Love isn’t finite. Grief only fades. Danger is inescapable. Is a second chance worth the risk? Dancing is my life. I love it more than anything on this planet. Maybe that’s a lie I tell myself to keep the longing at bay. On Isia, the women who work at Margot’s can do as much or as little as they like with the Sian men who come in to learn how to please their future human mate. I’m the only exception to that rule. The Agency is careful to tiptoe around the risks with traveling to Isia for alien mate. I’ve been here long enough, I thought I knew them all. My first bondmate was murdered—an event I almost didn’t survive. Bonding again… that’s a risk I don’t think I’m willing to take. But I am tempted. D is the only man I’ve let get close enough to touch me since my bondmate died. And I count the days between his visits. He’s the only one who has ever tempted me. The only one who gets my time. And all he wants to do is talk, and sleep. I’ve learned as little as I can about him, because longing is as close as I’ll let myself get to losing him. But keeping myself in the dark, where only he can see me with his strange crystal ball eyes, puts me directly in the path of men who want him dead. They want me to do it, and they know enough of my past to be dangerous.