ROMANCE: Sleeping With the Alpha Wolf (BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (Shapeshifter Fantasy New Adult Alpha Male)
Authors: Katherine Ward
Some of your favorite authors present 8 all-new stories told through the looking glass—including a new The Ghost novella!
*** Praise for SLEEPING WITH THE ALPHA WOLF***
"
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
SLEEPING
WITH
THE
ALPHA
WOLF
PoseidonPublishin
g
, 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 7 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: OF DIFFERENT WORLDS
MILITARY BILLIONAIRE: THE MATCHMAKER
MILITARY BILLIONAIRE: THE MERCHANT OF DEAD
GAY BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE: IN LOVE WITH A HACKER
GAY BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE: LOVE IN VEGAS
LESBIAN BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE: THE BILLIONAIRE BOMBSHELL
My family held out as long as could living on Earth. Despite the fact that it had become the most expensive planet in the Milky Way to live on, our roots--like all of the humanity--were firmly planted there in the southwestern hemisphere. True enough, most of our clan had emigrated to the outer planets such as Pluto and Europa generations ago, my father was not willing to let go of the 200 some odd acres of Amazon rainforest. The cost of maintaining it, however, was truly crushing.
The bulk of the planet had industrialized well over a century ago and most of the forested areas were being maintained by the planetary councils and their boundless resources. Even the surrounding acreage was being maintained by the councils and our little patch of the forest looked depleted and brown compared to the vast swaths of land that were fed with the top of the line weather generation machinery. We, of course, had our own atmosphere generation machinery but it was feeble and extremely outdated compared to the council’s equipment.
Personally, I had no idea why Father held onto the land so tightly. It wasn't like our family had sprung from the ancient forest. The land had been purchased by my great, great grandfather during the global environmental scares of the late 21st century just before Earth joined the Universal Trade Union. During that period, North Americans were experiencing such erratic and dangerous weather patterns that most of the population believed that the northern half of the continent was either going to freeze into a solid block of ice or turn into a blazing, unlivable desert. During the scare, Northern Americans migrated south by the millions out of fear that what humanity had done to the planets atmosphere was completely unfixable. Although, the southern half of the continent had escaped industrialization, so, therefore, it was thought that because of this, the weather patterns would be stable.
This, of course, was simply the illusion of safety, and my family--who were originally from New York--fell for the hype of the theories concerning migration. The environmental crisis was globe spanning, though, and no matter where humanity moved about on the planet, they were not going to be safe. Not, at least, until the Trade Union appeared, swooping out of the sky like angels in their massive ships promising to fix the atmosphere and the damaged caused by humanity over the long centuries of environmental abuse. All the Trade Union required to fix the environmental issues was complete and total control over the planet.
At the time, Earth's leaders thought it was a small price to pay. Besides, the bulk of humanity had stopped respecting their authority over the years, so maybe the Trade Union would have an easier time reigning in and controlling the native populations. And for the most part, humanity agreed to be governed by the Trade Union. They were, after all, a collection of "advanced" species from all across the universe--and multiverses--so they obviously knew how to govern and operate plants more efficiently than humanity, so why not give them a shot. The problem, however, was that the Trade Union not only took control over the management of Earth, but the entire Milky Way Galaxy and they needed help terraforming the rest of the uninhabitable planets in the Galaxy and they thought humanity would be ideal in accomplishing this task.
So just as the Trade Union was beginning to stabilize Earth's environment, the Union began shipping human beings by the millions to planets such as Mars and Uranus. Entire clans were uprooted from their lands and sent streaking into the vastness of space completely unsure of what kind of existence lay ahead for them. Most of their concerns were completely unfounded, of course, the Trade Union were ruthless capitalists, but they held the lives of their charges and employees in the highest regard. Teraphorming was, of course, incredibly dangerous work, but the Trade Union had been doing it for centuries, so there was little to no danger to the people who were building and then colonizing these planets.
But most people had no idea of knowing this and they were both frightened and angry that they were being forced to leave the only home they had ever known. There were, of course, pockets of descent and open rebellion, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, which was led by my grandfather, Roy Donovon. Grandpa Roy believed in absolute freedom and considered all government to be a form of tyranny. He considered the Trade Union to be particularly tyrannical. As far as he was concerned, he believed that they were stealing Earth and enslaving its people. Never mind that they were saving the planet and providing all of its inhabitants with a safe haven. But none of this really mattered to Grandpa. The Union was the "other"; the great unknown beast trying to take his land and freedom away from him.
Grandpa's militia was quite the burden to the Trade Union. They constantly sabotaged Union transports, raided Union colonies and slaughtered as many "bugs" as they could get their hands on (By the way, most aliens in the Trade Union do not even remotely resemble bugs of any sort. Most are humanoid, but by giving the colonists this label, the militia more easily demonized them). After a decade of sabotage and fighting, the Trade Union finally relented and allowed Grandpa and his follower’s sovereignty. The downside of this agreement, however, was that the rebels were completely cut off from the Trade Union and the technologies they provided. And this part of the treaty was what eventually broke the backs of most of the original rebels.
Obviously, Trade Union technology was far more advanced than human technology, and it was Trade Union tech that was sustaining the atmosphere and they could localize it; they could take it away and the vast stretches of the Amazon the rebels occupied would be wide open to the ruined environment of Earth. And that was exactly what happened, and the weather turned fierce and deadly. Super Hurricanes in the winters and blister 130-degree heat in the summer was what most of the rebels encountered. Over the years they even experienced a few years of some of the fiercest snow storms recorded in human history--it was during one of these deadly winters when I was born; one of two twins. Unfortunately, my sister did not live through our birth--followed by a two-year long dust storm which devastated the crops and dried up the river.
After decades of this brutal life, most of the rebels went crawling on their bellies begging for forgiveness and the chance to join the outworld colonies. All except my family. Despite the fact that my Grandpa dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of one hundred and twenty-five (If he had joined up with the Union there's a better chance than not he'd still be alive. But that's neither here nor there), but my Father was raised to be a man of principal, even if his principals doomed his family to a life of never-ending hardship and death.
Not that I'm complaining. As difficult as our lives were, my family is a loving one. There are ten of us plus my mother and father. I am the youngest of the ten and one of only three girls (Four if you count my dead sister, who, in a way, lives inside of me) and the only of my sisters unmarried and still living on Earth. Which is also the reason why I have become not only my family's savior but also its slave.
My father was practically in tears.
Over the last twenty-four hours, our lands atmospheric generator had been offline and slowly but surely, the dust was creeping its way onto our lands, clogging the river, turning it red like blood, the sky turning dark and thick in the lungs. My father had been nursing it for years with parts he'd stolen from the Trade Union colonies (We still called them colonies despite the fact that the small settlements that the Union had established decades ago were now full blown cities which supported tens of millions of lives) and had managed to keep it online and the foulness of Earth's natural environment at bay.
But the Union had grown wise to Father's sojourns into the colonies scrap and machine yards. They'd put out extra patrols of armed guards and had upgraded the identification software so that any time someone who didn't belong inside the boundaries of the colonies they would immediately be incapacitated, jailed, and sent to one of the crueler off world colonies such an as Saturn. Father, of course, hadn't been caught up in this web, he'd only heard about it from his connections within the other Earth free states. The prospect of having his family broken up and his land taken away absolutely prettified my father, and instead stealing what he needed to keep the atmospheric generators running, he paid the high prices the thieves demanded when he couldn't rig an essential part; the rest he kept together with duct tape and chewing gum.
Maintaining the ancient machines was more or less a full-time job and everything else on the property suffered, including the crops that sustained us as a family. In years past, my brothers would have been the ones to take in the crops and then bring them to the markets for trade or sale. But much like everyone else who came of age during the rebellions, my brothers had grown tired of the hard lives they had inherited and had succumbed to live within the Trade Union. No one blamed them, not my mother or father, me, or my grandmother. They hadn't chosen the life they were born into and they had no obligation to anyone except themselves and their own young families.
None of us held any ill will towards them except my oldest brother, Trey. Trey had fallen hook, line, and sinker for my grandfather's beliefs. As far as he was concerned, he only had one home and one home only: Earth. He had no interest in exploring the known galaxies. But because all of my brothers, sisters and their spouses were quite interested in it, he became a bitter, bitter man. And he was made even more bitter because he had to bring in our meager crops by himself while our father toiled and fooled with his precious machinery. Trey wasn't one to appreciate the comfort the machines brought us. As far as he was concerned, we were better off just letting the chips fall as they may. Of course, he had never spent a day in his life out in the ragged atmosphere outside of the invisible domes created by the generator; he only had a slight notion of the Hell of it. But we would be discovering it soon enough.
Father came in from the shed covered in grime, oil, and the thick sheen of red dust coating his entire body. We watched him from the table, the look of defeat and exhaustion washing over him and us. He sat down hard in his usual chair, staring deep into the dregs of his morning coffee. He picked up his mug and took a last, long swallow of the cold, murky liquid before bringing it back down softly on top of the table. We all knew what he was about to say but we still dreaded it and hoped for a different outcome.
"It's done," He said. "There's nothing else I can do."
"Nothing at all?" My grandmother asked, he voice barely above a whisper. Of all of us, my grandmother knew the fate awaiting us once the false atmosphere completely dissipated over the next week. She had suffered through my grandfather's folly with grim determination. She loved her husband more than anything, and she especially loved him for his blind idealism when they were a young couple. But over the years, she'd learned to regret the life they had chosen, particularly because of their children. This was not the kind of life she wanted for them or her grandchildren. But with the machine finally gone, I knew she thought our family would finally be done with the Amazon. I knew that we weren't, not by a long shot, but I wasn't going dispel her fantasy of a different, comfortable life.
Father then looked at me, his eyes full of pain and sorrow with what he was about to do and what I had agreed to do in order to maintain the lives of my family.
"A ... A Trade Union Vice President has made on offer on Sara, and I'm prepared to accept it and so is she."
I watch as my two mother's eyes flooded with tears with the news and I tried my best to hide my own, but I knew it was no use and I simply let them fall, smattering against the table like drops of precious rain.
