Nora Ellis is just an ordinary human waitress until the night she interrupts the assassination of Orion Thane, the legendary, bloodthirsty Starblood Emperor. Humans are despised as weak primitives in this brutal empire, and her fate should be execution. Instead, the Emperor brands her with a mark that claims her as his personal "pet," thrusting her into a hostile palace where every courtier wants her dead. Forced into his service, a forbidden, soul-searing connection ignites between the fragile human and the galactic tyrant. As dynamic cosmic powers awake within her, Nora must decide: Is she fight for her freedom against him, or is the Emperor who caged her the only ally she can trust in the entire galaxy?