How do you dream of freedom when you can't remember ever being free? Lydia has never known freedom, but she knows she's been lucky. She has a good Master, a good home, and sisters who love her. Yet... something is missing. She longs to know more about the world around her, and the universe she can see from her window at night. But knowledge is for the men, and written in a language she'll never be allowed to learn. The penalty is too steep, the punishment too harsh. When an opportunity to find out what she's been missing falls into her lap, she can't ignore it. She studies and learns in secret, hoping she's never found out. And one day, she does something careless that almost reveals her secret, and she pays with a penalty that is severe, and very public. What follows, though, launches her unexpectedly into a world she never imagined she'd ever get to see, and provides her a champion who teaches her to question everything she's ever taken for granted. James has been invited to Midros to help his friend solve a decades-old mystery about a drug that's made on the planet. He stands to make more money than he can imagine, if he succeeds. Finding himself entertaining a beautiful woman for the week is not in his plans. But she quickly becomes so much more. She's incredibly smart, feisty, and brave. When he learns her secret, he finds he cannot bear the thought of letting her go back to face an uncertain future. And when they stumble on the truth about the deceptions her world has created, they must risk everything - their future, and her life - to right a wrong so great it will change the history of that universe she's always longed to explore. This book has themes of dark desires, unequal power exchange, and adult themes. .