Page 4 of Pursued by the Dragon Alien (Zarux Dragon Brides #4)

FOUR

Razion

Razion wasn’t sure why he felt such relief when Lilas agreed to stay. It wasn’t like he’d been waiting on her decision. She was one female, and his crew had run just fine without her before. But now that she was here, something in his chest settled. Maybe it was because she was Terian. A species that had all but vanished from the galaxy at the same time period as his own. Plus, Teria was in the same star system as Zarux, and both were now Axis territory. Neither could be a coincidence.

She wasn’t just rare. She was a potential link to his own past.

Razion glanced at her as she stood with her arms crossed, radiating skepticism beneath that too-loose tunic Cozax had dug up for her. Her fuchsia eyes gave nothing away, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t thinking. She was sharp. He needed to keep that in mind.

He turned to Vedd. “That encrypted transmission—scrap whatever else you’re decrypting and focus on the Axis contact. I want to know who Gribna was working with.”

Vedd arched a brow. “Like I need an excuse to crack open Axis secrets.” He rolled his shoulders. “I’ll let you know when I have something.”

Razion nodded, then turned to Lilas. “Come on. You need to know your way around the ship.”

She hesitated, then followed as he led her out of the command room and into the main corridor. The Darkslip was a beauty—fast, lean, and deceptive in her firepower. It had been an early prize for him after he broke free of the Axis’ control and fled the metals refinery he’d been forced to work in for most of his younger mig -cycles. Razion knew every corner and connecting tube of the ship. Lilas trailed behind him, taking everything in like she was already calculating escape routes.

“Where exactly are we going?” she asked.

Touring the ship made sense, but Razion was also stalling. He needed to figure out where to put her—what role to give her. A passenger was one thing. A crew member, even provisional, needed to pull their weight.

“You’ll see,” he said.

She huffed out a breath. “Great. More vague answers.”

Razion ducked his head through a bulkhead door and entered the crew quarters. “Not a patient one, are you?”

“Not a strength of mine,” she replied.

“Well, you’ll need to grow some. Patience is a necessary tool when fighting the Axis. This will be yours,” he said, hitting a button beside a door. It opened to a small but functional room. “Smaller than the room you were in earlier, but that was a guest’s quarters. This is a crew room. Put your hand to the panel beside the door and it will read your biometrics.”

Lilas did as he instructed, then stepped inside and eyed the space. “Better than a cage,” she muttered.

Razion leaned against the doorframe. These rooms were all the same—a bunk, a storage compartment, a slim console built into the wall, and a tiny washroom. His was here, too. He’d turned the “official” captain’s suite into a secure data analysis area. Vedd practically lived there when he was working on decryption. “You ever been on a ship before the raiders took you?”

She shook her head. “No. We were isolated, to say the least.”

He filed that away. “Do you learn fast?”

“I survive fast,” she said.

Same thing, really.

“Well,” he said, pushing off the frame. “You need a job here, and I need to figure out what you’re good at.”

She arched a brow. “You don’t just throw me in front of a console and hope for the best?”

“You want me to?”

She huffed. “Not particularly.”

“Come on, then.” He led her through the key areas—the exercise and training rooms, the weapons hold—which she would not have access to—the engineering center, the off-duty lounge, and the central storage compartments. She moved silently, though the way her fingers twitched, he had the feeling she wanted to touch things just to see how they worked. Interesting .

When they reached the main cargo hold, she eyed the slow conveyor belt. It had just begun moving the first load of salvage from Gribna’s ship. Crew members were beginning to scan and sort items, with more moving the spoils to either crates for selling or the air lock for expulsion. “You steal ships often?” she asked.

Razion shrugged. “Salvage. Acquire. Repurpose.” He plucked a pristine vocal resonator from the line, then placed it in a nearby crate. “Call it what you want.”

Lilas snorted. “Piracy. I call it piracy.”

He liked her directness, even if he didn’t agree with her word choice. “We take from criminals, never innocent people,” he said. “You have a problem with that?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Depends. You ever get it wrong?”

“No,” he said. “We do our research. If you’re hauling Axis cargo, odds are you deserve a visit from me.”

She studied him for a beat, then nodded. “Fair enough.”

Razion chuckled. “Then let’s start simple. The crew here needs help sorting through this salvage. You check for tracking devices, classify valuable parts, and prepare the dregs for expulsion. Think you can handle that?”

Lilas tilted her head, considering. “You want me to pick through junk and see what we can sell off? Yeah, that sounds like something I can manage.”

“Good,” he said. “Because you’re not qualified for much else at the moment.”

“Please, remind me again how useless I am.”

He turned abruptly toward her. “You’re not useless. Your skills don’t match most duties on a ship. But given time, they will.”

He caught a flicker in her eyes—a hint of the very busy workings of her mind. It occurred to him that while she was on probation here, on his ship, he was also very much on probation with her . It made the corners of his lips turn upwards, which made her frown.

“Be here after your first meal of the waking cycle and you’ll be all set. Now, come on,” he said, gesturing toward the exit. “You’ll like this next location better.”

Razion led Lilas toward the dining hall. His mind still turned over everything he’d learned about her. A rare, nearly extinct species. Raised in an Axis-controlled penal colony without even knowing it. Sharp-tongued and stubborn as hell. She fit in here more than she realized.

The dining hall was a small but functional space, lined with metal seating and a handful of tables bolted to the floor. A bank of food replicators was built into the far wall. The interfaces glowed dimly in the low light.

Lilas eyed it with open suspicion. “What are those?”

Razion raised a brow. “You’ve never seen food replicators?”

She folded her arms. “That’s what you eat from?” Her fuchsia eyes flicked over the machines, skeptical.

“How did your settlement eat?” he asked.

Lilas gave him a look like he’d just asked if she breathed oxygen. “We cooked. With actual food.”

Razion frowned. “You didn’t have synthesizers? Protein supplements?”

She snorted. “The Axis barely gave us enough to stay alive. We ate whatever scraps were left after they took their quota.”

His jaw tightened. He shouldn’t have been surprised. The Axis was ruthless when it came to stripping resources from its occupied planets, and if her settlement had been a prison disguised as a farm, then well-fed workers wouldn’t have been part of the plan.

He stepped up to a replicator and tapped a few buttons. “It’s simple,” he said. “Select what you want, and it compiles molecular components to recreate it.”

Lilas didn’t move. “That sounds fake.”

Razion smirked. “It’s not.” He pressed a command, and with a soft hum, a single protein pellet materialized in the dispenser. He picked it up and held it out. “Try it.”

Her eyes narrowed, but hunger won out. She took the pellet, sniffed it suspiciously, then popped it into her mouth.

Razion watched her lips close around it, her throat working as she swallowed.

Then she made a sound—a low, indulgent hum that sent a pulse of heat straight through him. Her eyes fluttered shut, and for a heartbeat, she looked almost undone, lost in the simple pleasure of real food. Her tongue flicked out, tracing her lower lip, savoring the lingering flavor. Her shoulders eased. Her face softened in a way that made it clear how rare a moment like this was for her.

Razion’s stomach tightened. Heat slashed through his veins, sharp and immediate. It wasn’t just arousal—it was something deeper, something possessive and primal. His pulse thickened in his temples as his cock stiffened beneath his belt. All from watching her eat. Fek .

He clenched his hands into fists at his sides, forcing himself to look away before he did something idiotic—like touch her. His jaw tightened as heat pooled low in his gut. It was just food . A basic, necessary sustenance, and yet watching her enjoy it felt…intimate.

He cleared his throat. “The replicators can make almost anything, within reason,” he said, trying to keep his tone even. “You have full access to it whenever you wish.”

Genuine happiness lit up her face. “Really? Anytime?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Unless we’re in the middle of something that demands your full attention. Then, a snack can wait.”

“Even in the middle of the sleep cycle?” she pressed, moving closer to him. “This room is always open?”

Razion nodded, not trusting himself to say anything else. He needed to get out of this room before he did something ridiculous—like torture himself by replicating more food just to watch her eat.

“Oh,” she said, eyeing the replicators brightly. “We’re going to be good friends.”

“Then I’ll leave you to it,” he said. “Just read the offerings and make your selection. They’re all in the standard galactic language.”

Lilas didn’t react right away. Then, she stepped back and crossed her arms. “That’s great and all, but there’s one problem.”

Razion frowned. “What problem?”

She tilted her head. “I can’t read.”

His frown deepened. “What do you mean, you can’t read?”

Lilas rolled her eyes. “Exactly what it sounds like, Captain. Reading was forbidden in a settlement where the Axis had total control and didn’t want us learning anything.”

Razion exhaled sharply, irritated—not at her, but at what it meant. The Axis hadn’t just taken her freedom. They’d taken knowledge. Power.

“That’s unacceptable,” he said, firmly. He wasn’t just dealing with a survivor; he was dealing with someone who had never been given the tools to function outside of that penal colony. He wanted to change that.

“We’ll teach you.”

Lilas blinked, caught off guard. Then, she let out a short laugh. “Oh? Just like that?”

He shrugged. “It’s essential. And you’re intelligent enough to pick it up quickly…unless you don’t want to.”

Her expression wavered, just for a second. Not irritation, not skepticism—something else. Something like quiet surprise. “I want to,” she said. “But you’ve done a lot for me already. I don’t see what’s in this for you.”

He leaned down, closer to her. So close that he could see the bright striations in her vivid eyes. “Two things.”

“Okay…” she said warily. “Let’s hear them.”

“First, I have an annoying ethical compass that doesn’t allow me to dump an illiterate female whose only skill is farming on any of the nearby trade stations, planets, or outposts.”

Her eyes turned skeptical. “An ethical pirate. What’s number two?”

His gaze raked over her, quickly and against his will. Being so close to her sent his senses into chaos, making his wings twitch with the urge to wrap around her and his hands ache to pull her close. “You belonged to the Axis,” he murmured. “And I like taking what belonged to the Axis.”

Her eyes widened on a sharply indrawn breath. “I’m just more salvage?”

“You’re treasure , Lilas.” He flashed his teeth in a grimace. “I belonged to them once, too. I know what it’s like living under their rule. And I have a hunch that they will want you back.”

She blinked, pausing to take that in. “Why would they want me back?”

He shrugged, unable to give either of them a definitive answer to that. “Hunches don’t work on facts, until they do. Mine are usually right. And there’s no fekking way they’re getting you, Lilas.”

Her eyes darkened. “You’re not going to use me as bait, are you?”

“No, Lilas,” he said. “I’m not going to use you as bait. You can leave the Darkslip whenever you wish, but I suggest you wait to do so until you have some non-farming survival skills.”

They stayed like that—eyes locked and air charged—and before he could get a better read on it, her eyes flared and she stepped back as if snapped out of a trance. “Alright then, Captain. Guess I’ll be adding ‘literacy lessons’ to my list of new experiences.”

Razion was just relieved that someone had broken the trance, even if it wasn’t him. “Guess so.”

Lilas nodded, her expression unreadable. “I’ll be a fast learner,” she said, then hesitated. “Razion?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. For…all of this.” White teeth clamped on her lower lip as if the words were difficult to utter. Knowing what he did of her, they probably were. “I know I’m not exactly your typical guest.”

Razion chuckled, the tension in his chest easing slightly. “You’re not a guest, Lilas. You’re part of the crew now, however temporary that might be. And around here, we look out for our own.”

She gave him a small, genuine smile—the first he’d seen from her. “Then I guess I’d better get used to this new life of mine.”

“Welcome aboard, Lilas,” he said, and he meant it.

He led her out of the cargo hold and back toward the central hub of the ship. The tour was mostly over, but he could tell she was processing everything—the ship, the crew, the life she’d been thrust into.

His pulse thrummed with frustration. This punch of attraction was…unexpected. For the first time since taking her aboard, he wondered if he had made a terrible mistake.

As she turned to head back to her quarters, Razion couldn’t help but call out before she left his sight. “Get some rest. You’ve got duties tomorrow,” he said, his voice coming out gruffer than he intended.

Lilas just smirked. “Looking forward to it, Captain.”

Her presence on his ship was a complication he hadn’t anticipated, but there was something about her—a strength, a resilience that resonated with him. And the mystery of her species, of why they had disappeared and then suddenly reappeared in the form of a fiery, stubborn female, was a puzzle he intended to solve.

But first, he needed to keep his distance, to remind himself that she was off-limits. He had a ship to run, a crew that needed him at his sharpest. When he was around Lilas, she had his attention and, he feared, far too much of his interest. Krask had picked up on it immediately, which was likely why his first mate had instantly disliked Lilas.

Problem was, Razion couldn’t see himself giving her up. He’d meant what he’d said—she was treasure. And dragons did not give up their treasure willingly.