When Salryc Luxx turned eighteen, she bit a military officer. That was the first step.

To humans, her species is just another resource. Seen as little more than beasts, the lives of iliri and iliri crossbreds are cheap and easily replaced. Sal was raised as one of their pets and has spent her life dreaming of the day she can be free.

It won’t be easy, but she has a piece of paper that admits her to the trials of the Black Blades, a group elite soldiers who do the jobs no one else can handle. Their success is exactly what she needs to prove her people are more than just something to throw away. Then a voice leaks into her mind. Evidently, there’s a lot more her species has kept secret – and the Black Blades have been hiding it in plain sight this whole time.

She’s going to have to change her plan. The sweet scent of humans, the lure to claim a mate, and her desire to see her commanding officer drop his eyes are becoming a problem. If she wants to prove that her people deserve freedom – that she deserves it – she has to stop acting like a beast. There’s just one little problem.

Humans aren’t her masters, they’re her prey.