Billionaire Romance: MAXIMILIAN (An Alpha Bad Boy Contemporary Mystery Romance) (Mysterious Billionaires Book 3, Anthologies & Collections) (22 page)

She was still in the chrome room, still wearing that tight, disturbingly well-proportioned bodysuit. Nothing had changed while she had been remembering the events leading up to now, except for the presence of a barely audible metallic sound coming from outside the room.

And it was getting closer.

Barely in control of herself, Mary Anne did not even have the time to try to hide before a nearby wall opened up, changing its shape in a way that appeared almost organic. The light on the other side was intense, whiter than anything she had ever seen, making her attempts to see anything through it completely futile. By the time the makeshift door had turned back into a wall, the room had been graced by the presence of a handsome new arrival.

Well, hello there.
Mary Anne was tired, scared out of her mind, and completely numb, yet the stranger was so good-looking that he somehow managed to make her feel better. His body was statuesque, easily six-foot-two, incredibly well-sculpted, and decorated with perfectly positioned and shaped muscles. His skin color was bronzed, as if he had spent just the right amount of time under a tanning booth. His face, though, did not betray any discernible ethnic qualities, possessing straight and chiseled features that were indicative of western descent. This dazzling display of the masculine ideal was crowned with a full head of closely cropped blond hair, completing his unique appearance.

What is that stuff that he’s wearing?
Mary Anne was just about to note the new arrival’s choice of garments (something that seemed more at home within the sarcophagus of an ancient Egyptian mummy) when another detail caught her attention—the stranger’s eyes. They were completely devoid of whites, colored exclusively in a deep shade of blue. Like a pair of light bulbs, the two orbs glowed intensely, stripping his appearance of any pretense of humanity.

“Greetings, Miss Mary Anne Burns.” Mary Anne had barely managed to gather all her thoughts by the time he spoke. His voice was powerful, the bass echoing throughout the room. “First of all, I would like to apologize for any inconvenience you might have experienced while my ch’orrd was escorting you here. Their equipment was primarily tuned to our physiology, so I’m afraid the experience might be somewhat unpleasant when used on a human such as you.”

Such as you, he says? You have got to be kidding me.
Eyes wide and mouth agape, all Mary Anne could do was stare at the statuesque individual, the splendor of his appearance causing the strength to gradually return to her body.

“I am certain that you are wondering why you are here.” He took a confident step forward, closely followed by another. “The answer to that is complex, but it begins with my identity.”

Posing dramatically, arms spread at his sides, the stranger stopped a mere three feet from the bed-thing that Mary Anne still sat on. “Know that I am Har’kreen Zoracht, Garoh of the Ishadrah. In your language, that would make me something akin to a lord of an expeditionary force. In this case, however, the force is extraterrestrial in origin. Are you following all of this?” He stared into her with those deep blue eyes, devoid of whites as well as humanity, causing a torrent of mixed emotions to swirl around her previously tormented underbelly.

Is this guy saying that he’s an alien?
So far outside her comfort zone, Mary Anne almost burst into laughter. But her survival instinct prevented that from happening. She was held prisoner in a chrome room, by a… Garoh (whatever that was) who was clearly well-mannered in an archaic way. Everything about the situation seemed off, and she became more and more determined to get to the bottom of it with each passing moment.

“So, Garooo-“

“Garoh,” he corrected her immediately, having visibly put quite some effort into not taking the mistake as a personal insult.

“Garoh, okay.” Mary Anne ran her gloved fingers through her hair, in a thinly disguised effort to buy herself a bit more time to process this whole mess. “That is your title, something like an equivalent of the lords we used to have on earth, right?”

“As much as an actual queen is something like an equivalent to the bloated little things that direct the colonies of some of your own indigenous creatures. You know the ones I mean?”

“Insects,” she replied, unable to divert her gaze from that of the alien. “But let’s not change the subject yet, please. Your name is… Harkreen… Zoracht. Right?” Biting her cheek from the inside, Mary Anne hoped that she had pronounced it right. The expression on the Garoh’s face, luckily, indicated that he was at least slightly pleased.

“Also, you are some sort of alien, right? And you’ve sent for me because…?”

“Your pronunciation of my name is just a tad bit short of perfect, girl. There is a slight delay between the “Har” and the “Kreen”, but aside from that, everything else was as perfect as it can be. Almost as perfect as your cute little face,” he smiled for a brief moment, surprising Mary Anne completely, before his expression became courteous but serious once again. “Yes, I am an alien, so far from my world that to try to explain its location to you would be an utter waste of time.”

That bad at giving out explanations, huh?
She almost chuckled again, her survival instinct the only that held her cutting wit back from signing her own death warrant.

“The reason you are here, however… now, that will require
quite a bit
of explaining.” Har’kreen’s eyes now pointed toward the floor, then started shining again, this time in a slightly different way. It took Mary Anne a good moment or two, but pretty soon within those blue orbs she could make out an irregular amount of miniature diodes, all of them glowing in an eerie yellow color. As if it responded to this display, the floor moved in a manner not unlike the wall did when it opened, altering itself in order to form a comfortable, regal-looking chair for Har’kreen. He immediately sat on it, just in time for another piece of what used to be floor to sprout right in front of him in the form of a smooth little table.

Mary Anne had seen the room shift before and was kind of getting used to the sight, so it was what was on the table that grabbed her attention. A pair of metallic-appearing cups was there, both of them giving off a pleasant and familiar aroma, that of freshly prepared coffee.

For all I know, it might be drugged.
Regardless, Mary Anne extended her right arm, grabbing the cup and pressing it against her lips.
Then again it might not be, and I know how much I need this.

In response, Har’kreen grabbed the other one, taking a significant chug himself. Smiling, he put it back down on the table, visibly pleased by her show of trust in her host.

“I’m listening.” Mary Anne broke the silence, placing her now empty cup right next to Har’kreen’s. “You’re not going to anally probe me now, are you?” She smiled in an awkward way, not sure how he would respond to her humor.

“Only if you want me to,” Har’kreen smiled back, displaying a set of dazzling white teeth. But without giving Mary Anne the chance for a retort, he continued, “The reason for your abduction, however, is a dire one. You see, my people and I are in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“A good while ago, we came into contact with a warlike race called the Brahm.” Har’kreen’s expression darkened, even his luminous eyes appearing visibly less so. “The Brahm were the only real threat we had ever faced, ever since the beginning of our interstellar expansion.”

Interstellar expansion, he says. Right out of a sci-fi movie, I see.
For a moment, Mary Anne had considered the possibility that this whole thing was just one big hallucination, and that she was actually somewhere in a padded room, gibbering nonsense and slobbering all over herself. Teeth gritted, she shook the idea from her head, refusing to give it any more thought.

If her host had noticed any of that, he did not show it. Instead, he merely continued his story. “The Brahm were not as technologically advanced as us, but they were far more aggressive and ruthless. Chemical weapons, biologically engineered diseases, and worse, were their preferred ways of waging war. For every victory that our ch’orrds would claim, we’d lose a whole lot of lives due to fallout. In the end, we had finally managed to wipe out every last one of them, the blight they imposed on the galaxy extinguished for all time. Our victory, however, came at a great cost.”

Har’kreen paused, staring at the floor for a good ten seconds or so. By the time he began talking again, power had returned to his voice, and there was no hint of the grief that was present at the end of the previous sentence.

“It was a viral infection, way too small for even our tech to detect. It was harmless to both our ch’orrds and military staff. By the time we returned to our homes, though, it was too late to prevent the ensuing horror. It only affected the females, you see, something we hadn’t noticed because our army was composed exclusively of males. Within a week of exposure, every female of our species died a horrible, unpreventable death. We could not save a single one.” He formed a fist with his right hand, seemingly involuntarily.

“So… you’re facing extinction and you came for us?” Mary Anne asked, but it was only one of the many questions that was trying to get out through her mouth.
Why do they look like us? Are we even compatible? What about what
I
want?

“I’d like to be able to say that the first thing I did was to pack everything up and head right to get you.” The alien bent his torso over the table, extending his arm and caressing Mary Anne across her chin and lips. She had expected to be repulsed by the touch of a stranger, let alone an alien one, but by the time he retreated back to his place, all she could feel was a desire for more.

“Such fine skin,” Har’kreen commented, observing the fingers of his hand as if there was something of her left on them. “You alone would be worth a trip to Earth, Mary Anne.”

A flatterer.
She could feel the butterflies swarm around her stomach before a realization hit her, shattering her comfort within a moment. “How do you know my name?”

“Your ID was in your pocket,” he answered, smiling for the first time since he had told his people’s story.

Great, now the alien thinks I’m stupid, too.

“So you can read our writing with those eyes of yours.” Mary Anne had avoided mentioning them, but the opportunity to do so was clearly there, so she took it. “While we’re at it, why do you look almost exactly like us, except for…
those
?”

“Our eyes are the only piece of our original physiology that we absolutely
have
to keep.” Har’kreen made himself more comfortable within his chair as he talked, visibly scanning every little lump in her bodysuit while doing so.

He likes what he sees.
Mary Anne chuckled.
Good, that makes two of us.

“Although it is possible for us to interface with our technology without them, the tasks of shaping the spacecraft and directing the ch’orrds are infinitely easier to perform with our own set of eyes.” As if to prove his point, Har’kreen caused the diodes in his eyes to light up again, making the wall to his far left open up and letting a single humanoid figure walk through. It was the thing that had stalked Mary Anne through the streets of Wayward last night. The very sight of it gave her the shivers.

“I apologize for any unpleasantness I might have caused to Mary Anne, Helerah of the Garoh,” it said in a disturbing emotionless voice before retreating back through the makeshift door, the portal closing behind it.

“You see?” Har’kreen boasted, the yellow lights in his eyes slowly shutting down. “Everything else about my body is functionally completely human.”

I like the “functional” part.

“As I was saying, I’d like to say that I’ve come all this way for you, and in essence it is even true. However, this operation is not entirely my own. I am the commander in charge of the mission, of course.” He seemed all too eager to make note of that fact. “But the endeavor of finding proper females for us to breed with has been initiated all over the galaxy. It was only recently that we learned of your planet.” He paused for a second, as if to put some memories back in order. “And your own hometown of Wayward.”

“My hometown?” Mary Anne was as shocked as she’d have been if he had just told her that his genitals were in fact three foot-long tentacles. “How is that den of close-mindedness and boredom important in any way?” Noticing how apparent her anger was in the tone of her voice, she chose to try and keep it down the next time she spoke rather than risk offending her host.

“Besides bringing you into existence, beautiful, it is valuable in but one way,” Har’kreen replied, the amusement of hearing her talk about her birthplace in a negative manner clearly visible in his expression. “I assume that you are familiar with the practice of inbreeding?”

“Me and half of the world, yeah. Why?”

“Then you will no doubt understand what I am going to say.” He rose from his chair and slowly moved toward her, one step at a time. The manner of the alien’s movement should have caused her to flinch, but there was
something
about Har’kreen that Mary Anne could simply not categorize, and it made her trust him.

It is more than trust,
she concluded as his hand caressed her cheek again, the alien’s body towering above her.
I desire him.
She was certain of it—there was no going around that. Har’kreen was the most amazing man she had ever met, and he wasn’t even a man! His alien nature intrigued her, and working in tandem with the amazing appearance and powerful personality he had on display made her want him even more.