The Alien Assassin’s Stolen Bride
Michele Mills
The Alien Assassin’s Stolen Bride
Hannah’s having a bad day. Her friends have ditched her, and she’s stuck going on a tour of Hearst Castle. And she ends up seated next to a muscle-bound, dangerous-looking man dressed all in black, with pearly-white skin and silver eyes.
Heriot is an assassin known for his one hundred percent kill rate…and his grim disposition. He’s all work and no fun, according to his brother and partner, Jadzion. And he’s all business as he tracks down his latest target on some filthy backwater planet called Earth. He’s got two diurnal cycles to take out his target, so there’s not a lot of time for shenanigans.
He didn’t expect to find his true mate during the middle of this hit. He didn’t expect her to be a stunning human female who could gentle his stern demands. And he didn’t expect to be reduced to a raging, rutting beast on this mission. Can he convince his innocent mate to return with him to his home planet before his time is up, or will he be forced to steal her?
The Alien Assassin’s Stolen Bride
By Michele Mills
The Alien Assassin’s Convenient Wife
By Ruby Dixon
Copyright © 2018 by Michele Mills
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.
Editor: Aquila Editing
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
In the Stars Series
About the Author
Also by Michele Mills
1
“Hannah? Hannah Graham?”
“Oh!” Hannah exclaimed, sharp relief coursing through her veins at the sound of her own name.
By ten forty-five, butterflies had settled into her stomach as she’d anxiously paced the lobby, wondering if any of her co-workers were actually going to arrive—because if she was standing in the visitor center, in fact waiting for no one, she was going to a) feel extremely stupid and b) heads were going to roll.
Well, maybe not actually roll, but proverbially.
“Yes, that’s me. I’m Hannah,” she answered brightly as she turned around—and almost bumped into an extremely pale-skinned man with short white-blond hair. A man who looked…well, albino.
A man she’d never met in her life.
She blinked. And blinked again.
Who was this guy?
She’d known that there’d be at least one member of their party she wouldn’t know, so this wasn’t that much of a surprise, but still… Hannah took a step back, glancing to her left and right, then back at the guy, puzzled. “Where are Ron and—”
“Hello, I’m Fucyu,” the guy cut in.
Hannah hesitated, not quite understanding. He spoke with an accent she couldn’t place. His bright, inhuman-looking silver eyes stared at her intently behind thick lenses. He used his pointer finger to push his glasses higher on the bridge of his chalk-white nose.
“My name is Fucyu T’Antor,” he said slowly. “Ron and Daisy aren’t here, but I came to take the tour with you anyway.”
Her mouth fell open. “F…fu…” she sputtered and stalled. She must’ve heard wrong. Did this guy just say his first name was…a curse word? No. No. That wasn’t possible. She stared at him, waiting for the punchline, waiting for him to crack up and tell her it was all a joke. Except he continued to watch her with those bright silver eyes, unlike any she’d ever seen before, with a completely serious expression on his face, like that was actually his name.
Holy shit.
She kept running through the pronunciation in her mind, trying to place that accent and what country he must be originally from…but had to bite her lip to keep from letting out a huge snort-laugh, because his name…Oh no…
This was terrible. It wasn’t nice to laugh over someone else’s name.
But…
Again—who was this guy?
Hannah’s panicked mind wrestled with this question as she stood in the sunlit lobby of the Hearst Castle visitor center—a place echoing with the laughter and chatter of people milling about and rushing past—as she tried to take in this whole situation and avoid a public meltdown.
Because, holy crap, when she’d agreed to go on this tour today with a group of co-workers at her new job, she hadn’t remotely expected to be signing up for a trip involving hours of one-on-one small talk with a total stranger. There was a reason why she’d never applied for customer service positions. She sucked at this shit.
Fucyu’s mouth curled at the edges, revealing surprisingly bright white teeth for a man with no color elsewhere. “But you may call me T’Antor,” he finally finished. “Ron and Daisy aren’t here,” he repeated, “But I’m here and ready to take the tour of Hearst Castle with you.”
“T’Antor?” she squeaked. “All right…T’Antor,” she answered with an exhale of relief, thankful for the ability to call him something other than a curse word. “You’re saying Ron and Daisy cancelled, too?”
“Yes. Their vehicle broke down.”
“Damn.” Their car broke down? And they hadn’t told her? Hannah pursed her lips. Daisy was a sweetheart, and her favorite friend at work, but, come on, you didn’t break down at the side of the road and not take a moment to call or text the person you were planning to meet. A simple, “Hey, not going to make it,” at the very least.
Right?
Not saying anything and leaving her there to be surprised by a meetup with this total stranger was just—not how this worked. That wasn’t how any of this worked!
Hannah let out a long-suffering sigh. Maybe they’d sent a text too late for her to receive…Ugh.
She’d been eagerly awaiting this chance to go to Hearst Castle since the moment she’d moved to Paso Robles for her new job at the winery. In fact, this trip was supposed to be a special bonding experience with her new co-workers. Except they’d all started dropping off like flies at the last second. One got sick. Someone else’s mother unexpectedly came into town for an overnight visit. There was a husband on a business trip and no babysitter…on and on…
Shit, if she’d known it was going to end up like this, she would’ve just cancelled, and they could’ve rescheduled the tour. But as she was driving over, she’d thought Ron and Daisy were still meeting her at the visitor center at ten thirty, bringing along some new friend.
And you’d think they would’ve given her a heads up about T’Antor’s first name. And maybe about the fact that he was new to the country, because he spoke English with an accent she couldn’t place. And that he appeared to be albino. Ron and Daisy could’ve remarked on any of this, as a topic of interesting conversation at the very least. Hey, we’ve been hanging out with a new friend lately, he’s really cool, he’s from… But nothing? Not one mention beforehand? That was weird.
“So, you’re Ron’s friend…?” she asked, fishing for more information.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Ron’s friend.”
Hmm…
She looked down at her cell, wanting to secretly text Ron for confirmation. Wanting to check and see if they’d sent her any more texts. But of course she had no reception out here. The moment she’d stepped into the lobby her phone had literally switched t
o no service. Grr. She’d been meaning to change carriers because of this random dead zone crap since she’d moved to the central coast and hadn’t yet. Dammit.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “How do you know Ron?” she asked.
“We were friends in college,” T’Antor answered, a little too quickly. “And we met again, both working at Tobin James.”
Tobin James? Hannah crooked an eyebrow, impressed. The Tobin James winery was notorious for paying their employees well and only hiring the best and the brightest. She gave him a closer examination, noting he was zipped up in a navy-blue windbreaker and he wore what looked like expensive designer jeans and bright Nike shoes. He was slightly taller than her, thin and studious-looking. He looked ready for the changeable weather in the coastal micro climates, like someone who’d preplanned and was serious about taking a tour of Hearst Castle.
She pursed her lips. She wasn’t getting serial killer vibes from this guy, but she could tell already that conversation wasn’t going to flow easily between them. Trying to chat with him today would be torture.
She wanted out of this situation, but, oh hell, she was stuck, wasn’t she? They already had tickets, which had been purchased online days before. And she didn’t have a compelling reason to cancel on this guy and leave him high and dry besides, “Hey, I don’t want to go on this tour because hanging out with you for the next two hours sounds like the lowest level of hell,” which was mean. Not nice at all. And she didn’t not want to go enough to tell him that painful truth.
And she really did want to visit Hearst Castle…
She bit the inside of her mouth and glanced longingly at the restaurants lining the lobby and the row of epic gift shops she wouldn’t be wandering through. And the IMAX theater for the documentary on the designing and building of Hearst Castle she’d have to skip.
But hey, that could be saved for next time. Because no way would she be lingering and strolling around with this guy.
Well, at least they’d be in a group tour, and directly afterwards she could make up some reason to leave right away. Because this wasn’t some kind of romantic blind date.
All the nopes.
She glanced again at T’Antor. He was shifting on his feet, his brow furrowed, waiting for her response.
Oh hell…
They’d only be two people thrown together by chance, going on the same tour at the same time. She could handle a tour of Hearst Castle alongside this guy, within a group of fifty other people. Maybe they could chat about the local wine industry and this trip could be pulled from the fire.
“Sure,” she exhaled. “It’s nice to meet you, T’Antor. Let’s do this. It looks like we’re on this trip together.”
2
Heriot took a deep breath, filling his lungs with Earth’s musty breeze—the mixture of gases and water vapor that was arranged exclusively for atmospheric conditions on this specific planet.
And he coughed, spitting up grit that floated in the tainted air. Grimacing at the bits of mica still stuck in his teeth. God-stars, he hated this backwater planet. How could they stand this much carbon dioxide in their air? His personal mouth ventilator was in his pocket, but he couldn’t pull it out and put it to good use because the humans would know immediately that it wasn’t Earth tech. He’d stand out amongst them like a Kindra glowing in the night. And being noticed was the last thing he wanted.
Earth was dirty and primitive, wallowing in its own filth. Humans polluted their air, water and soil with contaminants they hadn’t yet learned to eliminate from their environment. It was the last place he’d choose to visit. Just standing in their open spaces made him want to run back and use the cleansing unit on his ship.
And, he glanced around the lobby, the sight of this many unmated males and females choosing to freely commingle was just…weird. He hadn’t allowed himself to be this close to so many unmated females… not since he’d passed through the change into full grown status. Every time he left R’Etor and traveled to other planets, space stations, or ships of other species and saw this type of commingling, it set him on edge. But the difference was that, on other planets, with other species, he wasn’t compatible for mating with their females.
He clenched his jaw, annoyed with this entire mission. He’d planned on stalking his target at night and taking him out with a precise long-distance shot, or at the very least with a single slice of his blade while the target slept. But he’d wasted an entire diurnal rotation monitoring Fucyu from a distance. His target masked his bio-signal while cutting through a massive human metropolis. And now T’Antor was on the move to another high-profile human location, making Heriot’s job ten thousand times harder. Making the amount of time he’d have to spend on this planet that much longer.
He had the computer do a multi-level scan of the location T’Antor was progressing to… and suddenly Heriot’s assignment had upgraded from assassin to R’Etor Military, because he was about to stop his target from acquiring Illibrium. Illibrium—the most expensive, rare, and illegal power source on R’Etor. It was used solely to craft ELW (extinction-level weaponry). Heriot was going to make sure his target was eliminated, per his contract, but also, he’d destroy the Illibrium, which would wreck the chain of cataclysmic events Fucyu and his brother A’Dor had planned. The R’Entor Military could thank him later.
For some unknown reason an Illibrium crystal appeared to be on planet Earth, on the grounds of this place named Hearst Castle. Heriot had no idea how an Illibrium crystal had managed to make it to Earth, but he was certain of one thing—his target was never getting his hands on it. Heriot would destroy the crystal before that happened.
He walked across the visitor center, the clothing he’d stolen earlier as disguise obscuring as much of his skin as possible. He strode faster through the crowd of humans, dodging other males, unmated females who made him feel on edge, and small human younglings. He didn’t want to linger on Earth any longer than necessary. Earth was a primitive backwater no one in his species had the inclination to ever visit. But his target was here. Therefore, Heriot was here.
His brother, Jadzion, was also on Earth, stalking their secondary target in another location in North America called New Mexico. He’d contacted him, checking in prior to their needed blackout. They’d separated to make quick work of their prey. In and out and return home to R’Etor. This mission would be quick. It had to be.
Jadzion loved this kind of shit, staying planetside and navigating local customs to acquire a target was his kind of fun, but Heriot hated it.
He glanced around, noting again the number of unmated females in the vicinity. His jaw clenched. Their acidic pheromones filled his nostrils and clogged his lungs. But luckily, so far none of the nearby females where triggering his desire, so therefore his mating pigment was in check, his skin neutral. In his home world unmated males had to manage their mating pigment symptoms when in public. Because Heriot had more testosterone than average, his pigment transformation was more extreme than most. For this reason, Heriot had self-selected isolation. As an assassin, he’d occasionally found himself near an unmated female he desired but managed to exit prior to mating pigment transformation.
“Mommy, what is that guy?” a small female youngling loudly questioned nearby. He glanced over to see the small human openly staring at him. The mother appeared embarrassed at the small human’s question. She shushed her daughter and moved the child along.
Heriot shook his head. He was taller and wider than most of the human males he’d seen. Humans had varying shades of pigment—from dark to light. None held the same majesty as a R’Etor with colorless skin. R’Etor ears were different from human ears, but his hair hid this discrepancy. Some of the humans were almost as colorless as R’Etor, so he knew he looked human enough to pass as their own species, but still, the faster he left, the better.
He had originally calculated that human females were not near enough in physiology to prove compatible to mate with R’Etor, so therefore they would not trigger h
is own transformation. This was a logical assumption since no other species had proven compatible with R’Etor, ever. When he landed on Earth the computer had recalculated that likelihood to be at fifty percent. Well, he was standing planetside, amongst the humans, and he could feel the edge of transformation tingling within. His pheromones shifting to life, bubbling inside and ready to put him through living hell at the scent of a desirable female. Humans were one hundred percent compatible for mating with R’Etor species.
Heriot cursed.
This hit was becoming more difficult with each passing moment. How his target, an unmated male, was able to live here longer than two diurnal rotations, amongst a triggering species such as this, without having been exposed as an off-worlder due to his pigment transformation, was a mystery.
Heriot had played a quick game of partials with his brother Jadzion over who would take which position on Earth, and lost, leaving him stalking one of the T’Antor brothers at this…place. He glanced around. At this museum? Or was it a large, public domicile? The signs out front were emblazoned with the words: Hearst Castle. He shook his head, wondering at this strange human custom. Setting up large domiciles that no being lived in, only to have humans tour and gawk over the empty interiors. Why did they have such large, unused dwellings when there had to be millions of humans on their planet in need of shelter?
Humans were not very logical.
Heriot had killed in every sector of R’Etor. Sometimes with his brother and sometimes as now, without. They’d each earned one hundred percent kill rates. Heriot & Jadzion were expensive, and their targets were usually activists, generals, politicians and important individuals within R’Etor society or business. Heriot checked his targets himself, requiring proof that each was worthy of permanent extinction.
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