Primal Rut (Tales from the Rusty Splinter, #6)

The crew of the Rusty Splinter has faced every terror the galaxy could throw at them, but nothing prepared them for the emerald nightmare of Thalassa-9. After a catastrophic ion storm rips their ship from the sky, Zane, Kael, Xara, and Tariq find themselves stranded on a planet of bioluminescent beauty and prehistoric savagery. With their high-tech gear rendered useless and their ship a smoking ruin, the pack is forced to shed the last vestiges of their professional identities to become the apex predators they were born to be.

But the jungle has its own way of breaking its inhabitants.

As they fight through torrential rains and lethal fauna, an invisible, spore-laden mist begins to blur the lines between survival and carnal desire. For Tariq, battling a cybernetic overload, and Xara, whose Ignarian fire burns hotter in the humid air, the struggle for life becomes inseparable from the need for touch. Under the watchful eyes of Vael, who rules the planet’s dark waters, every moment of shared heat and primitive protection becomes a calculated act of defiance against the wild.

Stripped bare and pushed to the absolute edge of endurance, the pack will discover that when civilization is stripped away, the only law that remains is the bond of the blood—and a hunger that no armor can ever hide.