The Stowaway Read Online Free Page A

over-styled hair to the points of her completely impractical slippers.
    Rachel blushed to the tips of her ears this time.
    “I can pull my weight. Just give me a chance to prove myself.”
    “Oh, don’t worry, I plan to work your ass.”
    The instant the words left his mouth, Arek wanted to scrabble after them and yank them back. Rachel’s eyes widened comically. Her cheeks colouring to a deep, dark red. Arek felt his own face heat furiously. He opened his mouth to correct himself, but Devlynn beat him to it.
    “Leave it, man. There just isn’t any coming back from that one.”
    He didn’t want to, but he conceded the point and clamped his mouth shut. He could see Rachel’s lips twitching, fighting against a smile even as her cheeks continued to glow a rather pretty pink.
    It was going to be a really long trip.

Chapter Three

    Devlynn stepped into the cockpit and casually dropped into the co-pilot’s seat. One of the advantages of calling The Wyvern home was it made it easy to track Arek down. It was harder for the man to avoid him or run away in the tight confines of the space transport. Devlynn had the feeling Arek would be looking to do both by the end of the conversation he was about to start.
    “Hey.”
    “Hey,” Arek grunted in return, not looking up from his study of the engine output data.
    “Anything new?” Devlynn asked, looking through the forward viewport at the cold, empty expanse of space.
    “Nope. Just space, stars and more space.”
    “How’s the run time looking?”
    “Long as nothing goes wrong we should be okay. We might even get in a few days ahead of schedule.”
    “Will wonders never cease?” Devlynn mumbled, letting the easy familiarity he shared with Arek settle over them—easing his way forward.
    “Rachel’s settling in well. She was asking about the sub-light engine specs earlier today. Wanted to know if she could take a look down in the engine room and check out the propulsion units.”
    “Just so long as she’s pulling her weight I don’t care what she does.”
    Devlynn let silence build between them—like taking a breath before jumping into an ocean.
    “What about when we reach Nareen?”
    Arek shrugged, but Devlynn could see the tension building in the man’s shoulders. “She won’t be our problem then. She can do what she likes.”
    “We could always keep her on.”
    “Dev,” Arek growled in warning, finally looking up from the data display.
    “What?”
    “Don’t get too attached.”
    “Why not? She’s a hard worker…and I kind of like having her around.”
    “She never said anything about looking to stay on.”
    “She never said she didn’t want to either.” Devlynn paused, wondering how far he should push. “I think you like having her around too.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    Just as Devlynn opened his mouth to answer, a frustrated shout echoed down the passageway.
    “Arek!”
    Devlynn watched as Arek rolled his eyes.
    “Yeah, I can see why you’d think I liked having her around so much.”
    “Arek!”
    “What?” Arek yelled back, swivelling his chair and throwing himself out of it to stomp down the corridor towards Rachel’s voice.
    “Don’t ‘what’ me. You’re the one that keeps complaining about the mowc getting into everything! Then you go and do something like this.”
    “Something like what?”
    The muffled sounds of a heated argument drifted back to him, but Devlynn didn’t move to interject or break it up. After a week of watching the way the two of them sparked off one another, usually in a heated battle of wills, he’d ceased to worry and learnt to stay out of it. It was kind of fun watch the fireworks actually.
    They were quite stunning together really. He hadn’t seen so much life and energy from Arek in months. There was a tiny part of him that felt a pang of hurt—knowing he hadn’t been able to get Arek to come back to life after Danni’s death, whereas Rachel seemed to manage it effortlessly with