Beast’s Beauty by Rena Marks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Crested Utilitarian Laboratories has discovered alien DNA and using it, create beings in an underground laboratory. Since the Xeno Sapiens have escaped, they’ve adapted to life in their own protected city. But protection is only as safe as the people around you, as Beast and Sunny find out.
Beast’s Beauty
Beast realizes his mate doesn’t know she’s his. As a man with immense strength, he’ll hold off on claiming her. But when humans take what’s his, all holds are off and his beast is unleashed.
Sunny has a hidden strength of her own. A dangerous power that can sap the life energy—the soul—of another during high emotion. She’ll keep away because the last person she wants to hurt—and the person she feels strongest about—is Beast.
There may be more pain in fighting her desire than in defending his soul.
A Beauty, a Beast, and a Whole Lot of Trouble
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙💛💚🖤
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Chemistry: 🧪🧪🧪🧪
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏
Character development: 😋🙂😁😎🥰
Character Backgrounds and Plot Summary
Beast and Sunny have a complicated history before this story even begins. They spent time together after escaping the underground laboratories, and that time eventually led to one intimate night. Sunny remembers how tender Beast was with her, but she deliberately distances herself because she is terrified of her own abilities. Her power can drain another person’s life energy when her emotions become intense, and Beast is the last person she wants to accidentally hurt. Beast, meanwhile, knows Sunny is his mate but holds himself back because of his immense strength and his fear that claiming her will frighten her.
I really felt for Sunny because she is caught between wanting Beast and believing that loving him could ultimately destroy him. She even tries to convince herself that Mike, a human who shows interest in her while she is working security, might help her move on. That decision becomes especially painful because Mike’s attention gives Sunny a glimpse of the normal relationship she thinks she should want, while her feelings for Beast are obviously much deeper.
Things take a much darker turn when Sunny is kidnapped. The opening immediately grabbed me because her captors are willing to go to horrific lengths to get what they want, including cutting off her fingers for their supposed value, thinking that she is somehow made of gold because of her gold skin. The fact that Sunny’s body regenerates them while she is unconscious is a great reminder that these characters are not simply humans with unusual appearances. They are something fundamentally different because of alien DNA. Once Beast realizes she has been taken, his restraint disappears, and the rescue becomes deeply personal.
Highlights and Limitations
The strongest part of the book for me was Sunny’s internal struggle. I liked that her biggest obstacle wasn’t simply another villain or an external threat. She genuinely believes that staying away from Beast is an act of love because she is afraid her powers could drain his soul. That gave their relationship more emotional weight than a simple fated-mates setup.
I also enjoyed seeing Beast’s softer side. Sunny remembers him as someone who treated her with extraordinary tenderness during their time together, which contrasts nicely with his terrifying physical strength. That contrast made his determination to find her after the kidnapping particularly satisfying.
The kidnapping itself brought some much-needed urgency to the romance. I especially liked the early scene where Sunny wakes up and realizes her fingers have regenerated after her captors cut them off. It is disturbing, but it immediately establishes how dangerous her situation is and how different the Xeno Sapiens are.
My biggest hesitation was that I sometimes wanted Sunny to trust what she already knew about Beast instead of spending so much time trying to convince herself that she needed to stay away from him. I understood why she was afraid, but there were moments when I wanted to shake her a little and tell her to stop making decisions for both of them. I also found myself wishing some of the emotional transitions had been given more room to develop.
Final Opinion
I ended up enjoying Beast and Sunny’s story because their romance is built around something more complicated than attraction. Sunny genuinely believes loving Beast could be dangerous, while Beast has to balance his overwhelming protective instincts with her need to make her own choices. That tension kept me invested.
I especially appreciated that Sunny isn’t portrayed as helpless just because she needs rescuing. Her regeneration and soul-draining ability make her powerful in her own right, and watching her wrestle with the responsibility that comes with those abilities was one of my favorite parts.
This was an entertaining addition to the Genetically Altered Humans series, with plenty of danger, romance, unusual Xeno Sapien abilities, and the emotional push and pull between two people who clearly belong together but have very real reasons for being afraid of that connection. Beast and Sunny definitely kept me turning the pages.
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