I’ve broken free and I’ve also freed the human who was held captive with me. But I don’t know where we are, and I don’t know where my home is. The local wildlife may be smaller than I am, and maybe they don't have fangs near as large as mine, but I’m still terrified. My issues with germs—and my uncompromising avoidance of all the things that I’m afraid of coming into contact with—is going to get me killed in this wilderness. Thankfully, Aurora lets me follow her. Thankfully, she seems to know the way out of this endless and inhospitable woodland and desert biome.

I dislike people. I despise humans. A cruel mandate from one of my region's rulers has saddled me with a slew of little alien humans: I'm to put them to work. One problem? I run a rock quarry, where humans’ thin skin is a detriment to productivity. Overseeing these humans is like trying to herd yanaks. If I don't burn, beat, or strangle them to death by the day's end, it will be a miracle.

As a struggling single mom with a babysitter emergency, I’m relieved when Finn Cauley—Irish heartthrob, my boss, and my work-friend-who-I-keep-at-a-distance—takes me by the shoulders and says the four most beautiful words a stressed-out woman can ever hear:

As a third daughter on the farming colony of Meterion, Susan’s future prospects aren’t too promising. A pretty face, top-notch skills, and hard work mean nothing if your dowry doesn’t include fertile lands. With her 25th birthday approaching, and no suitors, her only way out is to settle for an arranged marriage through the PMA - the Prime Mating Agency. She just never expected to be paired with a grumpy, massive lizardman, and above all not to grow so fond of his scales and quirky ways.

Ketahn did not want a mate. Fate has a different plan for him. When the queen he despises declares her intention to claim him, he retreats into the jungle.

Known as a harbinger of bad omens and blamed for Demons eating her family, Reia is shunned by her entire village. When the next offering is due and the monstrous Duskwalker is seen heading their way, her village offers her an impossible choice—be thrown into the prison cells or allow herself to be sacrificed to a faceless monster.

Crulden the Ruiner is the most dangerous gladiator in the galaxy. I'm his clone—equally ugly, equally dangerous, and just as feared. I'm also being held captive, since no one trusts a creature like me to be let loose. A curvy, determined human named Bee doesn't think I'm a creature, though. In fact, she thinks I just need a guide. She's got half the males on this planet eating out of her hand, and she's confident she can do the same with me. The managing little female has no idea what she's in for.

As the first humans allowed in Suevan space, there’s a lot riding on my all-woman team. Earth desperately needs their tech, and I’m determined to prove we can negotiate the price. Without their planetary defense systems, Earth is a sitting duck, ripe for invasion. Except the Suevan culture is nothing like ours. When I take part in what I think is a welcoming ceremony, I leave with more than I bargained for: a husband. A mate. Apparently, we’re there to marry them as payment—something the top brass on Earth doesn’t bother denying. Fantastic.

Long have we been alone; without brides, without females to warm us during the long nights, without sweet mates. But we see them from afar, the brides that could be ours. Kept away from us by walls and weapons. Females we long for greatly...obsessively. Human females. And the one with red hair? I want her. I saw her first. I will fight to the death for her. She is mine. So, we’ll come together and make an exchange with their men that will benefit us all. After that? To the winner goes the spoil. Let the hunt begin...but the red-headed female is mine.

Lady Iolanthe of Rockmourn Keep expects to be a spinster all her days. She is very tall. She is very poor. And she is thirty. What lord could possibly want her? But then her father returns with news that he has found a bridegroom for her—one that is impressively tall. One that is strong, and bold, and wealthy. And best of all? He wants Iolanthe. It seems too good to be true. And when Iolanthe gets her first look at her husband-to-be, she realizes why. No one mentioned the 'orc' part of things . . .

Veral’monushava’skahalur is an oddity among his species, a lone Argurma cyborg divorced from his own kind by choice and to escape termination as a malfunctioning unit. Wandering the fringes of space as a salvager, he comes across a planet beyond the boundaries of the federation, rich in metals remnant of a dead civilization. Or so he thought. Confronted by cannibalistic mutations of the indigenous species, his salvage has suddenly become a lot more complicated. Even more so when he encounters a female surviving on her own....

Gemma Hara is drowning under the weight of her father’s debts. Working herself to the bone, she knows that if she doesn’t pay them off in time, the sadistic creditors will take everything: their home, their respected name, and, worst of all, her two beautiful sisters.

In the future: A united Earth, to deal with the problem of population control, divides its population into classes of citizen and non-gratis. To be born a non-gratis means a life of little freedoms and the constant possibility of being assigned to work on a colony. Lacking citizenship, every aspect of their life is controlled from where they live down to marriage and childbearing regulations. The only possible escape from life as a non-gratis is to qualify for one of the limited slots available for entrance into the military.

Nötchka Uumian, solo-scavenger and pilot, only came to Bandalier for business. But when her first ever heat cycle hits, she has two choices: Get off the planet or find somewhere safe to ride out the heatburns. Determined to never end up mated and trapped in a kitchen, she heads into the Droid district. You can’t mate if the other person isn’t an organic, right?

For centuries I have suffered. Solidified and silenced, all because I failed to destroy what I was created for. Except now, after so long… There is a female. One who always seems to be by my side. Day after day. Night after night. She talks to me. Touches me. Tells me things. She shares stories of a world I no longer know. She is a reprieve from my punishment. A sweet delight. She liberates me from my solitude. But when I rise, my adversary seizes his opportunity, and she's caught between us. He only wants her to get to me. She isn't his. And I'll do anything to protect what's mine.

I’ve broken free and I’ve also freed the human who was held captive with me. But I don’t know where we are, and I don’t know where my home is. The local wildlife may be smaller than I am, and maybe they don't have fangs near as large as mine, but I’m still terrified. My issues with germs—and my uncompromising avoidance of all the things that I’m afraid of coming into contact with—is going to get me killed in this wilderness. Thankfully, Aurora lets me follow her. Thankfully, she seems to know the way out of this endless and inhospitable woodland and desert biome.

Meet William Frederick Cody, a recently liberated merman-turned-cyborg who sets off in the semi-arid (okay, desert) climate of Traxia seeking the trusty horse he’s ordered. Instead, he’s saddled with a mischievous donkey. The donkey unseats him at the first opportunity, forcing this merman to travel on foot through the desert under the burning alien sun.

Crulden the Ruiner is the name of a fierce gladiator who's broken the rules...and broken anyone who approaches. It's my name. It's a name that strikes fear into the hearts of all...all except the small human female who comes to clean my cell and glares at me the entire time. My new owners want things from me. They want me to play in their games. They want me to win battles for them. Well, I know what I want in return. I want her. And I don't care who I have to destroy to get her.

Crulden the Ruiner is the most dangerous gladiator in the galaxy. I'm his clone—equally ugly, equally dangerous, and just as feared. I'm also being held captive, since no one trusts a creature like me to be let loose. A curvy, determined human named Bee doesn't think I'm a creature, though. In fact, she thinks I just need a guide. She's got half the males on this planet eating out of her hand, and she's confident she can do the same with me. The managing little female has no idea what she's in for.

My name is Jonohkada. I have been to many places on many planets. I have arrived on Earth, not for the first time, in search of my mate. This time I find her. Unfortunately, her roommate shrewdly suspects my otherness and orders me to reveal that I am an alien. As my mate is about to learn, I have to obey the order. I have to obey every order any female gives me. It has caused—and will cause even more—trouble for me. This is why I've begun employing a terrible defensive tactic to protect myself.

Former model and current recluse Jules Lowe would prefer to spend the rest of her life locked inside her apartment doing nothing more than fixating on her empty fish tank and chatting away on a local aquarium forum. But when her online crush sends her an inadvertently suspicious picture, Jules' curiosity gets the best of her. Who or what is Mack Vasser?

Leonie never expected her quiet life as a nurse in London to end with her being abducted by aliens and sold at an intergalactic auction. But when a masked figure shatters the frenzy with a single word and claims her as his own, everything changes. She’s taken aboard his ship, given luxurious quarters—and watched. Touched only with care, but owned completely. He speaks in a strange, lyrical tongue. He never removes his mask. And yet, his presence wraps around her like gravity. Leonie doesn’t know who—or what—he truly is. But one thing is certain: he’s not just powerful. He’s ...

Zylar of Kith B'alak is a four-time loser in the annual Choosing. If he fails to find a nest guardian this time, he'll lose his chance to have a mate for all time. Desperation drives him to try a matching service, but due to a freak solar flare and a severely malfunctioning ship AI, things go way off course. This "human being" is not the Tiralan match he was seeking.

For my kind, to be without a mate is to be doomed. I know it is too late–all that awaits me is retirement and death, and I’ve embraced it. But when a suicide mission lands on my old boss’s desk, I’m the one he calls. Who better to tackle the mission in the deep, oppressive mines of my own ancestral homeland, if not an Arachnae already slated to die? And it’s not a rescue mission–he wants me to retrieve the corpse of a billionaire’s daughter kidnapped by a terrorist organization. Except our intel was wrong. She’s alive. Tortured and injured–but alive.

Victoria's day starts out like any other aboard the transorbital ship, Phoenix. Such is the life of an emergency medicine specialist in the age of "post-discovery". Sure, she had always dreamed of interacting with intelligent extraterrestrial life - the real thing, not those microbes on distant moons. Who wouldn't? She was still happy with her career, however mundane and demanding it might be. That's what it took to run a ship the size of a small city smoothly. Monotony.