Choosing Riley

Chapter 1-3

“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 poking 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 uptight!” 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 that 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.