Page 16 of Pursued By the Dragon Alien

It wasn’t just that she learned fast. It was the way she threw herself into understanding things, the way her fuchsia eyes narrowed in concentration, the way her fingers worked over an object with careful precision like she could dismantle and rebuild anything if she just had enough time. There was something undeniably compelling about that.

Which was a problem.

He needed to stop thinking about her like this. She was crew—temporary crew, at that. This wasn’t some star-crossed pairing, and he certainly wasn’t the kind of male to get caught up chasing things he shouldn’t have.

Still, when Lilas held up another device, a flicker of triumph in her expression, Razion found himself reacting before he could stop it.

“Encrypted datapad,” she said, tapping at the screen. “The symbol means restricted access, right?”

Razion nodded. “That’s right.”

Her lips curled faintly at the corners, and that quiet sense of satisfaction in her expression hit him harder than it should have.Fek.He needed to focus.

He turned his attention back to the work at hand, pushing aside whatever pull she had on him. He had bigger priorities than one stubborn, sharp-tongued Terian female.

Like tracking down who Gribna had been working with.

Like making sure Lilas didn’t end up being an even bigger distraction than she already was.

Because if she stayed on his ship too long, things were going to get complicated. And Razion didn’t do complicated.

Razion exhaled sharply and shook off whatever the hell that was. He stepped back from Lilas, watching as she returned her focus to the salvage, utterly unaware of the effect she had on him. “Keep at it,” he said, his voice gruffer than he intended. “Yig’s the one to ask if you hit something suspicious.”

Lilas looked up, seemingly startled by his harsh tone. “Okay.”

“I have duties to attend to,” he said, forcing a relaxed expression on his face. “Goodbye, Lilas.”

“Bye?” She sounded confused, but Razion forced himself to turn and stride out of the cargo bay before he did something idiotic—like keep talking to her. She had the gravitational force of a black hole to him.

By the time he reached the command deck, the tightness in his chest had settled enough for him to think straight. The room buzzed with quiet efficiency, the main console glowing with feeds from various system scans. Vedd sat in his usualspot, fingers flying over the controls, while Krask stood near the tactical display, arms crossed.

Razion stepped in and Vedd barely glanced up. “Still working on that Axis transmission,” he said. “The encryption’s a mess—whoever encoded it knew what they were doing. I’ve cleaned up some of the video, but the distortion on the voice is a pain in the ass.”

“You’ll crack it,” Razion said. “Tell me the second you get that transmission decrypted. I want to know who we’re dealing with.”

Vedd gave a lazy salute. “You’ll be the first to know.”

Razion nodded. There was too much riding on this—too many missing pieces. But he’d start with this one.

Krask, however, was watching Razion closely, his expression unreadable. “So,” he said. “How’s the Terian settling in?”

Razion knew that tone—Krask still didn’t like her.

“She’s learning fast,” Razion said evenly. “Already picking up salvage work.”

Krask made a low sound in the back of his throat. He didn’t argue, but the tension in his stance spoke for itself.

“You’ve got something to say, Krask?”

“I don’t trust her.”

“Fine.” Razion shrugged. “You don’t have to.”

Krask’s jaw tightened. He crossed his arms and met Razion’s gaze with a steady look. “I did some digging into the Falmic-5 flight logs and found the planet she was taken from.”

Razion leaned against the console, watching Krask carefully. “Go on.”

Krask nodded toward the holo-display and pulled up a projected map of an isolated sector in Axis-controlled space. “Settlement 112-1 is located on a small, isolated planet called Sebia-R5 in the Purrik system. It’s officially marked as an agricultural outpost, but heavily monitored, and after doing some deeper searches, I learned that it’s designated as penalcolony 5-11B. Rashark raiders were given clearance to land and they took five Terian females—including Lilas.” He tapped a command, zooming in on recorded trade routes. “They were transported directly to the Falmic-5 auction and sold off.”

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