maybe another time?”
I tried to move my head to indicate to Aran that we had an audience.
Just because we needed therapy didn’t mean we needed to completely traumatize the next generation.
Aran’s expression was unfocused. “When I stared down at my seizing mother, an endless burning rage overwhelmed me, and I thought about all the ways she’d hurt me. Ice daggers erupted from my nails, and I shoved them through her back until her sternum cracked. I ripped her beating heart out through muscle and bone. Then guess what happened?”
“No?” This felt like a trap.
“What happened?” Lucinda asked quietly. The four girls stared at Aran, enraptured.
“After I consumed my mother’s raw, beating heart, it sounded like a male stood behind me and praised me. When he spoke, it was pure bliss.”
Aran paused, breath ragged, as her chest heaved. “It was euphoric.”
My heart rate spiked.
Suddenly, Aran blinked and shook her head.
“When I turned around, there was no one there. I don’t know what the voice in your head said, Sadie, but I can guarantee you that I’m not fire. It was ice that burst from me, and I knew in my bones that I could produce a shit ton more of it with the right motivation.”
Shuffling forward slowly on the bed, I wrapped my arms around her in an awkward hug and asked, “This is good, right? You’re a water fae?”
Aran laughed. “No, I’m not. As the princess, I learned our realm’s history three times over. No water fae has ever had ice claws. Plus, they manifest with more water abilities than ice. I’ve tried, and I still can’t manipulate water.”
“Well, there is good news,” I said.
Aran’s voice was uncharacteristically small. “What could possibly be good in our lives?”
“We’re both hearing voices. So we’re equally unwell.”
A light laugh burst from her throat, and she wrapped her longer arms around me tightly.