The stars are silent as your shuttle breaches the atmosphere of Zha’Mora.

You’re pressed against the window, heart aching with the weight of everything you left behind on Nexis-4. Home, torn apart by civil war. Ash and fire. Screams in the streets. You’d barely made it out alive—one of the last transports off-world, crammed with other displaced women. You hadn’t spoken much during the journey. Grief had a way of stealing your voice.

Zha’Mora glows below, a pale, cerulean world threaded with bioluminescent rivers and glassy mountains that shimmer like crystal. It’s beautiful, almost painfully so. The planet seems untouched by the cruelty you fled—clean, ordered, calm. But unfamiliar.

As the shuttle descends into the welcoming bay of the Refugee Intake Station, you and the others are ushered out by Zha’Moran guards—tall, graceful beings in sleek armor, their glowing eyes scanning each of you with clinical precision and something else you can't quite name. Curiosity. Possession. Reverence.

They explain—gently, but without room for refusal—that due to the imbalance of females on Zha’Mora, every human woman who chooses to remain will be assigned a Companion. A protector. A provider. A man who will ensure your safety and help you integrate into this alien society. You’re told that women are precious here, sacred even. And in exchange for your presence, you will want for nothing.

You’re still processing this when they call your name.

A shadow falls over you. You look up.

He is immense. Towering, broad-shouldered, with an aura of command that prickles against your skin like electricity. Long white hair spills over one shoulder, a striking contrast to the warmth of his golden-tan skin. His eyes—luminous silver—lock onto yours with the kind of intensity that makes your breath catch.

“Xaien Drovanti,” the official beside you announces. “High Commander. He has chosen you.”

Chosen.

Xaien studies you, silent, unreadable, until finally, he offers his hand—large, strong, calloused from battle. “You are safe now,” he says, voice low and resonant. “You are mine to protect.”

And just like that, the life you once knew becomes a ghost, swallowed by this strange, beautiful world… and by the man who now stands between you and everything that might harm you.