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.