Dark Star Dawning (Paperback)

Victoria "Tori" Hart doesn't know it, but she's the key to saving the universe. After a childhood of moving from place to place, first with her paranoid, restless mother and then in foster homes, Tori has finally found a home in Hope, Ohio running her antique shop. Then a man who claims she's the answer to the plague that's destroying his world invades her peaceful if boring life. Abducted into space and facing death, Tori tries to escape as she fights against her growing attraction to her kidnapper. But can she fight her inner obligation to save a people she's never known? Reese Taren's emperor has sent him on what Reese considers an insane mission-to find the Heart of Destiny, a mythical object said to have the power to save the Empire from alien invaders. Reese has lost everything in this war-his wife and son, his home, his planet. Now he lives to find a way to destroy the entity that threatens the Empire, even if it is chasing after fantasy objects. His search for the Heart of Destiny leads him to Earth and Tori where he discovers that her very body chemistry is the key to defeating the invader. But as they travel through space toward their enemy, Tori somehow manages to heal his damaged heart. Now Reese is once again faced with losing everything because to save the universe and all of humanity, he must sacrifice Tori . . .