"Silence female," 157 said coldly. "You will keep your mates happy. I only have to keep one of them alive. If you are not silent, I will feed one of your mates each hour to a pactor."
"Well!" Riley growled back. "Somebody woke up with a stick up their ass this morning. You touch one slimy little green nail on one of my boys, and I’ll rip it off and feed it to the pactor with the rest of you. No one messes with my boys but me, got it?"
157 looked shocked for a moment before his face became passive. He took a step closer to Riley, trying to crowd her. "One more word and I’ll silence you."
"I’d like to see you try, you overgrown piece of cow paddy," Riley snapped back in a temper.
Vox decided it would be in everyone’s best interest if he silenced his mate before she got them all killed. He stepped up behind her as she opened her mouth to say something else. Wrapping his large hands around her waist, he almost groaned out loud at the feel of her soft curves under his palms. Instead, he picked her up, ignoring her squeal of indignation, and turned until she was in front of him with her back pressed against his chest.
"I think we will survive without anything to eat for a little longer," he said quietly in her ear. "I would like to keep us alive for a little longer, my fierce tiger. We do appreciate your concern for us, though," he added hastily when she opened her mouth to protest.
"So help me, if that pile of walking sticks pisses me off or messes with one of you, I’ll plant my foot up his ass so far it will be coming out of his mouth," she growled, throwing a heated look at the Antrox guard over her shoulder. "You let me at him. I’ll show him one more word!"
Vox could hear Tor and Lodar fighting to hold in their laughter as he fought to keep her from turning back and attacking their guards. He shook his head in exasperation. He and his men towered over the female, were known to be one of the fiercest species in the ten known galaxies, and she was ready to kick the asses of their guards because they had not been fed when she wanted them to be fed.
"Come, let us get to work so we can eat soon," Vox muttered.
* * *
Riley twisted her hair back up into the ponytail where it had fallen loose again when she bent over to pick up some of the rocks that the men were breaking through. All five of the men had argued that she wasn’t supposed to work. She was just supposed to sit and watch as they worked. Like she could just sit around all day. She was already bored out of her mind. So, she ignored all of them and did what she wanted, singing in an off-key voice the song from Snow White when the dwarfs were going off to work. Fred had soon joined her, gathering the rocks alongside her and muttering under his breath.
"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 curi
ously.
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.
Captured Boxed Set: 9 Alpha Bad-Boys Who Will Capture Your Heart Page 87
