When Axika Naxek is tasked with upgrading a newly acquired human space station, he comes straight up against Gwen, a brilliant human female whose strategic mind is integral to operations. He thinks little of the weak humans he is in charge of, but to his astonishment, she ignites his mala and his interest. He can resist the sparks between them for a while, but the day will come for him to claim her as his.
Gwen Jadin disliked everything about the Stryxian lottery in which women were sent off to find alien mates and is not pleased that they are taking over the space station she has called home for a decade. She’s forced to work with Axika as he transforms the station for Stryxian use and would rather eat raiple
When they learn that someone is trying to sabotage the station, they must work together to find the hidden enemy. As the attacks increase in intensity and damage, events unfold that changes relations between Stryxians and humans forever. Can Gwen and Axika get over their differences—and submit to their desires—before the saboteur succeeds in destroying the base and their best chance at peace?
Decided this was all I had the emotional energy to read last night. Even moreso than the previous two books, this needed to be 30% longer. Not enough tension between the hero and heroine, not the kind of resistance you would have expected from either of them based on how they acted in previous books.
Timeline, this was a little weird — it was unclear right away that it had been six plus months since the second book. The bad guys come off pretty inept, with several failed attempts at terrorism and the climax relying on indirect action. The climax didn’t make a whole lot of sense plot-wise (it worked better emotionally). There was also a weird interlude going to see a baby (maybe people who like babies would think it was cuter than I did, instead I was aghast that the highly advanced aliens who can travel in minutes to the human base couldn’t be bothered to fetch a human midwife FFS, or like, read some human medical literature for a baby that was super important to the future of their race 🤦♀️).
As a series, each book adds a neat piece of the puzzle, advancing the action significantly. But because each book is so short, the showdowns come off way too easy. This is an enemy they’ve been fighting for twenty years — and one small unit of hot aliens is enough to protect an entire base under surprise attack?
These are light books, too light for my preference due to the short length (not much longer than a novella).
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