Page 59 of Taming the Alien Outlaw
“I did exactly what needed to be done. Whatyou”—she jabs a finger in my direction—“were clearly not capable of doing.”
“Innocent people died.” Does she not care? “That was never part of the plan.”
She scurries a few steps closer. “It may not have been part of yours, but it was always a possibility with mine.”
Her statement causes me to rear back. “Youwished for Bohnari to die? Why would you do that?”
“Sacrifices were needed to be made to ensure all that we desire came to fruition.”
I slice my hand through the air. “Not once have my desires ever been contingent on the deaths of our people. You know this.”
“Because you’re weak. I always knew you would be. That human only made you weaker.”
“Do not speak of Olivia that way. She is my mate.” Nothing has ever felt as good as saying that out loud.
“She is nothing!” My mother screams, spittle flying from her mouth.
I study her a moment and a realization comes over me. “You knew, didn’t you? That Olivia was my heart’s fire? You knew andyou kept it from me. I didn’t even know such a thing existed in our world.”
“You were never meant to know,” she says.
“Why?” The question is dragged from me in a harsh rasp. “Make me understand.”
“From the time you were a child, I knew you didn’t have what it was going to take to become the ruthless male I needed you to be. To help me destroy the king and everything he cared about.”
I’ve always known of her hatred for the king, but this feels…different. Like our goals were never really the same.
“You say the people killed were sacrifices, but for what? Explain it to me.”
She laughs, but it’s a bitter, ugly sound. “We both know the prince never took you or your threats seriously. You were doing nothing more than playing at being a rebel. Those at the palace needed to know what a true rebellion looked like.”
“So you murdered innocent Bohnari, because you thought that would force the prince to hand over a throne that doesn’t actually belong to him yet?”
My mother grins, but it’s full of madness as though she has been struck with an uncontrollable bout of mating fever. “It would appear someone has been sharing secrets with you.”
I had hoped she wasn’t aware it is the queen who rules in truth, but I was wrong. “Were you planning on having her murdered as well, then?”
My mother—no, I can no longer call her that—gestures in a vague way. “If that’s what it would have taken.”
I study this female before me. She isn’t the same one I have known my entire life. She’s a stranger to me now. Perhaps she always has been.
“How long have you been sabotaging me and my plans?” Olivia is certain someone is.
“What you call sabotage, I call adjusting,” she says.
“How long?”
“From the beginning.”
“Alik never began charging for kanet powder, did he?”
Mohneek comes a little closer. “We needed desperate males. What better way to make them so than by taking away their precious drug?”
We?
“It was easier than we expected it to be. A few, well-placed people loyal to our cause forcing citizens to pay for their supply in the name of the prince and then whispered suggestions about forming a rebellion against the corrupt royal who is lining his pockets with our hard-earned credits.”
My blood chills at the cold, calculating manipulation of our people.
