Choosing Riley: Sarafin Warriors Book 1 (2 page)

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 towards 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 was 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 pointing 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 up-tight!” 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 body language could be a very effective
weapon.

Antrox 785 ground his gums together in
frustration. Throwing up a hand to the guards below him, he
signaled for them to take all the men to the cavern assigned to the
female. With a jerk of his head, he motioned for the two guards
standing back behind Riley to come forward.

“Take her to her living quarters where her
mates are and bring me the trader who brought the female here,”
Antrox 785 said harshly.

One of the guards looked cautiously from
Riley to Antrox 785 before replying. “The trader has already left,
785,” Antrox 921 said.

Antrox 785 looked down at Riley who was
baring her teeth at him and snapping them together. He took a step
away, curling his clawed fingers into the palm of his green hands.
With a nod of his head, he watched as the two guards escorted Riley
out of the choosing room. Antrox 785 had already decided if it had
not been for the law preventing an Antrox from harming a female -
any female - he would have gleefully fed the female to the Pactors,
the large creatures they used to pull the ore out of the mines as
food. Antrox 785 made a note to himself that the next time the
trader came to the mines, he would not be leaving.

Vox jerked at the collar around his neck and
received another burning zap from it. He growled at the other males
who watched him. He knew two out of the four. Tor was his chief of
engineering and Lodar was his medical officer. They had both been
with him when he left his warship, the
Shifter
, to purchase
crystals at the Valdier spaceport. All three of them had been
enjoying some refreshments when a Valdier warrior approached them
and said one of the members of the royal house of Valdier wished to
speak with them. Vox vaguely wondered at the time if it was in
reference to the tentative peace agreement they had established
almost a hundred years before. 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.

They had sat down to drink with an older
Valdier warrior named Raffvin. He said he had news for Vox that
concerned the peace agreement between the two former warring
species. He had already made up his mind to ignore whatever the old
warrior was going to say. The male had been pestering some of his
councilmen to meet with him. He was annoyed the Valdier had not
taken the hint he wasn’t interested in meeting with him. As far as
he was concerned, if he wasn’t their leader, Zoran Reykill or his
brother Creon, he really didn’t give a damn what the man had to
say. He had met Zoran Reykill off and on during their many years of
war and respected the man for being a strong and fair warrior who
fought with integrity and cared about his people. It was his
friendship with the youngest royal, Creon, that had sealed the end
of the war and a long and lasting alliance. Creon had saved his
life during an assassination attempt by some of his own warriors
aimed at igniting fury at the Valdier during the Great Wars. The
resulting friendship had led to a collaborative effort to discover
who was behind the war. A small group of elite royal houses from
Valdier, Sarafin, and Curizan were discovered to be working
together to bring down the current ruling class of each star system
so they could gain power.

Vox was determined to cleanse his star system
of those who would betray their own people. He had gone after them
without mercy, whether they were male or female; to him, a traitor
was a traitor. He knew it had affected Creon badly when he found
out the female he was in love with, a Curizan princess, was one of
those responsible for instigating the war. They had discovered it
almost too late to save their friend. Ha’ven, the ruling Curizan
prince, had been kidnapped in a plot to implicate the Sarafin and
Valdier and to gain important information about the location of the
Curizan warships. Vox had discovered one of his warriors returning
late one night after sneaking off. He and two of his brothers had
confronted the man. They discovered he had met with Aria, Creon’s
lover. The warrior had been passing Sarafin information on to her.
Vox had tortured every last piece of information from the man
before he killed him and left his body on display in front of the
palace for any others who thought to betray his trust.

He had approached Creon with the information
he had discovered. At first, Creon had not believed him but
eventually he could not deny the evidence building up against Aria.
They decided to set a trap for her. It had worked too well. Only
he, Creon, and Aria knew of their reported secret mission to
transport a captured prisoner. When the mercenaries Aria hired
showed up at the trap, they had killed all but the leader of the
group. Creon had extracted the information from him. The man’s
dying words were of Aria’s betrayal. Later that night, Creon had
the location of Ha’ven’s prison and Aria was dead. Vox never asked
his friend how he got the information out of her, he knew what he
would have done. They had found Ha’ven three days later in a mining
asteroid not unlike the one he and his men were currently
imprisoned in. Ha’ven had been tortured and was more dead than
alive. It was a miracle he had survived as long as he had
considering what Aria’s men had done to him.

Vox jerked back to the present when the door
to the rooms he and the other men had been escorted to suddenly
opened. He watched as three Antrox males entered. Two had long,
stunning rods and the other had a strange looking rectangular pink
object on wheels. They were followed by the female he had seen
earlier. She was talking to a fourth Antrox male who was following
several steps behind her.

“Oh dear,” she was saying as she looked
around the room. “This place screams classic caveman! Fred and
Wilma really outdid themselves this time. I’ll have to be sure and
send a thank you note for the lovely rock walls,” she was saying
sarcastically. “Really, would it have hurt to have updated the
décor by a few million years? I really am going to have to mark you
down on Trip Advisor. This is simply too blasé considering today’s
fashions and travelers’ expectations.”

The Antrox male behind her was grinding his
gums together as she continued to ramble on about the furniture,
floors, ceiling and everything else in the room. Vox’s eyes
followed the female as she tapped a slender finger on her chin as
she stopped in the center of the room to look around once more.
Heat filled him as her eyes swept by him. He wasn’t sure at first
if the heat was from irritation that her eyes kept moving by him as
if he didn’t even exist or his reaction to having her closer to
him. One thing he did know, she was his and he wanted her now!

“Darling, you can put my luggage next to the
bed. I hope you changed the sheets. I absolutely refuse to sleep on
someone else’s dirty linens. Oh Sticky-pooh, be a sweetheart and
take off these adorable bracelets. As much as I like them, they
really do clash with my outfit and totally say ‘prison inmate’ all
over them,” the female said, walking up to the Antrox who was
standing next to the one placing her suitcase next to the bed.

She smiled up at him and innocently fluttered
her eyelashes. Instead of making the tall Antrox feel better, he
actually took a hesitant step backwards looking at the male behind
her for guidance. The one who had carried the strange large pink
box looked relieved that she was focusing on someone other than
him. Vox’s blood heated to boiling when he saw her beautiful face
glow in amusement as she watched the way the Antrox moved nervously
around her. Her plump pink lips parted to show off smooth, even
white teeth and a small indent appeared on her cheek. He had never
thought smooth edged teeth were sexy before but he decided right
then and there, he loved the way they looked on her.

The Antrox behind her nodded once to the
other male and stepped back another step. The Antrox lowered his
stunning rod and held out the key to the locking device. He
motioned for the female to extend her hands in front of her. She
did with a wide-eyed look and a nibble to her lower lip. Vox’s eyes
followed the movement and he almost groaned out loud as his cock
swelled to a level of pain he had never encountered before.

The female gently rubbed her wrists and
wiggled her little nose. “I hope you aren’t expecting a tip,” she
said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Because I have to say, I
am not sure of the hospitality yet much less the rest of the
accommodations,” she added as she put her hands on her hips and
tapped her booted foot.

“We must leave,” Antrox 264 said from behind
her. “You will keep your mates calm and satisfied. They will be
working the first shift so you may be near them.”

“Whatever,” the female said with a casual
shrug. “I want clean towels brought in daily and I’ll need a line
of rope and several blankets delivered immediately.”

Antrox 264 nodded at the other guards to move
toward the entrance to the cell. “Why do you need these items? They
are not budgeted for workers.”

The female turned and glared at 264 through
narrowed eyes, causing him to jerk backwards another step.
“Darling, put it in your budget unless you want me upset. You won’t
like me when I am upset, do you understand? I am NOT a nice person
when I am upset,” she said taking a menacing step toward him with
her eyes glittering with fury and determination. “Now go get me
what I requested! Chop, chop!” She growled out with a snap of her
fingers causing all four guards to jump and hurry out.