Psycho Fae: Chapter 21

Remember when I was all hot and bothered and ready to fucking destroy the competition? Yeah, me neither.

I panted and sprinted across the stadium as the air fae threw gusts of wind at me.

It was like running in slow motion, and it took monumental effort to move through the resistance.

The air was oppressively hot and didn’t help my winded state.

Still, I wasn’t about to give up.

Reputation, I reminded myself. I wasn’t about to get beaten by a bunch of men. A girl had to have some dignity.

With an enormous leap, I slammed my body weight into the air fae that had been throwing wind at me like a total ass.

My massive body rocked him into the sand with so much force that the entire platform shook. He passed out and slumped over.

I chuffed with relief.

Unconscious bodies were sprawled all across the slowly spinning platform.

To my left, a water fae slammed a sledgehammer of ice into the skull of an earth fae. It left a massive dent that was not pretty.

To my right, an earth fae took a chunk of sand out of the platform, molded it into a massive rock above his head, and completely crushed a water fae who tried to defend himself with an ice shield.

That was going to hurt in the morning.

I jumped out of the way as Ryak tossed another ice spear at me. He was still running around and doing his best to stab me like a total loser.

He needed to get a hobby, because he was obsessed with me.

I dodged his weapon, but got distracted by what was happening on the far side of the platform.

Demetre had shifted into a massive black dragon, and Jax’s bear was on the dragon’s back and trying to choke him out.

The dragon flapped desperately to escape Jax’s long talons.

Behind Jax, Cobra was slumped over unconscious on the sand, and Ascher stood over him, fighting off water fae and earth fae on all sides.

My moment of distraction cost me.

I’d been focusing on dodging ice spears, not animals.

I howled in shock as two figures slammed against my side. With a flip of my long tail, I righted my legs beneath me and growled at my attackers.

Well, now I knew what the half warrior twins, Noah and Shane, shifted into.

Two massive orange tigers stalked toward me.

They were stocky and heavily muscled, but still smaller than me. I relished the fact that I was the bigger cat.

One walked to my right, the other to my left, as they tried to herd me to the edge of the platform.

They growled, and I laughed. Well, I tried to laugh—my maw made a rough hacking sound.

Their growl was scary, but it wasn’t blood-curdling and terrifying.

Mine was.

Suddenly, their back legs tensed. That was the only warning I got.

Before I knew it, two tigers wrestled me to the ground.

I rolled onto my back and kicked my powerful hind legs up against them. One tiger went flying, while the other kept snapping at my underbelly.

The remaining tiger tried to pin me to the ground.

I growled as I lay on my back and we tussled.

Truthfully, I was having a great time.

Clearly, I needed more psychological help than I ever realized, because giddiness rushed through me as we wrestled. It was war, but it felt like playtime.

Adrenaline rushed through me.

I nipped with my fangs and lost myself in the fun.

Happiness was scarce these days, and I enjoyed the dopamine that was rushing through my brain.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize I was playing with a limp tiger.

My playful nips had ripped out a chunk of the tiger’s chest, and my white fur was covered in blood.

The half warrior was definitely unconscious.

I tried to casually detangle myself from the limp tiger.

Nope, I hadn’t been playing with his body like a freak. Who does that? Not me.

Unfortunately, as I stumbled to my feet, the world became engulfed in flames.

Instead of the queen’s blue flames, bright-orange fire consumed me.

The tiger I had kicked off me prowled toward me, across the sands. Ice weapons and chunks of earth flew around him.

His green eyes glowed with menace, and it was clear he was pissed about what I had done to his twin.

It was also clear that one of the twins was part fire fae.

I growled and rolled around in the sand because his fire burned, and it was already unreasonably hot outside.

The rancid scent of my burning fur irritated my sensitive nose.

The tiger jumped through the wall of orange, and I leaped to meet him in midair.

Sure, my skin was burning with pain, but I’d been whipped with a belt for as long as I could remember.

Even without the numb, my pain tolerance was high.

Plus, I was having way too much fun fighting other tigers. Even though he was trying to burn me alive, I felt a kinship to him in this form.

His small, pathetic teeth gnawed at my thick, shaggy neck, and I slammed his head to the ground with my massive front paw.

The flames stopped, and he didn’t move.

Damn it, I’d been looking forward to wrestling some more.

I turned away from the two unconscious tigers and directly into an ice spear.

A spear that was covered in small daggers. It wasn’t meant to bludgeon. It was meant to kill.

To skewer.

Ryak grinned at the long end of the spear, which he had just stabbed through my torso and out my back.

For a split second, I noted that I looked like a shish kebab.

Then the intense stabbing pain burned my chest impossibly, and I howled in pain. Sure, I had a high pain tolerance, but this was agony.

A large ram head slammed its horns into the side of Ryak’s skull.

I would have clapped with excitement if I weren’t stumbling around with a fucking spear stabbing through my chest.

Ryak passed out on the ground, and my large form slumped next to him.

Ascher fell to his knees in front of my prone body, and a weird, grunting bleat burst from his mouth. He held an ice sword in his hands.

“Princess!” his freaky shifted head bleated down at me.

His kneeling form tipped to the side as a large fae slammed one of the limp tigers’ bodies against Ascher like a battering ram.

During the collision, Ascher thrusted the long sword and sliced the fae deep.

Both slumped onto the platform.

Jax and Demetre were the last warriors fighting.

The other seventeen competitors, including myself, were all sprawled out across the platform.

The fae crowd screamed as Demetre flapped up into the air, while Jax clung to his back with his claws.

I whined as it lifted Jax higher.

His monstrous bear’s head turned to look at me like he had heard me whine.

Jax bellowed with rage.

Suddenly, he stood up on Demetre’s back. Then he grabbed a wing in each paw, and with insane strength, he started to rip off Demetre’s wings.

The dragon shrieked and bellowed fire as Jax rode the spiraling dragon headfirst into the platform.

My eyes slowly closed as Jax stomped on the dragon’s skull and ran toward me on all fours.

The last thing I heard before losing consciousness was the crowd chanting, “Meat Grinder.”

I was a PR god.

I moaned like a dying cow as harsh light stabbed my eyeballs.

“Dude, how could you lose? I bet five hundred gold pieces on you winning!” Aran’s bright-blue hair was long and luscious around her ethereal face.

Instantly, I wished I were still passed out.

Her voice was too loud, and it grated against my ears. Also, my chest burned awfully, and it was hard to breathe.

“I’m gonna kill you,” I gasped out with a rasp as my chest smarted.

“Sweetie, I just watched you try to kill people. I’m not worried.” Aran inspected her fingernails like a prissy princess, and I wondered how my life had come to this.

I was getting ridiculed by my friend, the fae princess, for my lack of competitive prowess in the bloodthirsty Fae Games.

To think that a few months ago I was serving beer and trying to inspire rats to rebel against Dick.

Life came at you fast.

“But seriously, I’m just busting your balls because you took ten years off my immortal life! Everyone’s talking about how you played with the limp tiger’s body for like ten minutes after he was passed out.”

I groaned and wished the ground would just swallow me up, because I’d been really hoping that no one had noticed my slight moment of insanity.

I couldn’t even blame it on the numb.

Aran seemed unconcerned. “The fae loved that shit, so now you’ve got a growing fan base. You’re also the face of the progressive movement to include women in battle. Thank the sun god, I’ve been trying for years to get these ignorant people to grow up.”

Satisfaction flowed through me as I thought about how much it was pissing Ryak off. I was accomplishing everything he didn’t want me to.

Honestly, I didn’t even want to lead a female movement to participate in the Fae Games.

Why the hell would women want to take part in this horseshit? Leave the mental unwellness to the men.

But, since it pissed Ryak off, I was about to embrace my role as the poster girl for the titties-and-fighting committee. An elite position that I was creating for myself.

Aran kept talking as I smirked on my pillows and struggled to breathe through my collapsed lungs.

“Also, my guards have located Dick and are going to apprehend him for you.”

I moved to get out of bed, but pain screamed through my torso as I moved.

Aran waved me off and gently pushed me back down. “Don’t stress yourself out. We’ll bring him in.”

Aran pulled out a purple crystal and tapped away at it. I assumed she was using it to communicate with someone.

Lightness coursed through my veins, and it took me a moment to identify the sensation.

I’d never felt it before.

It was hope.

All I wanted in life was to wipe the monster off the face of the realm so he could never hurt me or Lucinda ever again.

“Why does my chest hurt so badly?” I asked Aran.

“Your chest hurts because you’ve been freaking stabbed with a massive ice spear. I’m gonna kill that bastard.” Aran punched her fists in the air.

The events of the fight rushed back to me.

“So when can I leave?” I grunted.

Sure, my sternum felt like it had been cracked in two, but I didn’t like the sterile white-and-silver fixtures of the health clinic.

It freaked me out.

Aran shook her head, but helped me get to my feet.

A blue gown was draped over my body, and it fell open as I moved.

I accidentally flashed Aran my butt cheeks as the gown fell forward off my shoulders.

The dozens of scars on my back were exposed.

Thankfully, my friend didn’t comment. She just helped me shuffle toward the door.

Suddenly, a fae doctor from before burst into the room.

The good thing was I was moving so slow that I hadn’t made it to the door. Otherwise, he would have body-slammed me into the wall.

Aran and I both stared at him. He breathed heavily and glared down at me with disappointment.

Yes, my ass crack was still on display, and a nice breeze was blowing through my vagina.

Frankly, I was too emotionally drained to care that I was mooning a doctor.

I’d been through much worse.

The doctor sputtered, “Don’t you dare leave. Do you know how much enchantment we had to pump into you to turn you back? We packed your chest cavity with unicorn bones, and you’re lucky your bones have regrown as quickly as they have.”

I sighed heavily, but instantly regretted it when my chest burned with pain. “Stop killing unicorns. Also, move. I’m fine.”

Aran looked back and forth between the doctor, who was turning purple, and my exposed ass.

“It’s fine. Let us through,” Aran said with authority as she chose the correct side in our standoff.

The doctor’s eye twitched as he scolded us. “Do you know how many fae had t-t-t-t-t-t-to—”

He stopped speaking and hunched over. His body shook with convulsions.

We backed away from his shaking form.

It was creepy as hell.

Suddenly, the doctor’s back snapped ramrod straight, and he spoke with a different voice. It was deep and harsh.

It was a voice we’d heard once before.

The doctor gasped dramatically, and his stiff shoulders relaxed. His eyeballs still bulged creepily out of his head.

He blinked and spoke in his normal voice like nothing had happened, “You shouldn’t be out of bed!”

At some point, Aran and I had turned and held each other.

Tremors shook through all our arms.

The last poem had been creepy, but overall, the subject matter had been pretty tame and generic.

This poem was really heavy on the “blood” emphasis. I wasn’t an expert on good or bad omens, but this seemed like the latter category.

For a second, the statue of the fae lying in its own blood in the village’s entrance flashed through my brain.

Did this poem have something to do with that?

I looked over at my pretty friend.

Every time this creepy poem thing happened, I was with her.

She still had a crystal collar around her like Cobra—was the fae queen stifling her abilities? Was that what the poem was about?

“Get out of our way!” Aran said sharply, her voice ringing with the command and power that her mother possessed.

The doctor’s eyes widened, and he moved to the side.

Aran still held me, and she basically just carried me out the door as I leaned on her. The agony in my chest was still intense, and it hurt to walk fast.

My naked butt quivered as we shuffled down the hall. My dozens of scars were on display for every doctor and nurse to see.

I didn’t give a single shit.

I had already exposed my body on fae TV.

What were they going to do, read a creepy poem to me? Been there, done that.

Foreboding danced across my skin with little tingly pinpricks that made me yearn to run as fast as I could.

“We’ll be fine,” Aran whispered quietly, and I didn’t know who she was trying to reassure, herself or me.

Finally, we limped out of the cold white building, into the grassy world beneath the stadium.

It wasn’t the same as walking out under a blue sky, but the air-conditioning hum was a pleasant reprieve from the brutal dual suns.

“Why the fuck is your ass out?” Cobra yelled across the yard, and I looked back to see three alphas, flanked by Xerxes, charging after me.

All the men had been slumped against the side of the building, waiting for me.

A small part of me was grateful they’d waited for me.

A larger part of me was overwhelmed by the creepy blood poem and pain that stabbed at my chest.

“Run!” I tugged on Aran’s arms, and we limped away at what could only be described as a brisk walk.

My mind spun as my chest rattled harder, and panic spurned my legs forward. I didn’t even know where I was going or what I was running from.

One word ricocheted around my brain.

Blood.

Nothing good ever came from it.