Proving Her Heart

She set out to save her people.

He is determined she will not have to carry them alone.

Nyanna never asked to become captain.

She did not want the title, the responsibility, or the constant weight of every life in the desert settlement pressing down on her shoulders. But the generation ship is wrecked on Tajss, the twin red suns are lethal, and humans are dying because their bodies were never built for this world.

If the Zmaj are right, epis could change everything.

The miracle plant might help humans survive the heat. It might give the settlement a future. It might be the difference between slow extinction and a real home beneath a deadly alien sky.

So Nyanna goes after it.

Her only guide is Shukach, a powerful Zmaj warrior with wings, claws, a dangerous smile, and a certainty about fate that Nyanna does not trust at all. He is supposed to get her across the desert, help her avoid the Order, and bring her home with the plant her people desperately need.

He is not supposed to look at her like she is his entire world.

Shukach has heard his brothers speak of finding their treasures, but he never understood how a male simply knows. Then Nyanna climbs onto a barely tamed guster, snaps orders like the captain she is, and crashes straight through every careful thought he has left.

She is clever. Fierce. Stubborn. Human.

And his dragon knows.

The desert does not give either of them time to argue with fate. A runaway mount nearly kills Nyanna. A massive zemlja erupts from the sand. Shukach is badly injured saving her, leaving them stranded without enough supplies, no safe ride home, and one impossible path forward: down into the tunnels beneath Tajss in search of the glowing epis cavern.

Nyanna has spent too long proving she can lead, fight, and survive.

Shukach is about to prove she can be protected without being diminished.

But the deeper they go beneath the planet, the more dangerous the mission becomes. If they fail, the settlement may not survive. If they succeed, Nyanna will still have to decide whether trusting Shukach with her heart is strength… or the most terrifying risk of all.

She came to prove she could save everyone else.

He came to prove she was worth saving too.

Proving Her Heart is a steamy alien dragon romance featuring a reluctant captain heroine, a protective Zmaj warrior, fated mates, desert survival, forced proximity, dangerous guster travel, a wounded protector, underground epis cavern danger, found family, and a guaranteed happily ever after.