Feral Matriarchy

Vhoraan is where ships go to die. Kess Dray intends to be the exception.

When a smuggling run ends in disaster, thirty-three-year-old Kess crashes beyond the quarantine line on a death-world no sane pilot would approach. Her ship is ruined. Her beacon is failing. And the bioluminescent jungle surrounding her is beautiful in exactly the way poisonous things are beautiful.

Then she realizes something is hunting her.

Ythera Vahn-Ke'rath is no mindless predator. Nearly seven feet tall, armored in iridescent chitin, and powerful enough to rule Vhoraan's hive-court through fear and absolute control, the alien matriarch could kill Kess whenever she chooses.

Instead, she catches her.

And keeps her.

Dragged into Ythera's brutal mountain fortress and named a consort by customs she barely understands, Kess does what she has always done best: studies the exits, tests the walls, and waits for her chance to run. But her terrifying captor isn't what Kess expected. Ythera protects with the same intensity she hunts. She offers strange gifts with awkward sincerity. And beneath every possessive gesture is a vulnerability no ruler on Vhoraan can afford to show.

The more Kess learns the language of the hive-and the woman who rules it-the harder it becomes to tell where captivity ends and wanting begins.

Because Ythera's attachment has consequences.

A powerful faction within the court sees the human outsider as proof their matriarch has grown weak, and unrest inside the fortress is sharpening into something far more dangerous. Kess may be the easiest target, but Ythera's throne is what her enemies truly want.

For a woman who has survived by leaving before anyone could leave her first, escape should be simple.

So why does freedom suddenly feel like the most dangerous choice of all?