Review:
(Content warning for on-page attempted rape, "rape as backstory," and a villain who gets off on watching videos of women getting raped and murdered.)
This is set on another planet, one that's been colonized for a while but that still has lots of dangerous and relatively lawless areas. Euphemia is a botanist who specializes in a plant called Night Bloom, the seeds of which can be used to produce a highly addictive narcotic known as Nightz. Specifically, Euphemia's goal is to eradicate Night Blooms from the face of the planet. No more Night Blooms means no more Nightz.
This unfortunately brings her and her sister Erica, the mayor, to the attention of some of the area's worst criminals. At the start of the book, Euphemia falls into a trap and would have been raped and murdered had it not been for the arrival of Zelaide (Zel), a Beast Blood. Beast Bloods are commonly known as animalistic murderers, but Zel turns out to be surprisingly kind, and Euphemia is drawn to him. She finds herself wanting to see more of him, and gets her wish when her sister arranges for Zel to be her bodyguard.
