Elara Vance, the chief engineer left behind to die when military command seals the evacuation bays and flees, is fighting to keep a dying orbital station from detonating when the Xylarion warlord who breached it, Kael’dran, catches her scent and undergoes a dormant mating trigger.

Forced to cooperate through a cascade of engineering catastrophes, the human who trusts no one and the sterile, self-described weapon who expected to die unloved slowly dismantle each other’s certainty that they are disposable.

Their bond is repeatedly tested by the failing station’s escalating disasters and by the enormous cost of what saving each other demands.

Tropes: fated mates, alien warrior/human heroine, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, touch her and die (protective possessiveness), only one escape pod / self-sacrifice, he falls first, grumpy sterile warrior meets competent heroine, size difference, found family/belonging after abandonment, hurt/comfort, safeword-negotiated intimacy