by Dena Christy
Hunted by the Alien
Dena Christy
Copyright © 2019 by Dena Christy
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover art by Croco Designs
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Also by Dena Christy
Chapter 1
Where the hell was he?
Cheria Warders glared at the clock on the desk of the hotel room she waited in, and shook her head. This was why she didn't take on new clients anymore.
She pressed her lips together and folded her arms across her chest. He had five more minutes to show up and no more. If he wasn't here by then, she was out of here.
She was going to have to find another job if he didn't show up, and she huffed out a sigh. Which would be a shitty turn of events. He was going to be paying her more than she'd ever made in a single job before.
Another glance at the clock told her that his time was up. She gathered her coat and went to the door. With a hard yank, she pulled it open and stopped abruptly. A nervous looking middle-aged man stood outside and was in the process of looking over his shoulder.
"Can I help you?" Surely this man, who was acting like he had a giant sign on him proclaiming he was doing something illegal, wasn't her client.
He gave a startled gasp and turned back to look at her standing there.
"Are you, Juno Moneta?"
Great. He was her errant client.
"Why are you standing out there? I was about to leave." She stepped aside and moved away from the door, going back into the room. For a moment she thought he wasn't going to come in and she sighed and rolled her eyes. Yet another reason she didn't take on new clients.
He came into the room and she put her coat over the back of the chair by the desk.
She turned and looked at him. His face was covered in a sheen of sweat and he looked like a cornered rat. Perhaps he wasn't just a new client for her, she had a feeling that he hadn't done anything like this before.
"Is this your first time?" If it was she was going to kill Xander the next time she spoke to him. He should know better than to arrange for her to work for someone completely new to this. As far as she was concerned first timers were nothing but trouble. She had been at this for ten years and commanded a high price for her services. She was also picky about what jobs she took. Xander knew this was a job she would have refused and had failed to mention just how new this client was.
"I'm a virgin at this." He gave a nervous laugh as he pulled a tissue out of his pocket and used it to mop his face. "Is it that obvious?"
She refrained from answering. All she wanted to do was get paid, do her part of the transaction and leave.
"So this is how this works, you pay me and I take the information you're peddling. And I don't see you ever again."
That wasn't usually how this worked, and sometimes she had repeat customers, but this guy wouldn't be one of them. A guy like him had scared and paranoid written all over him, and someone like that was bad for business. The only reason she had stuck around for this long was because Xander told her he would pay a lot of this money for this job. With more coming from the buyer once Xander arranged for her to meet with them and turn over the information they were buying from this guy.
"Oh yes, I have the krills right here." He reached into the inside of his jacket and pulled out an envelope that looked stuffed full. "Here."
Cheria stood there stunned for a second. He was giving her actual, physical currency? Normally her clients transferred funds electronically into her bank via her e-wallet. Fully traceable and taxable. Actual krill notes were neither of those things.
She reached out and took the envelope. Opening it she glanced inside at the neatly stacked, nestled bills. She hadn't see that many bills together in one place, ever. Her heart gave a tiny leap at the sight of it.
She quickly flicked through each one, counting the number of bills and doing a quick calculation in her head. It was all there.
Fifty thousand krills.
Too bad she would have to hand over ten percent to Xander for his cut in this. He would make a lot more from the buyer, but his greedy fingers would be in this pot too.
"It appears to be in order." She put the envelope into the long pocket on the outside of her pants and for the first time since he'd arrived, smiled at him. Perhaps she'd been hasty in her decision not to have any dealings with him. "Now I need the storage device."
He nodded hastily and spent several moments rifling through his pockets. She closed her eyes for a second as she waited for him to find it. No, she'd made the right decision not to deal with him again.
"Here it is." He pulled the small, black object, the length of his thumb, out of his pocket and handed it to her. She took it and closed her hand around it. She gave him an expectant look and he stared at her without saying a word.
Cheria pressed her lips together for a second. "I need the upload password."
"Oh, sorry. Remember, I'm a virgin." He laughed at his own joke and Cheria blinked at him. His smile faded away and he cleared his throat. "It's 'Scatha'. Upper case S and the rest lower case."
"Got it. I'll be right back." She turned away, and moved a step toward the bedroom.
"Wait, you aren't going to do it here?" He reached out and took hold of her arm.
"No touching." She pulled her arm out of his grip. "And no, I'm not going to do it here."
"How will I know it's done?"
She closed her eyes for a second and drew in a deep breath through her nose and blew it out her mouth. Her words were hard when she opened her eyes and spoke.
"Because I would be out of work rather quickly if I didn't hold up my end of the bargain. And I make a lot more money when the information is turned over to the buyer. I will be right back." She turned away from him again and went toward the bedroom.
She closed the bedroom door so that only a crack remained open. From her back pocket she pulled out a small, black case.
She went over to the bed, tossed the black case on top, set the storage device on top of it and undid the fastenings of her blouse.
There was a reason that she did the transfer in private. Her storage chip was hidden in her body and she didn't want anyone, not even her clients, to know that she had it and where it was.
Most couriers had their storage chips external to their bodies, disguised as the most mundane of items. She had done it that way at first, until she started getting more lucrative jobs, handling more sensitive and dangerous information.
She'd opted to have her chip implanted in her body so it was always secure. There were risks to having implanted storage chips, but the danger of being caught with external storage devices with incriminating information on it was far more risky.
Once her top was unfastened, she unhooked the fastenings on the flesh colored bustier she wore under her bl
ouse. She parted it and she ran her hand down the right side of her torso until she found the port cover for her storage chip, where it was attached to her rib cage so it wouldn't move around under her skin. The cover felt like a callous, like a small hardened piece of skin and matched her skin tone exactly. The housing for the chip felt no firmer than muscle. With the edge of her thumb nail she flicked it so the port cover opened.
She took a cord out of her kit that would connect her equipment to her info chip. She plugged one end of it into the port. Next she took out the small terminal which fit in the palm of her hand, and fitted her client's storage device into the open slot on the top of it and turned it on. She connected it to the chip port, and the small rectangular view screen prompted her for the password. She entered it and depressed the small upload button on the transmitter and it flashed green for a moment, telling her it was working and shifting the information from the storage device to her chip.
She watched the transmitter, waiting for the light to turn blue to tell her that the information had all been uploaded and for a moment she thought it was never going to. The length of time a transmission took depended on how much information was being transferred, and the file must be huge because it took over a minute for the information to upload.
Once the blue light flashed, she turned off the terminal and unhooked it from her body. She removed the now empty storage device and set it aside so she could put her appearance back together.
"Are you almost finished?" Her client's voice sounded impatient as he spoke through the crack in the door.
Cheria rolled her eyes, glad her back was to the door just in case he could see in. It wasn't very professional for her to be sitting here with her tits out.
"I'm finished and there is nothing else for you to do, so you can leave now if you don't need your empty storage device back." She fastened the hooks on the bustier, moving quickly in the event he wanted to come in here and chat.
"I guess this is goodbye, then." He sounded uncertain.
"Yes. Goodbye." And it was a final one because she had no intention of dealing with him again. When her bustier was completely hooked together, she moved to the first button on her blouse.
From the other room, she heard her client give a startled cry and she froze where she was for a second. Her blouse hung open save for the top button and she scooped her paraphernalia off the bed. The thick lush carpet in the bedroom muffled her footsteps as she peeked out the crack in the slightly open bedroom door.
Cold washed over her body as her eyes widened. There was a strange man with her client, his back was to her. She couldn't see her client because the other man's bigger body blocked it.
"Where is the courier?" The strange man's voice was a deep monotone, and there was a quality to it that seemed weird. There was no emotion in his voice, as if he wasn't invested in the outcome of his question. It raised the hairs on the back of Cheria's neck and she held her breath for a second as she waited to see if her client would betray her.
"I don't know what you're talking about. What courier? I'm waiting here for a sex provider."
"You're lying. Where is the courier?" Again the cold monotone that seemed at odds with the situation.
There came a gasping, choking noise and when her client spoke again the words were difficult to make out. But she was certain he said that she was gone, at least that was what she hoped he said. And she heartily wished she was, since this situation was rapidly deteriorating and she was stuck in a bedroom with her top hanging open.
She stood frozen on the spot as she watched the man draw his arm back, and she thought she saw the glint of metal in his hand. He sent his arm forward and she heard her client's scream in pain and she didn't need to see any more to know that the man in the room was intent on killing him.
A quick glance around the bedroom told her that there was nothing in the room to indicate she'd been in here. As the sounds of her client fighting for his life came to her she hurried to the closet, which had the door standing open.
There was a reason she picked this particular chain of hotels for her work. The dangerous nature of what she did made having a place to hide of the utmost importance, and this hotel had a selling feature that was not advertised to everyone. The only reason she knew about it was because she had heard a rumor once about a guy who like to watch his partner have sex with others from the hidden niched inside the closet of the bedrooms of the Kestral Hotel.
Please let it be true.
The mirrored wall at the back of the closet wasn't a wall at all, but a door. She slid her hand over it and it moved, sliding open slightly. She could hear nothing more coming from the other room, and she knew that if she was going to survive she was going to have to hide and do it now.
She turned sideways and wriggled into the gap, turned and slid the wall back over, flicking down a small metal slider that would prevent the door from opening on the other side. It was dim inside the cubby, and sweat popped out on her forehead as she stood on trembling legs. The walls felt like they were closing in on her but she blew out a slow breath to calm her rapidly pounding heart. There was something far more scary on the other side of the glass wall looking into the bedroom.
The stranger came into the bedroom and she did her best to memorize his face so that she would know to run if she ever met up with him again. His face was perfect, his skin without a blemish. The flawless symmetry of his features was the only distinguishing thing about him.
He wasn't too tall or too short. His blonde hair was cut short but not in any particular style.
He walked over to the bed and picked up the empty storage device.
Fuck.
She'd missed seeing it before she got in the closet. Perhaps he would assume she'd been in here and gone since it was the only evidence of a courier in here.
Although she knew that he would only see a mirror as he looked toward the closet, she felt vulnerable as she stood there in front of what was, to a her, a wall of glass.
He stood in the middle of the bedroom. His head moved slowly until he was looking directly into the closet. There was one feature of his that stood out. It was his eyes which were ice blue and there was no emotion in them. It was like looking at someone with no soul. Those eyes were turned in the direction she was hiding. Cheria raised her fist to her mouth and bit down on her flesh to keep a whimper from escaping her.
He stared into the mirror for a long time and she was certain that he could see her. She trembled as she stood there, certain that her life was about to end.
* * *
Rone Tazo inserted a tiny ear piece into his ear and tapped it as he exited the exchange cafe. He'd just gotten his next bounty assignment and he was certain that his boss, Angis, had lost his mind. This bounty was unworthy of him, and he had worked for Angis long enough for the man to know it.
He waded through the people on the sidewalk as he waited for his call to go through. He was used to the stares he got. He'd dwelt on the planet of Arrann Prime, in the city of Tari A'Veloo for close to five years and he hardly noticed the looks now. His body towered over those he walked amongst, and his frame was much larger as well. He was certain that having the light purple hued skin of a Thonaxian also drew their attention.
"How did I know you would be calling me?" Angis' aggrieved voice came on in Rone's ear piece, and he shifted his focus away from those around him as he moved closer to the edge of the walkway nearest the buildings where the crowd was thinner.
"Why have you given me this assignment?" A passerby looked startled at Rone's growled question and quickly hurried away. He stepped into the mouth of an alley, away from the pedestrians so he could speak to Angis with a modicum of privacy.
Angis sighed. "No one else is so picky about their assignments. Most of the time they do what they're told, when they're told, but not you. I honestly don't know why I keep you on my team."
"You keep me on because I am the best hunter you have and get you results. I have never failed on a hunt a
nd I make you a lot of krills."
On his home planet of Thonax he'd been raised as a warrior from the cradle, and hunting was in his blood. It made him much sought after as a bounty hunter, and Angis would have difficulty replacing him. He could replace Angis with very little difficulty. Despite his frequent threats to fire him, Angis would never follow through on it because Rone had never failed him. He got results and that was what made Angis money.
"Yeah and you also make me work a lot harder than anyone else. So what is your problem with this assignment? And don't give me that whole it is not an assignment worthy of a Thonaxian warrior. That's not a valid excuse."
Rone's mouth tightened, because that was exactly what he had been going to tell Angis. It was the truth. This assignments was not worthy of him. When he'd agreed to work with Angis, he'd had certain criteria that needed to be fulfilled with his assignment, and because he'd been a Thonaxian he'd had the leverage to get Angis to agree. The assignment that Angis had just sent him fit none of his requirements.
"The requestor is a corporation. I do not hunt for corporations."
Angis made a sound of disgust and if he was sitting across from him, Rone knew that he would be rolling his eyes.
"Their money is just as good as anyone elses, as a matter of fact their money is better because they are willing to pay a lot more than the government does. And as far as I recall you are in this for the money. The payday for this hunt is enough to make it so you won't have to lower yourself to hunt again."
"How much?"
"Your cut will be three hundred thousands krills. More than enough to soothe any misgivings you may have."