Bride of the Forbidden Alien - Survivor Brides of Tajss #5

About the Book

Hope is what gets you killed on Tajss. Trusting the alien warrior who looks at me like I’m already his may be even more dangerous.

In the city, we survived by learning one lesson early.

Hope gets you killed.

We had no epis to strengthen our bodies against Tajss. No powerful warriors guarding our walls. No second chances when the desert took one of us.

So we became smaller.

Quieter.

Harder to notice.

And we lived.

Then the outsiders arrived, bringing strength, conflict, and the powerful plant our bodies were never prepared to endure.

Epis keeps humans alive on Tajss, but my people cannot handle it the way the other survivors can. It burns through us too quickly and strikes too hard. Unless we learn to control its effects, the thing meant to save us may finish what the desert started.

Finding fresh epis means following a zemlja trail.

The enormous creatures tunnel beneath the dunes, devouring anything too slow to escape while leaving the precious plant growing in their wake. Tracking one is dangerous enough for an entire hunting party.

This mission is too risky for a team.

There will only be two of us.

Me and the cavern-born Zmaj assigned to keep me alive.

He is silent, controlled, and disturbingly difficult to read. He tracks the zemlja as though he was born knowing every tremor beneath the sand.

And he watches me as though he has already made a decision I know nothing about.

Out in the wasteland, survival means placing my life in his hands. We share supplies, shelter, and every tense mile across terrain determined to kill us.

The closer we follow the trail, the clearer it becomes that something is wrong.

The zemlja is not moving as it should.

The desert no longer follows the patterns our people depend upon.

And the epis we desperately need may be leading us toward something far more dangerous than the creature beneath our feet.

My Zmaj protector refuses to leave my side.

His vigilance becomes devotion. His silence fills with unspoken promises. Every look carries a possessive heat that threatens the careful walls I built around myself long ago.

I know better than to believe in impossible futures.

I know better than to want a warrior who may never allow me to walk away.

But beneath the twin suns of Tajss, with the ground shifting below us and death following our every step, trusting him may be the only way either of us survives.

The desert may claim us before we find the answer my people need.

And even if we escape it, I’m no longer certain I want him to let me go.

Bride of the Forbidden Alien is the fifth full-length novel in the Survivor Brides of Tajss series. It features a hardened city survivor, a protective cavern-born Zmaj warrior, forced proximity, dangerous desert tracking, forbidden desire, a deadly zemlja hunt, survival against impossible odds, and a hard-won happily ever after.