But Sable is a bounty hunter, which makes him direct competition in the capture of wanted criminals. Despite the obvious attraction between them, she won't give him a chance and after two years, he's tired of waiting for her to come around. So he's got a plan to give them both what they want...each other.

    Don't talk to the goblins. Don't look at the goblins. Above all else, don't buy or trade with the goblins.Then, one day before market, she sees a young rat faced boy selling a necklace that looks eerily like her mother's, what's a young girl to do? Of course she tries to buy it, but he won't sell it to her. So she steals it because it's her mother's necklace.Lux knows the rules. He's a jeweler and he can sell his wares to those who want to faithfully buy them. Something doesn't feel right about selling this particular piece to the beautiful young woman who immediately steals his heart. So he doesn't.But when he realizes the mortal girl stole from him, he's forced to enact magic that can't be unwritten. Stealing from a goblin always has a price.

    But now, freed from the spells of the wicked bloodmages, magic—both good and evil—returns. And Aren of Fallbrook feels her own power of sight strengthen and grow…Overcome by visions of mayhem and murder, Aren vows to save her village from the ruthless raiders who have descended upon it—and killed her family. With the return of wildlings to the hills and forests, she strikes a bargain with the Hob, a magical, human-like creature imbued with the power of the mountains. But the Hob is the last of his kind. And he will exact a heavy price to defend the village—a price Aren herself must pay…

    Never wanted see the eerie glow of the Powerpods. Never wanted to visit Circum Terra. Never had any interest in finding out the truth about the DarkShips. You always get what you don't ask for. Which must have been why she woke up in the dark of shipnight, within the greater night of space in her father's space cruiser, knowing that there was a stranger in her room. In a short time, after taking out the stranger--who turned out to be one of her father's bodyguards up to no good, she was hurtling away from the ship in a lifeboat to get help. But what she got instead would be the adventure of a lifetime--if" she managed to survive. . .

    Beware of her. Mind her. Death guards her like one of its own."The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From hereon in she would be known as Sankofa­­--a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past.Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks--alone, except for her fox companion--searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers.But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?

    The captain has acquired a mysterious stolen artifact… and the owners want it back. When he learns of Tikaya’s background, he urges her to decode its secrets, implying her life—and everyone else’s—might be forfeit if she fails.Engima is a 15,000-word short story set after the events in Encrypted.

    And now it's nearly Christmas, and the commission assigned to establish communications is at their wits' end. They've resorted to taking the aliens to Broncos games, lighting displays, and shopping malls, in the hope they'll respond to something!And they do, but in a way nobody ever expected, and Meg, the commission, and an overworked choir director find themselves suddenly caught up in an intergalactic mess involving Christmas carols, scented candles, seventh-grade girls, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Meg's Aunt Judith, Victoria's Secret, and Handel's Messiah.Multiple Nebula and Hugo Award-winning author Connie Willis may be most famous for her books To Say Nothing of the Dog, Doomsday Book, Inside Job, D.A., and The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories, but she's also a huge fan of the holidays and their accompanying frivolity and nonsense, and has written a marvelous array of Christmas stories, including Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, "Just Like the Ones We Used to Know" (made into the CBS movie Snow Wonder), "deck.halls@boughs/holly", and now the hilarious "All Seated on the Ground."

    When did academia get to be so complicated?Kas is a junior researcher on a fact-finding mission to old Earth. But when a con-artist tricks her into wagering a large sum of money belonging to her university on the outcome of a manned robot arena battle she becomes drawn into the seedy underworld of old Earth politics and state-sponsored battle-droid prizefights.Is it time to get back to the books, yet?

    . .All her life Eve has been kept away from the opposite sex. Kept from the truth of her past.But at sixteen it's time for Eve to face her destiny. Three potential males have been selected for her. The future of humanity is in her hands. She's always accepted her fate.Until she meets Bram.Eve wants control over her life. She wants freedom.But how do you choose between love and the future of the human race?EVE OF MAN is the first in an explosive new trilogy by bestselling authors Giovanna & Tom Fletcher.

    A giant, beastly alien slave with no memory of his past is now her newest acquisition, and she has no idea what to do with him.Stuck together for the foreseeable future on the journey back to her home planet, Lucia struggles with the decision to keep him close or risk letting him fall back into enemy hands.Outrunning the pirates in pursuit, and her own desires, is shaping up to be an impossible task.WARNING: This story contains a non-human alien hero, mature content, graphic language, and some violence against women.

    Like much of the destroyed planet, the place knows only one temperature—freezing. But some things never change. The diamond in the ice desert is still a 24-hour hedonistic playground and nothing keeps the crowds away from the casino floors, never mind the rumors about sinister sorcery in its shadows.At the heart of this city is Natasha Kestal, a young blackjack dealer looking for a way out. Like many, she's heard of a mythical land simply called “the Blue.” They say it’s a paradise, where the sun still shines and the waters are turquoise. More importantly, it’s a place where Nat won’t be persecuted, even if her darkest secret comes to light.But passage to the Blue is treacherous, if not impossible, and her only shot is to bet on a ragtag crew of mercenaries led by a cocky runner named Ryan Wesson to take her there. Danger and deceit await on every corner, even as Nat and Wes find themselves inexorably drawn to each other. But can true love survive the lies? Fiery hearts collide in this fantastic tale of the evil men do and the awesome power within us all.

    Today is the tenth time this has happened to me. The tenth time I’ve had to figure out where the hell I am. The tenth time I’ve had to try and work out who the hell I am. This is the tenth alteration of the person I am. Each of us has had different lives, different backgrounds and different families. But there’s always been one constant.Him.He’s the reason I keep doing this. He’s the reason I spend four years searching. If I’m lucky, I’ll get the trigger and find him quickly and we can spend those four years together before I disappear again. If I’m not, we might get a year, a month or even just a day. Once we got nothing, but that was a choice. And every time it happens, he patiently waits for me. He says that every time I come back to him, it’s like falling in love with me all over again. I say that every time I come back, I fall even more in love with him than before.It scares me that one day I won't be able to find him at all, because when that day comes, I'm not sure I'll want to keep going. He is my strength, my protector, my one and only constant.I love him.He loves me.But every four years, I lose myself. And every four years, I have to find him.This is our story.

    Then they turned their weapons on us.Only a few escaped the robot revolution of 2071. Kevin, Nick, and Cass are lucky —they live with their parents in a secret human community in the woods. Then their village is detected and wiped out. Hopeful that other survivors have been captured by bots, the teens risk everything to save the only people they have left in the world—by infiltrating a city controlled by their greatest enemies.Revolution 19 is a cinematic thriller unlike anything else. With a dynamic cast of characters, this surefire blockbuster has everything teen readers want—action, drama, mystery, and romance. Written by debut novelist Gregg Rosenblum, this gripping story shouldn’t be missed.

    Everyone else—his family, his friends, his doctors—was convinced that any moment could be his last. So when Lucas miraculously returns from the brink of death, Emma thinks her prayers have been answered.As the surprised town rejoices, Emma begins to question whether Lucas is the same boy she’s always known. When she finds an unidentifiable object on his family’s farm—and government agents come to claim it—she begins to suspect that nothing is what it seems. Emma’s out-of-this-world discovery may be the key to setting things right, but only if she and Lucas can evade the agents who are after what they have. With all her hopes and dreams on the line, Emma sets out to save the boy she loves. And with a little help from a distant star, she might just have a chance at making those dreams come true.

    While he would never choose a human of his own accord, his physician's gene-matching program selected Lamira's DNA as the best possible match with his own. Now he must teach the beautiful slave to yield to his will, accept his discipline and learn to serve him as her one true master. Lamira has hidden her claircognizance from the Ocretions, as aberrant traits in human slaves are punished by death. When she's bought by a Zandian prince for breeding and kept by his side at all times, she finds it increasingly harder to hide. His humiliating punishments and dominance awake a powerful lust in her, which he tracks with a monitoring device on her arousal rate. But when she begins to care for the huge, demanding alien, she must choose between preserving her own life and revealing her secret to save his. Devour the first steamy stand-alone romance in USA Today Bestselling Author Renee Rose's Alien Warrior series.  **This book was originally included in the box set Human Surrender.