The blue alien warrior pacing in his cage terrifies me. His long dark hair is wild and messy, and his scarred body looks made for murder. I deliver food to him every day, and I'm sure by the way he stares at me that he'd rather eat me. Yet there's something about him that captivates me, and I can't stop watching him. When he lets the snarling, fearsome mask slip, I start to see there's a cool calculation to his actions. I would be risking everything to help him escape, but do I dare let this monster free from his cage?

A must-listen prequel novella in the Stolen Warriors series from USA Today bestselling author Ella Maven. Contains mature themes.

When space pirates attack the exploratory spaceship I work on and I'm forced to evacuate in an escape pod, I never expected to crash land on an alien planet. I have no idea where any of my fellow crew members are or if they even got away. I'm entirely alone. Or so I think. Instead, I'm rescued from a fierce predator by a towering purple alien with a tail and color-changing tattoos who ignites strange feelings inside me.

Space ship travel when you've been kidnapped sucks. I don't get a pillow, there's no snacks, and worst of all—the whole ship crashes. Except, it doesn't crash on Earth, or even Mars. Nope, I'm in a whole new galaxy on a foreign planet and some body-builder-looking blue horned aliens with lots of piercings have decided I'm their new play thing. And not in a good way. Until one alien decides he's not going to share, and maybe I have a concussion from the crash, because I'm all about the possessive way he protects me. But there's no way he'll fight his whole clan for me . . . right?

R'jaal has waited many turns of the seasons for his khui to resonate, only to be disappointed time and time again. But when he is taken captive by strange beings hiding in the very tunnels of the fruit caves, he wakes up to find himself in a strange underground cage. Also in the cage? A very pretty unfamiliar human female. She says her name is Rosalind. She makes his khui sing. It's finally his time. There's a big problem, though—Rosalind has no khui of her own. And if she doesn't get one soon, she could die.

Abducted off the space station where I teach the standard galactic language, I'm imprisoned with two other women in a cold, dirty cell on an alien ship. We're destined for something worse than death until a fierce, blue-haired alien male rescues us. We recover on his ship with his group of Heveian pirates. There, the attraction that formed when he first carried me in his arms grows into a force neither of us can deny. But something else has taken up residence on the ship. Something that will stop at nothing to destroy us all.

As the first humans allowed in Suevan space, there’s a lot riding on my all-woman team. Earth desperately needs their tech, and I’m determined to prove we can negotiate the price. Without their planetary defense systems, Earth is a sitting duck, ripe for invasion. Except the Suevan culture is nothing like ours. When I take part in what I think is a welcoming ceremony, I leave with more than I bargained for: a husband. A mate. Apparently, we’re there to marry them as payment—something the top brass on Earth doesn’t bother denying. Fantastic.

As merchandise heading to an intergalactic auction, Ashe’s future looks grim. So when a too-sexy-for-his-own-good alien outlaw solicits her help to break them out of lockup, she jumps on the chance. Ashe only needs to survive long enough with the known criminal to get her end of the bargain: freedom. She trusts the clawed and fanged Tallean warrior to keep her safe, but who will keep her safe from him?

I went to space looking for adventure, my job to protect the other women of the expedition. When gray aliens wake me from cryo in the middle of a market, it turns out I'm what's on sale. This sure isn't the fun I dreamed of!

Many generations ago, humans fled Earth and sought refuge on the planet Thyre, a world ruled by formidable warlords. In exchange for protection and the right to inhabit Thyre's lands, each year our outposts pay tribute to the warlords. This year, we fall short on our tythes, and the village mayor decides to pay the missing taxes in the form of four women. I'm chosen to be part of the tribute given to Brogan, the Warlord of Grymburg. I don't know what awaits me, but I wasn't prepared for the warlord to take my breath away and claim me.