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4.07.2014

Captive Surrender

"Fuck you and your immidoo."


Captive Surrender
Linda Mooney
ebook, 186 pages
Published September 12th 2011 by Carina Press
original title: Beauty's Alien Beast
ISBN 9781426892257

As an intergalactic cop gifted with psionic abilities, Maurra instinctively went to the Ellinod's defense when she saw the immense and bestial-looking alien being attacked by a group of vicious Kronners. Little did she know what the Kronners had planned for her and the Ellinod until she woke up naked in a cell inside their ship. And it wasn't long before she found out a translation device had been implanted against her spine, debilitating her and making her helpless with pain whenever she tried to use her psi powers.

Neither she nor the Ellinod had any idea how twisted their captors were, but they soon discovered that she and the beast were at the mercy of someone who expected them to "entertain" his "customers", and entertain them well regardless of the consequences.

Warning: Contains moral degradation, public sex, self sacrifice, unexpected tenderness, sadistic little aliens, banishment, exorbitant Pay Per View charges, and sweet revenge served cold.

Evidence suggests I'm in a SciFi mood.

As a Joramansu, Maurra is duty sworn to protect and defend others. When Vol Brod, a convicted felon, devises a plan for some moneymaking revenge, it's Maurra who becomes the target and Safan, an Ellinod, just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with the right humanoid form necessary for his plan to work. Trapped in a cell that attaches and detaches to that of Safan's cell, mingling the two, they are forced to perform sexually for Vol Brod's paid subscribers with the threat of one another's life to bend their will.

It's galactic law: Absolutely no fornicating with another species.

Without her powers, having had them blocked by a chip implanted into her spine by the Kronners, she can't save them and Safan's strength isn't enough. One broken law for another, the decision isn't a difficult one. They'll do what they must in order to survive. So they fuck for their audience. Once. Then once more.

When their captor demands that Safan take her as his kind takes their mate, all bets are off. Maurra takes their one chance, a split second when the walls dissolve, to use her powers and it's all that's needed for Safan to get them both off the ship. Albeit with a very unconscious Maurra in tow.

What's waiting for them back home quickly snuffs any relief they may have found. Proclaimed guilty of committing inter-species sexual acts with indisputable evidence, Safan is instantly taken into custody and sentenced to work the rest of his life in the mines. Maurra is stripped of her rank and banished. When she needs a new identity to start her life over, she declares herself Maurra Safan. As if it won't be difficult enough to forget the guy. He was the first partner to give her intimacy. They'd bonded in the short time they were together as he'd risked his life for hers and vice versa.

When she receives news about riots and chaos in the mines Safan was sentenced to, she trades the last of her credits to buy a ship capable of getting her to him where she's taken prisoner by escaping convicts and reunited with Safan in time to save the guards and end the breakout. With gratitude, one of the guards in charge gives them a single opportunity to get free only to subsequently end up in a trap set by Vol Brod himself.

So there's a story beyond the story here and it all ends up in a nicely wrapped box of happily ever after. Could it have been better? Yes... Despite Maurra and her fiesty little self keeping me well entertained, I found Safan a bit lacking. He needed more oomph. Basically, I needed inside his head to get the full effect of his emotions which were more or less guessed at the entire time. The lukewarm smut didn't help either. Suspenseful? Definitely. After Maurra and Safan were free from their porn prison, I had no idea what to expect. Didn't even think a story would exist beyond it. And quite honestly, I wouldn't have minded at all if the prison was where they stayed.

3 out of 5 stars.

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