Meriel is daughter to the queen of Tenua, and needs to bear an heir before she will be allowed to replace her mother as queen. As all Tenuan males are sterile, she employs a captured stranger, Gage Bardwin, as a breeder, after which he s sent on his way. A few years later, Gage returns as a conqueror to deal with the Volan threat to Tenua and the Imperium. Volan aliens infiltrate humans and plan to take over the universe. While she can be partly excused by inexperience, a number of her actions are verging on the irrational, especially anything that has to do with whom to trust or how to survive a dangerous situation.
Gage is arbitrary and prone to jealousy, even violence.
Gage can t make up his mind whether Meriel is a scheming slut or an innocent in need of protection. Anyway, he ll have sex with her a lot while he makes up his mind. All of this adds up to a hot little space opera, which would have been a fun, if foolish, read even with all the emotional instability. This problem in Pelum never bothered her before. I reacted strongly to the implied notion that a lack of an erection would suddenly void a marriage contract.