Author Q & A - Part 2

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What happened to the females who didn't make it through the gateway with Sasha?

There were five or six of them, and they were all taken to places of safety. (Not the same safe place as the rest, but each of them was distracted from their purpose by a true yearning for a different kind of life, and so the gateway took each of them to a place that would fulfill their personal desires.) The only reason Patty ended up in a bad place was because Nick had coached her to manipulate her. He didn't try to send her to the place she went, he was just trying to put her off-track.

Where did Patty go after she told Sasha about her baby?

Patty was held by the Chimera until the order came down that they were all leaving. A couple guards took her to the Gateway and released her into it (before the Chimera went through.) They didn't tell her where to go, they just made sure she left. Patty ended up back in the human world, but she avoided her employers completely, moved states with the help of her family, and became an activist against Big Pharma.

Why did you give Lhars a female who didn't really want him? I feel like he drew the short straw.

I'm sorry if you feel that way. It was a failing of not giving the readers Kyelle's point-of-view, I think. Right from the beginning with Kyelle I knew she was so much better and so much more loving that anyone got to realize—because Zev only saw her as a loyal friend, Sasha saw her as a woman and an ally, but one to be wary of, and Lhars only saw her through the filter of her rejection. But Kyelle is such a good female. She's had serious issues and wounds, and she's so strong—actually stronger than Sasha in many ways. Definitely more mature. I wished you could have seen her from within herself, but she would have revealed too many secrets on too many levels if I showed you inside her head, so I had to keep her separate to maintain the tension first with Sasha/Zev, then with Lhars.

I understand why many feel like she didn't love Lhars as much as he loved her, but I can assure you it isn't true. She was very confused, but once she got her head clear, Zev didn't even register for her anymore. And I forget who said it, but they were bang-on: Part of Kyelle's confusion around Zev was that there were genetic links between the two and Lhars' scent and Zev's had a lot of similarities.

Is Nick good or bad?

Nick is the most ambiguous character I've ever written. The truth is, I've never hated him the way the readers did, because I always knew that as much as he was capable of love/could conceive of caring for another person, he loved Zev. But I also knew that he was so… mercenary in the way he did that.

The truth is, Nick takes no pleasure in causing hurt to another human being, or Chimera. The problem is, he also has no real empathy. On everything but Zev, his decisions are made based on what he needs or wants or what he thinks serves the best purpose. And he is ruthless in the sense that if, say, he knows 12 Chimera will die and two humans will lose their jobs when he chooses to help Zev get out of the human world, he's fine with that. Sasha's pain at losing Zev didn't really register for him. Zev's pain didn't register. He wanted to keep Zev alive and in front of the board, so he did what had to be done. He didn't enjoy it, but he really would have killed Sasha if that's what it took to keep Zev safe back then. He's that "practical."

He doesn't take pleasure in it, though. And to me, that's true evil. True evil enjoys seeing someone else hurt—either emotionally or physically—and that's not Nick. He's just… indifferent.

Are the team in Thana the same scientists as the ones in Taming the Queen of Beasts?

Sort of. In the "real" time-space continuum there are several decades between the end of Queen and the end of Alpha. So the Board and Team that deals with Zev are the next generation after those that tried to take Anima. However, they are part of the same movement or goal. When Sasha told the Gateway she wanted to go to the place that humans couldn't infiltrate, it didn't just take her to a place that was safe physically, it took her back in time to a place when the humans didn't know Zev existed as well, to the safest place and time in Anima (she just didn't know that.)

Why did you kill Yhet? Yhet was another character that was really supposed to be in the story more for a much shorter time, not to play as big of a function as he did. But I enjoyed him so much, and he related to Sasha so well, it was natural to bring him into a much more central role. And then you all enjoyed him so much, it would have been stupid to get rid of him.

He was originally supposed to die early—Sasha was supposed to become attached to him quickly, then see him die as a result of losing his mate, and that was going to be the way the reader came to understand what was really at stake when one of a Chimeran Mating Pair were killed (cue extra tension for Sasha and Zev as they face separation and potential death.) But in the end, it became clear that I could show those impacts in other ways, and Yhet was too good of a character not to use more fully.

With that said, waaaaaaaay back at the beginning when he was introduced, and Thana was introduced, I made it really clear that the Chimera died within a few years (sometimes a much shorter time) when their mates died. The groundwork for Yhet's impending death was always there.

So… I'm sorry that his loss was so heartbreaking, but I'll be honest, I loved seeing him display his heart and his fierceness by serving the purpose that he did. Be glad you didn't have to watch it in the flesh. I did. And it made me cry. In the end, I think Yhet was very best example to show the truth about how horrific it was that the Chimera were treated so ruthlessly.

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