My beast stood proudly for his inspection. I didn’t grow a foot taller like the Warlords, but Iwastaller. My shoulders wider. My hips and thighs thicker. Stronger. Larger breasts. Deeper voice. My skin had a delicate touch of blue here and there in seemingly random patterns. Not full Hyperion like Prince Ruk, but still different. My arms were a bit longer, the claws more like extensions of my fingers and toes than separate weapons. My beast changed me in different ways than the Warlords, but I was not the same.
He inspected me slowly, head to toe, the attention leaving a trail of heat everywhere his gaze lingered. He didn’t turn away. He barely blinked.
That was the first thing I registered. No recoil. No disgust. No weapon raised in defense. JustEthan, standing there with blood on his hands and heat in his eyes. Desire. Need. Possession.
He looked at me like I was precious. Important.
His.
My chest heaved, claws twitching at my sides, every breath a war between who I was and what I’d become. He looked at me like I was fire and gravity all in one—like he wanted to fall into me and burn.
Gods help me, I wanted to believe that look. I wanted to trust it. But part of me still expected the rejection, the judgment. I’d lived in fear of his hatred from the moment we met. Not hatred of me, but of what I was.
Alien.
Enemy.
A liar.
I tried to pull her back inside—tried to shift, to smooth the edges of what I was, return to the more human shape he knew, the body I knew he desired. But the beast wouldn’t let me.
She wasawake now, fully, fiercely, and she knew what she wanted.
I am beautiful.She informed me with absolute conviction. I had no choice but to believe her.
She saw the way his pupils dilated, the way his chest rose when he stepped closer. She knew he was watching her, not Lyra the spy, not Lyra the liar—but the creature who would kill for him, bleed for him, claim him,ownhim. She was done hiding. She wanted him marked. Bound. Hers.
My beast showed her claws and held his gaze, dared this male to resist her fire, her obsession, her strength, her beauty. “Mate. Mine.”
Ethan
I still hadblood on my hands, breath still ragged from the fight—but when she turned toward me.Changed.A stunning, fearsome creature. She wasn’t just Lyra from Atlan. She was something else.
Her skin was streaked with elegant, primal stripes of luminous blue that ran from her temple, down her neck, to cover her entire body like markings on a Bengal tiger. Her eyes caught the light and threw it back like mirrors—deep, reflective, almost feline. Claws shimmered pearlescent white. I knew exactly how sharp they were, had seen the lacerations in the cyborg’s armor where she cut through him like a warm knife cutting butter. There was nothing that could be mistaken for human about her now. She looked like somethingotherworldly, like a queen born of starlight and war. Like a goddess from ancient mythology, both beautiful and terrifying. Creator and destroyer of men. Of worlds.
Of me.
She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
She was a few inches taller in this form—yet her curves were amplified with power and presence. Her breasts rose and fell with each breath in invitation. Her hips curved into muscular thighs I wanted wrapped around me as I filled her. Fucked her. Made her mine.
My woman was an alien. A beast. A creature that, according to the Coalition Doctor, Mersan, had never existed before.
She had been created. Formed. Designed to be a weapon.
I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t disgusted. I waswrecked.My pulse didn’t race from fear—it pounded with need. Possessive, primal, almost painful. She wasn’t just the woman I loved. She was a predator. A protector. A goddess with war painted across her skin. And I wanted her. Wanted her like the world was ending.
A beast rose inside me—not the alien kind, not the one born from genes and tech, but the primitive part of me that wasstaring into the eyes of the one woman in the galaxy I couldn’t live without.
“Lyra,” I breathed, stepping toward her without thinking, heart in my throat. “You’re… perfect.” She blinked at me like she had expected a gun, or a scream, or a goodbye.
All I wanted was to make her mine in every damn way that counted. But not while she was broken and hurting. Right now, she needed to let her body heal. After that? I would spend the rest of my life proving just how much I loved her. “You’re mine, Lyra. Don’t hide from me again. Don’teverhide from me again.”
I watched her expression shift as she understood, when she realized I would never let her go. I lifted her off her feet and cradled her against me as I carried her to the ReGen pod.
She stared up at me as I settled her on the long bed. The beast in her eyes shifted—not softer, exactly. Lyra’s beast would never be soft. But the tension that had wrapped her in steel cracked, just a little. Her limbs trembled.
I saw what was behind her eyes—fear, regret... and something raw that still burned for me. Despite my stupid ideas about aliens, my need for vengeance, my arrogant belief that I knew all I needed to know about Atlans. Aliens. Hell, about life. Love. Devotion. Loyalty. Trust.
