Chapter 17 #2
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 was awake 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, own him. 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 had blood 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 something otherworldly, 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 was wrecked.
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 was staring 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’t ever hide 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.
She was the bravest, strongest, most honorable person I’d ever met. She had a will of iron and a heart reckless and wild enough to love me even after she’d lost everything else.
Everything I could ever want was in her eyes when she looked at me, in the way her beast clung to me. She was fighting to stay awake. Conscious. To stay with me despite being hurt.
“I’m going to take care of you mate. Sleep.” I closed the lid and activated the healing cycle. She went under in seconds. I checked the ReGen pod’s scanners for her estimated healing time.
I had several hours until she would be fully healed. Good. I needed a shower and a ReGen wand. After that?
That asshole brother of hers and I needed to talk.
Lyra was mine.
Kovo was either going to accept that fact and help me or fuck off.