Her head pounded and Adelina groaned as she cracked an eye open. She went to put a hand to her forehead to try and ease the pain but the motion was halted abruptly. Her eyes widened in surprise and she realized she had no idea where she was.

Then she discovered she was strapped down and couldn’t move.

Terror flashed through Adelina so hard and so fast it left her breathless and her ears began to ring. She could feel her anxiety closing in, her body already showing symptoms of an oncoming panic attack.

She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth as Nadyah had taught her; over and over until the tingling in her hands dissipated. Then when her heart rate settled a little she took a moment to evaluate her surroundings.

The first thing that came to her attention was the noise. It was the rumble of a starship engine if she wasn’t mistaken. Then it was the smell – purified air lacking any notes of sulphur or ash. Adelina was definitely on a ship.

The slight sensation in her stomach told her they were moving through space, no longer on the surface and the gravity was lighter than it had been on Hai Delta.

All these facts didn’t help her control the panic, but it did give her some clues. She sniffed again and flexed her fingers until her claws were full length. What concerned her the most was she couldn’t remember what the last thing she’d been doing was.

She remembered having that verbal match with the eldest, most cantankerous of the dragons and that she’d asked for time alone. Nothing after that.

“Oh good, you’re awake.”

Adelina turned her head and watched the male who had once been her childhood friend, companion, guard, and briefly her lover walk into the sterile room.

“Alpha, please…tell me what’s going on,” she pleaded with him, testing the bonds around her wrists. Surprisingly her feet weren’t bound, but lying flat on her back had her at a disadvantage.

“We are headed to the Khara Galaxy,” Alpha said. The way he tilted his head to study her was strange and his eyes – he looked at her with an odd raptness that concerned Adelina. “I’m delivering the Queen to the Neprijat King.”

Her throat closed up and tears pricked her eyes as she took in the full extent of his betrayal. It physically hurt, like a knife in her heart. Adelina didn’t understand how or why, but the stark truth in his voice and the way he held himself. It was excruciating. The one person she thought would never betray her to the Neprijat no matter their recent difficulties…the promise he’d made to her, twice now – had that been nothing more than a lie?

Then rage consumed her.

“Alpha,” she whispered with the promise of death in her words. “After everything? Everything!” Adelina pulled at the restraints, fighting them as she tried to get at the male.

“Shh,” he murmured, caressing her cheek ever so softly with his knuckles.

She jerked away and bared her teeth, wishing she could sink them into his hand.

“I know you don’t understand,” he told her. “But you will, I promise.”

“You swore an oath to me!” she screamed at him. “You promised you’d end my life before letting the Neprijat take me, and now this! I will feed you to their dogs.”

Alpha smiled down at her and it looked so…wrong. “You really don’t know do you?” He walked around the table she was strapped to, but he didn’t touch her again. “I am not your Alpha,” he told her, that strange smile still on his face. “I am not Alpha at all. I am Drozer – the Neprijat King’s most loyal and trusted spy.”

Her very breath left her body as she stared at him. It crystallized the hot rage in her veins into ice – making her feel brittle and frozen as Adelina tried to comprehend those words.

This male…whoever he was, he smiled down at her with so much love and dedication on his face it brought bile to her tongue. He grinned and leaned against the table on his elbows, so close to her face. “My Queen, my mind was uploaded into Alpha’s body right after your coming-of-age party. It was convenient really as you no longer needed a guard and I no longer needed Darius’s body.”

Adelina jerked away from whatever inhabited Alpha so hard her wrists protested, nearly snapping from the sudden, violent motion. She’d never heard of such tech – where one could simply move their consciousness from one body to the next like it was no more than changing clothes.

But they knew nothing about the Neprijat, or their tech.

“How?” she breathed. It was difficult to formulate thoughts – to take in all that this male had revealed to her. The shock of it made her so very cold and her entire body started to shake.

“The exact details don’t matter,” he said, pushing off the table. Whoever wore Alpha’s body turned to a closet and pulled out a plain blanket. He tucked it around her gently.

Adelina studied him, every line of his face, but especially the eyes. Had she truly not noticed since her coming-of-age party? “Tell me, what happened to the real Alpha?”

“Once I leave his body he will regain control and it will be him once more. I will upload memories as I did with the others and he won’t remember a thing. Unless you wish him to, my queen,” Drozer said as he finished tucking in the blanket.

The words he used, the strange inflections. She flinched as he leaned against the table again to simply stare at her. Then he wiped the tears from her cheeks with a handkerchief. “Shh, I know it’s a lot to take in, but you will soon understand. We’ve needed a queen like you for so long.” His touch was cold and foreign – like it had been during their dance at her wedding reception.

Bile rose in her throat and it took everything Adelina had not to vomit.

Goddess, help her. She’d really not noticed – Adelina had been so wrapped up in her own world she hadn’t seen the clues, but…he’d been reassigned and had no longer been her constant guard. She thought he’d betrayed her, but it hadn’t been Alpha at all.

“What happens to the person you inhabit?” she asked, flexing her hands.

“They’re still in here, but they have no control,” Alpha—Drozer told her, tapping his temple. “It’s truly an interesting process. We choose a location and a body from our long range scanners. Then we take the mind from one body and simply put it into another, snatching that person’s life momentarily. Once we have established ourselves a bit, we use this little piece of tech to snatch the next body, and then the next until we are exactly where we need to be.” He tapped the cuff on his wrist that looked like any standard wrist-cast.

Adelina didn’t know what to make of it all, but she had so many questions. If she was going to her own personal nightmare, she may as well understand how she’d let this happen. “Who were you before Alpha?”

Drozer smiled as if he was pleased with her curiosity. “So you want the whole story. Well, it won’t hurt to tell you now that you will soon be one of us. I was sent to Draga Terra just before we took the Khara Galaxy. I managed to get access to Princess Raena’s personal guard Darius, and snatched his body. As the heir she was never alone which made it easier for me to get close to the royal family. The plan was simple. Weaken the royals and soften them to make the taking easier.” He traced Adelina’s bottom lip, focusing on her like she was a riddle he needed to answer. “You really are an unparalleled beauty.”

She jerked out of his grip and glared. It didn’t appear to bother him at all. Drozer shrugged and continued with his explanation.

“It was easy enough to poison King Orion with the hypomalarya though I didn’t expect him to live as long as he did or for the bastard Ian to find ways to prolong his strength.” Drozer looked annoyed, but it was with Alpha’s face. Adelina had to keep reminding herself this wasn’t her friend and companion. This was her enemy.

But watching him, she only felt regret. She was to blame for having missed something so obvious. This creature had torn her family apart, and felt no remorse. As he continued his explanation she felt that if she’d just looked a bit closer she could have prevented at least some of the destruction.

“As Darius I poisoned the king and got Raena riled up enough to believe she had to prove her power and strength with force,” he said, ticking off his deeds on his fingers as he stared up at the ceiling in thought. “Then I snatched Alpha right after your coming-of-age party which was really perfect because after all the planting I’d done with Raena she asked me to spy on you for her. It was easy enough when Alpha had kept tabs already. It was all on his personal shreve.” Drozer grinned at her like they were the best of friends and Adelina bared her teeth, rage burning through her tears as she pulled against her restraints.

“Ah, ah,” Drozer chastised, tightening the metal bands. “None of that now. My king has been waiting so very long for you. I don’t want you to hurt yourself, and I certainly don’t want to have to tie you down more than you already are.” Drozer checked her wrists and grimaced. “Please, my queen. Be careful.”

“Stop calling me that,” Adelina hissed. “I am not your queen.”

Drozer studied her and then grabbed a stool from under one of the desks. He sat down with a bit more space between them for which she was grateful. Adelina couldn’t stand the sight of this monster wearing the body of a male she loved and cared about. Alpha was family to her and he was still in there somewhere…

Part of Adelina was so relieved, so grateful that Alpha had never truly betrayed her. That he was still the male who’d told her that she should follow her heart and go after Prince Nash. But inside she was falling apart.

There’d been a monster among them for so long – her father… “Did Raena kill herself?” Adelina asked, choking on a sob. She already knew the answer, but she needed to hear the words.

Drozer shook his head. “We don’t have our powers of persuasion when inhabiting a host body. But she trusted me as Alpha, even took me to bed a few times I think to spite you. So I waited until she was in the bath the night I knew the king would die. I climbed in behind her and slit her wrists. Then held her until she bled out.”

It was so matter of fact for him – her sister’s death was nothing at all. Just a means to an end.

“Raena would have fought,” she snarled at him, seeing red.

Drozer nodded with a grave expression on his face. “Yes, she would have. But I used an untraceable paralyzer in the wine I’d given her. Well, untraceable in Draga. What you don’t understand, my queen, is that Raena would have made a terrible ruler regardless of my influence. She offered you to the king without any help from me. Raena was selfish.”

Adelina was sobbing so hard she could hardly hear him, but those words drove into her head like spikes. Her glorious sister with her flawed humanity – but she hadn’t been the monster she’d turned into. Raena could have been a good queen given the time and opportunity. If their father had lived and finished his rule as it should have been.

Her entire life was shattered and broken. This male had taken so much from her. The Neprijat had stolen a father and a sister and a future. Adelina had never wanted to be queen. She’d only wanted to fall in love and travel the universe as ambassador. How foolish and naïve she’d been.

But it was the guilt that ruined her.

She’d never known Darius very well, but Alpha? If Adelina had been paying attention she could have saved her sister. Raena’s death was because of her failure and no one else’s.

“I knew Giselle wouldn’t be able to handle the weight of the Crown,” Drozer continued, wiping the tears from her face again. “Her death was not required. I stayed with her and Ian as part of the royal guard and suggested she relinquish the Crown to you. She was more than happy to give it up when I explained how her freedom could help the people – how you were so much better prepared than she.”

Adelina couldn’t stop sobbing. It wracked her chest and her entire body. She leaned away from Drozer. There was no way to come to terms with the revelation – no way for her to simply accept this.

“We need a queen,” Drozer said softly, his voice full of some indiscernible emotion. “There were multiple plans in place to get one, but it is you we need. You don’t understand the sickness and the hunger. Without a queen we are subject to so many atrocities…please remember that when the king takes you as his bride.”

She didn’t care.

Adelina didn’t want to know anything about the Neprijat. She just wanted to get away – to escape and hide in the eyrie until someone else finished the war. Adelina regretted not handing the throne over to Asher. Her blasted honor had trapped her, allowing Drozer to take her as he’d predicted the outcome of Giselle’s abdication and Asher’s message.

An alarm went off and Drozer in Alpha’s body checked his wrist-cast. “It seems your husband has found us and he’s brought the pirates along,” he mused.

Varan – and the bracelet he’d given her. Adelina’s tears turned into laughter as she remembered the tracker in the bracelet – and the weapons.

“It’s probably best this way,” Drozer said. “Taking out Varan and the other two males will make it easier on you in the long run and I’m sure my king will be pleased to have those loose ends wrapped up. It’s such a shame. It’s not even really a fight with the difference in our tech.”

Adelina clenched her teeth as she angled her hand, ready to break her own wrist if necessary. She refused to let this monster kill any more of her family. Biting the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming, she managed to bend her wrist and press the back of her hand against her thigh. Still, she couldn’t get her finger to the bracelet to activate it.

She glanced at Drozer and shoved her wrist at the same time she pressed as hard as she could with her leg. The snap was loud in the silence and she had to bite down, drawing blood, to keep from screaming in pain. Drozer dove for her, but Adelina pressed once more and her finger hit the bracelet.

The shield activated right before Drozer reached her. It sliced through the bonds holding her down. Adelina jumped up and aimed at the monster, holding her broken wrist up with her other hand. “Stop the ship and allow them to board,” she ordered.

Drozer held up Alpha’s hands and gave her a sympathetic look. “It’s already done, my queen. The weapon is locked and about to fire.”

“Then stop it!” she yelled, coming around the table and stalking toward the male.

He wiggled the hand with the wrist-cast. “I can’t. It’s done. Only you as queen can override my command, and I can’t let you.”

Adelina’s hand snaked out and wrapped around his throat. “You can’t stop me.”

He smiled at her, so calm and patient. “You will have to kill me to access my tech. And you won’t do that. Not with Alpha still in here waiting to be let out,” he said, tapping his forehead.

Instantly she froze.

If Adelina let Drozer take her it would be billions of lives in the balance. Her entire galaxy would fall to their knees for the Neprijat with her by the king’s side. Adelina didn’t even think Asher would fight them with so much already lost.

She searched Alpha’s face desperately and knew she was running out of time. Her heart clenched and she breathed so hard and so fast it was all she could hear. Adelina’s chest felt like a raw gaping wound and the pain lanced through sharp and ragged as a thousand razors.

Adelina knew what she had to do – she knew what the right answer was, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Tears streamed down her face as her hand shook on his throat. Drozer didn’t move a muscle, he just watched her – completely in awe.

“You have seconds to decide,” he whispered.

Goddess, please watch over Alpha’s soul – tell him…tell him I love him and I’m sorry. Tell him I will see him in the next life.

And before she could second guess herself Adelina sank her deadly, sharp claws into the throat of the male who she’d laughed with through the halls of the royal palace as children, who had been her constant companion her entire life – the male who had been her first lover, who had sworn to protect her in every possible way…

As the blood started to run down his throat Drozer didn’t try to fight her. He simply smiled with something like relief on his face. “My queen…what our people could be if we had someone to care for us like you care for them.”

Those words…broke something in her. She tightened her grip and Adelina ripped, tearing his throat out. Drozer slumped to his knees and she went down with him, sobbing as she caught him in her arms. Alpha’s face looked up at her and he gurgled as blood gushed.

“I knew—” Drozer gasped. “I knew how right you would—look…covered in blood…” His eyes closed slowly as his—Alpha’s blood pooled around them, drenching everything.

Sobbing and cradling him to her chest, Adelina tapped the wrist-com and deactivated the weapon headed toward Varan, her DNA scan allowing her control.

“Alpha,” she murmured with her lips against his hair. “Please forgive me.”