A chance encounter forges a symbiotic relationship between Talins and humans that will eternally entwine both groups' lives.

When Ari Lee and her community signed a contract with Miox Minerals, an Orlok-owned company, they never expected to be abandoned on a remote mining outpost. After almost a year of no supply shipments or any messages from the company, the humans are getting desperate. They're all underweight and facing the last of the food stores. Even worse, some of the biosystems are failing. Even if they can make the food last, the oxygen won't.

Bazium embodies everything the Tomak Clan is famous for: a powerful warrior, clever soldier, and loyal Squad Leader. But he has a secret that's killing him. He's suffering from a rare disease. Only a deep sense of obligation to his family, clan, and species keeps him diligently working. He leads an elite squad of soldiers who secure areas captured during war. Left badly disillusioned and mentally suffering from the last assignment, he decides he'll complete this last mission before quietly ending his own life. He would rather everyone think his suit failed on a derelict planet than be discovered dying of the shameful disease nicknamed the Fading.

Bazium's squad runs across a site showing signs of life. Prepared for resistance, he and his warriors storm the facility only to find it inhabited by a small and helpless, unknown species. Bazium and his team decide to help the unfortunate creatures until they can figure out what to do with them.

As the leader of the miners, Ari needs to keep these warriors from killing everyone. Assuming they survive first contact, she needs to convince this new species to let the humans stay and work the mine. But how in the name of diamond drill bits will she do that without proper translation software?

What she doesn't expect is to find herself and all the humans treated like simple-minded beasts of labor. As if she was a small pet from Old Earth, the leader of these warriors keeps purring and cuddling her.

Who knew purring could be so sexy? And it doesn't help that he carries her around and constantly urges her to eat. This treatment might be a little annoying, but it is also adorable.

Then there's the way this warrior makes her feel when he holds her and changes the tone of his purr. She never thought she'd find a non-human so damn attractive, especially someone she couldn't even talk to! But this guy with his hard-armored body and rumbling purr is doing all kinds of crazy things to her libido. She's not sure what her future holds, but she's going to be sad if he's not in it.