ROMANCE: The Lion's Chosen Mate (Paranormal Lion Shapeshifter New Adult Contemporary Romance) (Shapeshifter Mystery Alpha Lion Romance)

by Ann Evans

  How come he never talked about his family? How come he never told me about any of his friends or his life in Quebec before coming to study at ASU. He didn’t seem to have any interests other than me, and other than Mr. Devlin’s class, it didn’t seem like he had any other classes. And what was really odd about that was he didn’t have a laptop or the required text. He would just go to class with me, sit next to me and glare at Mr. Devlin like he did on the very first day he appeared. It was weird, and finally, I just kind of broke down one night in a crying fit—which was also a little weird, but I couldn’t help but feel like he was lying to me by not saying anything about himself—and I confronted him about his silence.

  After he had calmed me down, he sat quietly for a few minutes as if he was mulling something over. Finally, he stood up from the bed and faced me, his eyes soft and rimmed with tears.

  “Sara, I have to show you something,” He said as he started to undress. I started to get mad at him all over again, because how could he think of sex at a time like this? (Or how could I think of sex at a time like this? Because seeing him stripped down was definitely getting me worked up.)

  But just as I started to yell at him, he raised his hand.

  “Be quiet it for a moment and watch.” His voice was like thunder and made me swallow my protests. In fact, it made me lose my breath for a moment as if his command somehow stripped me of my voice.

  And as I sat there on my bed, I watched as my boyfriend, a man who I honestly loved (But had yet to tell him.), began to change in front of my eyes. His tan brown skin suddenly became hard and thorny. His blonde hair turned green and leafy, and then he began to grow until he was close to 7 feet tall.

  My boyfriend was a walking, talking pile of crystal like rocks.

  #

  Needless to say, I freaked out a little. Okay, I freaked out a lot. But just as I was getting ready to scream out in horror, Samuel’s voice filled my head.

  I need you to stay calm.

  And suddenly, my joints felt loose and completely relaxed. I felt full of a joy that I’d never experienced before, and I knew he was doing something to my brain. He was keeping me calm so that I could comprehend what he had to show me. And what he showed me was so far beyond my imagination that I thought my mind would shatter.

  Samuel showed me a world much like Earth, but it was so green and lush. Even the cities were composed of nothing but vast jungles, and Jarred’s people were one with everything on their planet. Everything was used, but everything was respected, because it was all a part of one vast organism. There was nothing but serenity and peace, at least until the monsters came. That’s really the only way I can describe them. They were huge creatures almost wolf-like in appearance. Their mouths were full of sharp teeth, and their fingers were razor sharp claws. But it was their eyes that frightened me the most. They were a fierce, empty silver that seemed like they would swallow you whole if you looked into them too long; like they would devour your soul.

  The monsters invaded Jarred’s planet, his people fought back relentlessly, they almost beat the monsters back. Almost. But then the monsters—the UnMakers—unleashed a weapon that devoured Samuel’s entire planet. Only a few thousand of them survived by escaping in these flying spheres of light. And now, Samuel’s remaining people traveled the universe hunting the UnMakers, making sure that they didn’t obliterate other planets.

  By the time the vision cleared from my mind, I was in tears. What I had just seen was so beyond my comprehension that I felt like I was going insane.

  Samuel had become his human form and held me tight against his chest as I cried. When I finally calmed down, I asked:

  “One of them are here, aren’t they?”

  “Yes. One of them is.”

  I straightened and looked into deep into his bottomless eyes.

  “It’s Mr. Devlin, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. And he has one of the weapons, and he intends on using it.”

  The reason why Samuel hadn’t confronted Mr. Devlin was because if he got too close to him, he knew that he would sense him and either attack him or detonate the weapon and if that happened, Earth and all of humanity was lost. So that night, we devised a plan. I would go to Mr. Devlin’s office during his lunch hour—Samuel was almost 100% certain this was where he was keeping the weapon—and I would locate it, steal it, and bring it back to Jarred so he could disarm and destroy it.

  “It is a great wish, Sara,” He said as he calmly rubbed my shoulders while staring directly into my eyes. “And I would never put you in harm’s way unless I felt it wasn’t absolutely necessary.”

  “I know,” I said, my eyes brimming with tears of either fear or intense sadness. “We have to stop him. We have to.”

  #

  I had never been so scared in my entire life. I think the only time I had felt this kind of out of control dread was when I watched the Texas Chainsaw Massacre with my dad when I was 13. I had read about the movie in one of the horror magazines I was into back then, and I was obsessed with seeing it. My parents were fairly liberal when it came to what I read and watched, but my dad was super hesitant when it came to that movie, and he kept rebuffing me and rebuffing me for weeks until he finally agreed to rent it while my mom was visiting my aunt in California. After it was over, I finally understood the reason why my father didn’t want me to watch it. I barely slept for weeks after that, because every time I closed my eyes, there was Leather face swinging his saw, dancing his mad dance on a sweltering Texas morning.

  But this wasn’t a movie, this was for real, and Mr. Devlin was a real life monster.

  On knocked on Mr. Devlin’s office door just in case he was inside. When he didn’t answer, I turned the knob, praying that it wasn’t locked. But it turned easily, and I slipped inside. I scanned the room quickly with my eyes, the office was very spartan and only contained a very old computer, a desk and a small side table with a black leather valise resting on it. The weapon, if it was here, had to be inside of it. I walked over to the bag and snapped it open. Inside was a shimmering orb. I hesitantly picked it up. It fit comfortably in my hands, but it was so cold and seemed to have a tiny hurricane or tornado raging inside of it, and seemed to pulse with my quickening heartbeat.

  “Tell me, meat. What exactly are you doing with that?”

  I turned and there stood the hulking shape of Mr. Devlin. His entire body filled the room and he flickered between his human form and his true one.

  “You will give that to me now.”

  My mind went blank, my body went stiff, and I levitated over to him. He took the orb from my hands and stared at me with his dead eyes.

  “It’s quite extraordinary, isn’t it?” His voice filled my mind, and it felt like it was breaking apart, shipping away one little piece at a time. “Would you like to see how it works?”

  The orb rose in the air and began to spin like a top, a lifeless silver began to pour from it, cause every hair on my body to stand up.

  Suddenly the door to Mr.Devlin’s office crashed open, and there was Jarred in his true form.

  “Ah, I thought I smelled one of your kind.”

  Samuel charged Mr. Devlin, but then he opened his mouth, and the loudest noise I’ve ever heard exploded from him in a ball of silver fire. Samuel’s body was enveloped in it and the wall behind him exploded in a shower of fire and brick. But yet, Jarred kept moving forward, edging closer to the UnMaker. Abruptly the sound came to a stop and Devlin grabbed me by the throat.

  “Stop where you are, or I’ll destroy the meat.”

  “No!” Samuel shouted. “No, let her go, and you can destroy me. Just let her live.”

  The UnMaker laughed and flung me against the wall with a hard crash and I crumpled in a heap, nearly unconscious.

  “What a fair bargain. Your kind has always had too much of a weakness for life. If only you knew the true pleasures of the darkness.”

  Samuel levitated into the massive hands of the UnMaker, and it wrapped its claws around hi
s throat and opened his mouth, preparing to unleash another unearthly scream of black fire. But just as his breath began to smolder, a long ragged branch exploded out of the back of the UnMaker’s head, it’s arms falling to its sides.

  “And your kind, have never understood the true power of life.”

  The UnMaker’s body hit the floor with a dull thud, and then I felt Jarred’s strong arms encircle me and carry me away. My mind finally had enough, and I passed out.

  #

  We lived for a week in the desert outside of Phoenix. We were there for so long because defusing the UnMaker’s weapon was a complicated process, and he didn’t want it anywhere near other human beings in case he made a mistake. He made a small cave in the Earth, bending the soil and rock to his will. I could hear him in my mind talking to the soil, telling it that we needed its help and it abided.

  Finally, Jarred dismantled the weapon, and we went back to campus. I hadn’t brought my cell phone and there were a million voicemails from mom and dad. They were panicking and wanted to make sure I was okay. I called them back and found out they were on their way to Tempe to make sure I was okay. The explosion had been all over the news while were gone and they said one of the professors had been killed in the blast. The authorities described the explosion as a freak fire caused by faulty wiring, and ASU had been shut down the entire week we were gone.

  I tried to get my folks to turn around and go back home, explaining the reason why hadn’t gotten back to them sooner was the explosion had screwed up cell phone reception. But they weren’t having any of that, and they told me they’d see me in a couple of hours.

  After I hung up, I looked at Samuel and sadly smiled at him.

  “So what now?” I asked. “Now that the Destroyer’s gone, are you going to have to leave?”

  He smiled at me and stroked my cheek, wiping away a stray tear.

  “I have been in contact with my people, and I have told them that I will be staying here on Earth to act as its protector in case the UnMaker’s come back. And if you’ll have me, I’d like to stay here with you.”

  I burst out crying and pulled him to me, kissing him hard, wanting it to never end.

  We sat and held each other for a long time on my bed, and I thought to myself how lucky I was to have Samuel. But, how was I going to explain to my parents that my boyfriend was a giant living rock formation from across the universe?

  THE END

  MILITARY BILLIONAIRE: THE MATCHMAKER

  -The lonely cutie-

  Damaris was probably the cutest girl in the office. But from the look of things, the most lonesome too. There were plenty of guys who apparently liked her and wanted to take her out. But it seemed as though they were a little bit scared to ask her out. For a moment, she thought that maybe she wasn’t pretty enough, or maybe the guys just didn’t want to have a problem with the cutest girl.

  And the latter was just too unfortunate since Damaris always wanted to be taken out on dates. She also wanted to turn up to work one morning only to find a banquet of flowers on her desk with a note to her so that she could make her colleagues a little bit jealous. But it just wasn’t happening for her. Every morning she would turn up to a cold, empty desk and the old faces in the office always reminding her of the importance of coming to work early.

  Damaris had some serious punctuality issues, and she attributed this to the fact that she didn’t have a love life or anything that closely resembled it. And needless to say, it did make her sad for a bit. But that aside, she thought that it would be an excellent idea for her to keep the faith since she believed that maybe one day, a handsome price will come to her rescue and make sure that everyone else in the office was jealous as hell when that time came.

  Her friends also didn’t give her a piece of mind with the fact that she was settling for being single. Of course, she was the prettiest girl of them all and the fact that she was still single and not dating some rich guy just didn’t seem to make any sense to them.

  “Come on girls, you know it's all about love and not anything materialistic. Just make sure that you mind your own damn business and let me work on my personal life. I will let you guys know when I am unable to pay my bills so that you can get me hooked to a billionaire or a politician. But until then, just know your girl is beautiful!” Damaris would laugh

  But her friends weren’t going to take that bluff. They were dead serious that she needed to have a husband and not just any other guy, but a guy who would match up with her class as well as looks.

  “The last thing that we do want our girl is for her to get hitched to some good for nothing bastard. And I entirely agree, you need to have a guy who is in a position to get you all sorted out financial but also a beast who will ensure that you come to work glowing like a child in a Vaseline ad.”

  Everyone at the lunch break laughed at Florence’s joke. Yes, she could afford a couple of jokes here and there, but in the end, she also knew that the most important thing at that moment was getting to find a man who will complete her best friend. Damaris just sat there, not knowing what to tell her friend at the moment.

  But she knew deep down that they were right. It had been a while before she had the opportunity to have a man to love her for who she was. And now that she had just turned twenty-seven, she was starting to get a little too old for being single, and Damaris thought that maybe, just maybe, she should start listening to what her friends were telling her because they were right.

  It was a little bit tricky because when her friends had started something, it was very hard for them to lay off. And now that they had decided to gang up against her, it seemed as though nothing could be done to make things better. And so all that Damaris could do at that moment was to watch and hope that they were going to drop the subject and just let her be.

  But as they were discussing how much they loved her and how they wanted for her to get to enjoy life, Damaris thought of the men who were always giving her the look around the office. Of course, they were all charming and seemed as though they had something going on in their lives. But eventually, it seemed as though she had a copy of each and every one of their reputation and that reminded her of the main reason she didn’t even consider them.

  Then there were the men that her friends had been trying to introduce to her. There was Mike, the biker who turned out to be a bisexual rock star after Damaris thought that maybe something incredible could get to happen between them. And just like that, she decided to ditch him like expired milk.

  Then there was Peter, the pastor who always turned every situation and conversation into an opportunity to sneak in Jesus. Which left Damaris wondering how Jesus was going to help him last a minute longer during sex. And just like that, she decided to ditch him as soon as she refused an invitation to co-pastor in her church.

  That was about three years ago. And that was also the time that Damaris decided to stay celibate for all she cared. Yes, she missed the dating life.

  But that said, it also seemed as though it was best for her just to kick back and wait for some amazing miracle to happen to her. As a matter of fact, that was the last thing she believed in, but as long as it kept her friends shut, she thought she might as well tell them that she was confident that her miracle was around the corner. But sadly, it seemed as though that excuse wasn’t going to hold that much.

  “So Florence, since you look like a person who knows what she is talking about, what do you propose we do to find our good friend here a man worth her salt?”

  “And here I thought you guys will never ask. Well, I think I just know the right man for Dee here!”

  -The war hero-

  Denis had just retired from the military and was still sitting at home, wondering whatever the heck he was going to do with the billions that his father had left him in his will. His family had invested heavily in pharmaceutical industry and from the look of things, it was giving them incredible returns.

  But since an experienced board was running the business, it
seemed as though the only good thing happening to Denis would be to take a couple of billions and start something of his own.

  And since he was a fitness freak, he thought about starting a world class gym which would offer all sorts of services to their clients and also make sure that the people were having the time of their lives getting fit. At first, Denis wasn’t that good with people because he was so used to the army that he dished out orders more often than not.

  But with a little bit of training, he started doing things the right way and needless to say, the clients were more than happy with the kind of services that they were getting which was more or less an amazing thing. Thankfully, most of the people who came to his gym were the elderly who were rich and were more or less associated with his family, and so they were a little bit tolerant.