Book picks similar to
Dark Horse by Michelle Diener


sci-fi
romance
science-fiction
aliens

Warrior's Woman


Johanna Lindsey - 1990
    In the year 2139, fearless Tedra De Arr sets out to rescue her beleaguered planet Kystran from the savage rule of the evil Crad Ce Moerr. Experienced in combat but not in love, the beautiful, untouched Amazon flies with Martha, her wise-cracking, free-thinking computer, to a world where warriors reign supreme - and into the arms of the one man she can never hope to vanquish: the bronzed barbarian Challen Ly-San-Ter.A magnificent creature of raw yet disciplined desires, the muscle-bound primitive succeeds where no puny Kystran male had before - igniting a raging fire within Tedra that must be extinguished before she can even think of saving her enslaved world...

Dark Space


Lisa Henry - 2012
    He’s a conscripted recruit on Defender Three, one of a network of stations designed to protect the Earth from alien attack. He's also angry, homesick, and afraid. If he doesn’t get home he’ll lose his family, but there’s no way back except in a body bag.Cameron Rushton needs a heartbeat. Four years ago Cam was taken by the Faceless — the alien race that almost destroyed Earth. Now he’s back, and when the doctors make a mess of getting him out of stasis, Brady becomes his temporary human pacemaker. Except they’re sharing more than a heartbeat: they’re sharing thoughts, memories, and some very vivid dreams.Not that Brady’s got time to worry about his growing attraction to another guy, especially the one guy in the universe who can read his mind. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just biochemistry and electrical impulses. It doesn’t change the truth: Brady’s alone in the universe.Now the Faceless are coming and there’s nothing anyone can do. You can’t stop your nightmares. Cam says everyone will live, but Cam’s probably a traitor and a liar like the military thinks. But that’s okay. Guys like Brady don’t expect happy endings.

Hold


Claire Kent - 2007
    Give yourself to him in return for protection. It’s the only way you’ll ever survive. Convicted of a minor crime, Riana is sentenced to a prison planet—a dark primitive hold filled with convicts vying for power. Her only chance of survival is with Cain, a mysterious loner who has won his territory in the prison through intelligence and brute strength. Sex is all she has to offer, so she uses it. She’s under no delusions here. No one is ever released, and no one ever escapes. Survival is all she can hope for—until Cain. An earlier version of this book was published under the same title and a different penname by Ellora’s Cave. It has since been substantially revised and expanded.

Jarek


Erin Tate - 2016
     At 457 Preor years old, Jarek sen Claron is a dragon ready for his final flight into the skies. This voyage to Earth as the War Master of the third fleet will be his final assignment. Once he has helped his fellow Preors secure human mates, he will return to Preor before the madness of loneliness overtakes his mind. That all changes when he meets Melissa. Human Melissa with her sparkling eyes, bright smile, and body that would make any hot-blooded male drool. Unfortunately, she never registered as a Preor mate hopeful. No matter, the Knowing stretches between them and there is no way she can resist him. Until she does. Jarek wishes to give her the choice to mate him, while everything inside him screams to take Melissa beneath his wing, now. No choosing necessary. But should he draw her to his side when his enemies are circling? Many males do not believe the son of a Preor mass murderer deserves to have a mate. Can he survive the coming battles? Or will he die without tasting sweet Melissa’s lips? Related to the UJAL series: The Ujal Volume One (Vados, Tave, Rhal) Erun Dashing Through the Stars

A Soldier's Duty


Jean Johnson - 2011
    To prevent this vision from coming true, Ia enlists in the Terran United Planets military with a plan to become a soldier who will inspire generations for the next three hundred years-a soldier history will call Bloody Mary.

Starshine: Aurora Rising Book One


G.S. Jennsen - 2014
    Now two individuals from opposite ends of settled space are on a collision course with the darkest of those secrets, even as the world threatens to explode around them.The year is 2322. Humanity has expanded into the stars, inhabiting over 100 worlds across a third of the galaxy. Though thriving as never before, they have discovered neither alien life nor the key to utopia. Earth struggles to retain authority over far-flung planets and free-wheeling corporations while an uneasy armistice with a breakaway federation hangs by a thread as the former rebels rise in wealth and power.Alexis Solovy is Earth Alliance royalty, her father a fallen war hero and her mother an influential military leader. But she seeks only the freedom of space and has made a fortune by reading the patterns in the chaos to discover the hidden wonders of the stars.Nothing about her latest objective suggests the secret it conceals will turn her life— not to mention the entire galaxy—upside down. But a chance encounter with a mysterious spy leads to a discovery which will thrust Alex into the middle of a galactic power struggle and a sinister conspiracy, whether she likes it or not.When faced with its greatest challenge, will humanity rise to triumph, or fall to ruin?Aurora Rising is an epic tale of galaxy-spanning adventure, of the thrill of discovery and the unquenchable desire to reach ever farther into the unknown. It's a tale of humanity at its best and worst, of love and loss, of fear and heroism. It's the story of a woman who sought the stars and found more than anyone imagined possible.

Beyond the Rain


Jess Granger - 2009
    After five years behind enemy lines, Captain Cyani has to complete one final mission before she can return to Azra-a planet ruled by a sisterhood of celibate warriors. Along the way she finds a prisoner, chained and beaten-but radiating feral power and an unbroken spirit. For years Soren has endured torture as his captors leeched his very essence, a unique hormone then sold as a sexual narcotic in the shadow trade. Now he has been freed from slavery by a beautiful warrior woman with radiant blue eyes. After years in bondage, Soren's hormones are so unbalanced that he will die if he does not mate with a woman. Can Cyani be the woman he needs to survive, or will this forbidden bond destroy them?

The Challenge


Susan Kearney - 2004
    Kahn offers her proof she can't refute: Tessa has been brought forward through time to save Earth by winning an intergalactic challenge. Kahn only has a few weeks to train Tessa to use the psi-abilities he insists she has. He is confident in the success of a time-honored method that uses sexual frustration to bring out her powers, but Tessa is dubious. She's a martial arts expert and can fight her way through anything, but she's never had much luck with emotions.Luckily for Earth, Kahn can be very convincing...

Chosen


Stacy Jones - 2017
    The next, she wakes to find herself in a cold, sterile cage surrounded by monsters, with no memory of how she got there. Accidentally abducted by alien poachers, unsure if she will live or die, she is dreading the worst. What she doesn’t expect is for her captors to dump her on an alien planet to fend for herself. Now, she must fight to survive the planet… or die trying. Frrar, Tor, and Arruk have been searching endlessly for a mate to belong to, someone to finally accept them, but they are losing hope. The time of cleansing, when the great waters drown the land, draws near. They are on the verge of abandoning their search and fleeing the forest when they spot a strange, tiny, two-armed female. They are immediately drawn to her, fascinated by her differences, but they must act fast to save her life, and their own, from the coming flood.

Ensnared


Tiffany Roberts - 2021
    Fate has a different plan for him. When the queen he despises declares her intention to claim him, he retreats into the jungle.What he finds there changes his world.Small, delicate, and pale skinned, Ivy Foster is nothing like the females Ketahn has known. She’s not of his kind at all. Yet the moment he sees her, he knows the truth in his soul—she is his heartsthread.And now that he has her, he won’t let anything take her away. Not the jungle, not the gods, not the queen.Whether Ivy agrees or not, their webs are entangled. No one will ever sever those threads.----Book 1 of 3 in The Spider's Mate Trilogy.

The Vanishing Girl


Laura Thalassa - 2014
    She can teleport anywhere in the world—London, Paris, her crush’s bedroom—wherever her dreams lead her. Ten minutes is all she gets, and once time’s up, she returns to her bed. It's a secret she’s successfully kept for the last five years. But now someone knows. A week after her eighteenth birthday, when frustratingly handsome Caden Hawthorne captures her, delivers her to the government, and then disappears before her eyes, Ember realizes two things: One, she is not alone. And two, people like her—teleporters—are being used as weapons. Dragged off to a remote facility where others like her live, Ember’s forced to pair up with her former captor, Caden, to learn how to survive inside until she can escape. Only Caden’s making escape seem less and less appealing.But even as Ember falls for the boy who got her into this mess, she knows that she is running out of time. Because the government has plans for those like her, and those plans might just cost Ember her life.

Lord of the Storm


Justine Davis - 1994
    He lives only to serve her desires.A warrior. A sex slave from a conquered world.What will he do to her if she sets him free?Shaylah Graymist, ace fighter pilot for a brutal intergalactic Coalition, is given a slave as a reward for heroism in battle. The incredibly virile slave named Wolf wears a collar which controls him completely, allowing her to make him do anything she wants. Yet Shaylah has an old-fashioned belief in love and refuses to take advantage of him. A tense friendship grows between her and Wolf, along with deep desires he refuses to admit. The Coalition destroyed his people. He won't betray their memory.When Shaylah returns to battle, Wolf rebels and is sold to a prison colony. She frees him, and together they journey to his home planet. As she learns more about Wolf, she begins to question her loyalty to the Coalition, and the passions between them burn out of control.

Dragon's Baby


Miranda Martin - 2016
     Calista is happy with her life of scientific research. She has no need for a man, she has her books, her friends, and her work. Things are fine until her ship is attacked by space pirates and crash lands on a desert planet with heat so intense she and her friends can't survive without help. Ladon is a Zmaj warrior resigned to a life alone, who only desires to protect his treasures. His hopes for a mate faded long ago, yet when he meets Calista something stirs. It takes no more than one look to know that she belongs to him. He's been alone for so long but she is the ultimate treasure and he will protect her. Now there's only the small problem of her living long enough to understand. A devastated planet, a mysterious history, space pirates, and threats environmental and alien beset them on all sides. The sexy Zmaj warrior will have to battle the planet's ultimate threat in an epic effort to obtain the one thing he knows Calista needs to survive. Then maybe they can begin to come to terms with the feelings they create in each other. But will the other humans accept this huge and alien looking dragon warrior? Or will they find him just as big a threat as the rest of the red planet? The future of both their races depends on it. Alien Dragon's Baby is a full length scifi novel with a happily ever after ending, plenty of steam, bloody battles and alien-human intrigue. It is standalone and has been co-written by newcomer Miranda Martin and one of the hottest science fiction romance authors out there, Juno Wells. (B01J6WA1T2 Original Cover Edition. This is an alternate cover edition.)

Captive of the Horde King


Zoey Draven - 2019
    Now, he owns her.On the unforgiving planet of Dakkar, I did what all the humans in our village did: kept my head down, worked to provide for my family, and I certainly didn’t break any Dakkari laws to risk inciting the alien race’s merciless wrath.Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for my brother and one careless mistake brings a horde of the nomadic, barbarian Dakkari straight to our doorstep, led by their powerful horde king—a cold, ruthless, battle-scarred warrior demanding retribution.In order to save my brother’s life, I do the unthinkable.I sell myself to the horde king as his war prize. I agree to warm his furs, to travel with his horde across the wild lands of Dakkar, and to never see my family again.But as I struggle with my new reality, I discover that the surly, mysterious, dominant horde king never intended for me to be his concubine…He wants me as his queen.

The Scorpion's Mate


Susan Trombley - 2018
    The last thing she expects is to be abducted by aliens and dropped into a research facility, where a genetically-engineered alien soldier chooses her as his life-mate. Thrax’s pheromones are compelling, and his status as a fellow unwilling test subject makes them allies, but Claire isn't certain she can trust someone who is convinced she belongs to him, when all she wants to do is find a way to return home to Earth—a place that her devoted alien can never follow, because there’s no way the scorpion-like alien would ever be able to pass for human. Still, she’ll accept help where she can find it, so she doesn't hesitate to escape with Thrax from the facility, though their time running from their pursuers in the warrens beneath the research facility will forever change Claire, and could make it impossible for her to return to Earth. But will there be anywhere else in the galaxy they can go where their love will be accepted? Plus a BONUS Full-length novel: Into the Dead Fall Though she was raised by a survivalist, Alice was not prepared to be ripped from her dimension and dropped without ceremony into the massive junkyard of a parallel dimension. She’s wounded, alone, and lost in a world her mind struggles to comprehend. When a strange, four-armed alien comes to her aid, saving her life, she has no choice but to accept his help. She finally starts growing comfortable around her leonine companion, until another warrior intervenes to save her when creatures from the Dead Fall attack them during their exploration, making everything much more complicated. Alice still doesn’t understand what either of the warriors is saying, and if she can’t find the right words to soothe her beastly new protectors, they’ll end up killing each other. Author’s Note: 18+ These books contain scenes that are not suitable for younger audiences. It should also be noted that the alien heroes in these books look alien in many ways, and their cultures and mating habits might not be for everyone.