Cosmic Captor by Stella Cassy

CARISSA
I’ve never known Earth. Or freedom. Both were taken from me when I was too young to remember. But I know exactly what the latest alien scumbags to buy me have in mind, the moment I hear the word “fertile.”Desperation’s the mother of invention, and one easily seduced guard later, I’m escaping to finally live on my own terms. To find my mom, my one connection to a planet I’ll probably never see. The only person who’s ever given a damn about me. It’s all that keeps me going. The source of every last drop of energy I eke out of this miserable existence, when I have so many reasons to just give up and fade away.Like my crap luck. Reason infinity why I should just pop out the airlock of my stolen ship and say “Sayonara universe, PS you suck.”My first escape attempt that’s ever resulted in an actual escape, and I run smack into one of the most infamous dragon shapeshifters in the galaxy. But I haven’t come this far just to give up. I escaped once, I can do it again. And no smug, self-impressed alien edgelord is going to stop me. Even if he is so mind scorchingly hot it makes my brain bleed to think of choosing to deprive myself of the eye candy. The universe had years to try and keep me down. You think one little dragon’s gonna do any better?Fine. One really big dragon. Whatever. Bring it.

TARION
We dragons are a simple people, with simple philosophies. Like why ask for something you can simply take?
The rest of the galaxy tends to be too busy fleeing from us in terror to answer that, so I assume they agree.
Until Carissa Maeberry.The most baffling creature in existence, she doesn’t seem to get how this works. I have claws. Fire. A ruthless crew. She has an admittedly tragic backstory and a slave collar. The scales aren’t exactly balanced.And yet to see her defiance, you’d think she held all the cards. It’s absurd and breath-taking all at once. Which is why when others try and take my rarest of treasures from me, I must protest. Vigorously.I did mention the claws and fire and ruthless crew, did I not?