Ever since her friend Vivian mated a Veslor, Abby Thomas has been curious about the mysterious aliens. She also has a vested interest in making sure their newfound relationship with United Earth is a success, prompting her to take a job on a military vessel to ensure the Veslor grouping stationed there are treated fairly. It doesn’t hurt that they’re easy to look at. When one Veslor in particular … particular catches her attention, she hopes he’s nothing like the humans she’s dated, who were only interested in her bank balance and connections.
Drak and his Veslor grouping quietly endured unfair treatment aboard Defcon Red…until a beautiful spitfire spoke up on their behalf, earning herself nemeses among the ship’s fleet. When those foes try to silence Abby, Drak makes it his mission to protect her. The harrowing experience quickly bringing them so close, Drak is determined to make Abby his mate…if her enemies don’t ruin his chance, permanently.
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Loved this book in the series. Abby is a strong female who fights for what’s right. She sees how the Veslor crew is being treated like second class citizens and does something about it. She comes close to losing her life but gains a Veslor mate for life.
Abby came from a very wealthy family. A successful businesswoman herself with her parents. For that very reason, she was the target of fortune hunters.
Tired of this, and also being chased by reporters (her last boyfriend sued her for a large sum for the time they spent together), she managed to get off Earth, and work as a personal assistant to Commander Howard Bills, who was like an uncle to her.
Of course, being also so beautiful, Abby was the target of gossip, when everyone believed that she and Howard were lovers.
But her trip to Defcon Red was mainly because of the Veslors.
Veslors were a strong alien race that had been making an alliance with the earth, selling food (the Earth had gone through a period of extreme scarcity). Now, they had also negotiated that some of their warriors work for humans.
Since the Veslors saved Abby’s friend Vivian, as well as several crew members from Gorison Traveler, Abby felt responsible for their coming to the planet, and knew that several xenophobics were going to try to make Veslors’ lives miserable.
And she was right in her assumptions.
From the beginning, Commander Bradley Rogers and his mates did everything to make it difficult for the Veslors to adapt, as well as making them easily hurt, as well as working several shifts in a row.
Abby became their guardian angel, which surprised them. Even more so after they found out she was the human responsible for sealing Gorison Traveler, preventing the Ke’ters from reaching the rest of the crew and killing them in the most brutal way.
This was not the opinion of many human soldiers. For them, she was the traitor that didn’t give Gorison’s crew a chance to defend themselves.
This malaise caused animosity between humans and Veslors to increase, but, on the other hand, Abby fell in favor of the Veslors, especially Drak.
The Veslors’ mission was to work by helping humans rid of other alien races dangerous to miners on the planet Tobias. In an agreement made with their king, after a period, they would receive lands as payment for themselves.
The Veslor group was united, and although they received notification that humans and Veslors were sexually compatible – and might even have cubs (children) – to the surprise of the group’s leader, Roth -, they should remain away from human females, without sexual intercourse, and especially without getting them pregnant.
But Drak was unable to resist Abby’s way, personality and strength of character, and when he saw her in danger, his protective alpha male side went into action.
Each time Abby defended the Veslors and showed the atrocities that Rogers and his men did, the more she put herself in danger, until on a mission she was thrown into a hole where Cadias aliens slept during the day, and there was little time left for them wake up, and go out devouring everything that has meat in their bodies.
The rescue of Abby by Drak and Gnaw puts Rogers in an even worse position, making Abby a sure target to be silenced for good.
Lots of adventure and romance.
Waiting for the next book.
5 stars
I love how protective the Veslors are of women. This story had good action, hot steamy stuff, and a good story line. Drak was intense and his Veslor grouping was fun to get to know. Abby was a quite sassy and non-nonsense character with the crew on the ship. A Veslor like Drak was perfect for her. All the other guys thought she was a witch. Great read! 4 stars
Abby Thomas has used her contacts to get a job with the Space Fleet. She is eager to meet the Velsor team that are working with them. Making sure they get fair treatment from the rest of the crew proves to be very important.
Drak and his team of Veslor shifters are mercenarys helping to protect the planet the ship is orbiting.
Unfortunately the danger doesn’t always come from where you would expect.
An exciting, sexy Sci-Fi romance with fabulous characters, lots of danger and discoveries.
Good fun.
I liked Abby a lot more in the previous novel. She sounded smart and brave. In this book, though, she often sounds like a petulant child, reckless and irresponsible, who tries to prove to everyone that she’s always right, no matter the cost. Luckily for her, her opponents are even worst on that front, so by comparison Abby isn’t too bad.
But I was expecting more from her.
The Veslors are still great characters, intriguing and interesting, and oh so sexy. I’m still recovering from the “I don’t need a weapon, I am the weapon.” from Drak! *swoon*
Who’s the real guardian angel
This author is absolutely phenomenal at coming up with interesting characters and putting them into situations that just draw you in. I love this Veslor grouping and the human woman who made it her mission to protect them. From the first confrontation I was hooked and already I am looking forward to reading the book again. I can’t wait to find out what happens with the next Veslor grouping. I can’t imagine it’s going to be anything less than amazing.
I don’t get why Drak is such a popular alien name, but it is, and we just have to accept that Drak is always going to be a hot as hell alien lover.
This Drak is part of the Veslor grouping on Defcon Red. Veslors are kickass elite warriors who don’t take names but allow local deities to sort the fallen bad guys’ bodies out. You don’t want to be on the wrong side of them–but the treatment they receive is beyond terrible, and their human Spec-Ops Team Lead is a prejudice douche. Let me summarize: life on Defcon Red sucks for them even though they make life better for everyone and work four times as hard as the human teams.
Enter Abby (let’s not forget that Laurann Dohner can’t help but name her heroine’s names that end with A-I-E-O-U or Y) after surviving the Gorison Traveler Incident she is a Veslor champion. She caught wind that the Defcon Red Veslors are treated poorly, and she manipulated everyone and everything to get on that ship to investigate, and she won’t go anywhere until those warriors are treated like the prized warriors they are.
This book is classic Laurann Dohner doing her best. There is storytelling here and sexy, spicy, heat. I was happy with the depiction of the world she created–but it’s still exhausting to relive her tired tropes–toxic masculinity: the betraying alpha male who puts on one face to everyone else but is evil only to her. The casual threat of sexual assault by a pack of human males where the heroine needs to be saved by the manimal who is more humane than the actual human is featured. The strong woman who has been burned by classless, dishonorable men in the past–and only a male unable to wander once mated can be the answer to this conundrum of evil men. So over these repetitive themes.
But what I loved most was that there was a lot of depth to the Veslor grouping, and we got to see them together. I’m in love with Maith. I can’t wait until he gets his own book.
The Gorison Traveler Incident (Veslor Mates, #1)
A little too short for my liking, but entertaining. I’m actually really like the idea for this series. It has a lot of promise. It’s just a tad disappointing that it’s short, quick romances that are fluffy fun and not a lot of depth. Still, I really like the Veslor!