Captured Boxed Set: 9 Alpha Bad-Boys Who Will Capture Your Heart (37 page)

Scooting back, Aaron rolled clear
just as the loud pop of two handguns echoed in the ancient chamber they were
in. He looked back to see the jag lying still, his head and chest oozing blood.

A low, tired groan caught his
attention. Reya.

On unsteady feet, Aaron eased
around the dead jag’s body to Reya’s side just as she stood up. Even in the dim
light of the torch-lit shelter, she was beautiful. Scratches, wobbly furred
legs and all.

"Uh, Aaron," Austin
queried, gun still raised. "That’s a fucking jaguar. Step away, little
brother."

"Real slow…" Anthony
finished the sentence.

"It’s okay. She’s a friendly
jaguar. Saved my ass more than once from this cat you just shot." Aaron sank
to his knees and buried his face into the neck of the most beautiful creature
any of them had ever seen this close up. In pain, but apparently all right, she
licked his hand as he ruffled the thick hair behind her ears.

"Oh god, Reya. I was so afraid
I’d lost you this time. I love you so much, I don’t know what I would have
done. This is the last time you’re out of my sight, I swear," he whispered
fervently into her ear.

So unique, even if she weren’t a
shifter. Beautiful, strong, capable and fearless. What more could a man want?
Well, actually he did want something more. And now was as good a time as any to
try to get it.

For her ears only, Aaron said, "You
never gave me an answer to my question. Will you marry me, sweetheart?"

Ducking her head under his hand,
astonished gasps sounded from the amazed men standing near the entrance as she
purred loudly. He would take that as a yes.

Looking up, laughter bubbled up out
of his chest at Anthony and Austin’s astonished expressions. What a Kodak
moment! Pretty sure he’d never seen that look on either of their faces in his
entire life, Aaron chuckled then winced as the punctures in his neck pulsed.
He’d forgotten all about the bite from the dead cat. But he’d worry about that
later. Right now was for family.

"Can your new brothers pet
you, sweetheart?"

The
large black jaguar flopped to the ground, laid her head in Aaron’s lap and
licked her paws. Nobody moved. After a moment, her large gray eyes turned on
the two James brothers, standing with their mouths hanging clear down to their
knees. With a muted roar and a little encouragement from Aaron, they too
kneeled on the dirt-packed floor to touch the silky fur of a regal black
jaguar.

* * *

While his brothers dragged the
lifeless body of the rogue male out to the main trail, Aaron sent Reya home
under the noses of Anthony, Austin and the search parties. An hour later, a
radio transmission flashed through from the ranger station. Reya had been
found. She’d been attacked by a rogue jaguar but managed to make it back to the
station.

Way to go, sweetheart, he thought,
impressed with her ability to sneak past a whole pack of humans walking around
in the pitch black of the jungle with night-vision goggles. And she must have
hauled ass to make it back so fast. Hell, he wouldn’t mind being a shifter!

Aaron radioed back that the rogue
had been killed. But where was Marc?

Later, as Dr. Matons saw to her
injuries, Aaron swore she was never getting out of his sight again. Reya
explained Marc’s whereabouts and his temper hit a new high as he tried to
control the murderous urge to go back to where they’d left the body and kill
him all over again.

Marc was a shifter—a two-faced,
lying, killing, woman-stealing shifter. And now a dead shifter. When the
bastard died, he’d remained in his animal form. Without the life-energy to fuel
the change, his carcass would give away no secrets. Aaron’s beautiful Reya, and
those like her, would keep their secrets and remain safe and undiscovered for
yet a while longer.

Epilogue

Enjoying the cool ocean breeze at
the rear of the brand spanking new high-class fitness center, Aaron stood on
the private pier built just for Reya and marveled at the radiance beaming
across the face of his new wife. The breeze whipped her black curls around her
head and the sun kissed her cocoa skin. His eyes drifted lower, admiring the
sparkling white bikini hugging her curves. The woman made his mouth water.

"Hey, you two!" came a
high-pitched, but sweet, call from the wide balcony above. "Don’t stay
under too long, children. Our plane is leaving in less than two hours."

"Yes, ma’am," Aaron
called up to an older woman, the spitting image of Reya in thirty years. Aunt
Sulu. After Reya refused to get married without her only family present,
Anthony and Austin had taken it upon themselves to surprise their new
sister-in-law. In truth, she had them all wrapped around her finger. It didn’t
matter which finger, the pinky or the thumb, they were all well and truly
caught up over her.

They’d sent a jet for Aunt Sulu and
flew her all the way to Belize to attend their wedding then talked her into
staying for a month to get to know Reya’s husband and his doting brothers who
were, as Aunt Sulu put it, "good-looking with muscles as big as melons and
sweet as old-fashioned pecan pie".

Waving to the short, little
dark-skinned woman with graying locs down to her waist, Aaron took Reya’s hand
as they walked to the end of the pier.

"I still can’t get over your
love of water," he grinned, pulling her into his arms. "I thought
kitty cats didn’t like water?"

"Actually, most big cats are
very good swimmers."

"Your skin looks so yummy when
it’s wet. Can I have a taste?" he teased.

She wrapped her arms around his
neck, lifted her lush lips for his kiss and purred. God, he loved when she
purred deep in her throat like that. It made him think of being deep in her
throat.

After a quick peck on the neck, she
pulled her scuba mask down and fell backward with a splash into the azure blue
ocean.

Aaron
was right on her tail. Literally.

# # #

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About T. J. Michaels

TJ is
a
USA Today
and
NY Times
bestselling author, and her books have
won multiple awards in several romance genres, including paranormal, fantasy,
sci-fi and urban fantasy romance. Writing like a madman, TJ hasn’t lost steam.
Her mind? Yep, that’s gone, but steam there is a-plenty. A true Taurus, TJ
isn’t slowing down and she’s definitely too stubborn to stop when she sees the
fence! No matter the genre TJ is penning, her favorite thing to do is build
worlds. To take you somewhere extraordinary. To transport you to a place where
you can close your eyes and slip into your fantasy…

Other Books by T. J. Michaels

Carinian’s
Seeker, Vampire Council of Ethics Book One

Serati’s
Flame, Vampire Council of Ethics Book Two

Hatsept
Heat, Vampire Council of Ethics Book Three

Seeker's
Solace, Vampire Council of Ethics Book Four

Silk
Road, Seals of Destiny

Spirit
of the Pryde, A Pryde Ranch Shifter Story

Niah's
Pride, A Pryde Ranch Shifter Story

Jaguar’s
Rule

Forever
December

Egyptian
Voyage

On
the Prowl

Entwined
Hearts

Shards
of Ecstasy

Caramel
Kisses

Death and Roses

Anthologies

Mastered:
Ten Tales of Sensual Surrender

Doing
it the Hard Way

Feral
Fascination

Wild Winter

Excerpts

If
you would like to read more T. J. Michaels stories, she recommends His
Obsession Next Door.  An excerpt is included below.

Carinian’s Seeker

Vampire Council of Ethics, Book 1

T.J. Michaels

Beautiful
genius, Carinian Derrickson, wants to live long enough to date a man from the
future generations of spacemen and starships.  She's not crazy, she just
refuses to die young of some dreaded disease, like all the rest of her family. 
Her research into gene therapy has shown her the way
—
she’s going to emulate traits only before seen in fiction.
Vampire fiction. Only…the beings that shouldn’t exist are very real indeed.

Unknown
to her, there's a bad boy vampire in the lab next door with a goal quite the
opposite of hers. If he has his way, he'll bring the Vampire Council of Ethics
(V.C.O.E.) to its knees.

Jon
Bixler is a Seeker for the Council—an assassin and undercover operative in a
world of humans. Bix must get close enough to this rogue to find out exactly
how he plans to dismantle the Council. And Carinian is just the ticket. But
when he meets her, all his vampire common sense flies out the window. What’s he
going to do now that the woman has put herself in danger by secretly trying to
do the impossible?

Bix and Carin can’t
deny the combustion of love and lust between them. They accept their mating.
But can they stay alive long enough to enjoy it?

Excerpt

Before he could close the door to
his unexceptional hotel room, his cell phone rang. He knew it wasn’t Carin
calling him back. The special ring tone identified the caller as a member of
V.C.O.E.—the Vampire Council of Ethics.

He shrugged out of his jacket and
tossed it carelessly over the only chair in the room, and then sat on the edge
of the bed and toed off his shoes before answering. A silky sweet voice
reminiscent of smooth jazz music floated across the line to him. The voice was
deep for a woman, but sensual. It fit her perfectly. Too bad Bix couldn’t stand
the bitch.

"Have you acquired the target?"

Bix ground his back teeth on a deep
breath and ignored the implied insult. God, he didn’t feel like doing this
right now.

"You will not question me,
Natasha. I’m more than capable of doing my job. In fact," he said for
probably the fiftieth time, "I’ve been dressing without my mother’s aid
for quite a long time. Longer than you’ve been alive, actually."

"Now, now, Jon. You’re getting
testy in your old age," Natasha purred. "As the V.C.O.E. Liaison for
the Western territories, I’m just doing my job. You know that, don’t you,
lover?"

Lover? Would she ever give up?
Resting his elbows on his knees, he stretched his neck from side to side and
forced his body to relax. When he tuned back in to the voice on the cell phone
it was droning on about some boring piece of nothing or another. He took charge
of the conversation with his annoying Liaison and brought it back to business.

"I have acquired the target,
Natasha. You may report to the Council that she is scheduled to fly back to San
Diego tomorrow, just as they arranged," he drawled in the most bored voice
he’d ever heard himself speak. "I’ll be sure to contact you as soon as Dr.
Derrickson leads me to Sidheon."

"Dr. Derrickson, is it? Surely
you’ve gotten past the formality of last names with her, Jon," Natasha
said cattily.

Bix didn’t bother to answer. He put
the phone on speaker mode and tossed it on the bed. His pants hit the floor,
followed by his shirt and underwear. Naked, he ducked into the small bathroom
and turned on the shower.

While the water warmed, he strolled
to the closet and pulled out his only set of clean clothes for tomorrow. The
dirty laundry was stuffed inside a duffel bag and tossed next to the door for
easy retrieval before his jaunt to the airport in the morning. After a lengthy
silence, a hard, angry female voice crackled over the phone line. Natasha.
Hell, he’d almost forgotten she was there.

"The temporary house in San
Diego is all set up, Jon. Alaan will pick you up at the airport and assist you
as needed."

Bix called over his shoulder with a
distracted, "Fine," glad his best friend would work this case with
him. Excellent. He ducked into the bathroom again and flipped on the faucet
over the small sink. "What about the territory leaders in California? They
know I’m coming?"

"All taken care of. I don’t
have any additional intel other than what I sent you yesterday before you flew
to Colorado. If anything else comes up, I’ll try to get it to you before you
board your plane to San Diego tomorrow."

"Yep," he mumbled his
response around his toothbrush.

"Good luck, Jon. I look
forward to seeing you when you report back to headquarters."

"It may be a while," Bix
mumbled, wrinkling his nose in distaste. "If there’s nothing else,
Natasha, good night."

"Good night, lover."

Bix clicked off the speakerphone
and snapped the unit shut. It landed on top of his bag at the door as he headed
for the shower. His hand settled on his left shoulder, digging into the muscles
there. Odd. It was tight, sore and pulsing. He hadn’t worked his shoulders this
week at all, but the pain was acute.

The bathroom filled with a fog of
soothing steam. He stepped into the tub and yanked the shower curtain closed.
The strong, hot spray of water pulsed over the muscles of his back and thighs
as he searched inside himself for the source of his discomfort. His keen senses
dipped below his skin, into his veins and slid along and through his muscles.
When he searched the connective tissues of his throbbing shoulder there was
nothing unusual. But if it was perfectly fine, why the hell was it so sore?

He shut off the shower and headed
to bed. Under the cool sheets and scratchy blankets, his thoughts settled on a
beautiful woman with dark brown eyes and skin, and a body to die for. A body he
wished he could cuddle up to right now.

His fingers had itched all through
dinner to bury themselves in her thick, curly hair to see if it was a soft as
it looked. The short-sleeved tee she wore let him look his fill at
smooth-as-velvet skin over sleek muscle. His thoughts strayed to the elegant
curve of her neck. Keen ears had picked up the strong pulse beating there as
they’d talked and laughed over their meal. He imagined the same beat now.
Strong. Steady. His cock swelled and pulsed in time with the imagined thump of
her heart.

Hell,
it was going to be a long night.

# # #