straight. You all look so angry and confused.”
Ulric turned and glared at the blonde woman. “I’ve dreamt about you so many times. Who are you?”
“I’d like you all to meet Ulric Cale. Although, that wasn’t the name I gave him. Someone else had the honor of naming him.” She wrapped a small hand around his arm, forcing him to face her. “He’s the one who’s been slaughtering people on our planet.” Aleena sighed. “It was inevitable and certainly wasn’t his fault.”
“Wait a minute,” Alex said. “You knew he was the one slaughtering your people, and you didn’t do anything to protect them?”
She shrugged and grabbed Ulric’s other hand when he tried to slip out of her grasp. “As I mentioned before, while I was out in the stars, something happened to me.” Tears filled her eyes. “The man who attacked and raped me, not only left me for dead in a back alley behind a market, he also impregnated me.”
“What are you saying?” Damon asked.
“The pregnancy was harsh, painful, and long. I killed a few people in the gardens myself, and the Elders locked me up for the last half of it. After much research, they understood what had happened, but I refused to believe them. That is, until my son changed from a baby into a pup after his second birthday. It was our moon, you see. Paradise forced him to become a monster. Every single night, he would change. I wanted a better life for him, so I went in search of a place without a moon and someone willing to adopt him.” She wasn’t looking at anyone but Ulric. “I found them on a space station called Anteris.”
Ulric tried to let go of her hands, but she held on tighter.
“No, son. Don’t be angry with me. It’s because I loved you so much that I had to give you up.”
A growl echoed around them. “You were raped, and the experience turned you against men. I heard you say it before. How could you have loved a product of such a thing, someone who would grow up to be another man?”
Aleena sighed. “Okay, maybe you’re right. Maybe I despised you, because you reminded me of the filth that had violated my body. Maybe without you, I would’ve been able to overcome the rape and forget it ever happened…but when I carried you to term-”
“Why didn’t you kill me before I was born?” Ulric lifted her hands between them. He was holding on so tight, Aleena’s skin glowed unnaturally white.
“Oh, I tried. Trust me, I did. Though, you wouldn’t get out. There was nothing I could do to purge you.” She paused. “I even tried to kill you afterward, by leaving you out in the jungle, but you always made your way back home before the birds could get you. The strength of the moon was too potent within you.”
The snap of bones filled the silence.
Aleena winced, but Ulric didn’t release her. What had he broken?
Ulric looked around his mother, to focus on Alex. “Don’t look at me like that.”
How else was she supposed to look at him? She couldn’t believe what had happened, what he was. The fact that she didn’t want anything to do with him went beyond the secrets and realization of him being a flesh-eating animal at night. She’d let him go the moment she stepped out of his quarters. She just hadn’t realized it until now.
“Alex, tell me you’ll come home with me,” he whispered.
She shook her head. Pain and anger swirled inside his eyes, but she refused to string him along any longer. A tug of confusion and uncertainty pulled deep in her gut, and she recognized it as Damon’s reaction. Her decision had nothing to do with what had happened here on Eden-not Damon, not the beast, or even getting stuck. Alex turned to look at Damon, wishing he hadn’t gotten caught up in all this craziness. He deserved so much better.
“Don’t look at him! You’re mine,” Ulric growled.
Aleena cried out, and another series of snaps erupted.
“No one walks away from me!”
“Consider this the first time,” Alex whispered.
Ulric’s eyes were rimmed with tears as fur sprouted from his pores. He tossed Aleena to the ground and rushed for Alex, but he was stopped when Damon shouldered him out of the way.
The animal slid near the edge of the crevice Aleena had pushed Elroy into, but he was back on his feet in moments. He surveyed the area with his snout in the air. His lips curled over his fangs, exposing them, seconds before leaping toward Alex a second time.
Ulric landed on the ground with a thump when the laser bolt blasted him in mid-leap.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Aleena held the blaster one-handed. The barrel was still smoking when she dumped it on the ground and stumbled forward. She fell to her knees. Her other hand hung uselessly at her side, looking like a rubber glove. Ulric had obviously broken every bone.
Her face was focused on him. Not with love, but with a look of hate marring her usually flawless face. “I never thought I’d see you again, but when I watched you jump out of her ship, I felt it deep within me. A mother never loses her bond with her child…no matter how much I wished I could.”
“Aleena, why did you drag all of us into this?”Damon’s voice was harsh, frustrated.
She sighed, avoiding all eyes. “All I ever wanted was to protect us from the dangers outside.”
“By culling the older population? What exactly did you do to them?”
“Damon, they served the same purpose as Elroy. The same purpose you will all serve, as well.”
Ulric looked up at Aleena with red-rimmed eyes. He’d been crying, and none of them had noticed. Alex felt a twinge of sympathy toward her former lover, but her anger surpassed any pity. It was his fault that she’d ended up on a planet run by a selfish freak.
“What about the prophecy?” Damon continued his interrogation, never letting go of Alex’s hand.
“I made it up.”
“It came true!”
“Yes, Damon. It did. You can imagine my shock when the monitors showed me our atmosphere had been breached by a ship, and I watched it crash into the jungle.” She sighed, looking down at her lap. “When I sent you out there, I didn’t think you’d find anything but a carcass or two. I was wrong on many counts. It wasn’t until I saw Ulric that I realized we were all in a lot of trouble, and that my hidden secret had finally caught up with me. That’s okay. I can clean this up the same way I’ve always cleaned up every other mess.”
“What other mess?” Damon’s anxiety echoed through his fingers and into Alex.
Aleena looked at him, tears cascading down her pale face. “Do you really think we live in the kind of community I try so hard to keep together? Of course we don’t. People disobey me all the time. They constantly break the rules, and I’m forced to deal with them.”
No one said anything.
She released a breath. “It’s hard to rule with an iron fist and make the rest of the people believe we’re living in utopia. I have to do whatever it takes to make things work.”
“That’s despicable!” Damon shouted. “How dare you keep us in the dark about
“Don’t you dare judge me! Do you have any idea who your parents were? Those bloody gypsies were so easily lured by the promise of credits…” her voice trailed off. “They never cared about you. All they wanted was the riches I lied to them about.”
“What are you saying?”
“Didn’t you think it strange that you’re the only one who can practice any sort of magic within
