Queen of Starlight

Originally published as "Enslaved by Starlight" in HOTTER ON THE EDGE: Science Fiction Romance Anthology. Winner of the 2012 InD'Tale RONE Award for Novellas and a Night Owl Reviews 4 1/2 Stars Top Pick

Her body is his prize, but he'll risk the stars for her love...


Transformed by empathic crystals into the perfect paramour, Benedetta Galil is the last treasure of her fading world. When raiders attack—seeking to corrupt the crystals and conquer all of charted space—she gives herself as a prize to the one man in the universe who values freedom over power. Mercenary sheership Captain Corso Deynah left oppression behind him on a burning planet and has no use for a sex slave, even one as seductive as Benedetta. But while he stubbornly resists her body, her fierce spirit tempts him, and he will risk everything—his ship, his seclusion, the very stars—to win not just her passion but her love.


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“Sexy, steamy, and action packed, this novella will knock you off your feet! The fantastic Jessa Slade masterfully weaves romance and action into the lives of Corso and Benedetta–and pulls it off with a flourish!”

– Bitten By Love Reviews


“ENSLAVED BY STARLIGHT is a truly wonderful reading experience. Jessa packed more story into this novella than I’ve read in some full-length novels. I highly recommend this novella for anyone who has enjoyed science fiction romance in the past or would like to experience it for the first time now.”

– Unwrapping Romance


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Queen of Starlight: Sheerspace Book 1 -- Originally published in HOTTER ON THE EDGE

Prince of Passion: Sheerspace Book 2 -- Originally published in HOTTER ON THE EDGE 2

Assassin's Hunger: Sheerspace Book 3 -- COMING SOON!


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Excerpt


Corso stepped outside, breathing out hard to clear the lingering sweet scent of pixberry from his lungs, and stared up at the sky. At the almost inaudible pad of bare feet behind him, he stiffened. Benedetta’s more subtle perfume teased him, and his heartbeat ramped even higher than it had that long-ago day when the sheer-ship plasma scorched the earth around him.

“Is it strange to see the stars from this angle?”


He glanced at the woman beside him. The silver l’auraly markings curled up the slender column of her neck to brush the points of her jaw, and the traceries glimmered even in the faint starlight. Every soldier knew, a sharp blow to those pressure points could disable. A kiss along those same lines could… He crushed the wayward thought. “What?”


She gestured upward, and the inner skin of her wrist glinted. “In your ship, you’re so much closer to them. They are beautiful from here, even through the ice rings and the light of three moons. They must be utterly amazing when you are up there alone with them.”


“You don’t see them at all in the sheerways. It’s all black. Unless you’re tangled, and then I’m told you see every star and moon and nebula at once in the nanosecond before your ship is shredded.”


She blinked. “Well, Captain Deynah, and here I wondered if you had any music in your soul.”


“Keep wondering.”


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