Ultimate Passage: New Beginnings: Box Set ( Books 1-4) Read Online Free Page A

seducer of women. Snap out of it? Not that easy.
    He slipped into his pod and strapped himself in. One of twenty, all of them lined up, ten on each side of the cabin. All converted to human males, and all soldiers. That gave Finn pause, but he didn’t dwell on it for long.
    He ran his hand over his human chest under the T-shirt. The sensation was oddly pleasing.
    “Prepare to hibernate.” The pilot’s voice came through Finn’s headset, warning him that sedative gases would be released in the individual capsules of those being transported for insertion. “You’ll be unconscious until we’re ready to insert you into the Earth population.”
    Finn wanted to ask if he could put himself back in his native body for the trip because of the energy it took to remain human. He knew better than to ask. He’d already been advised not to by Kal.
    And he knew Kal was sitting next to the copilot. Kal was going with them. He would hear Finn’s request, and Finn would hear about it later. And not in a good way.

Chapter 5
    M arissa pushed her chair further away from the damned bank officer’s desk, and hoped her heel scuffed the dark mahogany wood. She hoped it would leave a mark, but she didn’t want to look. It so didn’t matter right now, not after what he’d just told her. She fought to control her anger, but fury won out. “What do you mean, do I have someone to cosign? I’ve been in business for nine years. Why should I need a cosigner? My father had this restaurant for thirty years before he died—”
    “Ms. Sanchez, times have changed. Have you looked at the numbers in the last few years?”
    What she wanted to say was, Why don’t you fuck off? But since he had no qualms about interrupting her, what she interrupted him to say was, “When two of the largest companies in the area relocate to different states, sales go down.”
    This was her fifth unproductive visit to the bank. Her fifth visit to this cold, impersonal, sterile environment. Why had she ever used to think that it was welcoming here? Things had changed. Funny how when you needed your bank, they crapped on you, but when they wanted your business, they were sugary-sweet.
    “Do you have family who can cosign?” The bank’s loan officer was back on that.
    “No.” Not really, anyway.
    “Then—”
    “Look, they’re taking away a big part of my restaurant. Crooked developers.” Yeah, she was pissed. All kinds of pissed. They were threatening her livelihood, the only thing she had left of her father’s dream. No, dammit, she wasn’t going to make it easy for them.
    “This is progress, Ms. Sanchez. It’s all in the name of progress.”
    “I can’t afford progress.”
    “Surely you could get a job as a restaurant manager for one of the chains? One of the local restaurants that aren’t floundering?”
    He didn’t get it. At all. This restaurant. Her dad. She fought tears of anger and helplessness. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Times like this, she wished she was the irrational, violent type. She’d love to pitch some Molotov cocktails into the developers’ homes... but she didn’t even know who those faceless rich bastards were.
    ”Never mind.”
    She catapulted out of the chair. She had a restaurant to run and food to prep. And options to come up with.
----
    M arissa diced the onions , telling herself that the tears that flowed were the result of the pungent smell while the knife she was wielding tapped out a machine-gun-rapid tempo on the cutting board. She had to figure something out. Damned developers.
    Talk about a rock and a hard place. She wiped tears onto her sleeve, barely pausing with the chopping, as if she was taking her anger out on the onion. Take that, county officials. She stabbed the cutting board. Take that, developers. Take that, stupid bank officer. The onion was liquefying under the pressure of her knife.
    A bell chime signaled that someone had come in the front door. A quick glance