AllFreeNovel
Share Us
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.
