Page 57 of Pursued By the Dragon Alien

“Lilas believed otherwise,” Ellion said.

Razion couldn’t breathe. His throat felt too tight. His skin, his bones—it all felt wrong. The air crackled over his skin, and then—the pressure hit his chest like a battering ram. Razion stumbled forward, dropping to his knees.

Pain. Burning, stretching, something inside him twisting in a way it never had before. His fingers curled against the cold floor as heat rolled through his veins, pooling under his skin like molten fire. His wings shuddered and flared instinctively. Something inside him wanted out.

“What is wrong with him?” Cozax asked the assembled Zaruxians.

“His dragon form is trying to emerge,” Bruil said grimly. It was the first time Razion had heard the elder’s voice. It was as rough and gravelly as he expected it to be. “And it will, depending on how all this goes.”

Razion felt every eye on him. Although the shift had never happened to him, the dragon always lay beneath the surface. It had not emerged during any of the many raids and battles he’d fought, but here it was, awakening for a small Terian female who turned him inside out. A female he would cross the galaxy for.

He barely had breath to speak, but he forced the words out anyway. “I would—” His voice broke, strained under the unseen pressure ramming against his spine, forcing him lower. “I would rather die than see her harmed.” Razion gasped, his body trembling. “She’s everything to me.”

His vision swam. He clenched his eyes shut—but he saw her face anyway, burned into the backs of his eyelids. Lilas laughing. Lilas biting back sharp words with a smirk. Lilas gasping his name as she came apart beneath him. Lilas, gone—because she thought he had betrayed her.

Beyond the pain, the burning in his muscles, a different kind of agony ripped through him. “I love her.” His voice came out raw, scraping through clenched teeth. He lifted his gaze and forced himself to look them in the eyes. “I swear…on the life of our mother.” His breath shuddered. “I love Lilas, and I will spend every breath I have left proving it.”

Silence.

A long, weighted silence that hummed over his trembling form. Then, a shift in the air.

Takkian’s broad frame moved first—closing in, watching him with something different now, something between understanding and shock. Then Cyprian, his smirk flickering, faltering, replaced with open surprise.

Ellion—silent, calculating Ellion—exhaled slowly. His silver eyes, so much like Razion’s own, softened. “Stand up and breathe deep, brother. Lilas is safe.Youare safe. Your dragon does not need to fight on this cycle. It will be needed in the future, but not now.”

Razion let out a ragged breath. His body still pulsed with heat, pressure threatening to rip through him, but he forced his limbs to move. His clothes felt impossibly tight as he forced himself to straighten, to stand. His legs were unsteady, his breaths ragged, but he met Ellion’s gaze head-on.

A beat of silence. Then, Ellion turned to the side and spoke—not to Razion, but toward the rear of the grand hall.

“You heard him,” Ellion said, his voice carrying an undeniable weight. “What do you want to do, Lilas?”

Razion’s breath caught.She was here.

His heart pounded as his gaze snapped to where Ellion was looking.

A figure stepped out from behind a broad, draped panel.

Lilas.

HisLilas.

She emerged slowly, cautiously. Her fuchsia eyes locked on him, unreadable. Her dark purple hair tumbled over her shoulders, and the golden freckles across her bronze skin caught the light.Stars, she was beautiful. She had always been beautiful, but now—seeing her again, breathing the same air—it was like something raw and broken inside of him stitched itself painfully back together.

But she wasn’t running to him. She wasn’t smiling.

Razion stayed perfectly still. His muscles still trembled from whatever thefekwas happening to his body. He had barely endured his brothers’ questions, the weight of their combined judgment—and now, he faced the one who mattered most. The one he had come for.

Lilas lifted her chin. “You swore on the life of your mother.” Her voice was steady, but her fingers curled at her sides. “You don’t break oaths like that, do you?”

It wasn’t really a question.

Razion clenched his jaw. He wasn’t sure he could speak, wasn’t sure how to say any of the things tearing through his mind. But he met her eyes and gave her the only words that mattered. “No,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t break oaths, period. No matter what or who they’re sworn on.”

Lilas studied him, searching for something in his face. Something that might betray him. He didn’t look away. Wouldn’t. Then, slowly, she stepped closer.

Razion didn’t move. Didn’t dare breathe.

His brothers stayed silent. Watching. Waiting.

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