Lauren Ivers should be home, reading and eating take-out. Or in her lab, working on new ideas in post-quantum theory. Instead, she’s on the run with the bodyguard she didn’t know she had in a desperate bid to get off-planet before she becomes a casualty in an intergalactic war. She’s sure it’s just the adrenaline that has her reacting to her oversized protector with smart-mouthed replies and a full-bodied zing she wills herself to ignore.

Hakon sidUlfr, a wolf-shifter from another world, and Lauren’s covert bodyguard, is determined to keep her safe from the Axis aliens hunting her. Not because she’s a duty, but because there’s something about her that calls to all his primitive and protective instincts. It’s a distraction he can’t afford as he works to sneak a single, small human across unfamiliar terrain.

When Hakon is injured, Lauren realizes that while he was protecting her body, she should have been protecting her heart.