by Ann Evans
Some of your favorite authors present 7 all-new stories told through the looking glass—including a new The Ghost novella!
*** Praise for THE LION’S CHOSEN MATE***
"The Author knows how to pull a reader into the minds of her well-crafted characters." ~Night Owls
"An absolute delight to read" ~Amazon Reviewer
"This writer never disappoints." ~Christine Arness
"The Author creates characters that seem to jump off the page." ~Amazon Reviewer
"With a captivating style, writes a compelling story..." ~Long and Short Reviews
"Amazingly good!" ~Romantic Times
THE
LION’S
CHOSEN
MATE
PoseidonPublishing, California
An imprint of Joyce Random House LLC
373 Hudson Street
A POSEIDON Publishing Book / Published by arrangement with authors
Copyright 2016 by POSEIDON Publishing Random House LLC
POSEIDON Publishing supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing us to continue to publish books for every reader.
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Version_1
JR mass-market edition/2016
Cover Images: “Landscape” by Petra Rasmussen
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Introduction
This collection includes over 6 best-seller Romance fiction novels from best seller authors. It’s been a long journey for us as a publisher to bring together the best authors in the industry to create the best collection currently available at Amazon. We have no doubt you will enjoy every single novel as much as we enjoyed the process of bringing this invaluable collection to life.
Table of Contents
ALIEN ROMANCE: CRUSHING ON THE ALIEN
MILITARY BILLIONAIRE: THE MATCHMAKER
MILITARY BILLIONAIRE: THE MERCHANT OF DEAD
GAY BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE: IN LOVE WITH A HACKER
GAY BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE: LOVE IN VEGAS
SHAPESHIFTER ROMANCE: THE WRONG TURNSHIFTER
SHAPESHIFTER ROMANCE: THE WOLF AND HIS WITCH
ALIEN ROMANCE: CRUSHING ON THE ALIEN
Prologue
I’ve never been so scared in my life.
Sure, I’ve been through some frightening situations before. I was in a car wreck when I was in high school where the car actually rolled over four times and landed in a desolate desert ditch out in the middle of nowhere (Me and my friends were all incredibly luck, because where we crashed was literally the middle of nowhere. And while none of us were hurt except for a few bumps and bruises, we had a long walk back to civilization. Luckily a retired couple were camping in their travel trailer 800 yards from where we wrecked and called 911 when they saw us flip), I’ve been bullied by the biggest, meanest girl at my high school (Melanie Trapper, 6’2, 225 pounds of pissed off redneck, and for one reason or another she absolutely wanted to kick my ass the first quarter of my freshman year. Once again, it was nothing but pure luck that she became distracted with tormenting one of her teachers and eventually got kicked out of school for beating her up). And, of course, I’ve gone through all the usual teenage girl scares like SAT’s, finals, the prom, etc. But I’ve never in a million years thought I would be actually in fear of my life, especially because I’m currently in the clutches of a monster.
Yeah, you heard me right, a monster.
Before you start in on me by telling me that things like monsters don’t exist, I’m hear to tell you that they do. By the way, so do aliens and flying saucers. So do multiverses and a whole bunch of other stuff that you’ve only read about in science fiction novels. I know because I’ve seen ALL of these things first hand, and couple of them up close and personal, including this 8 foot tall, fire breathing monster I’m currently hovering in front of like one of those junky remote control toy helicopters. The only difference between me and one of those things is that the monster is holding me in place with its mind and it about to turn me into atoms with its fiery breath.
What’s going to me even harder for you to believe is that this monster used to be my English teacher and that I was actually stupid enough to believe I could stop this creature single handedly and save planet Earth from complete destruction. Oh, and by the way, I’m doing this all because of a boy I’m crushing on … And the boy just so happens to be a nine-foot tall walking, talking stalagmite who can change himself into a human man.
No, you probably don’t believe any of this. But you know what, it doesn’t matter one bit what you think because you’re not the one who’s having to live through it. Or, you know, die. So just shut up and listen while I tell you how I ended up in this spot.
On February 9, 2015, the western half of the United States was treated to an intergalactic light show few human beings have ever witnessed. Astronomers the world over flocked to Southern California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada for the unique chance to see the heavens rain down in a spectacular array of color that would last for as long as four hours. These traveling scientists were not disappointed. The meteor shower lasted an astonishing 6 hours and at its peak, the western sky was streaked with so many tails of brilliant light that the night seemed to turn to day before their eyes.
But what all of the scientific community missed was a single meteorite that trailed away from the massive shower and rocketed through Earth’s atmosphere, and finally came crashing to the ground 30 miles north of Phoenix, Arizona. The area where the meteorite landed had been decimated the previous summer by a massive wildfire which burned 15,000 acres of desert and dry brush. Normally the area would have been heavily occupied by hunters tracking both deer and elk, but the ghost of the fire had driven off humans and wildlife alike, so there was no one or nothing there to witness the meteorite strike the ground or what emerged from it.
If there was either man or beast in that lonely, blackened field, they most likely would have believed they were hallucinating, because the thing which emerged from the blast zone resembled a giant walking slab of rock more than it did a man, but yet moved on two legs. The thing stretched its long arms and legs and appeared to be sniffing at the air like a hunting dog would. It did this for five minutes until its massive head turned south, its blue gaze narrowing with something resembling contempt.
“It’s here,” It said with a voice like distant thunder, and it began walking.
#
When I was in high school, the one thing that kept me from going completely crazy was the thought that one day in the very near future, I wouldn’t be in high school anymore. I wouldn’t have to put up with all the shallow boys and their over-masculine preening. I wouldn’t have to put up with stuck up girls—most of whom I’d known since grade school, and at one time weren’t all that stuck up—who did nothing but obsess about make-up, expensive clothes, and their weight. I wouldn’t have to put up with all of their insecurities and the meanness those insecurities inspired.
&nbs
p; Every morning in high school as I looked into the mirror either brushing my teeth or hair, I would say to myself: “Sara, one day soon, you won’t be in high school anymore. One day very soon, you’ll be in college, and none of this will matter. High school will be nothing but a distant memory and everything will be different.”
I gave myself this little speech every morning, and for the most part, it worked. Of course, I had no idea that college would be almost exactly the same as high school, but on steroids.
Okay, so it’s not exactly the same. I’m 100 miles away from home, living in the dorms of Arizona State University, so obviously mom and dad aren’t here—and yes, I love and miss them, but I’m glad they’re down in Tucson. Although dad keeps talking about buying a weekend house up here, which I hope to god doesn’t happen— and none of the crappy kids I went to high school with are here. But they’ve been replaced by kids who might as well be their clones. So now my new mantra is: “Sara, one day you won’t be in college. One day you’ll be in the real world working your dream job (Whatever that is? I imagine I’ll figure it out in the next couple of years.), and college will be nothing but a distant memory…”
Of course, with my luck, the real world will just be another long, exhausting facsimile of both high school and college, and then I’m probably going to have a real problem with coming up with a new mantra. Or it will be something like this: “Sara, one day you’ll be able to retire, and then you can go and live on a desert island out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean…”
So maybe it isn’t all as bad as that? I think it’s because I’m in an entirely new situation where I really don’t know anybody and I miss my friends. Both Tamara and Shelly had wanted to enroll at ASU, but their grades weren’t exactly stellar, plus their folks weren’t into the overall cost of them living in the dorms, so they’re making them go to community college until they get their grades up. We text all the time, but I still miss them. And I’ll admit it, I miss mom and dad. Yes, they can both be a bit overbearing and a little too overprotective, but they are great, and I miss talking to my dad when something’s bothering me. I didn’t think I would, but I do. I miss his goofy jokes and his arm around my shoulders, telling me that everything would be okay.
But maybe—just maybe—I’m being a bit overdramatic and I’m not giving college enough of a chance, but I feel just so invisible here. Not that I didn’t in high school, but at least in high school I was just a small fish in a small pond. But here, I’m a tiny fish in a massive ocean, and thankfully no one really notices me: Not predators, not bigger fish, not even other teeny-tiny fish like me, and I think that’s what bothers me more than anything else. Absolutely no one notices me, not the girls and not the boys. Especially not the boys.
And honestly, at this point in my life, I want the boys to notice me. I mean, I’m not a bad looking girl. I’m not one of these skinny waif girls who look like they would blow away if they ever got caught in a wind storm. My dad always described me as “Rubenesque”, which is kind of a polite way of saying that I’m fat. But I’m not fat, I’m curvy, kind of like Marylyn Monroe, but my boobs are much, much bigger. I worked my ass off over the summer and went to the gym every day, so I burned off most of what you would describe as my “baby fat”. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll never be the societal definition of skinny, but my figure will turn the right heads if I just put myself out there.
And I think that’s my biggest problem at the moment, I’m just not putting myself out there. I’m waiting for people to introduce themselves to me. I waiting for all these other tiny little fish to ask me over to their dorm room for a beer. Instead, I should probably just “man-up” and introduce myself.
So, my new mantra is: “Hi, my name is Sara … “I might sound like an idiot at first, but I’ve got to try something.
It had walked all night and into the day. At first, it thought the landscape was as black and barren as its own home world, now gone for many decades, its people banished to the spheres, looking for worlds like their own, hunting the Unmakers before they could find more worlds to ravage. They had been successful many times in saving planets and they were able to plant the seed of life to protect these worlds forever from the destroyers. But the Unmakers had been far swifter in their conquests, far more brutal and absolute. For every planet his people saved, the Unmakers sucked the life from thousands of planets and dozens of galaxies.
But as it continued walking through this new world, the land began to see signs of life. It also began to encounter life forms as well as language. The first life form was a small pack of coyotes. They stared at it without fear, but their eyes were full of curiosity. It scanned their minds and he saw images of running, of other four-legged lifeforms with thick fur and sharp teeth, of biped creatures lurking in the shadows with loud weapons. It determined that the coyotes were a food source and that the bipeds were most likely the prominent species. It attempts to gain a better image from the coyotes but they were a blur of fear and movement.
Next, it encountered its first non-organic object. It was a flattened rectangle composed of some form of metal which it accidentally stepped on while walking. It picked it up, and on the front were two words that were very similar to its own native language. It said: No Trespassing. As it continued to walk, it began to process the language from these two simple words, it's mind-expanding filling with thousands of variations of the words. It would need to hear the language spoken to fully comprehend it.
By nightfall, it came to the edges of a vast city, and he began to feel the presence of the UnMaker. It knew that it would have to be careful now and that it would have to assimilate quickly so as not to gain the attention of the local population or that of the UnMaker. Luckily, it found what appeared to be a picture book with images of the native population. On the front of it, it said, US Magazine, and below that in larger type it said, Sexiest Man Alive. He stared at the image on the cover and began to change.
#
The biggest upside of college so far is my schedule. I’m taking four classes altogether, but I only have to be in class three days a week. On Mondays, I have Comp 101, on Wednesdays I have BIO 101 and MATH 102 (Obviously, this is my hardest and longest day.), and on Thursdays I have, World History. There’s no number assigned to that one, but it’s a freshman 100 course, too. Each class is 90 minutes and none of them start before 10 am. So I literally get to sleep in every day and I have a three day weekend every weekend. Sure the amount of homework I have is staggering at times, and that keeps me busy. But, for the most part I have nothing but time on my hands, and nothing really to do with it.
But like I said, that’s all going to change today.
With it being Monday, I have Comp 101 with Mr. Devlin. It is my least favorite class of the week, and it’s not because of the subject. English and creative writing were always my strongest subjects in high school, and I am doing well so far in my Comp class, it’s just that Mr. Devlin is just so weird. I mean, most of my professors are pretty big characters. The way I figure it, you have to be kind of a nut job to want to spend your life in a town like Tempe—where the 90’s hold onto dear life—but Mr. Devlin is weird-weird, if you get what I’m saying?
First off, he’s absolutely huge, like, 6’5 or 6’6. Football player big. But he’s also fat, like rotund can’t make it out of the front door fat. But he doesn’t move like a fat person, he almost seems to glide when he walks, it’s actually kind of grateful to see. But what’s the most striking about him is his voice. It’s like this huge boom of thunder, and that’s just his conversational voice. I imagine if he ever yelled that it would bring down an entire building down around him. Plus, he never looks you in the eye, it’s like he’s constantly staring over your head and looking for something behind you. Thankfully it’s a lecture class with over 200 kids in it, so I’ve never had to actually interact with him. But, still, it’s a creepy class to be in.
We were 15 minutes into Mr. Devlin’s latest lecture. As usual, I wasn’t really paying
attention and just having my computers cam record the lecture for later while screwing around on Facebook and scanning the faces of my classmates when I noticed someone I hadn’t seen before. He looked about my age, but what really drew my eye to him is he looked exactly like Ben Affleck, but a little chubbier. I’m not kidding, he could have seriously been his kid brother! But what else that really drew me my eyes to him was how he was looking at Mr. Devlin.
The bulk of the class was just like me, laptops open, but checked out. Screwing around on Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, but this Ben Affleck doppelgänger, his eyes tracked Mr. Devlin like he was a hawk. Like at any moment he would spring from his desk, jump on Mr. Devlin’s enormous shoulders and start pummeling him until he was blacked out on the floor. Looking at him, you could see just blind hate radiating from him, but there was something else, too. Something almost otherworldly, like he didn’t belong among us like he served a greater purpose. Suddenly, the new boy’s eyes were on me. His eyes burning straight into mine.
We stared at one another for only a few seconds, but it felt like hours. No, like years, decades, millennia. I fell into his eyes and swam in the greenish gold pools of his irises. My entire body submerged and drowning, gasping for air, but not dying. It was almost like I was being reborn and being shown a world, a universe that I knew never existed. And then suddenly, I’m back at my desk, my laptop open in front of me, Mr. Devlin droning on and on in his thunder voice. The boy is still staring at me, and I finally avert my gaze. I can feel my entire body flushing with embarrassment like the new boy walked in on me showering or peeing. But it’s something deeper than that, it’s like he stared straight through me and saw me for who I really am, and I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing?
