Vanata World

Attacking the Usur’s forces, Shep-Alij, the ruthless Maeser of the Resistance, captures Maeva. She is the Usur’s daughter and the last vanata, a hybrid species.

On the planet Vanat, Kesh is the last of his kind, a male vanata-human hybrid. All the vanatas were killed long ago when humans colonized the planet and there are no vanata women left, except for his mother. Kesh has sex with human women, but it’s only a dull relief. When he’s given a security detail for Locke, a senator, Kesh thinks he might have scented something impossible on the senator—a new vanata female.

For five years, Mal and Tess meet as children outside the gates of the Northern Keep. When Mal is forced to leave, they promise to return on a certain date. Ten years later, Mal comes back and thinks the girl he remembers was only in his imagination. But he learns that he’s wrong when Tess arrives at the Northern Keep in search of him and is captured by the Usur Guard.