Captured Boxed Set: 9 Alpha Bad-Boys Who Will Capture Your Heart (110 page)

"Here you go, brother,"
Viper said, looking on as his brother lowered the voluptuous alien female down
to the floor of the docking bay. "Are you sure you want to bring her?"
he asked as he handed his brother the restraining cuffs.

Vox growled as he straddled his
mate, holding her face down with one hand between her shoulder blades while he
used his other hand to grab at her flailing wrist. He pulled first one, then
the other around and cuffed them. The thought of taking her like this burned
through him with such ferocity that he had to close his eyes and recite another
training script before he could rise up off her.

"Bob! Fred! Do something!"
Riley wailed as she was rolled over and picked up again. "You have to help
me!"

Bob put a hand out to stop Fred
when he took a step toward Riley. "He will be a good mate for you, Riley
St. Claire from Denver, Colorado. I will always be there should you need me."

"I need you now, you big bowl
of Jell-O." Riley sniffed. "You have to help me get back home."

Bob smiled gently and moved closer
to where Vox was tenderly holding her now quiet form. He reached out and
touched her cheek with a plump, green finger before stepping back again. He
looked fiercely at Vox who fought back a grin that the huge, gentle Gelatian
would think to threaten him.

"I
am
sending you home,
Riley," Bob said, still looking at Vox. "I am sending you where you
should be."

Riley’s face turned mutinous as she
glared at the huge green creature who she thought had been her friend. He was
just like the rest of the male species. They took what they wanted and didn’t
give a damn about the consequences. A fat tear rolled down her flushed cheek as
she glared at Bob with a look of betrayal.

"I thought you were my friend,"
she sniffed. "I should have known better."

Bob looked down sadly at Riley. "I
am your friend, Lady Riley. That is exactly why I am doing what I am."

"But…" Fred’s right head
started to say before his left head turned and hushed him.

"Bob’s right. Riley is Vox’s
mate. We cannot interfere," Fred’s left head said sternly.

"I don’t need either one of
you!" Riley said hoarsely. "I can get away on my own. You just wait.
The first trader I find I’m going to kidnap his ass and make him take me home.
You just wait and see! I’ll be home before you know it!"

"I hate to break up this
little party, but we’ve got to go! I just received a message from Adalard that
they need help. Mandra has gone in after Raffvin," Ha’ven said grimly,
coming up behind everyone.

"Vox," Viper said,
drawing his older brother’s attention back to the situation at hand. "We
must go."

Vox nodded grimly, cursing Creon’s
brother for confronting their uncle on his own. He had read the reports sent to
Creon about the destructive weapon Raffvin had that could destroy their
symbiot. If Mandra was killed, it would mean the death of Carmen’s sister,
Ariel, as well. It was foolish for him to take such a chance, but Vox knew he
would have done the same thing if given half a chance. The
Shifter
would
travel beside the
Horizon
to Raffvin’s hidden base. He was determined to
make the traitorous Valdier royal pay for what he had done not only to him, but
to his friends.

Chapter
16

Riley twisted around until she
was in a sitting position on the bed. Vox had continued to ignore her protests
as he and the other men boarded the shuttle that took them to the other
warship. Riley had been quiet when they had exited the shuttle simply because
she was too scared to say anything. There were hundreds of tall, deadly looking
men working on the huge ship. Well, they were working until they saw Vox
carrying her possessively in his arms. If she thought Viper and some of the
other warriors were intimidating, it was nothing compared to a ship load of
dark, suspicious, and intense stares. Only Lodar and Tor were at ease, joking
as one carried her huge handbag and the other rolled her bright pink suitcase
behind Vox as he carried her down corridor after corridor. She had gotten so
confused she knew it would take her a month to figure out how to get back to
the docking bay.

He had quickly deposited her on the
bed. His fierce look and the grim tightening of his lips should have warned her
he wasn’t going to undo the restraining cuffs he had put on her. Instead, he
had attached them to a metal bar at the head of the bed. She had called him
every single name she could think of from a hairy-ass horny toad to a
grub-eating parasite. Tor and Lodar had chuckled until she started in on them.
Vox growled out under his breath at them, and the two laughing hyenas
disappeared, leaving them alone.

"I have to check on the ship,
meet with my brother, and go over a few other things before I return," Vox
said, brushing her wavy hair back from her face. "I cannot take a chance
of you getting into anything."

"The least you can do is let
me go!" Riley snorted angrily. "You can lock me in the room. You don’t
have to leave me hooked to the frigging bed!"

"I am not willing to take the
chance of you figuring out how to get out," Vox replied. "I will not
be long," he added brushing the back of his knuckles along her flushed
cheek.

"I don’t care how long you
take! You can just forget I’m even here. I hope you get lost. I hope you—"

Vox cut off her words the only way
he knew how, with his lips. He held her head still between the palms of his
huge hands while he devoured her. His need for her threatening to override his
sense of responsibility to his men. He drove his tongue deep into her mouth,
dueling with her tongue as she fought back with a ferocity that ignited his
blood to boiling.

He reluctantly pulled back and
pressed his lips to her forehead. "You fire my blood, Riley. I have never
felt this way before about another female in my life," he whispered.

Riley pulled back and gazed up into
his eyes to see if he was just saying that to make fun of her or if he really
meant it. The look in his eyes was so intense she drew in a shocked breath. He
looked like…like…like he loved her! It was the same look some of the male leads
had for the heroines in the movies.

"I will return soon," he
repeated, brushing a hard kiss over her lips and leaving her lying on the bed,
stunned
.

That had been one nap and several
hours ago. Riley now believed that she had been totally mistaken about the look
in his eyes. It had not been love; it had been lust. Just like every other guy
she had ever met. She worked herself into a fine temper as she lay there. She
also needed to pee! Since it didn’t look like Vox was going to be returning
anytime soon she figured it was time to get herself out of the pickle she was
currently in. It wasn’t like this was the first time she had been in this
situation. Well, not exactly this situation but not the first time she found
herself handcuffed. No, that privilege was for the idiot cop who thought he
could offer her a deal in exchange for a speeding ticket when any fool could
have told him that speeding was an impossible task for her little Ford. She had
kneed the guy in the balls when he did a pat down
on
her.

"I am so going to kidnap me a
trader," Riley muttered. "I don’t care who it is. I’m going to head
home. If I need counseling when I get there, who cares! Everyone has a
counselor now a days. It is considered the ‘in’ thing."

Riley worked one of her earrings
off and gave a regretful sigh that she was about to destroy it. Straightening
the long metal loop, she worked at the lock until she heard the slight click.
The cuffs fell off. Riley breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God, Tina had shown
her how to pick locks. Her little sister might have a metal bar up her ass most
of the time, but she was a very avid reader. Tina had checked out a book on how
to pick locks from the library one summer. She and her little sister had spent
the rest of the summer picking every lock they could just to see if it really
worked.

Riley slid off the bed and hurried
into the bathroom. A loud sigh of relief escaped her as she relieved her
overfull bladder.
Hell hath no fury like a woman denied a bathroom when she
needs it,
she thought savagely. She would love to tie his ornery ass up and
see how he liked it!

As soon as she was finished, she
marched over to her large handbag and began rifling through it. She laid her
mini Taser and pepper spray on the bed before she unzipped her suitcase to find
something suitable to wear for her great escape. She pulled out her black
leather pants and a black
T
-shirt
from the bar with the slogan "Bike, Boobs and Beer—I have it all at The
White Pearl." She quickly dressed in her weekend-at-the-bar outfit. She
even attached the spiked dog collar she had picked up for Halloween last year.
She pulled her black, stiletto ankle boots out and pulled them on. She knew she
looked hot in this outfit. Craig, her grandma’s three-hundred-pound bouncer,
always groaned when he saw her dressed like this. He knew he would be ultrabusy
when she did. Last, she pulled out the jacket her sister had gotten her for her
birthday a few months ago. It was a fake, black mink jacket complete with a
fake mink head draped over the left shoulder. The beady little glass eyes dared
anyone to mess with her for fear of taking its place around her neck. She slid
the jacket on, figuring she would need it. It was the only one that really went
with the leather pants besides the one jacket Vox had already destroyed.

"And if I had more time, I
would make him pay for a replacement," Riley growled out.

Determined to leave in style, she
pulled her makeup bag out and added a dramatic touch of varying shades of blue
around her eyes to make them pop before doing a heavy outline of black liner
and mascara. Bright, glossy red lips and a swipe of blush and she looked like
one very bad bitch. Grabbing her hair gel, she poured a generous amount into
the palm of her hand and ran it though her wavy strands. Pulling her brush out,
she quickly pulled her hair into a tight, slick bun. She pulled out the crystal
hair clip and fastened it to hold it in place. She studied her reflection for a
moment before adding a pair of huge silver hoops. Damn, she made the "bad
girl" look good even if she was an Amazon!

She would like to see any of those
guys give her the "look" like they did when Vox brought her aboard.
Turning, she snatched up the mini Taser and slid it into the back of her
waistband under her jacket before pocketing the pepper spray. Finally, she
slung her large handbag over her shoulder. She was so totally ready to go
kidnap someone and get the hell out of here!

Riley ran one hand over her slicked-back
hair one more time before heading for the door. It opened as soon as she
brushed her hand over the panel. With a self-satisfied smile on her bloodred
lips, she strode out of the room like she own the place. Two men walking toward
her stopped in shock as she approached them. She ignored their stares and added
a little more sway to her hips as she approached. Just as she reached them, she
thrust her hands out, palms flat against their chests, and shoved them to the
side.

"Out of the way, boys,"
Riley snarled in
a
husky voice.
"Momma is looking for an exit, and she is ready to bust any balls that get
in her way."

The two men stumbled back in shock
and watched as Riley walked away, their eyes glued to the tight black leather
covering her lush rounded ass. Both men growled low with desire as they watched
the seductive sway of her wide hips.

They
turned, looking at each other before a huge grin creased each face. "Mine!"
they both growled out at the same time.

* * *

Vox ran his hands through his
hair again as he listened to Viper cover the events that had happened since he,
Tor, and Lodar had been kidnapped. Gods, he could barely keep his mind on the
tasks at hand. His mind kept drifting back Riley. He couldn’t forget the
passion in her kiss, the way she looked spread out on his bed with her hands
bound, and the thrust of her beautiful breasts. He remembered how they
overflowed his hands as he sucked at the taut peaks when he claimed her. It had
been too long since he had even a moment alone with her. He needed her.

"Vox!" Viper snapped. "What
is wrong with you? You have been groaning for the past several minutes. Do you
need a healer?"

Vox jerked and looked at his
brother in irritation. "No, I don’t need a healer. I need Riley!" he
retorted in frustration. "I need to mate with her. I haven’t been able to
think straight since I first saw her," he admitted reluctantly.

Viper frowned darkly. "Does
she have some type of control over you?" he demanded
,
looking hard at his older brother.

Vox shook his head. "I don’t
know. She is my mate. I’ve heard talk of when we found our mate we would need
them with a need unlike anything we have ever felt before, but I never really
believed it. I know how father is with mother, but I just thought it was him
and her. Now I am not so sure. All I can think about is being with her,"
he said, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck before clenching his fist
and laying it on the conference table in front of him.

"How did you meet her?"
Viper asked with a deceptive calm.

Viper was really worried about Vox.
Never before had he ever seen his older brother act like this, especially
around a female. He had never seen a species like her until he caught sight of
Creon and Mandra’s mates. They looked different from the one Vox had, but their
features were close enough he was sure they were the same species. He wondered
if this was an unknown alien
species’
way of infiltrating their worlds and taking them over. He would
need to contact their parents and brothers and warn them of Vox’s unusual
behavior. It might be necessary to eliminate the female if she posed a danger.

Vox leaned back and looked at his
younger brother with a small grin. "She was giving the Antrox running the
mining asteroid a piece of her mind. She was the most beautiful thing I had
ever seen. Her eyes were flashing fire, her body was made for loving, and her
voice was like…" Vox shook his head at his brother’s open mouth look of
disbelief. "I knew she was my mate immediately. There were five of us in
the Choosing Room. She
chose
us
all. When the Antrox tried to tell her she couldn’t, she gave him one look, and
the next thing I know we were all escorted to her living quarters."

"She
chose
five mates?" Viper asked in disbelief. "How could she
choose five?"

"She is Riley St. Claire from
Denver, Colorado, and she can do whatever she wants." Vox grinned as he
repeated his mate’s words. "When I tried to claim her, she knocked me on
my ass—twice! She was magnificent."

"So, how did you escape? You
said you would tell me when you got on board," Viper asked in confusion.

"Riley," Vox said with
another shake of his head.

Viper listened in disbelief as Vox
explained about the tools, Riley getting hurt and having to go to medical, and
what happened the next morning. He found it impossible to believe that a female
could do the things that Vox was saying. Sure, he knew of the females who had
betrayed them. He currently had two of his brother’s females locked up. Still,
they used their bodies and
wiles
to fight. They didn’t go shooting, blowing up, or fighting against
males. His suspicions that this species might be a deadly opponent that needed
to be eliminated was growing. They could be extremely dangerous if they were
allowed to run free or even mate with the most powerful members of their
species. His thoughts turned to the fact that all five of the Valdier royals
were mated to such creatures. Their
take
over had already begun.

"You cannot mate with her,"
Viper said coldly, looking at his older brother with determination. "She
needs to be either contained or eliminated."

Vox surged out of his seat,
reaching out and grabbing his brother around the throat in a deadly hold. "She
is my mate. No one will touch her. No one will harm her. She is your queen, and
you will not forget that," he snarled, his teeth growing longer as his cat
rebelled against the other male.

"You are not thinking clearly,"
Viper growled hoarsely, ignoring the tightening on his throat. "I swore to
protect our King and our people. I will not let an unknown species threaten
either of them."