Choosing Riley: Sarafin Warriors Book 1

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my husband Steve for
believing in me and being proud enough of me to give me the courage
to follow my dream. I would also like to give a special thank you
to my sister and best friend Linda who not only encouraged me to
write but who also read the manuscript. Also to my other friends
who believe in me: Julie, Jackie, Lisa, Sally, and Chris.

—S. E. Smith

Science Fiction Romance

CHOOSING RILEY: SARAFIN WARRIORS BOOK 1

Susan E. Smith

Copyright 2013 by S. E. Smith

Smashwords Edition

Cover Design by Melody Simmons

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Synopsis

Riley St. Claire has always followed her own
rules. When she discovers her current employer is not as law
abiding as she thought, she has to leave town in a hurry or end up
buried with the dead guy she discovered. What she doesn’t expect is
to find herself being picked up by a passing trader from another
world.

As the ruling King of Sarafin, Vox d’Rojah,
was expected to produce a son who would be joined in marriage with
the first born daughter of the King of Valdier. The problem was Vox
had no intentions of having any sons, at least not in the near
future. He was quite happy with the wide selection of females he
had at his disposal. When he is captured by a ruthless Valdier
royal and sold to a mining operation the last thing he expected to
find with his bride mate.

Vox isn’t sure which would be easier:
fighting another war with the Valdier or capturing and holding onto
the human female who is unlike anything he has ever encountered
before.

Now, Vox has to escape back to his world
while fighting pirates, traders, and Riley!

The King of Sarafin has met his match with
Ms. Riley St. Claire from Earth. Now, he just needs to figure out a
way to let her know he has chosen her as his Queen and he has every
intention of keeping her by his side forever.

“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 had put her in this miserable spot? Oh, hell yeah.
Choose…

Riley jerked when she felt the icy 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
that 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 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 one. 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 non-existent get-away plans. 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 that 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, she had to get her fat…
, Riley
sighed.
No, her maturely figured ass into the scum-bucket’s
truck
.

Riley sighed again.
She really, really
should have taken those anger management classes like her sainted
sister, Tina, said she 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
God-forsaken hell’s beach just as it was getting dark.

Give him a fucking blow-job if she 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 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 down-right ugly. She had, of course,
taken it all in stride until the last comment and had to be
restrained again after she 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
them?

That was so seriously not going to happen.
Restraints or not, she would beat the shit out of any guy who tried
to ‘mate’ with her,
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?”