While embarking on separate quests in pursuit of duty, an honorable Warrior and a courageous Healer plunge together into danger and adventure to find redemption, and a love neither expected.
Ronan Macaulester is a tough warrior from the planet Maxxon, known for its overabundance of men, its fierce warrior culture, and its vast riches. He has traveled to the backwater planet Ares seeking his brother. When he finds his brother murdered, he flees to the coast, hoping to catch the inter-galactic shuttle, his only means of escape from a planet where outsiders are not welcome.
He stumbles upon Galatea (Lata) Riesling, whose virginity is being auctioned in a religious rite. Ronan cannot leave her to this degradation. Raised on a planet with too few women, he’s been trained first and foremost to protect women.
Galatea is a courageous and intelligent woman who wants to find a way to pull her planet out of poverty and ignorance. She will undergo the humiliation of the auction because she believes she can only help her countrywomen by working within the constraints of her society’s strict religious customs.
Ronan delays his escape, winning Galatea at the auction, but awakening the ire of her countrymen. While fleeing the Temple after the auction, Ronan is seriously wounded. Galatea, a renowned Healer, insists on traveling with him to tend his injury.