Captured Boxed Set: 9 Alpha Bad-Boys Who Will Capture Your Heart (99 page)

"So, how did you end up is
this delightful shit hole?" Riley asked as she dumped another pile of
rocks into the bins used to haul it out.

"My older brother sold me to a
trader," Fred responded with a grunt as he pushed the large rock he was
carrying into the bin. "He did not want me in his way."

Riley paused in horror. "Why would
he think you were in the way?" she asked as she walked back over to the
ever-growing pile of rocks the men were creating. "Hell, even my sainted
sister won’t sell me, no matter how much I piss her off, which is about every
time I open my mouth."

"I am the second oldest. My
older brother is not good with our father’s business. I am very good, and my
father decided I should take over instead of my older brother. He paid credits
to some traders to take me. Now, I will die here," he said disgruntledly.

Riley stopped from where she was
lifting another large rock. "Like hell you will! I’ll take care of you.
You are not going to die in this shit hole. We just have to escape," she
responded confidently. "Do you know how to fly one of those spaceships?"

"No," Fred replied sadly
before perking up. "But the cat warriors know how. They are known for
their fighting skills, and their warships are renowned for their speed."

"Cat warriors?" Riley
asked as she walked back over and dumped the large rock in the bin with all the
others.

"Yes, your mate is their king.
I have heard about him. He is very scary. He kills those who defy him,"
Fred said, struggling to lift a particularly large rock over the side.

Riley frowned as she bent to help
him.
Why the hell does he call them the "cat" warriors? I thought
they’re called Sara-something.

She stretched once the rock was in
and rubbed her aching back. She was exhausted, and they had only been at it for
about two hours. She really needed some coffee. A nice latte would be fabulous
right about now.

Fred must be mistaken,
she thought as she looked over to where Vox, Lodar, and Tor were
swinging the strangely shaped, curved pickaxes.

All three had muscles out the yin-yang,
and their bodies glistened with sweat as they worked to clear another section
of the cave. They didn’t talk while they worked. Bob was working on another
section and appeared to be having problems holding the ax correctly because his
pile of rocks was miniscule compared to the others. The Antrox guards were
stationed at the different exits leading into the area they had been brought to
and were ignoring them.

She turned back to study all three
men carefully for a moment as they worked. Each had a different pattern of
spots on his upper body that ran down his chest and back before disappearing
under the low waist of his pants. She felt a shiver of apprehension run through
her as she remembered their eyes. All three had similar eyes, but what caught
her attention the most was that their pupils were slits instead of round like a
human’s. A bad feeling began to sink in as she noticed other differences. They
had no problems seeing in the dim corridors. She would have walked into a wall
or tripped a dozen times as they were marched deeper into the mine if it hadn’t
been for Vox. They moved lightly on their feet just like the old cat she had
when she was a kid. Half the time she couldn’t even hear them walking. And Vox
had roared like a wounded cat when she sprayed him with the pepper spray. He
sounded a lot like that lion that came on before a movie from MGM studios.
Other details came back as well. She remembered the way his chest rumbled when
he was kissing her, as if he was purring.

"Shit!" she said as her
eyes widened as the pieces fell into place.

Fred looked at her puzzled. "You
have need for the cleansing room? I can ask a guard to escort you if you have a
need," his left head said, looking at her in concern.

Riley looked down with dazed eyes
at Fred. "Can they—Can they change into cats?" she asked in a hushed
whisper.

Fred looked at her before turning
one head to look at the three warriors working steadily. "Of course not,"
he said, not understanding Riley’s sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness for that,"
Riley murmured before Fred finished his sentence.

"The shock collars prevent
them from shifting. But if the collars were to be removed they could," he
finished with a twist of envy coloring his voice.

Riley’s
sigh of relief turned to a gasp of horror.
I am stuck in a freaking science fiction-shifter-romance
novel nightmare!

* * *

Vox frowned as his mate moved her
plate of food away from his and went to sit down between Bob and Fred. For the
past couple of days, she had done everything she could to avoid him. She spent
most of her time dancing around the huge Gelatian or keeping the small Tiliqua
between her and him. Hell, she had even used Tor and Lodar as shields but only
when the other two couldn’t get away from her. Both of his men had noticed how
skittish she had been around them after the first day in the mine. It had grown
worse after they had finished their first work shift. They had been escorted to
the eating room shortly after their shift ended. The skittish distance had
turned into a frigid ice block by the time they were done.

On the third day Vox discovered he,
Lodar, and Tor were not the only Sarafin warriors held prisoner. His best
friend and cousin Titus, a member of the lead council who had disappeared over
a month before, was among the prisoners, as well as his younger brother, Banu.
There was also one Curizan warrior and one Valdier warrior Vox recognized. Both
of them had been working undercover to bring down Raffvin and Ben’qumain’s rebellion.
Titus explained he had found some damning evidence of his own against several
of those inside the Sarafin palace who were working with Raffvin. They were the
ones behind his and his brother’s kidnapping and subsequent imprisonment.

"Who are they?" Vox
growled out in a low voice.

"Two are females who share
your bed," Titus said quietly. "Eldora and Pursia. They were relating
information to Bragnar, a male who works in the kitchens."

Vox turned to look at Riley when
she sniffed loudly. He frowned when she gave him a deadly stare before turning
to look the other way and focusing on what Bob and Fred were saying. He had reached
to touch her hand, but she jerked it away from him before he could even get
close to it.

"Who is the female?"
Titus asked curiously, watching their interaction with interest. "She is
much more pleasing to the eye than the one who selected me," he said with
a dismissive nod toward the slender purple figure sitting on his other side.

"She is my mate," Vox
said, perplexed at his mate’s sudden quiet behavior.

"As in she chose you or as in
you chose her?" Titus asked. "Because if I had to guess, she doesn’t
look any happier with you than mine is with me."

"Both," Vox said
grumpily. "She chose the five of us, but I knew the moment I heard her
voice she was my mate."

"What species is she? I don’t
think I have ever seen one like her before," Titus said, picking at the
items on his plate in disgust.

"I don’t know," Vox
admitted reluctantly. "I forgot to ask her. We need to get off this
asteroid as soon as possible," he said changing the subject. "I have
a Valdier royal to kill."

"You and me both," Titus
said, throwing down the few pieces of his food that were left. "Supply
ships arrive every seven days. One came today," Titus murmured quickly
before standing up as an Antrox guard came over to order him and his mate back
to their quarters.

Vox nodded before turning his
attention to the other warriors sitting across from them. They each nodded in
return before rising as a guard called out to them to stand. He returned their
nod. They would be off this rock in seven days if he had his way—which he
always did when he put his mind to it. His eyes turned to the stiff, defiant
figure of his mate sitting next to him.

Yes
, he thought with a small smile at the frozen face of his mate.
I
always get my way when I want something.

* * *

Now, he wondered how he was going
to be able to fulfill his promise. Over the past six days, all five of them
plus Titus, his brother, and the other two warriors had zero luck in getting
their hands on any type of tool that would work to remove the collars around
their neck. Something was telling him that they didn’t have much time left
either. He paced the room. They would be escorted to their evening meal soon.
Tomorrow another supply ship would arrive, and Vox’s gut was telling him it
would be their only chance of escape. He growled out in frustration as he paced
back and forth in the narrow room.

"Those damn insects are
organized, suspicious bastards," Tor said with a sigh. "They make
sure there are no tools available that might work on removing these damn
collars," he added with a wince as he received another small shock when he
ran his fingers around the edge of it.

"I’ve got burn marks almost
all the way around my neck from the damn thing," Lodar complained,
touching his tender throat.

"Do you need some medicine for
it?" Riley asked from where she was laying on the bed, reading on her
iPad. "I’ve got all kinds of stuff."

"You wouldn’t happen to have a
tool kit available, would you?" Tor joked.

"Of course," Riley said
without looking up. "Pliers, scissors, flathead screwdrivers, Philips head—you
name it, I’ve probably got it. What do you need?"

She finally looked up when no one
replied. All five men were looking at her in disbelief. She frowned, looking
from one to the other puzzled. She didn’t know what the big deal was; lots of
women carried basic tools with them. You never knew when you might need one,
and it wasn’t like she had a guy around with a tool bag fixing things for her.

"What?" she asked
innocently.

Vox took a step toward the bed,
looking down at her in disbelief. "You have tools with you, and you didn’t
tell us?"

Riley shrugged, looking up at him
with a raised eyebrow. "No one asked."

"No one asked," Vox
muttered looking at Tor and Lodar in disbelief. "We have been looking for
tools for the past week! Haven’t you heard us talking about it?" he asked
her in aggravation.

"Well, yes, now that you
mention it, but I figured when you said, ‘She’s a female, why would she need
tools?’"—Riley said, dropping her voice to a deeper tone to imitate Vox’s
voice—"that it was like a guy asking for directions! I decided if you
really needed them, you could ask me." And she returned her attention back
to the story she was reading.

Vox bit back a curse. "Can we
see the tools you have?" he asked through gritted teeth.

Riley rolled her eyes but shut off the
iPad. She sat up and reached for her huge handbag at the end of the bed. After
a few minutes of digging around in it, she began pulling out all the tools she
had stashed in the different compartments. She pulled out her large Leatherman,
then her Leatherman Micro, a folding set of Allen wrenches, a small plastic
container with various sizes of screwdrivers, a pair of scissors, her manicure
set, and a pair of wire snips.

"Oh, I didn’t know I had those
in there," she murmured. "I think I have another pair of needle-nose
pliers somewhere in here." Her voice was muffled as she stuck her head
further into the large bag.

"How in the names of all the gods
can she have so much in there?" Lodar asked, amazed, as she began pulling
more and more things out and laying them on the bed next to her.

Chapter
5

"What about this wire? Do
you think it connects to the explosive pack or to the detonation switch?"
Vox was asking Tor.

All five men were gathered around a
partially dismantled collar. Or should she say, four of the men were gathered
around one of the partially dismantled collars on Fred. Poor Fred was a
shivering nervous wreck as Vox, Tor, and Lodar examined the collar while Bob
leaned over their shoulders watching from a distance. They had been at it ever
since they had returned from the dining area.

"I’m not sure yet," Tor
murmured under his breath. "There are three sets of wires. If I cut the
wrong one it could explode. I don’t know enough about the Antrox to know how
they do their wiring configurations."

"Please," Fred’s right
head said in a trembling voice. His left head was sitting perfectly still with its
eyes tightly closed. "Please, c-ca-can’t you do this to someone else?"

"Oh, for heaven’s sake,"
Riley muttered, getting up from the bed where she had been trying to read. "How
difficult can this be?"

She tossed her iPad down to the
side. It was impossible to concentrate on what she was reading anyway with
everyone in the room. Besides, she was tired of listening to Fred’s soft
whimpers. She walked over to where the group of men was kneeling around the
small, trembling body of the Tiliqua and picked up the pair of wire snips. She
studied the wires for a moment before reaching over Tor’s shoulder and snipping
the reddish color wire. The moment she did, the glowing light showing it was
active went out.

"Problem solved," she
said, dropping the pliers into Tor’s open hand and returning to the bed.

Both sets of Fred’s eyes rolled
back in his head as he fainted. Lodar and Tor grabbed him and lowered him down
to the hard floor before turning to stare at her in disbelief. Riley picked up
her manicure kit, pulled out her nail file, and began shaping the chipped
edges; working in the mine had made a mess of them. She finally looked up when
the silence stretched into several long minutes.

Four pairs of eyes, including one
blazing set, were staring at her in disbelief. "What?" she asked,
looking at them in exasperation. "You guys were taking too long to make up
your minds. It’s not like it was that difficult of a choice, and I was tired of
listening to Fred whining."

"How did you know which wire
to clip?" Tor finally asked curiously.

Riley shrugged, looking at the nail
she had been working on. "Everyone knows it’s the red wire that you cut,"
she replied, working on the next nail.

"But how did you know?"
Vox asked suspiciously.

He wanted to know if perhaps he had
been mistaken this whole time about the female he knew to be his mate. Things
were suddenly not as clear as he first thought. What better way to knock him
and his men off guard than to find an unfamiliar female specimen they had no
experience with? The fact that she was his mate turned out to be a bonus. He
suddenly had questions he wanted answers to! Like why was she allowed to claim
five mates when all other females only had one? Why did she have tools on her?
How did she know which wire to cut? Was there more to her than he’d originally
thought?

Vox stood up and stalked toward her
menacingly. It would not make a difference that she was his mate. He would do
what he had to do to protect his people, even if it meant… Even if it meant
killing the one woman he knew was meant for him.

"How did you know which wire
to cut?" he growled out in a low, menacing voice.

Riley stopped filing her nails and
looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "I know you are not talking to me in
that tone of voice," she said, staring at him through narrowed eyes.

He stopped in front of the bed and
knelt down in front of her. Reaching out, he gripped her wrists in a firm but
unbreakable hold. He stared deeply into her eyes, determined to know the truth
even as his mind, body, and cat rebelled against the idea that she could betray
them.

"How did you know?" he
asked again softly.

Riley frowned back at him in
confusion. Why was he suddenly so intense? Everybody knew you were supposed to
cut the red wire. She frowned again, biting her lower lip.

Or was it the black one?
she suddenly thought, trying to remember which wire the guys in
The
Abyss
and
Speed
always said they were supposed to cut.

"Damn it, now I can’t
remember!" she said crossly. "I’m trying to remember if the guys in
the movies said you always cut the red one or the black one." She looked
at Vox with confused eyes. "I’ll have to watch
The Abyss
again."

"Who is this Abyss?" he
asked cautiously as Lodar and Tor came up behind him.

Riley looked up at the other two
men, then over to Bob before looking down where poor Fred was still out cold.
Her eyes moved back until she was looking worriedly into Vox’s dark tawny ones.

"He’s going to be all right, isn’t
he?" she asked hesitantly, glancing back at Fred before looking again at
Vox. "I mean, I cut the right one, didn’t I? He isn’t hurt, is he?"

"Riley," Vox said
squeezing her wrists gently to get her attention as her eyes drifted to the
Tiliqua again. "How did you know which wire to cut?"

"From all the movies I’ve
watched," she said looking at the other men. "I mean, I’m pretty sure
it was the red wire they always cut. You see, in the movie
The Abyss
, the
hero has to go to the bottom of the ocean because the bad guy was being a
butthead about the aliens that came to visit them. He has to stop this bomb
from blowing up the aliens that live there only he can’t really see what color
the wire is, and the good guys back on the underwater station are telling him
to cut the red wire. Only I can’t remember now if they said the red wire. It
could have been the black one. Anyway, he can’t really tell what color the wire
is because he is using this green glow stick thingy like we used to play with
on Halloween. That’s when we all dress up in costumes and pretend to be
monsters and stuff so we can go get some free candy, only I always dressed up
as a ghost because Pearl couldn’t afford costumes for me and Tina so she used
some old sheets," she explained. "Does this make sense?"

"No," all four men said
before Vox growled at the others to be quiet.

"No," Vox said, looking
into Riley’s confused eyes.

Riley sighed in frustration before
remembering she had been watching
Galaxy Quest
on her iPad earlier. She
tugged on her wrist so she could grab it and show them what she was talking
about. Vox held her firmly for a second before reluctantly releasing one wrist.
He kept his eyes glued to her while she reached for the device she had been so
focused on over the past couple of days. If she tried anything, he would make
her death as quick and painless as he could. Pain sliced through him at the
thought of hurting the delicate beauty in front of him. His cat hissed in
revolt, clawing at his insides in rebellion.

He watched as she pressed a button
on the device, and it lit up. "This is a movie," she was saying as
she flicked her finger along the smooth surface. "I love science fiction/fantasy-type
movies. Sometimes I’ll watch a good horror one, but I always get nightmares
from them so I have to be careful. I had nightmares for three days after
watching Stephen King’s
The Mist
!" she explained as she pressed
another button, and a strange creature appeared on the screen.

Vox watched it for a minute before
understanding dawned. She was referring to entertainment holovids. The human on
the small screen was working on an obviously fake control panel before he and a
human dressed in some type of costume disappeared behind the console. He
listened as Riley giggled. Her eyes were glued to the screen, mesmerized.

"God’s blood," Tor
muttered over Vox’s shoulder before a chuckled escaped him. "She used
something like this as a reference for knowing which wire to cut?" he said
with a shake of his head. "It’s a miracle Fred’s head wasn’t blown off!"

"That’s
okay," Riley responded absently, still watching the movie. "He has a
spare one."

* * *

Fred glared at Riley again over
the heads of the other men in their room. Titus, his brother, and two other men
had appeared in their room a couple of hours after they had removed the other
collar on Fred who finally came to in a very grouchy mood. Vox had also removed
the ones on Lodar, Tor, and Bob. They had left the one on Vox but had
disconnected it so it was no longer a threat. This allowed him the freedom to
move around the prisoners’ living quarters without attracting attention.

Tor was in the process of
disconnecting the collars so the other men would not have to worry about being
killed when they escaped. Riley sat curled up on the end of the bed watching
everything with a wary eye. She knew she should be excited about the idea of
getting off this rock, but she was still pissed at Vox. It had taken several
minutes for her to finally understand the big oaf thought she was some kind of
spy or something when he kept grilling her about where she got her tools from,
how she had been captured, and why was she allowed to choose five mates when
all the other women only had one. He had barked out one question after another,
holding her wrists tightly in his large hands the entire time until she finally
had enough of it and struggled to pull away. When she confronted him, he
admitted he thought she was some kind of spy brought in to trick him. He also
admitted he had been prepared to kill her if she had been.

She wasn’t so sure she wanted to go
with him and his men when they made their escape. She was thinking she might
have better luck with the next guy she chose. It didn’t help that Fred was
still mad at her either. Both of his heads had ripped her up one side and down
the other when he woke up. It had taken Bob’s calming voice and her swearing
she never meant him any harm before he had sulked over to the corner where he
sat shooting glares at her from both sets of eyes.

Riley decided she couldn’t stand
the glares Fred was giving her any longer. She had grown attached to the little
two-headed lizard, and it hurt that he was shooting her such heated looks of
displeasure. She scooted off the bed, trying to ignore the way Vox’s eyes
followed her every movement as she edged around the crowded group and went over
to where Bob and Fred were huddled in the corner. She slid down the wall until
she was sitting on the floor next to them.

"Fred," Riley said
quietly, touching the Tiliqua who had turned a cold shoulder to her as soon as
she came over to where he was sitting. "I’m sorry. I would never hurt you,
you know that don’t you? I think of you as a very, very dear friend," she
said, running her fingers gently along the side of one of his faces.

Both heads turned to her with a scowl.
"You could have killed me, Riley!" Fred bit out coolly.

"But she didn’t," Bob
muttered. "Be nice to her, Fred. She feels bad enough."

Riley glanced up at Bob and gave
him a grateful smile before looking back at her little friend. "Will you
go home once you leave here?" she asked quietly, picking up a small rock
lying next to her and playing with it.

"Maybe," Fred said with a
sigh. "I’d never been off the Spaceport before. I think I would like to
see more before I return. It will give me time to figure out what to do should
I decide to return to my father’s business," he muttered.

Riley looked down at the rock. Hot
tears burned her eyes at the idea of losing the small group of alien males.
They were the only creatures she knew here, and she had grown attached to them.
Her eyes flickered to Vox for a moment before she quickly looked back down when
she saw him staring at her intently.

"I’ll miss you both," she
admitted quietly. "You’ve both become good friends. I just want you to
know it has meant a lot to me."

Bob moved his big body so he was in
front of her. His huge, green arms folded over his gelatinous chest. He waited
patiently until she looked up at him.

"What are you planning now?"
he demanded.

Riley’s eyes grew large before she
shielded them. She was used to losing friends. If her mouth didn’t drive them
away, her moving on did. It was just…she wasn’t sure where to go. None of the
locations she was likely to end up in were programmed into her phone.

Hell,
she thought, depressed.
Even Google isn’t going to be able to
help me here!

"I figured I’d stick around
here for a while longer," she started to say before tears thickened her
throat and she had to clear it. She forced a smile to her face before she
continued. "I hope you both have a safe journey to wherever you decide to
go."

"We will not leave you behind,
Lady Riley," Bob said in his deep, melodious voice. "The warrior king
will not leave you. You are his mate."

Riley’s eyes flickered up, but she
couldn’t see Vox because of Bob’s huge body. "Yes, well, it isn’t his
decision. Besides, I think I’m allergic to cats so it wouldn’t work out anyway.
I’ll just stick around here and see if I can’t find me a trader or someone heading
back toward Earth. I’ve got some business there I need to finish, not to mention
my family is back there," she said lightly.