Rejected on the Colony Ship

Sera Quinn wakes from cryo four days from a new moon, and by lunch the ship has told her she has a mate. Commander Vhark is an alien overseer, tall, still, and bound by his own law: a bonding must be voluntary. He looks at her across the assembly and refuses her in front of the entire colony. He should have walked away. He cannot. The implant drags them into shared dreams, shared shifts, and finally a locked maintenance bay for three days with nothing but each other and a coolant leak. That is where Sera finds the contract. His captain is selling the colony's water before anyone's boots hit the dust. And the only man who can stop it is the one who rejected her. When the Kestrel docks, Sera doesn't take the ramp down. She takes the lift to the council chamber.