The Human: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Betania Breed Book 3)

As in previous books, the ultimate goal is blurred by the fact that so many things are connected and everyone has their own motives. Each person has their own agendas and no one knows the full story. Trust and relationships are questioned, and moral decisions are questioned. Characters are a bit less developed than in previous books in favor of furthering the story line that sets the stage for the next step.

In this third installment, we follow the journey of one of Cassie’s children, Cat. Cat has been mysteriously separated from her twin brother and subsequently taken in by the Mind Reader’s Institute. The institute is rather dubious, and when Cat shows resistance against them, she knows her life is on the line for crossing them. Lacking another means of escape, she volunteers to be a prize in a poker tournament. She’s to be sent off to the winner as his new wife, and given a large sum of money in exchange. Her end game is to escape from the man who won her, once she’s far away from earth, and take the money to start a new life and track down her brother and parents.

Her plans are derailed when she goes into the mind of Talon, the man meant to bring her to Fethoris. This results in her understanding him in every way without having known him for long. Talon is a man who values life over objects, and he’s more than willing to sacrifice wealth and resources in order to keep the men under his command alive. He tries to manage this despite the fact that the king is reckless and sees others are disposable.

He wants to have a life with Cat, but is deterred from starting this life by mutiny, and the promise to help get revenge for a woman Fethoris tortured. He has to balance working with a species of dubious intent and keeping Cat safe. They each realize that the only way to accomplish their goals is to withhold information from each other – something that further drives a wedge between them. Cassie has been lied to at every step of her life, but a benevolent individual who has watched over her from the beginning knows each lie was to protect Cat. This benevolent watchkeeper (Shazuul!) clears up many of these lies for her (her adoptive parents having to shun them for their own safety, the fact that her bio-parents and brother have survived) but he still has to withhold information from her to keep her safe, however much it hurt them both.

We get to see Shazuul at his peak, in a way. He is of nothing but good intentions and his only mission is to keep Cat safe. His adoration and friendship with Cassie and Mara is the driving force behind is love and protection of the twins. His own abilities are shown to have strengthen, letting him help Cat as he did Mara. But one wonders where Shazuul got these abilities. Was is a result of his contact and friendship with Cat?

When we meet Talon, he is a straightforward and solid individual. As he spends more time on earth, he becomes more mentally unstable, lashing out at random. I also have to scoff at him when he ponders why women on earth are always so determined to prove their strength, independence, and worth. He thinks they are silly for hanging on to a constant competition with men. Clearly, he has no understanding of the history of gender relations in most earth cultures. But that seems like a silly excuse, as he sees women being mistreated all the time. I mean, he’s transporting Cassie because his king won her in a poker tournament for crying out loud! He sees the way Fethoris has treated women, and even did what he could to quickly end the torment of the Krak woman who Fethoris treated in the cruelest way imaginable. Stupid man.

*side-note: I appreciate that the author moved away from a racist description of sitting and moved to the term crisscross, but as a warning, there is an able-ist slur used at one point.

—-Spoilers—-
The revenge the Krak seek against Fethoris align well with the goals of Cat and Talon. Since accomplishing their goal necessitates each of them lying or withholding from each other, the emotional effect of these deceptions derails the original trap that was set. Cat, not being one to just mope forever over a man and be his bait, takes matters into her own hands and runs away before they complete the plan. Her return to apologize to the Krak lures Fethoris into a more convenient and suiting trap.

Both the betrayal by Talon’s men and the culmination of luring Fethoris end up in a zoo where the Krak have taken up residence. This zoo echoes back to a memory Cat has of Coran, and is also an excellent metaphor for the way Fethoris views women. The zoo is set up with numerous cages to display exotic animals, much in the way Fethoris sees women as exotic items to be displayed for his own amusement.

We are left with new questions as to why Cat and Coran cannot yet meet, and what might happen when they do!

I am a huge fan of Ms Foster ever since I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of one of her books and have been avidly following the Betania Breed series. The Human is spectacular and Ms Foster has, once again, created characters that are at once both sympathetic and, in the case of the aliens, a little harder to understand.Talon is being punished with grunt work by his king (who just by the way is a total d-bag and most assuredly doesn’t deserve to be king and the people of their world definitely don’t deserve a ruler like him) and is sent to earth to pick up Cat who the king won in a poker game (classy!!!). Both feel an instant attraction but Talon knows he cannot go against the king in this. Their adventure begins when the ship meant to transport them back to Talon’s home world is taken over by pirates and it just doesn’t stop until the end. Didn’t want it to end but also just had to keep reading so that I knew what was going to happen, that is always the mark of a good book for me.