Captured Boxed Set: 9 Alpha Bad-Boys Who Will Capture Your Heart (95 page)

Chapter
1

"Choose," the
disembodied voice said.

Choose? Choose what?
Riley thought, looking around her in disbelief at the rock walls.
Choose
to get the fuck out of this crazy nightmare? Hell, yeah. Choose to kill the
bastards who put me in this miserable spot? Oh, hell yeah. Choose…

Riley jerked when she felt the ice-cold
claw poke her in the back for the third time. Looking around, she followed the
arm of the creature standing next to her as it pointed down over the edge of a
small platform. She really was trying for that nice stage of being totally
zoned out, but the damn creatures who kidnapped her twenty days before had an
annoying habit of bringing her back to the unfortunate situation she was in.

"Choose," the nearly
eight-foot-tall stick figure said again, this time losing some of the
disembodied tone.

Riley couldn’t help the little
smirk that lifted the corner of her mouth. She really couldn’t. After the first
week of captivity, she had moved from being mind-numbingly terrified to just
downright pissed off at life. She figured if she was going to die, she might as
well do what she did best: piss everyone off around her. That was what had
gotten her into this situation in the first place—her big mouth and smart-ass
attitude.

Okay, maybe she shouldn’t have
pissed off her boss by telling him what he could do with his wandering hands
when he grabbed her ass for the third time that day. Better yet, she shouldn’t
have broken his nose, his hand, and more than likely his nuts since he had been
screaming more than an octave or two higher than a soprano. Yeah, that probably
wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Especially since his daddy happened to be the
local sheriff. She was a bail bondsman, for heaven’s sake. Any freaking idiot
should have known better than to mess with her. Her line of work required she
know a certain amount of self-defense.

God
,
she thought.
I really should have never taken that job.

When her boss swore she would never
leave town alive after she beat the shit out of him, she figured it was time to
get the hell out of Righteous, New Mexico. Of course, the fact her boss owned
the local bail bond company and had a somewhat lucrative business going with
his daddy should have been her first warning that something wasn’t right, she’d
thought as she grabbed her purse and a large manila folder full of incriminating
evidence against both of them. Finding out that daddy and junior were also
running illegal weapons and drugs were definitely her second and third warnings.
Of course, the little tidbit of information she had found that morning about
the dead guy buried under the storage unit had been the real reason she figured
she had made a bad mistake. That information was now safely tucked into the
manila folder stuffed in her purse, and it had gone along with her as she left
the small town she had been living in for the past six months as fast as her
old Ford could drive.

She actually might have had a
chance to live a little longer if a series of life’s usual little hiccups hadn’t
been blessed upon her. Again. Of course, if the car had been further than one push
to the nearest junkyard it would have helped her great nonexistent getaway
plans. It would have been better yet if the damn car hadn’t broken down just
over the state line on the outskirts of the desert. She knew she should have
purchased a new one last month, but she was such a tightwad she wanted to get
every last mile out of it. And boy, did she!

Oh, and she couldn’t forget her
best idea yet—getting in a truck with a guy who had more piercings and tattoos
than a model for
Prick Magazine
instead of walking the three miles to
the bar she had seen a roadside sign for.

No, I had to get my fat—
Riley sighed.
No, my maturely figured ass into the scum-bucket’s
truck
.

Riley sighed again.
I really,
really should have taken those anger management classes like my sainted sister,
Tina, said I needed.

Unable to keep the grin off her
face, Riley thought back to the look on the pierced, tattooed guy’s face when
she shot him the bird as he drove off leaving her in the middle of that godforsaken
hell’s beach just as it was getting dark.

Give him a fucking blow job if I
wanted a ride out of the desert
, Riley thought
savagely.
Not bloody likely
.

She showed him! As soon as he
pulled over to the side of the road she had been out of the truck cussing him
up one side and down the other. Her Grandma Pearl would have been proud of her.
She remembered every cuss word her grandmother ever said and a few her grandma
probably didn’t even know. Of course, he had left her mature ass in the middle
of nowhere.

Riley thought she was a goner until
she had seen all those little lights coming toward her. How the hell was she
supposed to know the fucking aliens had messed up where Area 51 was and ended
up in Nowhere, Arizona? Riley had thought she was about to be rescued by a
dwarf biker gang riding dirt bikes, not some alien spaceship out for a Monday
night cruise for well-endowed women.

"
Choose!
" the tall
creature growled out loudly.

Riley cleared her throat before
turning to the stick-figured alien dwarfing her. "Choose what?" she
asked, unable to hold back the slightly crazed giggle that had been threatening
to escape her.

She giggled again at finally making
the creature’s blank face break into a frustrated scowl. The creature slowly
fisted its clawed hands before its shoulders actually drooped.

"Choose a male," Antrox
785 said wearily.

Riley raised her perfectly arched
eyebrows at the creature before turning to look at the selection of men who had
been paraded in while she had been reflecting on how her attitude
might
have played a part in her present predicament. She had been watching
haphazardly as a different female—at least she thought they were female—had
been led to stand where she was now. She was told—in a rather rude manner if
you asked her—that she was being given the last choice because of her being so
disagreeable, unpleasant, and downright ugly. She had, of course, taken it all
in stride until the last comment and had to be restrained again after she‘d
punched the stickman guarding her in what she hoped was his balls. Whatever the
creatures had under their tunics, it laid the guy out cold.

Now, she was staring at one
eight-foot-tall glob of green, oozing snot, something resembling a two-foot,
two-headed lizard, and three six-foot-four or more drop-dead gorgeous hunks.
Riley’s eyes widened. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was thirstier than
hell so she didn’t have the capacity to produce enough spit, she would have
sworn she was drooling.

She could tell by their build and
their eyes and maybe the markings on their arms, chest, and shoulders, oh and
did she mention their sharp teeth as they growled at the stick-alien, that they
weren’t human, but man-oh-man did they look yummy! Riley thought dreamily for a
moment before perking up again.

"What happens to the males
that aren’t chosen?" Riley asked curiously, never taking her eyes off the
three males.

"They will be used as food,"
Antrox said with a frown. "Choose! All mated males will be kept to work in
the mines. Mated males are easier to control as they are protective of their female.
Now choose your male!"

"What if I don’t want to
choose a male?" Riley asked sarcastically as she turned to face the tall
creature next to her. "What if I don’t
feel
like choosing a male?
What if I don’t even
like
males?" Riley added.

Right at that moment, she honestly
believed she might not ever like any male ever again! After all, it was men who
had started this whole hateful series of events starting with her no-good,
dim-witted boss. Now, this overgrown toothpick expected her to just pick one of
the bastards and mate with him?

That is so seriously not going
to happen. Restraints or not, I will beat the shit out of any guy who tries to
mate with me
, she thought fiercely.

She wasn’t going to mate with any
alien, no matter how cute they looked. She had watched enough science fiction
movies to cure her of ever wanting any alien booty! What if those things
decided to do some body snatching or exploding out of her? A shudder went
through Riley at the thought.

Antrox 785 looked back and forth
between Riley and the men on the platform below him with a confused expression
on his face. "Why would you not want to choose a male? You are female! All
of our data points to you being the weaker of your species and in need of a
male for protection." Antrox looked from the males back to Riley again. "Why
would you not like males?"

Riley
let loose a slightly hysterical laugh. Okay, maybe she was still just a little
terrified. "Why don’t I like males? Now, that is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar
question, isn’t it? How about we go get a bottle or two of your strongest
booze, get good and drunk, and I’ll tell you why I don’t like males anymore!"
Riley’s voice was growing louder with each word. "Let’s start with you!"

* * *

Vox looked up in surprise as he
heard a husky feminine voice shouting. He growled low as he caught his first
sight of the buxom female who had turned toward the Antrox male. He wanted her.
He didn’t understand why, but he wanted her—right now. His body instantly
responded to her voice. He felt the primitive need to mate. To possess. When he
saw the face and body that went with the voice, it took everything in him not
to struggle against the restraints holding him captive. She was curvy, with
large breasts, a small waist, and hips that made his mouth water at the thought
of holding on to them. Her hair was the color of their sun and flowed in thick
waves down her back almost to her lush, rounded ass.

She is built for loving,
he thought in awe as he watched her.

She was wearing a light pink top
that molded to her lush curves. He couldn’t see what she looked like below her
waist, but he could imagine it. He wanted to see her eyes. He knew they would
be flashing with fire, and he wanted that fire turned on him. He snarled as
another guard joined in using the stunning rods to force him back away from the
edge of the platform.

He
jerked in surprise, and his eyes widened as the female, who was tiny compared
to the larger male, started jabbing the Antrox male in his chest and yelling at
him. Vox snarled again when one of the guards pushed him back harder with one
of the long rods. He ignored the sting from the shock and focused on the female’s
hands which were shackled in front of her. Why would the Antrox shackle a
female? Females were weak and to be protected. Vox had never heard of an Antrox
male using shackles on one before. He listened in disbelief as the normally
impassive species roared out in a loud, aggravated voice at the female.

* * *

"CHOOSE! Now, female, or I
will choose for you!" Antrox 785 roared out.

He didn’t know what else to do. He
was in charge of the mining facility. It was not his job to question who was
brought to the mines. His job was to match a female with a male to ensure the
males would be more docile. He had never encountered a hostile female before
and did not know how to handle a female like the one poking her sharp nails
into his chest.

Riley looked at the stickman
standing in front of her and let out a sniff of indignation. "Well! There
is no reason for you to get so uptight!" she said, turning her back to him
and tossing her heavy mane of blond hair over her shoulder. "I choose all
of them," she said with an exaggerated sigh.

"What?" Antrox 785
practically shouted.

Riley turned to look at him and
rolled her big, baby blue eyes. "I said, I will take all of them,"
she repeated slowly with a slight shake of her head showing she thought he was
a dumbass.

"But…but…" Antrox 785
stuttered in confusion. He looked down at the five men looking up at him and
then back at the female. "No, you must choose one."

"No, I don’t have to choose
just one. I choose all five," Riley said stubbornly. "Five or
nothing!" she added with another determined shake to her heavy mane of
hair.

"How can you have five males?"
Antrox 785 asked in frustration. "All other females choose just one."

"Well, I am not all other
females. I am Riley St. Claire from Denver, Colorado, and I choose five,"
Riley said with a stubborn tilt to her chin. "If you have a problem with
that you can just get over it. I’ve made up my mind, so there," she added
with a raised eyebrow daring him to tell her no.

She would have crossed her arms to
show she meant business if they hadn’t been tied together. Since she couldn’t
do that, she put her nose as high as it would go in the air and gave her best "that’s
my final answer" look. She even thrust one hip out to show she could not
be intimidated into changing her mind. If she learned one thing while being a
bail bondsman, it was that body language could be a very effective weapon.