Captured Boxed Set: 9 Alpha Bad-Boys Who Will Capture Your Heart (111 page)

Vox stared into Viper’s dark green
and yellow eyes and swore. "She is no threat."

The door opened just as Vox let
Viper go. "My lord, the female has kidnapped Nahuel. She is demanding he
take her to an unknown planet."

Viper rubbed his neck and threw his
brother a disgusted look. "No threat?"

"Shut
up, Viper," Vox grunted out as he headed out the door. "She is always
doing things like this."

* * *

Riley wasn’t sure her bad-ass-girl
outfit was working. Instead of scaring the men away, they seemed to be
multiplying—exponentially. The two she had encountered originally were still
following right behind her, and if she wasn’t mistaken, they were purring.

"Will you two go take a hike
off a short bridge?" Riley snapped out as she turned and walked backward. "Go
on, shoo, get out of here, go fetch a stick or something."

Tadzio grinned as his eyes dropped
to the deep
V
on Riley’s shirt.
His eyes were glued to the abundant cleavage showing. His eyes rose to look at
her glistening lips.

"The only thing I want to
fetch is you," he growled out. "Do you have milk in those?"

Riley was so stunned that she
stopped walking backward in shock. Her mouth dropped open as she stared at him
in disbelief. What was it with men and boobs? She totally could not understand
their fascination. They had them too, but that didn’t mean women went around
staring at them.

"I know you did not just ask
me something so rude!" she snapped out indignantly.

"Yes, he did," Nahuel
replied with a grin.

Riley’s mouth snapped shut at the
same time as her eyes narrowed dangerously. She rolled her shoulders as her
hand slipped to the waistband of her pants. It looked like the mini Taser was
going to be used sooner than she thought. She took a seductive step toward them
as a small crowd of men gathered around her.

Biting her lower lip, she pushed it
out so it pouted as she looked both men over carefully. "Would either one
of you two gorgeous hunks happen to know how to fly one of those shuttle
thingies?" she asked in her best Marilyn Monroe voice.

Nahuel’s eyes glazed as he watched
the voluptuous female walk slowly toward them with a roll of her hips. "I
am one of the best pilots on board," he answered in a hoarse voice.

Riley walked up to him and ran her
fingernail down along his cheek over to his nose where she tapped it gently.
Leaning into him, she let him feel her warm breath on his lips as she answered
him. A smile curved her lips as her other hand moved to the
belt
loop on her pants where she had hidden
the wrist cuffs Vox had used on her.

"Well, I guess today is your
lucky day," Riley breathed out huskily. "Yes, they do produce milk
but only on special occasions."

Nahuel’s eyes rolled in delight
just as Riley slapped the wrist cuff on one of his wrists before she ducked
under his arm, twisting his arm behind him at the same time as she kicked the
back of his knees, dropping him to the floor and slapping the other one on.
When Tadzio took a step forward, she lifted her hand and touched his chest,
squeezing the trigger on the newly recharged Taser. She would have to remember
to thank Tor for the neat little recharger he had given her. It had come in
handy.

Tadzio jerked and dropped as spasms
went through his body. Riley jerked Nahuel up and pressed the Taser into his
lower back in warning. It took a couple of seconds for the men surrounding her
to realize what she had done. When they did, they jerked back defensively.

"Now, if you don’t want to
enjoy the same level of discomfort as your friend, you will do as you are told.
You are now my prisoner. I want you to take me home," Riley said in her
normal voice. She grinned at the huge alien she had captured with excitement as
she hadn’t really thought it would be that easy. "Come on, chop-chop. I’m
not getting any younger."

Tadzio groaned as his body jerked
again. "What did you do to him?" Nahuel asked, looking down at his
friend with narrowed eyes.

"Oh, he’ll be all right in a
little while. I did the same thing to Vox. I think it took about an hour or so.
He recovered from that much faster than he did the pepper spray. Poor Tor was
miserable for hours afterward, even though he kept telling me he wasn’t. Oh,
can you remind me to thank Tor for the charger. My poor Taser would have been
dead if not for him," Riley replied cheerfully. "Now, let’s go. I
need to get away before the big hairball finds out I’ve escaped from his living
quarters."

"You are too late. The ‘hairball’
already knows," Vox growled out loudly as he came down the corridor toward
her.

"Great! Just great! I finally
have everything going my way and what happens? Busted! That’s what! I swear I
hate being the supporting character," Riley grumbled as she tried to
shuffle Nahuel so he was between her and Vox. "If I had been the heroine I
would have not only been on a supercharged shuttle heading home, I’d have a ton
of gold and been eating caviar on little toasted crackers."

Several of the men standing around
choked back a chuckle as they listened to Riley talking to herself. They had
her surrounded so they knew there was no way she would escape, but they could
tell that she really believed she had the upper hand. Now, they watched as the
fiercest warrior on their planet faced off with the unusual female.

"Riley, let him go," Vox
growled out.

"No! I caught him fair and
square. He’s mine!" Riley snapped back.

"If she really has milk, I am
totally willing to remain in her captivity," Nahuel offered with a grin.

Vox snarled at Nahuel. "Her
milk is mine!"

"Hello! Do you two have any
idea how embarrassing it is to be talked about like I am some kind of a milk
cow? No one is going to be drinking any milk from me. Now get your minds out of
the gutter and shut up already!" Riley’s voice rose at the same time as
her temper and the burning inside her rose as the damn thing hiding under her
skin threatened to break free again. She looked furiously at Vox. "I want
to go home! I captured me a pilot so I should be able to just go."

"I already told you no,"
Vox snapped back as he took a step closer to her. "What have you done to
your hair?" he demanded studying her face and realizing she looked—sexy as
hell!

"Why?" Riley asked forgetting
that she was supposed to be holding onto Nahuel for a moment and running her
hand over the slicked-down strands. "I call this my bad-girl hair. I wear
it like this when I go to the bar sometimes. Don’t you like it?"

The moment she released him, Nahuel
jerked forward and turned away from her. He grinned as he snapped the restraint
on his wrists. He had learned that trick when he was in basic training.

Vox’s deep snarl ripped through the
corridor as his cat reacted to the creature wrapped around his mate’s neck. Vox
shifted between one jerky step and the next as his cat took over. He vaguely
heard Riley’s scream followed by his brother Viper’s roar to stop, but none of
it mattered. The beady-eyed creature stared in challenge, as if daring him to
take Riley from him. Vox’s teeth sank into the neck of the creature just as his
massive paws knocked Riley over Tadzio’s inert figure. He pulled, listening
with satisfaction as the creature came apart in his mouth. The creature tasted
foul, but he didn’t stop until he had torn it to tattered pieces. Only then did
he realize that Riley wasn’t yelling anymore. It was her heartbreaking sobs
that finally broke through the haze of rage coursing through him.

He shifted back to his two-legged
form, straddling her as she looked up at him with a quivering lip and quiet
sobs choking her. He looked down at her bright blue eyes in confusion. He had
done it again. He had destroyed another one of her jackets, only this time she
wasn’t laughing.

"What?" he asked as he
reached out to touch her lower lip. "I did it again, didn’t I? I messed
up."

Riley just looked at him as tears
escaped from the corners of her eyes. "I hate you! It was the last thing
she gave me, and you ruined it," she whispered as her lower lip quivered
uncontrollably. "I knew she loved me when she gave me this jacket for my
birthday, and you ruined it."

"Who?" Vox asked quietly,
ignoring the men who were silently helping Tadzio to his feet.

"My little sister, Tina,"
Riley answered as she turned her face away from him and closed her eyes,
shutting him out. "I miss my family," she said quietly.

Viper stared down at the female who
had seemed so different and realized that maybe he had been a little harsh
in
his judgment of her. Right now, he wanted
to promise her whatever in the gods she wanted. He wondered if this was what
his brother felt whenever he was near her. There was something about her that
pulled at something deep inside him. He shook his head. It had to be a trick.
Surely this was part of their power. He watched as Vox gently pulled his mate
into his arms, muttering words of apology and promises he would make it up to
her as soon as he could.

Chapter
17

Two days later, Vox was ready to
start another war. He wanted—needed—to kill something or someone. Once Riley
had gotten over being so upset, she had become very, very angry. She swore she
would drive him to the brink of insanity if he didn’t return her home. She had
started singing a song that was about to drive him to that point. Out of
desperation, he had contacted Creon and demanded he tell him the location of
Earth. A rueful smile curved his lips as he thought of his mate’s tenacity. It
was one of the things he loved about her. She had finally worn herself out that
first night and fallen asleep. The problem was she started again the moment she
woke up and had been working on him for two solid days. That was when he made
up his mind he would compromise with her. He would not take her back to her
world, but he would bring a bit of her world to her.

"I will be going to Earth
after we have taken care of Raffvin," Creon responded quietly. "My
mate needs closure on the life she had before. I owe this to her and to us so
that we can move forward."

"I want you to take Viper with
you," Vox stated. "I want him to bring Riley’s sister and Grandma
Pearl back to her. She misses them. I cannot return with her to her world.
There are still traitors among my people I need to take care of. He will go in our
place to her world for them."

Creon’s eyebrows rose. He remembered
the young Sarafin royal as being a bit of a hot head, not unlike himself. He
wondered how Viper would handle being around females who were so different from
what he was used to. His lips curved as he thought of what his own mate’s
reaction would be to the news he planned to return with her to her world to say
good-bye.

"I will talk to Kelan. He has
returned with his mate Trisha to retrieve her father," Creon shared. "I
will let him know that Viper will be joining us. From what Mandra said the last
time I talked with him, there might be a few more. Adalard, Bahadur, and
Zebulon wanted to go as well. So far the only one resisting is Ha’ven. He
states he has enough females to choose from and doesn’t need any more."

"Viper is only going to
retrieve the females, not mate with one of them," Vox stated firmly. "I
will brief him. He will need to spend time with Riley so he knows where to
begin his search."

"So, how is it going with your
mate? You look a bit—tired," Creon said with a grin.

"She has most of the crew
ready to throw me in one of the detention cells," Vox replied just as the
door opened and Viper walked in with a dark scowl on his face. "I have to
go. I will contact you again in a few hours."

"Good luck, my friend,"
Creon said with a laugh as he signed off.

"We should be within range of
Raffvin’s hidden base by tomorrow," Viper said, walking over to the wall
replicator and ordering a drink.

"Good, I am ready to be done
with this," Vox said turning to study his brother. "I have a mission
for you."

Viper turned with his drink in his
hand and raised his eyebrow at the edge of authority in his brother’s voice. He
only used that tone when he was giving him an order that he knew Viper wasn’t
going to like. Viper took a slow drink before he responded.

"What is it?" Viper asked,
moving over to the conference table and sitting down across from Vox.

"I need you to return to my
mate’s planet and retrieve her Grandma Pearl and her younger sister, Tina,"
Vox said forcefully.

Viper sat back and gazed at his
brother with a frigid look. "Why send me? You could send another warrior.
I am not an escort. I’m an assassin if you need one or a spy should the need
arise," he replied in an emotionless voice.

"I want someone I can trust,"
Vox replied softly. "I am not asking, Viper. I am ordering you to go.
Creon will be returning to his mate’s planet. Kelan is already there. I will
have Riley share everything she can with you to help you."

"Do you trust her? What if it
is a trap?" Viper asked, slamming his hand down angrily on the table. "Have
these females taken all your wits from you and the Valdier?"

Vox growled low, the sound rumbling
in warning that Viper was treading on thin ice. "Do not question my sanity
unless you are willing to challenge me for my position. You may be my brother,
but I will not let you or anyone else question my leadership or my mate’s
loyalty to me."

Viper’s lips tightened. "Loyal
to you—but what of your people?" he snarled back.

Vox stood up, towering over his
brother who was still sitting. "She
chose
five mates when she should have chosen just one. She did it to
protect the males who were left from being used as food. She was prepared to
die even as she freed all the prisoners on that mining asteroid. She would have
if I hadn’t stopped her. She is my mate, Viper. Accept it. She is your queen,
and you will not disrespect her—ever. It is your duty to protect her at all
cost, even if it means with your life."

Viper set his barely touched drink
down and stood up stiffly. "As you wish, my lord," he said formally,
bowing his head in stiff respect. "I will get the necessary information
from my queen and prepare to leave as soon as our strike on Raffvin is
complete."

Vox watched as his younger brother
turned and strode out of the room, leaving him alone. He rolled his shoulders
in an effort to ease the tight muscles in them. If he had known having a mate
was going to be so much work, he might have thought twice about it. That was
until images of Riley’s flashing eyes, the twinkle in them when she got into
things she shouldn’t, her wild mass of hair twirling as she laughed or walked,
and her gazing up at him with burning eyes flared through his mind. He wondered
how he was going to survive until she forgave him. His eyes lit up as he
thought of how he had left her sleeping just a short time again. Maybe it was
time to wake her up. If he kept her too tired to argue and too satisfied to be
mad, maybe he could win her love.

Finally!
His cat hissed.

Oh,
shut up,
he grunted as he felt his body react to
his thoughts. He was going to go claim his mate over and over again until she
couldn’t think to be upset anymore. Then, he would tell her about Viper going
for her family. That should make her forgive him once and for all. With the
hope that this plan worked, he stood up and strode determinedly out the door
heading for his living quarters and Riley.

* * *

Riley groaned as waves of heat
flared inside her. Her skin tingled where it touched the hot flesh rubbing
against it. She was having the most delicious dream. A hiss escaped her as
sharp teeth nipped at first one nipple, then the other until both throbbed and
ached for more. Her legs fell apart at the first tug on her neatly trimmed silk
curls. A loud cry burst from her as thick fingers rubbed her clit, making her
slick and swollen with their determined search.

"Vox," she whispered
sleepily.

"Yes, my fiery little mate,"
Vox replied as he ran his lips down over her softly rounded belly. "You
were made for loving, Riley" he groaned as he tugged on the silken curls. "I
love touching you and how responsive you are to me."

"That feels so good," she
moaned as she bit her lip as sharp waves of heat flooded her. "You better
not stop if you want to live."

Vox chuckled as he gently opened
her to his lips, nipping at her engorged clitoris and purring as her body
reacted to his with undeniable passion.

"I wouldn’t even think of it,"
he responded huskily as her scent overwhelmed him and his cat.

He was going to have to tell her
before too much longer about the changes occurring within her body. His cat
could not wait much longer. He buried his tongue inside her, lapping at the
delicious moisture as it flowed over it. A loud purr escaped him as his cat
responded to his mate being close. He moaned when Riley lifted her legs and
draped them over his shoulders, pulling him closer. Her body moved in
increasing agitation as she came closer to her climax, and he increased the
pressure, wanting to taste her release.

He slid his hands under the soft
flesh of her ass and lifted her so he could drink deeper from her flowing well.
Her loud cries told him she was enjoying what he was doing. He spread his
fingers out, squeezing her ass as he nipped her swollen nub with his sharp
teeth and was rewarded when her body exploded over his tongue.

"Yes!" she hissed out,
bunching the covers of the bed in her fisted hands. "Oh, yes!" she
moaned, shuddering and letting her legs fall weakly to the mattress.

He chuckled as he released her,
moving quickly to sit back and sliding his hands under her. "My turn,"
he growled out in excitement.

He flipped her over so fast she
didn’t have time to protest. Gripping her around the waist, he lifted her at
the same time as he aligned his thick, hard cock with her dripping channel. He
pulled her back toward him and watched as his cock disappeared slowly inside
her, his thumbs caressing the sweet globes of her ass. He drew in a shuddering
breath at the beauty of the sight, his hands tightening on her hips to hold her
still so he could control the pace.

"Oh, God!" Riley breathed
out, throwing her head back at the feeling of fullness invading her body.

"Oh, Vox!" he growled in
response, watching her beautiful curls flow along the delicate curve of her
back.

Streaks of swirling black suddenly
appeared, teasing him and his cat with what she would look like in her cat
form. He held his breath, pushing in and out of her body slowly, trying to draw
more of her cat to the surface without having her shift. He
groaned
as the swirls danced to the rhythm
of his thrusts. Never in his life had he ever seen anything more breathtaking.
His eyes jerked up to Riley’s when she glanced over her shoulder at him as he
mounted her with strong, swift strokes. Her eyes had changed slightly, becoming
more tilted at the corners and the blue was swirled with darker blues and
golden yellows. Her pupils were more elongated, as well. He felt the pull of
her gaze as he increased the speed of his claiming. He was drowning in the beauty
of them as much as in the feel of her body wrapped around his. The combination
was too much for the fragile hold he had on his control.

"Riley!" he roared as his
body jerked suddenly, exploding inside her with such force he fell forward over
her back in gasping pants. "Oh gods, Riley, I need you."

Riley’s
body clenched around his as she felt his cock swell and lock deep inside her.
She didn’t think she would ever get used to the erotic feeling of being locked
as one with him. Her vaginal channel rippled with shockwaves as her orgasm
wrapped around his cock, pulling him deeper into her in response to his own
powerful one. Her head fell to the bed as she struggled to catch her breath and
not collapse under him. She wouldn’t have been able to anyway with the way he
was gripping on her hips as if he was grasping a lifeline.

* * *

The next morning she realized one
thing, if she thought he would make love to her and leave, she had been sadly
mistaken. They had both fallen into a deep sleep after the third time he took
her, this time with her sitting on his lap while he pounded into her and sucked
on her breasts until she was totally mindless. Even then, he had only slept for
a few hours before he woke her again loving her over and over in positions she
turned hot just thinking about. He continued
his
systematic attack throughout the night, barely letting her fall
asleep before he woke her to start all over again. She had no idea how he could
function since she was a melted puddle against the sheets, but once he started
touching her, she didn’t care how he did it, just that he didn’t stop.

"You are going to be the death
of me," she moaned as she felt his hand moving over her hip again. "If
I could bottle whatever you have inside you and sell it back home I’d be a
billionaire within a week!"

Vox’s hand tightened on her hip at
her mention of her home world. "I need you to talk to Viper. He will be
going to your world."

Riley jerked in surprise and rose
up to look at Vox with her mouth hanging open. "When do we leave? How long
will it take? Oh my God, I didn’t think I would ever make it home again! I’ll
have to go see my Grandma Pearl and Tina. I won’t make the mistake this time of
not telling them how much I love them and that I wouldn’t trade them for
anything in the world, no matter what I normally tell them. Oh!" She
released her pent-up breath and sat up, uncaring of the sheets that dropped to
her lap showing all the love bites that Vox had left against their creamy
flesh. "I have to get the paperwork to the proper authorities about my
ex-boss and his dad too! How long did you say it would take for us to get
there?" she asked, impatiently pushing her wild curls out of her face.

Vox’s mouth pulled into a straight
line as he realized Riley misunderstood his explanation. "Riley, I said
Viper is going, not you. You will be returning to Sarafin with me. Viper will
transfer to the
Horizon
and travel with Creon and his mate back to your
world."