One choice will save his life. The other will ruin his heart.
Elias Thorne is stranded light-years from Earth — and his own government has already sold him out.
His sentence is simple:
Choose a Varakian husband by nightfall... or be thrown into the planetary wastes.
The suitors waiting for him are beautiful, radiant, and terrifyingly powerful.
But Elias doesn't choose one of them.
He chooses Kaelen.
The silent warrior standing in the shadows of the Great Hall.
The fallen commander marked by death.
The Empire's most feared "Hollowed" soldier — a man untouched for ten years and trusted by no one.
Kaelen believes Elias is a spy.
Elias believes Kaelen is the only man on this brutal world who might actually protect him.
Their bond begins as survival.
It quickly becomes something far more dangerous.
Because as the trial period counts down, Elias realizes the truth:
If Kaelen rejects him, he dies.
If Kaelen accepts him... he might never be able to leave.
