Page 4 of Psycho Shifters

SADIE

THE SACRED LAKE

Blood dripped down my arm, and it splashed onto the floor that I was trying to clean.

I sighed and searched for inner peace because it was just another shitty day in the shifter realm.

Crack.

Again, Dick slammed his belt across my back, and the loud sound echoed through the otherwise silent tavern.

My blood splattered.

“Now you’ve done made a mess. Clean it up.” Dick leaned forward, and his spittle hit my face.

Over the years, Dick had become increasingly ornery and irrational, which was impressive because he’d started out as a violent piece of shit.

Personal growth was not his strength.

My back burned unmercifully.

I rubbed at my eyes tiredly and gagged as Dick’s smoky beta scent irritated my throat.

“Clean faster!” he yelled and whipped his belt down with beta strength.

Dick was a retired beta war “hero.” Hero was clearly a subjective term.

I would call him monster, pig, scumbag, piece of shit, skank, not hero.

Again, Dick slashed my skin mercilessly.

At twenty years old, I was starting to think Dick had beef with my flesh and was actively trying to remove it from my body.

My best guess was he was jealous that my skin was so gold and shiny.

The open wounds on my back burned as I scrubbed the floor faster, and I fantasized about taking the brush and shoving it down his throat.

The tavern was empty, and I was cleaning up the bloody mess from the bar fight I’d started after a beta groped my ass.

I was a lowly null servant, so shifters groped and pawed me like an object.

Patrons also heckled me because my appearance was short and scrawny, my eyes a unique shade of red, my hair a long platinum white, and my skin a brilliant gold.

Sadly, at five and a half feet tall and barely one hundred and twenty pounds, I was a runty null. For sure the shortest and scrawniest person in the entire shifter realm.

Well, other than Lucinda.

My sister was also about my size, but smaller because she was younger.

The only differences were her hair was a golden, honey blonde, her body a little curvier, and her face a little softer.

Now Lucinda was away at school until she was eighteen.

In the shifter realm, kids were sent away to live at school from thirteen to eighteen. Lots of kids perished in the cold, so the oligarchy didn’t waste efforts educating them until they were thirteen.

As a result, for two more long-ass years, I was stuck living alone with Dick—who had poorer mental health than a rock.

The only good thing was Dick didn’t hurt Lucinda.

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