One woman is rescued from her imprisonment, and the other charged in to free others. Two women, different partners, one goal—free the actives of Uradda. Ledia has been working day and night for years. Her aunt is held hostage on Ledia’s good behaviour, so she behaves. She does her work at the port and goes to the Blind Date Corp resort in Aksalla to complete their erotic gardens. Meeting Juro has been fun. She has had someone to talk to about her work and experiences, and the brightly coloured Hyreno recognized her for what she was. She was born to be a water breather, but since she never opened her gills, her lack of water is slowly killing her. With the help of some friends, a plan is created to get her out of Uradda, and once that is accomplished, there are a few things to do. She needs to get used to her mates, and then she needs to get back into Uradda and break the damned walls. As a Uraddan refugee, Jeneev didn’t hesitate. When they asked the BDC escorts to volunteer, she jumped into line. The idea initially was to get the escorts to participate in the military action and have their regulars get into line to defend their sex partners. Jen’s relationship was platonic, and there was no answer from her patron, so she headed out on her own to blow up the Uraddan harbour. She was really not prepared for what happened next.

She wanted a life worth living, and in the arms of three guardians, it got a little out of control. Maya worked hard jobs all her life, and a devastating explosion at sea turned her from a hard worker into a crispy critter. Bedridden and blind, she accepts the order from the Volunteer Project and gets herself reset into a body that can move and skin that isn’t black. She did not think of anything aside from getting her body back under her control, so when she ends up at her assignment as a guardian communicator and tactician for three worlds, she does the job with good cheer until she got the first day off. Having locals trying to seduce her was strange, but knowing that she had been reset with the genes to be one of their queens, she just tried to ignore it. An act of kindness puts her in the path of a guardian who coincidentally also has a day off, and her day in the sun warms up considerably from there. The next day she meets his teammate, and the next teammate the day after that. The new genes come with new morals and less control.

Polly had claw marks appear on her back after a business meeting. She didn't tell anyone, but in hot spring culture, it became harder to conceal. She made the mistake of turning her back on the alpha with her boss, and the rest was history. She broke his nose, and he proposed. That stunned her enough to consider it, and the courtship began.Her boss kept an eye on her, and Minoru eased her into the idea of marriage. In the process of wedding prep, Polly met a bunch of women who each had a different mark on their back, and they bonded under the weight of being marked for alphas they hadn't even met by a hand they hadn't seen.In addition to that, Polly was dealing with threats from her sister's pack, and after a few kidnapping attempts, her alpha stepped in. Who knew that wedding prep was so complicated.

Lucky was holding the bomb that blew the staff of Adaptation Base to pieces. Instead of suffering from the blast, the acid in the device consumed her soft tissues.From the moment she came out of medical on a new base, she has been working to assist the cyborgs of the base with customizing the fit and flex of their new adaptations. When her friends come for her, she is relieved, but the station isn't interested in parting with her quite that easily. The resulting hostilities drive some wedges in the two factions, but a Splice attack has everyone seeing sense in no time.Nervous around human men, her friends assign Lucky a bodyguard with large wings and rainbow eyes. He is polite, charming, a biologist, and very attentive. If he plays his cards right, he just might get Lucky. 

She didn’t want to go to Usatho, but her brother needed support. Two years in, her bond was sold, and the Overseer was waiting to take her. Two hellish years after the asteroid hit Earth, Mercy and Mender stagger to a pickup point and get taken to the education station. They get medical care, education, and languages. Mender goes through a few queries while Mercy is in medical, and when she is out, he comes to her with the offer. After discussion, they decide that he should take the offer, and he does, but she has to remain with him. It’s his addition to the contract. Then, they wait. Two years later, her brother is on his way to fulfilling his contract, and his breeding partner decides that she is a drain on resources. He has her hauled to the bond auction with an eye to putting her up for auction before her nephew is born. On a whim, the assessor decides to re-run her compatibility tests due to her physical condition when she arrived, and to his delight, she is now companion-class. The first step is to offer her to the overseer, and he announces that he’s on his way. Mercy serves tea to Overseer Usatho. He looks her over and agrees to offer her a bond contract. She gets to stay on the planet that her twin brother calls home, which is really all that matters.

A stranger walks through the woods and offers to take her from her broken world. Hell yes. With conditions.With the asteroid looming, she makes a run for a family farm and the animals therein. After the crash with communications cut off, she lives a routine of subsistence and survival with no other soul to speak to.When a stranger walks up to her, silver skin and black hair, he introduces himself and offers her a way out. Life in the stars with him. She counters that her animals have to come as well. There is some negotiation, and he agrees to send her a tutor so that this is all done legally. Then, he flies away.To her surprise, her hallucination was as good as his word, and she is swept into a world of etiquette, manners, and languages.Her life in the stars has a specific pattern. She is a body servant, a bondservant, a companion, and a mistress, but she has to do it all with the same haircut. Tricky stuff.

Going from victim to hero is an agonizing road, but she learns control and skills on her path to vengeance. Maira had just gotten her first job, was getting ready to go to university, and was hoping for a bright future with a good job and a few kids. All of that crashed to a halt on the day her shop came under fire, and she was kidnapped to be tortured for months by a serial killer. Getting free of him was her first true accomplishment as a hero, and she nearly had to kill herself to save other lives. She survived, they survived, and she was given accelerated healing, which activated a gift that no one in her family had ever carried before. Listening to anyone, anywhere was a skill that got boring quickly. Talking into her target’s limbic system and having it reply to her was far more interesting. The mind couldn’t lie, and she used it to her advantage.

Forced to be a medic at a corrupt arena, Cracker dreams of getting one person on her side, and then, he shows up. Cracker’s life after the explosion was textbook. She only had one broken leg from the blast, but she was sent to the arena at the request of some retired generals, and there, she was altered into a lost leg with a tether running through it. She was delighted when communication with everyone as possible, and even if she had to hide her equipment, she had friends to talk to again. She hid her situation as best she could, but the day that she met the first-gen cyborg, she thought that things might just be turning around. With a tiny drop of hope in her life, she asked Lucky for programs that would help her out of her situation, and her friend delivered. Cracker was now back in action.