So I forgot to update my phone. Big deal. Only there’s a glitch and an app opens a portal to another planet! Because that makes sense. Now I’m stuck on an alien planet with a grumpy prince. His eyes turn black when he’s upset. He can manipulate the shadows and grow a pair of massive, inky wings. I mean, sure, he’s hot, and he saved me from a pack of monsters, but I don’t trust anything about this place, let alone a surly alien. I’m going to find a way home.

Waking up disoriented, she doesn’t know where she is, or who these men are who are talking over her…about her…about her being their creation. Apparently they ran out of parts, but she turned out okay, if not a little on the small side. Being dubbed Runt, she soon learns these men are not friendly, and she’s about to be sold to the highest bidder. From what she overhears, she fears the new owners will be crueler than her creators.

Confined in a small shipping container for weeks on end, Taru was starving, dehydrated, and close to death. When she was given the option of remaining in the container until her owner could turn her in for the reward, or being one of 15 females going to a mining moon to pleasure the drillers who were willing to pay for her services, she chose the latter. At least there was the possibility she could escape from there and get back with her people.

Hordes of tall, grey aliens with tusks arrived in spaceships the size of cities. Before the news channels went dark, humans named the creatures orcs. The human armies fought and failed. War crimes were committed on both sides. Eventually, when food supplies failed, society collapsed and the government was overthrown. Humans turned on each other. Nowhere was safe. The orcs rounded up the survivors and locked them away in refugee camps. In the fullness of time, some women had little grey babies.

All Mercy had to do was deliver her cargo and go. Now she’s got a bunch of irate aliens on her tail, and a hot-as-Helios escaped prisoner in her cargo bay who insists she is his. She’s too old for this, and she keeps telling herself she’s too old for him. But his arguments and assets are very convincing.