Some bonds defy biology. Some loves rewrite destiny.
When shy Ellis loses a Halloween bet, he never expects to meet his soul mate-let alone an alien one. Ki'Drena-Taz is an anthropologist from a dying world desperately short of female Mates. His scanner reads 80% compatibility with "Ellisa," but the body beneath the costume is male.
Unbound by human gender norms, Taz offers transformation: becoming Ki'Drena-Ellisa, the first human-Tactorian hybrid female. But when they rescue a friend from forced Mate-claiming, they commit a capital offense on a world where males rule and females are voiceless.
Convicted and imprisoned, Ellisa faces a High Court that sees her as an anomaly and Taz as a traitor. With execution looming, she must argue for the right to choose: her body, her bond, her future-before judges who have never heard a female voice stand up for herself.
A sci-fi romance that becomes a political thriller that becomes a courtroom drama about what it means to be human.
[Content Warning: This story contains content of a sexual nature also violence, including rape, torture, and forced feminisation. These have been depicted as respectfully and non-graphically as possible and only included where necessary to the plot.]