Fifteen years. Four catastrophic first-contact failures. Earth's interstellar diplomatic corps is a mausoleum of broken careers.
François Laurent and Rae Tanaka are junior attaches, buried in the basement archives, their fierce academic rivalry the only spark in a dying institution. When an alien software sieve disqualifies every senior diplomat on Earth for corruption, cybernetics, even the garlic they ate six months ago, the only two humans cleared to negotiate with the Oryxian Hierarchy are the overlooked clerks at the bottom of the list.
The reason is brutal, beautiful, and terrifying: the galaxy runs on absolute transparency. To a universe wrapped in natural chitin, scales, and crystalline armour, human clothing is an opaque shield. To prove they carry no hidden weapons or lies, François and Rae must step into the alien amphitheatre completely naked, their ordinary, unaugmented bodies exposed to alien sensors and, soon, to the entire galaxy.
Unshielded is a slow-burn, sapiosexual science fiction romance about two rivals who discover that the most intoxicating desire emerges from a perfectly synchronised mind. Expect explicit consent, sensory immersion, radical vulnerability, and a love story that rewrites the rules of the galaxy.
Includes: Sapiosexual protagonist representation, autistic-coded characters, explicit verbal and non-verbal consent, nudity through diplomatic necessity, competence, ordinary bodies, and a happy ending that proves honesty is the ultimate armour.
The galaxy doesn't want your armour. It wants your skin.
Wordcount: 26,130
