One touch and it's over.

Sarlona trained too long to spend the rest of her life captive and drained. But to the lorkai—monsters who feed on magical energy and can control mortals with a caress—her extraordinary power makes her the perfect prey. There's no escaping a magic-dampening chamber. Even if there was, she'd still have to evade that guardsman with the hungry stare and spell-sucking sword.

Benton has a good deal—he shoves his enchanted blade where he's told, and he never has to return to the gallows. Until the lorkai drag home a young woman whose eyes are just as dangerous as her magic. If one of her spells doesn't kill him, her smile might. Or he'll survive like he always does—at someone else's expense.