BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE: Billionaire's Hunt (A Dark New Adult Romance with Billionaire) (Contemporary New Adult Short Stories)

by Deborah Ericsson

  But the other species that can withstand earth’s atmosphere can also withstand most other atmospheres. In fact, they’re essentially the alpha predator of the known galaxies, and they are universally feared because of their adaptability, ferocity, and their absolute need to kill. Nothing is known about the species, not even their home planet, but they are known as hunters. There has been a theory that’s floated around for years that hunters don’t have a home planet and are actually some form of biological weapon that was developed thousands of years ago by a now extinct species, and pods of them were placed on every inhabited planet in the known galaxies and would only be activated if the population of a particular planet became too large to support its native life forms. Think of it as forced Darwinism. But, of course, it’s only a theory.

  The reality of the hunters is once they appear, they will obliterate anything in its path, like a tornado, but made up of claws and teeth. Typically, only one will appear, and you need to kill it as soon as possible because they reproduce asexually. Basically, if you ignore the problem for too long, a single hunter can become 100, and then 1000, and then 10,000. If they reach that kind of numbers, you might as well say bye-bye to your planet.

  “So how many of them are there?” I asked as we stood in front of his 3-D heads-up display.

  “So far I have only tracked one here in southwestern New Mexico.”

  “The painted desert.”

  “Yes.”

  D-Arin’s people are more or less like the police for the known galaxies. They’re an extremely old race and universally treasured for their fairness, ingenuity, and adaptability. Theirs’s was the race who made first contact after America detonated the atomic bombs and crash landed the nuclear powered air craft. They came because they wanted to make sure that we weren’t a threat to our neighboring planets or galaxies. Once they determined that we were only playing with our new found technology, they deemed the human race as a non-threat, but still kept an eye on us in case we ever became threatened by hunters. They also covertly recruited humans who they felt would be able to handle themselves against a hunter, and whose minds were adaptable to having their memories erased time and again. Because here’s another interesting fact about hunters: They can read minds, and the more native populations know about them, the more aggressive they became.

  It was a double edge sword: Prepare certain members of the native population to defend their planet against a hunter, but wipe their memories clean of that training until they were absolutely needed, and then activate them.

  I had now been fully activated and I was ready for whatever the hunters threw at us.

  Of course, D-Arin wasn’t entirely convinced of my readiness and kept drilling me about weapons use and my combat training. I finally grew tired of his questions and tossed him over my shoulder and disarmed him of his synth blade. As I held it against his throat, I winked, kissed him, and then pulled him to his feet.

  “Do you think I’m ready now?” I asked.

  “Yes,” He said with a chuckle. “Yes, I do.”

  “Then let’s get to work.”

  The painted desert of eastern Arizona and western New Mexico is, for a lack of a better term, a complete wasteland. It is nothing but red, the wind blasted clay and scrub brush. It’s beautiful in its own stark way, but I wouldn’t want to be caught out here for longer than 24 hours without food or water. If you’ve never seen it before, think about all those photos of Mars that have been sent back by the space rover the US has wandering around on it right now. Well, that’s what the painted desert looks like, except more desolate.

  D-Arin had detected the hunter because a small group of Navajo ranchers had gone missing (The painted desert is a massive chunk of the Navajo reservation.), but then their remains had been discovered just a few days ago by reservation police. The men and their horses were nothing grizzled and bloody bone. The Navajo police thought that the ranchers may have been attacked by a pack of rabid wolves or rabid dogs. But the locals whispered about skinwalkers and the men trespassing onto sacred land. The locals weren’t too far off the mark.

  We teleported to the surface in full gray man gear. If we came across anyone out here in the middle of the night, we’d be inevitably blamed for the massacre of the ranchers. Which was fine, because D-Arin’s people were also big into injecting disinformation into the weird culture of UFO conspiracists. Also, the less the general population knew about the hunters, the better.

  We communicated via our heads up display and attuned our visuals to the hunter’s heat spectrum. Hunters are like reptiles, they’re cold blooded (And they look a lot like giant worms, but with hundreds of rows of razor sharp teeth.) and largely travel underground, burrowing deep below the surface and only coming up to hunt when they’re hungry, or in a blood frenzy. With the 9 dead ranchers, D-Arin and I made the assumption that the hunter was now entirely out of control and looking to kill anything that crossed its path. If the hunter was above ground, we were in trouble, because despite their massive size, they could be very stealthy and quiet killers. If it was below ground, our armor would let us know that it was coming via seismic readings.

  We scanned and searched the area both below and above ground for hours with no luck. We knew it was there, but it looked like we were going to have to flush out of hiding. Hunters are essentially blind, they can see a few feet in front of them, but they largely rely on scent and hearing. Their sense of hearing was particularly keen, so D-Arin activated a simple sensory pulse device and tossed it out into a large field of scrub brush. The sound the device omitted was entirely undetectable by humans, but I guarantee you that every dog, coyote, and wold within 100 miles of our location was going absolutely bonkers and howling in discomfort. We also hoped it was doing the same thing to the hunter and would bring it to our location.

  We waited 10 minutes … 20 minutes … 30 minutes, and nothing happened. D-Arin turned to me, a video of his face appearing on my heads-up display. His brow was knitted with confusion.

  “Do you think it’s moved on?” He asked.

  “Or maybe it’s de—!”

  The desert floor below us exploded, tossing me into the air and I was thrown two dozen yards from where I had been standing. D-Arin was no longer transmitting, and for a brief moment, I panicked. The only reason why he would no longer be transmitting is if he was out of range, or he was dead. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to think about either possibility, because the hunter was now right in front of me. From what I could see, it was at its full, mature size and was easily 20 feet long and was nearly 10 feet in height. Even though I was easily 20 feet away from, I could feel its hot, stinking breath—the smell of rot permeated my every pore. Its front row of teeth were the size of tombstones but filed down to razor sharp points.

  I rose to my feet slowly, readying my weapons, priming my in-suit lasers and activating my synth knives which lit up the black night air with an iridescent blue light. This monster had most likely just devoured the love of my life, and I was going to make it pay.

  I charged the hunter just as it started to move towards me, firing my lasers. It was surprisingly fast for a creature so large, and it danced around the beams with only one or two of my shots hitting their target, but the hunter barely seemed to notice. It size was too large, so I would have to engage it directly with my synth blades. I leaped into the air when I was within 7 feet of its mouth, hoping to drive my blades into the tough skin of its head. By I moved too slow and the hunter anticipated me and knocked me hard to the ground. I was now right in front of its open maw, it teeth glittering dull in the wan moonlight. I would soon be joining D-Arin in death and the planet was most likely doomed.

  But as the hunter moved in to devour me, it came to a halt, and I could smell the distinct stench of burning emanating from its mouth. Suddenly, the hunter’s midsection exploded in a rain of rotten flesh, and with it came D-Arin, covered in head-to-toe in carrion, his armor scarred, but he was alive!

  He pulled me to my fee
t and then removed his helmet.

  “I’m sorry that took me so long.” He said.

  I stripped off my helmet, and even though he was covered in slime and stank of what smelled like burnt dog hair, I kissed him so harder that you would have thought I was trying to eat him.

  ***

  D-Arin has decided to stay on earth. Well, not on earth, in his ship orbiting the planet in stealth mode. And I’ll be staying with him most of the time. I’ll occasionally travel to earth to visit my parents and my sister—and before you ask: No, my memories will not be intact when I am on earth that would be too dangerous, especially if the hunter laid any eggs. But D-Arin has vowed to reactivate my memories once I am back on board—but for the most part, I will stay in the ship with D-Arin, waiting patiently for the next time the planet will need us to defend it. My only hope is, it won’t be for a very, very long time.

  THE END

  SHAPESHIFTER ROMANCE: THE WRONG TURNSHIFTER

  As the night fell, Sarah couldn’t wait to go back home and fall asleep. She was coming back to Boston from New Hampshire, after attending one her friend’s wedding. It was a lavish ceremony and Sarah was one of the bridesmaids. She wanted to stay for the night and attend the reception dinner, but there was something deep within, which stopped her from staying in New Hampshire anymore. She couldn’t stay there anymore, smiling to almost strangers and seeking out to find someone. She was done looking for love and wanted to set herself free.

  She gave an excuse and decided to drive back home. She had never been very good at navigation. The route from New Hampshire to Boston couldn’t be any simpler, nevertheless, Sarah found herself lost in the middle of the night. She knew she took a wrong turn while leaving the wedding venue and wanted to go back. As she turned her car, she heard the sound of the engine, almost wrecking. She knew she was in trouble when her car stopped in the middle of nowhere.

  “Oh God! No no no! This can’t be happening right now!” she cursed several times and started to ignite the engine. All her attempts were going futile and she didn’t know what to do. She tapped her phone only to discover there was no tower reception. She couldn’t call anyone, she couldn’t ask anyone for help, as there was no one around.

  “I just want to go home,” she breathed with regret, knowing that it was a bad idea to leave the wedding in the middle of the night and that too all alone.

  “Please God! Do something!”

  She unbuckled her belt and stepped out of the car. She opened the bonnet only to discover that the engine of the car was damaged. It wasn’t working and though Sarah didn’t know much about cars, but she knew that her car was not functioning well at all. She knew that she couldn’t find any garage or mechanic in the middle of the night and that too at such an isolated place. She thought that it was best for her to spend the night while sitting inside her car. At least, she would be warm and safe inside. As she was pacing up and down the road, unable to decide what to do, she finally saw a car coming from the opposite direction.

  She knew that it was her last shot. Finding a car at such an isolated place was nothing but a miracle. She literally stood in the middle of the road, trying to halt the vehicle. It was a navy colored Ford truck that looked almost black in the pitch dark. The truck was already running at a fast speed, and as the driver hit the brake, the entire atmosphere echoed the sound.

  Kurt didn’t expect to find a beautiful woman like Sarah standing in the middle of the road at such an ungodly hour. He had to rub his eyes to make sure if it was true or not. It was not a figment of his imagination and he finally realized that he should step out to check what was happening with the woman.

  “Please help me, my car just broke in the middle of nowhere!” he heard the woman’s voice as he lowered the glass. Kurt stepped out of his car and looked at Sarah. He couldn’t stop admiring how beautiful she looked. Sarah was wearing a gorgeous black dress that complimented her curves and flawless body. She had long legs and her matching stilettos were doing magic to her sculpted physique. She was wearing minimalistic makeup or jewelry and even in that pitch darkness, her face was lit up, her lips were lustrous red and Kurt couldn’t think of anything else but to kiss her in the middle of that road. She had beautiful blond hair that was perfectly placed near her shoulders; depicting her amazing jaw line and making her blue eyes glitter in the dark. Kurt had never seen a woman as beautiful as Sarah, and for a moment, his entire world halted. He couldn’t stop thinking about anything but her.

  “Can you help me?” Sarah asked him again in desperation. She knew that stopping a car like that at an isolated place could be dangerous, but she had no other option. As Kurt stepped out of his car and looked at Sarah, she knew that she didn’t make the wrong choice.

  There was a moment of silence when their eyes met. As Sarah looked into Kurt’s hazel eyes that looked like chocolate brown in the dark, she knew that the man would end up helping her. They say that eyes are the window to our soul – it felt very apt at that moment, as they looked into each other and felt a strange cosmic connection. There was something between their souls that they weren’t able to comprehend. It was as if they were waiting for each for so long, their souls were waiting for that one moment to come.

  “Yes, what is it?” Kurt finally asked her and broke her train of thoughts. Sarah couldn’t stop admiring how masculine and handsome Kurt looked. He had short hair that brought out all the features of his face perfectly. He had hazel eyes and a perfectly shaped face. His lips were rugged and he had slight stubble that Sarah wanted to feel. He was wearing an olive green Henley T-shirt that Sarah wanted to rip apart. She could see his bulging biceps and well-chiseled chest, shaping the Henley with his perfect body. Every cell of Sarah’s body wanted to experience Kurt’s masculinity as she couldn’t wait to kiss him wildly under that starlit night.

  “What happened? Are you alright, Miss?” Kurt asked her one more time, which made Sarah lose her temper. She was holding on to her thoughts for so long.

  “I don’t know. I don’t feel right. I was coming from a wedding, the kind of stupid wedding that I didn’t even want to attend at the first place. But I had to go and smile and hold the bouquet and the bride’s dress and do all those stupid things that I despise the most. I was sick of smiling at random people and telling them the same story over and over again. I couldn’t be there anymore so I decided to leave. I have taken this road so many times, but I don’t know what happened today. I am lost and I don’t know how to go back home. My car is not running, my spirit is low, and I don’t know what to do. I just want to go home.”

  As Sarah finished her rant, Kurt smiled while looking at her. He had never met a woman like Sarah and wanted to know more about her. He could feel butterflies in his stomach as he walked towards her and held her hand.

  “Do you want me to drop you home?” he asked her with sincerity. Sarah didn’t know what to say. She barely knew the guy and didn’t want to trouble him.

  “I don’t know what to say. I can’t ask you for that favor, but I really feel scared right now and I don’t know what to do,” Sarah said in her peculiar accent that turned Kurt on. He wanted to kiss her right there and hold her in his arms, but it was not the right place or time. He wanted to be a gentleman and wanted to help the lady first.

  “You don’t have to say anything. Just sit, relax, and let me know where you have to do. I will drop you home safely, I promise,” Kurt said and offered Sarah a ride back home, which she couldn’t refuse.

  “I am Sarah,” she said as she buckled her belt and told him about her address in Boston. Kurt was familiar with the route and ensured her that there won’t be any trouble along the way. They both introduced themselves and started to share almost every minute detail about their lives. There was a strong chemistry between them and they wanted to know more about each other.

  “I grew up in Boston and I have lived here all my life. I went to college here and after that, I got a job in one of the leading marketing firms. I am working in the sam
e firm for the last three years now. Though the job is very exciting and it still feels like yesterday when I joined them. I like to go fishing with my dad over the weekend, as he stays with his wife on the other side of the city. I am pretty close to him, though.”

  Sarah started narrating about her life as Kurt kept asking her different questions. “Why do you live in the suburbs and not the city? I mean instead of traveling so much you can always rent an apartment in the city nearby your workplace,” Kurt suggested as he wanted to know Sarah’s perception towards life.

  “I am not a city bird. I cannot stay in the city, I feel trapped in one of those small rented apartments. I want to feel free, go jogging in the morning and breathe the fresh air. I want my own space and sleep in peace at night, which I can’t get so easily in the city. I am pretty happy with where I am living. What about you?” she asked him, as she wanted to know about Kurt’s way of life as well.

  “I keep on changing places. I am a freelancer, so I can work from anywhere. I am currently looking for a place to settle and commence my work. I am one of those free birds too. I can’t stay at one place for very long. It’s not who I am,” Sarah was extremely intrigued by Kurt’s reply. He had a very different life with some of the most radical thoughts. He had the kind of life that Sarah always wanted to live and his will and free spirit intrigued her to the core.