“No, you cannot come out later, either!” He snapped, eyes slamming shut as his head dropped back. In complete contrast to him, she sounded so calm and unaffected. She probably had no idea what she had walked into, or what it meant for him.
He knew, realistically, he couldn’t keep her trapped in there forever.
Yes, he could.
He’d have to let her out sometime.
No, he didn’t.
She wasn’t his mate!
Yes, she was.
“Good working.”
Vytln’s eyes cracked and he looked down again. Seeing her for a third time did not lessen the punch to his chest at the sight of her. No, it was worse, because now she was smiling brightly at him, like she was proud or something.
“Good working?” He repeated. “For what?’
“Caught me.” She tapped the edge of the hole. Her nimble, long fingers dancing along the edge as her delicate human nails clacked against the metal. “I did lost. Good working!”
“No, I’m definitely the one who lost here,” he grumbled, head dropping back down. He ran his hand over his head, the roughness of his horns scratching on his palms. It almost helped to reorient him back to reality, but not quite. “What are you even doing in here?”
“Needing pipe.”
“A pipe? Why do you need a pipe?”
“Water.” She made a rushing sound with her mouth, and used her hand to pantomime rushing water coming down. Vytln watched the display, only briefly hypnotized by the movements. She had really pretty hands…
“Water burst from a pipe?” He asked, frowning. A busted pipe needed to be fixed sooner rather than later. But he hadn’t heard anything about a busted pipe. And how would this female know about-
“Ah!” He leveled a finger at her as realization struck, probably too late. “You’re my pest!”
His outraged roar made her giggle, and his eye twitched. How come people no longer trembled in fear at the sight of him? This was becoming ridiculous.
“Sneaking,” she whispered, lowering her head so that only her eyes were poking over the edge of the hole, her fingers tapping joyfully on the rim. “You no catching. Too long. Catching now. Good working, but I better.”
“You, stop messing with my ship!” He stepped closer to her.
She scoffed, eyes rolling back like the other females’ did when they were being mocking or dismissive. “Should being gratitude. Wire trash. Fixing.”
“This is my ship to fix, not yours. And my wiring wasnottrash,” he snarled, glaring at her through the hole, hands on his hips. She was even prettier up close. The dark brown of her eyes shined in the glow of the engine shielding in a way that seemed to sparkle like starlight.
What waswrongwith him?!
The absolutely foolish, overly romantical thought was so completely counter to who he was, it actually made him stop. He ran his hand over his horns again as his teeth clenched and released and clenched once more. She’d been in his trap for all of half a mark, maybe, and he was already becoming a mind melted fool.
Completely unaware of the riot of thoughts and emotions twisting and burning through him like a superheated razor coil, the pretty little pest in his trap scoffed.
“Lies. Trash. I fixing, no worrying.”
“I wasn’t worried about it,” he growled, the words grinding through his clenched teeth. Both angry at her presumption in touching his ship, and annoyed because he still wanted to crawl in there with her!
With a great force of will, he whipped around and called out. “Alred! Get the captain down here!”
“I’ve already summoned him,” Alred said, his voice strangely soothing. Like he was trying to talk to a scared animal.
But Vytln didn’t have the ability to care about that right now. Not while his pest was reaching her arm out, trying to sweep it around. Searching for the mechanism that would free her with the kind of lazy, unhurried calm of someone doing a cursory search for something they dropped but didn’t care if they got back.
