Daughter of Tides is here!

Daughter of Tides

We’re so excited that the first book in our new duology launches today! Return to the world of the High Court and join the Lover as he navigates court intrigue, dangerous plots, former enemies…and the wickedly tempting presence of a sweet young water nymph and a deadly pirate lord! Naia & Einar & Aleksi were so much fun to write about, and their story concludes next year in Prince of Storms (yes, the title has changed! I need to update it everywhere else!)

Buy Daughter of Tides now!

Daughter of Tides

Aleksi, the charming and charismatic god of love, is dying. But nothing can stop the Lover from completing his final quest: a dangerous diplomatic visit to a former adversary.

Setting sail for a mystical kingdom of ice, Aleksi is joined by Einar the Kraken, infamous pirate lord, and Naia, a sweet young water nymph. Intoxicated by the pair’s electric connection, Aleksi vows to enjoy his last days by playing matchmaker, pushing away his own desires for the sake of theirs. But he’s unexpectedly caught up in a raging game of seduction.

As the trio navigates turbulent seas and the political perils of the Ice Queen’s court, dark secrets reveal clues to one’s tragic past and another’s epic destiny. Aleksi’s powers spin out of control while love and lust run wild. And when enemies emerge from the shadows, the Lover is forced to make a choice. Will he give away his heart to save all that he holds dear?

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Queen of Dreams is here

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment Sep 1

Queen of Dreams is a direct sequel to Consort of Fire, by which I mean it picks up shortly after the end of book one and follows the same protaganists. This also means that THE BLURB FOR BOOK TWO HAS SPOILERS FOR BOOK ONE!!! If you haven’t read CONSORT OF FIRE yet, and you hate being spoiled, go and get book one first! Do not read on!

In fact, here is a trailer to make sure you don’t accidentally see the blurb! If you don’t know anything about CONSORT OF FIRE, watch it!

For the rest of you…

Queen of Dreams

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Three lovers with unbridled hope, uncanny dreams, and ancient powers join forces against the greatest evil in the world in a scorching fantasy by the authors of Consort of Fire.

Ash waited three thousand years for a consort who could break the Betrayer’s chains. Instead of one lover, he found two: Sachi and Zanya—the primordial powers that embody creation and destruction, reborn as humans. Now, his ancient enemy has returned to threaten everything he loves.

In the wake of her dazzling manifestation, Zanya seethes with magic and restless energy. Her command of the Endless Void will be a potent weapon in the coming war. To harness it, she’ll need to embrace the darkness within—but the scars of the past are holding her back.

Sachi’s unprecedented connection to the Dream deepens, leading her beyond the veil of reality… and into the heart of the Betrayer’s stronghold. Torn from her lovers, Sachi must use all her wit and cunning to survive the Betrayer’s treacherous court. Because he doesn’t simply want her. He covets the slumbering power she possesses—and plans to take it for his own.

Even if it ends their world.

Read Chapter One

Their mistake had been taking the time necessary to burn the witch.

The smell of charred wood and fabric still blanketed the chill morning air in Emmonsdale. Zanya stood on the platform where the execution had been intended, ignoring the villagers’ occasional nervous whispers and sidelong gazes. Under any other circumstances, she would have been the sole focus of their agitation and unease. But not today.

Today, the man in front of her drew their enraptured attention. As reluctant as she was to admit it, he certainly deserved it.

The Dragon was spectacular when he was in his element.

Ash wore his usual armor, a style ancient before they’d started counting time. Leather and brass had been polished to a shine that couldn’t hide the hard usage over thousands of years and countless battles. The cuirass protected his massive chest but left his shoulders and upper arms bare, where light-brown skin stretched over dangerous muscle. The greaves covered his strong legs from ankles to knees, but the leather strips hanging from his thick belt did little to hide his massive thighs.

Facing down three dozen of the mortal queen’s heavy cavalry in their shiniest steel, he looked barely dressed. He hadn’t even bothered to unsheathe the sword that rode across his back.

Not one soldier seemed willing to charge him.

A weak cough rose behind Zanya. She stole a glance over her shoulder to where the Huntress was cutting the bonds of the accused witch. Elevia’s jaw was tight as she sliced at the rough rope, but she gave no other evidence of what must be considerable rage. The old woman’s smoke-induced cough was the only injury she’d suffered from the attempted execution, but if Zanya and the rest of the High Court had come even a few moments later . . .

But they hadn’t. They’d arrived at the village just as the flames surged toward the old woman’s legs. The fire licking at her heavy woolen skirts died with Ash’s first step into the square. The torches held by her would-be executioners had snuffed out next, the flames sucked away as if the world had inhaled.

By the time they reached the crowded square, the only fire left in Emmonsdale danced in the Dragon’s eyes. The Lord of Fire had not been amused. The weak cough—a reminder of the old woman’s suffering—was unlikely to improve his mood.

As Zanya expected, the noise shattered the silent standoff. Ash stepped forward, the entire weight of his formidable attention on the leader of the queen’s soldiers.

The man’s ornate gilded pauldrons marked him to the world as a guard commander. The stiff set of his shoulders, cruel ice-blue eyes, and familiar condescending sneer identified him to Zanya as Velez, the youngest son of House Sandrake. His noble blood combined with some natural ability had secured him a swift rise through the ranks of the royal guard to a trusted position near the former king’s right hand.

His gleeful sadism had made him one of Zanya’s most dedicated tormentors.

He had courage, Zanya would give him that much. The rest of the soldiers fought to control horses who had picked up on their riders’ fear and wanted to flee. Only Velez sat rock-steady in the saddle and drew his sword, leveling it at Ash.

“You were warned twice already,” he announced, arrogance dripping from every word. “When you murdered our king, you severed any duty we owe to your wicked and corrupt court. These lands are under our protection now. Leave this place, or die.”

Ash didn’t ask him how a handful of mortals expected to expel a dragon god who had roamed this world for over three thousand years. He didn’t point out that it had, in fact, been Zanya who thrust a dragon-hilted blade deep into the king’s chest, ending his life. He didn’t even raise his voice.

The low rumble of his words still made the earth shiver. “When you are burning healers at the stake, your protection leaves much to be desired.”

“We’re not burning healers,” Velez spat. “We’re cleansing this village of heretics.”

Zanya could not see the Dragon’s face, but from the way the soldiers inched back, she imagined flames had appeared in his eyes. His voice was gentle malevolence. “And who do you name heretic?”

“Anyone who speaks out against our gentle queen and calls for treason.”

This produced an uneasy murmur through the crowd. A handful of villagers already sported bruises and shackles—those who had tried to interrupt the burning, Zanya guessed. They knelt by the soldiers, hands bound at their backs. Those who still stood free gripped makeshift weapons—staves and scythes, one or two sizable kitchen knives. The blacksmith held a hammer loosely at her side. Several burly young foresters hoisted the axes they must have been using to chop wood.

The soldiers might have cowed this village before, but the arrival of the Dragon had strengthened their resolve. If his men came for the healer again, the people would fight back.

Velez ignored this obvious fact with true aristocratic hauteur. “Every villager must turn over false idols and any token of the traitorous High Court. The queen commands it.”

Zanya highly doubted the queen had done any such thing. Princess—now Queen—Anikke had celebrated her fifteenth birthday only a few moons prior. Zanya had been there, purportedly nothing more than the handmaid hired to accompany Anikke’s eldest sister when Princess Sachielle was sent to do the family’s duty by becoming the Dragon’s consort.

Anikke had been utterly ignorant of the undercurrents at that awkward family celebration. She hadn’t known that Sachielle was no more related to her by blood than the palace cook was. Or that King Dalvish II had found Sachi as an orphaned toddler and concocted a plan to spare his own blood from the magic that bound the royal family to the High Court when they sent their centennial sacrifice. Anikke had had no idea that the doting father who watched benevolently as his two daughters shared a slice of cake had been torturing Sachi from the moment he’d brought her into his household, doing everything in his power to hone her into a weapon of seduction and deceit.

Into an assassin.

Anikke had been oblivious to all of it, shyly excited from the kind attention of the older sister she looked up to but rarely got to see, and heartbroken when she realized this was the final birthday they would spend together. Sachielle was bound to the High Court, the latest in a string of sacrificial consorts. It should have been the end.

Only Sachi had lived, and King Dalvish II had died. And now Anikke was a child queen, sheltered and ignorant of the true conspiracies entangling her court and her family. It mattered little if her uncles Doven or Bodin, or her aunt Tislaina, were the ones issuing orders on behalf of the grieving queen. Whoever was in charge wanted vengeance for the life Zanya had claimed.

And they’d take it out on their own citizens if the High Court didn’t stop them.

Fortunately for this village, the Dragon alone was more than capable of stopping them. The backing of his fellow gods—the Huntress, the Wolf, and the Lover—was practically overkill. None of them needed Zanya at all. But Ash had asked her to come, as part of her training.

Zanya was a god now, too. Of a sort.

The restless murmuring of the villagers died as Ash took another step forward. He stood with his feet parted, like a wall with the strength of the earth that answered the call of his magic. “There will be no burnings. No confiscations. You will leave this village.”

Velez slashed his sword through the air—a flashy move that was more bluster than skill. “The heretic and the prisoners come with me. Unless you’d like to see how much of sweet little Emmonsdale we can bleed out before you can stop us.”

Was he a fool, or did he truly believe he could stand against a god? Of course, it had been centuries since the Dragon had walked casually among the people. Stories had twisted him into a vicious and rageful monster, a beast with no self-control who devoured the weak and defenseless. Zanya had learned the lie beneath those words over the past weeks—but only the cruelty had been a falsehood. Not his power.

The Dragon could erase Velez with a flick of his fingers.

The disdain in Ash’s tone said as much as he stared at the lord over his flashing sword. He hadn’t even deigned to draw his own yet. “This is your last warning. Turn around and go.”

Velez responded with a sneer. He thrust his sword into the air, and the men behind him drew their weapons in a clatter of steel. Over the sound, Zanya heard the softest sigh drift back . . . Ash, frustrated that he would be forced to violence.

Then one of the soldiers screamed. His horse reared, revealing the knife buried in the soldier’s throat. The soldier next to him whirled his horse and cut down the villager who’d launched the attack.

And chaos exploded as the good folk of Emmonsdale went mad.

If it had been Ash against the soldiers, it would have been no contest. He would have cut through them as if they had no more substance than air. Zanya had seen him do it before—deftly disarming and unseating cavalry soldiers with lazy ease, so precisely in control of the battle that he didn’t even need to kill them. Just a handful of painful bruises, a few broken bones, and the gut-deep reminder that they had no hope when they faced the Dragon.

The civilians complicated everything.

They were angry and desperate, and they had no intention of leaving the soldiers who had threatened their healer with mere bruises. They came at the mounted soldiers with murder in their eyes, and any whisper of remaining discipline collapsed as the knights scattered, each one fighting his own private battle for his life.

A child’s scream of fear rose over the clash of steel. Zanya pivoted, but Aleksi was already there, plucking the child out of danger as Elevia guarded his back. Magic exploded behind Zanya in a prickling wave, and a giant wolf leapt past her, its eyes glowing molten gold.

Ulric, she thought, but had time for no more as his growl rumbled across the square. The Wolf was the god of the forest and all wild things, and the horses of the queen’s soldiers answered his call with terrified obedience. One after another began to rear and buck, doing everything in their power to dislodge their riders. The deft ones managed to fling themselves clear of their saddles. The less fortunate . . .

Zanya turned from the sight of the two foresters descending on a soldier, axes flashing in the warm morning light.

The violence called to her, sweet and chaotic. The clash of steel, the harsh cries. The sound a sword made when it sliced through air. Through armor.

Through flesh.

People fought and died all around her, and a dark part of her reveled in it. No, not a dark part of her—the true part of her. The inner self with which she still grappled, even as the power of it pulsed in her veins.

For centuries, the High Court of Dreamers had been the most powerful entities who walked their lands. Gods in human form, each with power over their own domain. Earth and fire answered to the Dragon. The air and water obeyed the Siren. The Wolf called to the wild places, while the Witch walked those that bordered life and death. Anything the Lover touched grew, fertile and bountiful. And the Huntress never missed a mark, whether she hunted game or knowledge.

Their powers flowed from the Everlasting Dream, a place of pure hope. The heart of creation.

But destruction had a home, too. The Endless Void.

And Zanya was that elemental chaos, born into human flesh.

A handful of weeks wasn’t enough time to come to grips with the truth of something so unfathomable. Guilt still flooded her as she caressed the hilt of her sword, her blood singing with how good it would feel to draw it and strike down her enemies. Not the usual kind of guilt, either—not sickness at the weight of death. At the reality of causing it.

Zanya’s only guilt came from how little guilt she felt when her sword struck true and blood flowed. For her entire life, the world had been brutally, painfully simple: there were enemies, and there was Sachi. To protect Sachi, she would bathe in the blood of those who came against her.

But the world was no longer simple. She had power now, too much to use recklessly, and that was all that stayed her hand now as the violence sang to her. That had been the Dragon’s command to her: to watch. To learn. To not engage, unless she was called upon.

All of those noble intentions crumbled when she saw Velez melting through the shadows.

He’d abandoned his horse and skirted the main battle, leaving his men to their fates. His target was clear—the old woman and the cluster of apprentices still tending to her.

Thought ceased. Instinct took over. Zanya reached for the shadows that had always obeyed her, wrapping herself in their caressing darkness. The power to summon them when she stood in broad daylight was new. So was what she did next, an internal twist that carried her into the Void for a heartbeat. There was no time in the Endless Void. No distance. Every place touched it, and it touched every place.

She didn’t even have to take a step. But she did, bursting from the Void and her protective wreath of shadows directly into Velez’s path.

He recoiled, fear flashing through his eyes before rage replaced it. “Abomination!”

Zanya drew the sword the Huntress had gifted her, and it felt like a feather in her hand as she smiled. “Will you name me heretic, too? Try to burn me?”

“You should be burned,” he spat back. “Purged from this world. You were always unnatural, but now evil surrounds you like a dark halo.”

Yes, that had been the price of claiming the power she’d needed to save Sachi’s life. For twenty-five years, Zanya had known she was other, but for the most part she’d been able to hide it. Now anyone who looked at her could see the truth. Her mind and heart might feel fragile and human, but her body and spirit were anything but.

And her power came from the Void.

“I am what I am.” Zanya advanced. “What I have always been.”

“Foul and corrupt,” Velez snarled. “Just like your traitorous mistress.”

Ice crept through her, far more dangerous than the heat of battle hunger. He could insult her all day if he wished, but if he turned that poisoned tongue toward Sachi . . . “You will not speak of her.”

“Will I not?” he taunted, raising his sword. “The queen is still mourning the betrayal of her beloved sister, you know. But soon enough she will dry her tears and listen to the counsel of her elders. And on that day . . .” Joy lit his face. “Oh, the price on dear Princess Sachielle’s head will be legendary.”

It was all bluster and lies. Sachi was safe at Dragon’s Keep. The castle sat at the top of a mountain, in the middle of a caldera lake. It was so well fortified as to be impenetrable, and entirely self-sufficient besides. As long as Sachi stayed safely within its walls, nothing and no one could hurt her.

But Velez wanted to. The hunger for Sachi’s pain lit those blue eyes, just as it had when he’d done his best to beat Zanya into submission during her endless training sessions. Once, when she’d been just fifteen, her trainers had tossed her into the sparring ring with seven men armed with swords. She’d had only a simple wooden practice knife for defense. The soldiers had been promised one gold piece for every time they drew her blood.

The wealthy heir of House Sandrake hadn’t needed the fifteen gilded coins that had glistened in his palm at the end of the night. Oh no. He’d made her bleed for the pleasure of it.

The same memory shone in his eyes. “I still have my gold coins,” he murmured, swinging his sword in a lazy arc. Testing her. She swatted it away with a clash of steel that only widened his grin. “When I strike Sachielle’s golden head from her pretty little neck, I’ll put the reward next to them.”

He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. But the ringing of steel and the low, tormenting sound of his voice twisted through her, dragging her back to that claustrophobic time during her training. Her heart beat faster. Fear tasted like ash on her tongue. When he lunged at her, her body brought her sword up out of pure muscle memory, her block jerky and uneven.

“She always was your weakness, wasn’t she?” Velez taunted, his eyes glinting as he circled, the tip of his blade flicking out in another testing advance she barely managed to block.

Where was the heat of battle she’d just savored? Where was that terrifying darkness that reveled in the kill? Her breath came too fast, and her limbs moved too slowly, as if the chains she’d slept in most nights in the capital still weighed her down. She could feel the cold iron around her wrists.

She’s little more than a feral wolf.

She could hear their laughter. The guards. The cocky young lords. Velez, smug and safe on the other side of the bars that caged her, his handsome face curved in a cruel grin.

The king would do better to put her down.

Zanya bit her lip and tasted blood, bright and metallic. The king couldn’t put her down. She’d driven a blade deep into his heart. She’d knelt in a puddle of his blood and watched the life go out of him. He could never hurt Sachi again.

He could never hurt Zanya again.

She knew that. Somewhere in her mind, she knew the truth. But her body wouldn’t obey, wouldn’t calm. Fear raged through her as Velez swung at her in earnest, his sword coming so close she barely managed to block the blow. His body pressed in, his face staring at hers across their crossed blades, the deadlock as intimate as a kiss.

“I always knew I’d be the one to end you.” In his voice, she heard the echo of every man who had promised her misery and pain from the first time they’d put a weapon into her hand at less than ten years old.

Rotten to the core, every last one of them. Twisted and wrong, willing to hurt Zanya and Sachi if it gained them lands and riches. Willing to hurt them just for the joy of having power over someone helpless and afraid.

Shadows curled up her body. Zanya tasted her own blood on her lips. Remembered Sachi’s blood on her hands, spilled in an attempt to escape the curse these mortal bastards had placed upon her.

They’d come so close to losing everything. So close Zanya still woke every night, sobs of terror trapped in her throat.

“No.” It hurt, like she was speaking through broken glass. Her entire body pounded with the frantic beat of her heart. She remembered being small and wounded and helpless—

But even when she’d been all of those things, she’d always fought back.

“No?” Velez mocked. He broke their stalemate with a surge of muscle, and suddenly a dagger glinted in his hand. A flick of his wrist scored a line of bright pain across her cheek, and his dark laughter curled around her. “How about I send you back to Princess Sachielle in pieces? A fitting gift for a traitor.”

Rage roared up from within, shattering her fear. Shadows enveloped her, and Velez hissed and stumbled back, all playful cruelty swallowed by superstitious hatred. “Witch!”

“Worse,” Zanya whispered.

Then she struck.

Her sword shimmered in the sunlight like black diamonds as she swung it with all her strength. Velez flung his own up to block it, but Zanya’s blade slid through it as sweetly as it would have cut through flesh.

“What—”

The choked word was all she let him have. He was still gaping at his cleaved weapon when she reversed her swing and sliced through his neck. But it wasn’t enough. She could still hear the pounding of that fearful heart—her heart, her childhood heart—and a snarl erupted from her lips as shadows caressed her fingers. She punched into his chest and tore his heart free, crushing it in her fingers as if she could silence the frantic beating inside of her for good.

Time wobbled. The top half of his sword bounced in the dirt with an odd clang. A moment later his head joined it, his face still twisted into an expression of horrified realization.

It took another moment for his body to topple over. In that quiet, stately heartbeat, she realized the rest of the village had gone deathly silent.

Zanya heard the creak of her leather armor as she stepped back. She heard her own harsh exhalation, as well as the sound of Velez’s blood as it dripped off her sword and splattered on the dirt. She forced her fingers open and released the mangled heart, letting it fall next to its heartless former owner.

She couldn’t hear her own pulse anymore. She couldn’t hear anything but the wind and the drip of blood and the unnatural stillness of so many people too aghast to even whisper.

Then gentle, insistent hands closed around her upper arms, digging into her armor and pulling her back. Elevia.

“Come away now, Zanya,” she murmured.

Velez’s empty eyes stared at the sky, his mouth twisted in shock. There was no thrill in seeing him vanquished, just the sick feeling that somehow, even in death, he would still manage to claim this day as his victory. Whenever she played the vile games devised by those at the capital, she always lost. One way or another.

“Come,” Elevia repeated softly. “He belongs to the vultures now.”

Zanya shuddered and turned her back on the nightmare from her past. “He always did.”

Consort of Fire is Here!

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment Dec 12

It’s here! Our latest book, Consort of Fire, has arrived in a flurry of reviews so positive we’ve honestly been a little dazed! We’re just excited that so many of you are enjoying our story about gods and dreams, two star-crossed murder ladies, and the horny dragon they have to kill and/or fall in love with.

Next up for us on the schedule is Queen of Dreams, which finishes Sachi, Zanya, and Ash’s story! It comes out in August and you can read the blurb or pre-order it here. (WARNING!!! The blurb has HUGE spoilers for Consort of Fire!) And if you don’t have your copy of Consort of Fire yet…

Consort of Fire: An hourglass with blood-red (and sometimes flaming pink) sand sifts through an ominous hourglass. Dragon scales shine in the background.

Buy the Ebook

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Buy in Print

For three thousand years, an ancient dragon god has protected the borders of the Sheltered Lands. In return, he makes only one demand: every one hundred years, the mortal ruler must send their heir to serve as his consort…for as long as they can survive.

Sachielle of House Roquebarre is the thirty-first consort to be sacrificed to the monster who guards the mountain passes. She is young, beautiful—and she has three secrets.

First: she’s a disposable orphan trained in seduction.

Second: her handmaid, Zanya, is an assassin and the only person she has ever loved.

Third—and most dangerous: she’s cursed. Sachi and Zanya have five weeks to murder the Dragon in his bed. If they fail, the mortal king’s curse will steal not just Sachi’s life, but her very soul.

The Dragon has only one secret: he is nothing like what they have been told. And he will do whatever it takes to possess them both.

Preorder Consort of Fire Now

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment Jun 19

We are so excited to have a new book coming out this November! Consort of Fire is the first book we’ve written in over a decade that is set in a new world. Our hearts and souls needed a break from the dystopian apocalypse, so we imagined a world of powerful magic, where the people who dream and hope hardest become literal gods… and the people who want to keep others small will do anything necessary to slay them.

Book One features a fearsome dragon god, his sunshine consort, and her murderous girlfriend. Oh, yeah… and they were sent to kill him. How will the three of them work out their issues? Read to find out… (And while their story starts in Consort of Fire, it will conclude in Queen of Dreams, available next year! But we promise… there are no abrupt cliffhangers here… and plenty of spice.)

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Fan of Reading in Print?

Preorder your copy from one of our participating bookstores before release day and your book will arrive with a swag pack including an autographed bookplate, a map, stickers, and maybe more!

Once Upon a Time…

For three thousand years, an ancient dragon god has protected the borders of the Sheltered Lands. In return he makes only one demand: every one hundred years, the mortal ruler must send their heir to serve as his consort… for as long as they can survive.

Sachielle of House Roquebarre is the thirty-first consort to be sacrificed to the monster who guards the mountain passes. She is young, beautiful–and she has three secrets.

First: she’s a disposable orphan trained in seduction.

Second: her assassin-trained handmaid, Zanya, is the only person she has ever loved.

The Dragon has only one secret: he is nothing like what they have been told. And he will do whatever it takes to possess them both.

Want a taste of what’s to come? Read an excerpt below…

Chapter One
Betrayer’s Moon
Week Five, Day Eight
Year 2999

Sachielle dreamt of fire.

The flames licked at her limbs, undeterred by the spray dashing up over the barge’s bow. Carved wood dug into her palms as she gripped the railing and watched the blaze crawl slowly up her arms, obliterating the thick velvet of her ice-blue sleeves, leaving only crumbling char in its wake.

Such destruction. It tugged at something low in her belly. Plucked at the tight knot of her self-control, teasing. Taunting. This fire could burn her through, hollow her out and blacken her bones.

What would happen if she embraced it?

An attendant stepped closer and brushed surreptitiously at the flowing skirt of Sachi’s gown. Heedless of the roiling sheet of flame that had enveloped the fabric, she blotted at the droplets of river water that had soaked the velvet.

Sachi blinked, and the fire dissipated. Her waking dreams had been growing more vivid, but they’d never seemed this real. Even now, she was shocked to look down at pristine clothing and unmarred skin, without a blister in sight.

The attendant cleared her throat softly, and Sachi stepped back with a tight smile of apology. If they’d been alone on deck, she might have said the words aloud. But it wasn’t appropriate for a noblewoman to apologize to a servant, no matter how necessary or well-deserved it was.

“Oh, blast.” The light, musical curse heralded Naia’s arrival on deck.

Sachielle had met the newborn godling who’d been tasked with ensuring their smooth passage upriver, but they hadn’t really spoken. Unlike the blue- and green-skinned water sprites of legend, Naia looked human—rich brown hair and black eyes, with skin the color of sand at dusk, just a few shades darker than Sachi’s.

Right now, she stood, her fists planted on her hips, staring in consternation at Sachi’s wet dress. “I should have thought of it,” she murmured. “The river can get turbulent this close to the Falls.”

“What?”

“Your dress.” Naia held out her hand. Slowly, silver droplets of water began to pull free of the wet velvet, drawn by her hovering fingers. They danced delicately in the air, joining and separating as they rose.

It was beautiful, and Sachi watched, spellbound, as Naia turned her hand in a beckoning gesture. The water, shimmering in the sunlight, coalesced in her upturned palm. She bent closer, whispering to the rippling ball of water, then blew gently. The drops dispersed, floating over the railing to fall once more into the river.

“Thank you. That was—” Sachi’s voice cracked, and she took a steadying breath. “Lovely.”

Naia dropped into a deep curtsy. “My lady.”

It was a form of address that no god, even a young one, would typically offer a human, regardless of royal lineage. But Sachi was something more than that now: promised to their god king, fated to be his bound bride.

The Dragon’s consort.

She could scarcely acknowledge the reality of it, even in the quiet privacy of her own mind.

Finally, Sachi spoke. “I must thank you for the ease and speed of our journey. A trip like this should have taken two weeks or more, and yet here it’s barely been one. Just eleven days to travel all the way from the capital.”

Naia blushed. “It was the least I could do. A simple matter, really.” Her gaze turned dreamy and soft as she looked out over the water. “I merely . . . asked for help. She’s quite eager to please, you know. This river.”

It shouldn’t have been such a jarring thought, the concept that the river could be a living thing with feelings and intentions. Sachi was, after all, standing next to a living piece of the Dream. But no one spoke this way in the city. Sometimes it seemed as though they’d all moved away from the notion of an interconnected world, one created and ruled by emotion. There were people, and then there was the world around them, a dead world of sticks and grass and water—things that existed only as resources to be exploited.

Naia edged closer. “Are you eager? To meet the Dragon, I mean?”

The previous consort had died after three incredibly well-documented years of fear and misery. The letters he’d written to his parents, begging them to end his marriage and bring him home, sat in the royal archives. And his body, repaired and preserved by magic, still lay in state nearly a century later.

Prince Tislaine, his epitaph read. Duty, honor, and ultimate sacrifice.

The flames surged again, burning Sachi’s palms this time, and she clenched her fists tight to hide them as she waited for the fire to subside. All descendants of the mortal kings possessed a measure of magic. It was their claim, the divine right of royal birth. The reason they, and they alone, were fit to rule the people.

But never like Sachi—never this much, this hot. This close to the surface. The magic of the mortal kings was a whisper compared to Sachi’s, a glowing ember eclipsed by a wildfire. And if anyone on their voyage might notice, it was the lovely Naia—newly born, so fresh from the Dream that its tattoo likely lingered in her mind as an echo rather than a memory.

But the spirit made flesh only smiled. “We’re nearly there.”

The barge cleared the last bend in the river, and a huge waterfall came into view. Water cascaded wildly off the ridge, falling to swirl in a turbulent pool at the base of the cliff. The Midnight Forest grew thickly on either side of the river, the trees’ big branches strong even in the shadow of the mountain.

To Sachi’s right, the broad, solid walls of a castle peeked through the forest. Blade’s Rest, seat of the Huntress. Their river journey would end here. They’d be met by the Dragon’s delegation, feast and rest at the Huntress’s home, then travel on come daybreak.

Sachielle looked up. She caught a glimpse of the spires of Dragon’s Keep, nestled between the snowcapped peaks above.

“Come,” Naia murmured. “They’re waiting.”

A single sharp clap behind them made all the attendants flinch. “Don’t stand around gawking like day-old hatchlings,” a husky, impatient voice snapped. “The princess’s things must be packed and prepared for the journey.”

The young women clustered around her dropped a series of deep, abrupt curtsies punctuated by murmurs of my lady before they scrambled to obey. Zanya watched them go, her arms folded across her chest, looking more like a military commander than chief handmaid.

Sachi held out her arm. “Please accompany us, Zanya.”

Zanya tore her gaze from the attendants and managed to smooth her features. The boat rocked beneath them on gentle waves, but Zanya crossed the deck with effortless grace and silently extended a steadying hand.

The crew had already laid out the gangplank, a wide board hewn from a single piece of wood, painted royal red and gold. Sachi’s toes curled in her slippers as she crossed it as quickly and gracefully as she could in her heavy skirts.

She was immensely jealous of Zanya’s wardrobe, which mostly consisted of shorter split skirts meant to be worn over tight trousers. No one chose to wear four cumbersome layers for the comfort or convenience of it. Even Naia’s robe would be preferable, though Sachi blushed at the thought of being clad in nothing but the sheer, diaphanous fabric.

She breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the solid safety of the dock, though the feeling was short lived as she faced the crowd gathered at the end of it.

There were guards, of course. Merchants, sailors, and people in court attire. Two horses, one with an empty saddle and another carrying a smiling blonde. A huge cloaked man beside her.

No sign of their dragon god. Unless . . .

Sachielle stopped in front of the cloaked man and curtsied. “My lord.”

The hood shadowed his face. She caught a glimpse of a beard and firm lips curving into a slight smile. Then he was bowing to her, a low rumble edged with wildness rattling out of his chest. “Princess.”

When he straightened, his hood fell back, revealing a hard face made of sharp angles, disheveled brown hair—and eyes the color of pure molten gold.

“Don’t be a boor.” The blonde dismounted her horse with enviable grace—no doubt due in part to the fact that she wore trousers as well. “Introduce yourself, and correct the dear lady’s misapprehensions.”

It was odd, how that small smile failed to soften his features even a little. “Ulric,” he offered in that same rumbling voice. “The Wolf.”

Sachi’s cheeks heated. “Of course.”

The woman shook her head with a low laugh, stripped off one glove, and held out her hand. “I’m Elevia.”

The Huntress. Sachi had heard the whispered prayers all her life, seen the sacrifices on pyres in the countryside and offerings on the mountain altars. This wasn’t a woman at all, but the god of the hunt, patron of those who stalked their prey in the forest, stared down the shafts of arrows, and prayed for a good kill.

Sachi wasn’t sure if it was madness or inevitability that led the Wolf to stand at her side. Even in the absence of malice, they were mortal enemies. Their natures would allow nothing else. Then again, without the one, could the other exist?

Perhaps they were only two sides of the same coin.

“Welcome to my home, my lady.” Elevia bowed. “It is a sincere pleasure to celebrate your arrival.”

“Sachielle, of House Roquebarre.” Sachi mirrored her movements. “And the pleasure is mine.”

“I daresay there is enough to go around. And you.” Elevia smiled at Naia, opening her arms. “You must be the new little one Dianthe spoke of. There are too few of you these days. You are welcome, cousin.”

Naia beamed as Elevia folded her into an embrace, and Sachi shifted her weight from one foot to the other and back again as she surreptitiously surveyed the crowd.

A cold knot sank through her middle like a weighted net, only to settle low in her gut.

He wasn’t here.

The Dragon hadn’t come to greet her.

The Wolf’s knowing gaze landed on her. “There was an incursion at the border,” he said quietly. “My brother sent me in his stead.”

Relief and irritation clashed within her. Quickly, Sachi schooled her features into a mask of vaguely expectant cheer. She’d have to be more careful here than she had been in the capital.

“I appreciate your efforts on my behalf.” Sincerity was her best remaining line of defense, and she deployed it ruthlessly. “More than you can ever know.”

“Do you ride, my lady?” Elevia led over the riderless horse, a beautiful blue roan with a mottled gray coat. “Blade’s Rest isn’t far, but you must be exhausted from your journey.”

Zanya had already drifted closer to the horse, her gaze skimming the saddle. As if the Huntress would have to resort to covert tricks if she wanted to remove an enemy. The threats facing Sachi here weren’t physical, but that wouldn’t stop Zanya from expecting treachery.

Apparently satisfied by her examination, she turned and held out a hand. “My lady.”

Zanya helped her into the saddle, then lingered to properly arrange her skirts as Sachi gripped the pommel.

Elevia mounted her horse in one smooth movement and clicked her tongue. The animal responded immediately, turning away from the dock toward the road. “To Blade’s Rest,” she announced.

To my destiny, Sachi corrected silently.

She would meet the Dragon, would smile and blush and bat her eyes at him. They would be bound, and she would live with him, attend his court. Share his bed. And then, when the time came, she would kill him.

Her very life depended on it.

Dance with the Devil is here!

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment Aug 16

Just your average book about an assassin who can't feel pain and a supersoldier with a heart of gold going undercover as fake lovers to infiltrate and evil tech conference (because they just want to dismantle an evil empire. and also build a library. and also bone.)

Dance with the Devil is here!

Get the Ebook

Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Google, iBooks

Buy in Paperback

The Ripped Bodice, Indiebound, Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Dance With the Devil

Mercenary Librarians, Book Three

Sunshine Supersoldier + Grumpy Assassin = !!!

In the aftermath of a devastating loss, the TechCorps is scrambling to maintain control by ruthlessly limiting access to resources to Atlanta, hoping to quell rebellion. Our band of mercenary librarians have decided that the time for revolution has come.

Maya uses her wealth of secrets to weaken the TechCorps from within. Dani strikes from the shadows, picking off the chain of command one ambush at a time. And Nina is organizing their community—not just to survive, but to fight back. When Maya needs to make contact with a sympathetic insider, Dani and Rafe are the only ones with the skill-set and experience to infiltrate the highest levels of the TechCorps. They’ll go deep undercover in the decadent, luxury-soaked penthouses on the Hill.

Bringing Dani face-to-face with the man who turned her into a killer. And forcing Rafe to decide how far he’ll go to protect both of his families—the one he was born to, and the one he made for himself.

Victory will break the back of Power. Failure will destroy Atlanta.

Help us celebrate release night with Nalini Singh!

Dance with the Devil comes out August 16th!

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment May 20

Sunshine Supersoldier + Grumpy Assassin = !!!

Victory will break the back of Power. Failure will destroy Atlanta.

Mercenary Librarians #3 Drops in August!

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment Jan 1

Book #3 Is Coming!

We’re so excited to announce that we’re finishing up copyedits on Dance with the Devil, and Dani & Rafe’s adventure is just as dangerous and sexy as we hoped–though with a bit of sweet in between all the stabbing.

In the next few months we’ll be announcing our final pre-order campaign, but if you’d like to get a jump start you can pre-order the ebook: Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Google, iBooks

For more preorder options, and to read the blurb, check the main book page.

Answers to a few other questions:

Will there be more Mercenary Librarian books in audio?

Yes! Tantor audio is currently working on book #2 and hopefully book #3 will release a lot closer to the print/ebook release!

Will there be more Mercenary Librarian books?

We don’t know! We have a couple more stories we’d like to tell, but we’ll have to see how the numbers work out and if Tor thinks sales are strong enough to support them. If you want to help make it happen, requesting the books from your local library or preordering book #3 are the best way!

Where is Hunter?!?

On our minds, in our hearts, and tentatively on our to do list for the year–barring any more real life apocalypse hijinks. Please everyone cross your fingers for a peaceful 2022.

I am trying to find the rest of Defending Their Mate!

So are we! Hopefully now that things are calming down a little in our real lives we can pick it back up again.

Are you selling autographed print books anywhere?

Not right now. We haven’t had a lot of time to manage shipping or packing, but we’re looking at partnering with a local bookstore to see if we can arrange to do a mass signing of both our self-published and trad books!

Win a copy of The Devil You Know

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment Aug 15

There are a few weeks left to pre-order The Devil You Know from one of our participating stores & get a bunch of cool swag pictured above! But I’ve got a hardcover copy here in my pretty little hands, and I’m going to sign it and send it to one lucky person along with Maya’s necklace, a ton of fun stickers and art.

All you have to do is leave a comment below and let us know who your favorite Mercenary Librarian character is, and why!

Farewell 2020, You Were A Decade And/Or A Week Of a Year

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment Dec 13

Pre-Order The Devil You Know Now (out August 2021)

First: The Big Update

We are almost (almost! finally! finally!!!) finished with The Devil You Know, book #2 in the Mercenary Librarians series. You can pre-order the ebook now (Kindle, Kobo, iBookstore, Google) and it will land on August 31st, 2021. We will be doing digital & print pre-order thank you gifts again, including new art, new behind-the-scenes snippets, new exclusive stories and new swag for those of you who pre-order in print from one of our partner bookstores. (Those will be announced in a few months!)

If you want to know what The Devil You Know is about, you can read the blurb here!

What about everything else?

So… 2020. That was a year, huh?

We ended 2019 with Donna’s cancer diagnosis. With the help of our friends and community, she made it through surgery and radiation and recovery… just in time for both of us to (presumably, as our doctors now think, though we never were tested) catch early cases of COVID. That…sucked. Whatever we had, we were sick for months. We slept through April and May. Recovery was Not Great.

We did not get things done. None of the things we wanted to get done, honestly. That sucked, too.

That said, we’re crawling out of 2020 in slightly better shape than we came in. We are not exactly healthy but we’re holding steady, and with the support of our agent and publisher, we’ve come close to finishing the book that was starting to seem Like We Would Never Finish it.

In 2021, we’ll be working on Hunter and and Dance With the Devil, as well as writing some further serial parts for Defending Their Mate, which is currently available only on Radish. We are not putting any firm timelines on anything right now because we want to write good books and for the past few years… good and fast have been mutually exclusive for us.

That said… we’re hoping.

Some of you also may have noticed that we spent most of November working on Romancing the Runoff, which was a transformative and wonderful event where we helped raise almost $500k for voting organizations in Georgia. You can read about that in the New York Times, Pajiba, Jezebel, The Guardian, Vogue, Bustle, Glamour, Book Riot, Newsweek, Slate, and oh yeah Stacey Abrams is now our friend. (Not really, but let us pretend.)

A tweet from stacey Abrams thanking us for our work on Romancing the Runoff and offering us a book to auction off.

For all that 2020 was a year that disappeared in a flash while also lasting a decade, we are going out full of hope and with the conviction to keep fighting to make things better.

We will see you all in 2021. <3 Stay safe, and have a wonderful (masked, socially distant, safe) holiday season!

Deal With the Devil is here!

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment Jul 28

Deal With the Devil Is Here!

It’s finally here, y’all! The launch to our Mercenary Librarians series, Deal With the Devil, our first book in over two years. It has been a long two years full of trials, health scares, personal grief and incredible support from our readers, publishers, and friends.

We’re so happy to finally be here. <3 Please join us at our upcoming launch events!

July

August

4th: Tor After Dark Reading (IG Live)
10th: Day Drinking with Authors with Molly O’Keefe
12th: Virtual Event with Syosset Public Library
14th: Powell’s Livestream Q&A with Kate Elliott

Deal With the Devil

A Mercenary Librarians Novel

Deal With the Devil

Nina is an information broker with a mission – she and her team of mercenary librarians use their knowledge to save the hopeless in a crumbling America.

Knox is the bitter, battle-weary captain of the Silver Devils. His squad of supersoldiers went AWOL to avoid slaughtering innocents, and now he’s fighting to survive.

They’re on a deadly collision course, and the passion that flares between them only makes it more dangerous. They could burn down the world, destroying each other in the process…

Or they could do the impossible: join forces and save the damn world.

Buy Now

Digital

Paperback

Hardcover

Advance Praise

“Compelling characters, white-knuckle action, and deceptively smooth worldbuilding make this first Mercenary Librarians book a satisfying and cinematic escape.” ― Booklist Starred Review

“Rocha capably deploys found family and forbidden love tropes while keeping readers on their toes with unpredictable action beats. This postapocalyptic tale of espionage and romance will have readers eager to know what happens next.” ― Publishers Weekly

“…a high-action, high-stakes sf romance. Intriguing characters, tragic backgrounds, and a few twists comprise a strong launch to this new series.” ― Library Journal

“An exhilarating start to what promises to be a compelling series… bring on the next Mercenary Librarians adventure!” ― Nalini Singh, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

“A full-throttle read! Action-packed, edgy and engrossing, I can’t wait to see what happens next!” — Jeaniene Frost, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

“Complicated characters, complex stakes, and worldbuilding on a grand scale, I loved this book. Pre-order and get multiple copies for friends, too!” — Melissa Marr, New York Times bestselling author of the Wicked Lovely series

“A roller coaster of nail-biting thrills combined with top-notch world-building, palpable heat, and real emotional stakes. You’re going to love it.” ― Gwenda Bond, NYT Bestselling author of Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds

“My advice? You should cancel your plans so you can get swallowed up in Kit Rocha’s exciting new world.” — Thea Harrison, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

“High-stakes action and plenty of chemistry, DEAL WITH THE DEVIL absolutely crackles!” — Chloe Neill, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

“Nina is everything I love in a heroine—smart and badass, but with a core of hope and kindness. And Knox is jaded, honorable, and so very conflicted. I loved it!” — Jessie Mihalik, author of Polaris Rising

“A kickass heroine team for the ages, the desperate but honorable (and also smoking hot) heroes who must betray them, and pulse-pounding action on a dystopian road trip. The sizzling sexual tension is simply the icing that makes Deal with the Devil one of my favorite SF reads ever.” — Alyssa Cole, Award Winning Author

Read The First Chapter

Nina had broken the cardinal rule, and now she had to kill someone.

Four someones, actually. She counted the shuffling footsteps behind her as she eyed the stack of crates and scrap blocking the alley’s exit. Razor wire glinted in the low light, heading off any thought of climbing over the mess. The only route of escape was back the way she’d come.

A brutally effective trap. Under other circumstances, she might have admired its elegance. Right now, it just pissed her off.

Never go out alone after dark. Dani’s admonition—or did it qualify as an order?—echoed in Nina’s head as she turned to face the men who’d blocked her in. The obvious leader stepped forward, brandishing a cheap pistol, as the three others fell into loose formation around him. The tall man on the left stood with his hand hovering near his hip, like he was getting ready to reach for a weapon tucked into the back of his waistband. The two on the right carried knives.

Surprisingly expert grips on all the weapons. The tall one was favoring his left knee. And one of the men wielding a knife was built, with the kind of bulk that made close contact a bad idea. Four men, two guns, at least three knives.

She did not have time for this.

“The bag,” the leader grunted. “Now.”

Nina’s hand tightened around the black strap slung over her shoulder. She didn’t like fighting if she could avoid it—too many variables—but she couldn’t afford to comply. She might have, if the satchel had held her usual haul of scavenged books or random data. But this was a commission, specially sourced information collected for a specific purpose—and a specific client.

Losing it would cost her more than money.

“Walk away,” she advised flatly.

One of them snickered.

Oh well, she had to try. Not that the world would suffer by losing these assholes, but because her conscience demanded it. Of course, they’d laid a trap in a dirty alley, and they didn’t seem too broken up about going four-on-one to rob her.

Maybe she was actively doing the world a favor.

The leader stepped forward, his index finger trembling as he pulled the trigger. Nina ducked, and the bullet went high, shattering a window that was probably already cracked or broken to begin with.

Everything in Five Points was.

When she came back up, she was inches from the man’s face, close enough to see flecks of spittle fly as he opened his mouth to yell at the others. She smashed the heel of her hand under his chin, snapping his teeth shut on his tongue.

He screamed, and she ducked again, this time to put herself on the other side of his outstretched arm. A hard blow to his shoulder spun him around, away from her, and she pressed close to his back, turning him into a shield.

Then she locked one hand around his, turning him into a weapon, too. She squeezed off two more shots, each finding its target in the dead center of an attacker’s chest, before the gun jammed.

Shit.

The third man returned fire. The bullets slammed into his friend—so much for honor among thieves—and sent Nina stumbling back. She recovered just in time to dodge another shot, but she heard the razor-sharp whistle of its path as it cut through the air near her head.

Too goddamn close.

She launched herself at her last attacker. She kicked out, feinting as if to disarm him, only to target his weak leg at the last second. Her boot crashed into his knee, and she felt the joint give as he crumpled. The gun fell and skittered across the grimy asphalt, lodging itself under a mangled crate butted up against a length of chain-link fencing.

Just as well. They’d undoubtedly drawn enough attention already. She reached into her jacket, drew her pistol, and slid her thumb over the biometric scanner embedded in its grip. The weapon activated, chambering a round with a soft click.

The two shots she fired exited the elongated barrel just as quietly, silencing the man’s shrieking and groaning.

Nina stood over him for a moment, watching the dark blood as it began to pool beneath his head. “You did pretty well,” she muttered. “You never really stood a chance, that’s all.”

A chill swept over her despite the relatively warm spring night, raising the fine hairs on the back of her neck. For a moment, it felt like someone was watching her. Not just observing, but staring at her hard enough to bore holes through flesh.

Right into her soul.

She shook it off and holstered her pistol. There probably were eyes on her—the pickers waiting to crawl the place when she was gone. They would wait for her to take first pass at the bodies, out of grudging respect as well as self-preservation. As victor, she had the greatest right to claim the spoils.

She knelt beside one of the bodies, and spent shell casings bit into her skin through her pants. They weren’t even from this firefight, just scattered detritus. Another testament to this area’s legacy of violence.

Once upon a time, this had been a nice neighborhood. The building on Nina’s left used to house city offices, and the one across the street—now a highly trafficked brothel—was an old warehouse that had been converted into chichi lofts catering to the young and wealthy. A faded sign still hung on the side of the building—Now leasing for Spring 2043.

They never finished the construction, and no one but squatters ever got the chance to move in. Not after the devastation of 2042.

Not after the Flares.

It started with a solar storm. For two days, a huge blast of magnetic energy surged toward earth, headed straight for southern Europe, exciting scientists and doomsday preppers alike. In the end, huge areas of France, Spain, and Italy were impacted, though the long-term damage to their power grids was minimal.

No, the worst thing about that storm was how it interfered with satellites, scrambling their signals so that no one noticed the much larger coronal mass ejection in its wake.

The second solar flare hit North America head on. By that time, the United States’ utility infrastructure had been crumbling for decades, ignored or worse by politicians with other priorities—tax cuts for corporations and new fighter jets and the same old fossil fuels that had driven them into the Energy Wars to begin with. The flare struck a killing blow, pushing the weakened government to its knees as it plunged the country into darkness and chaos.

This used to be a nice neighborhood, not that Nina knew any of that firsthand. But there were plenty of old-timers down at the local bar who’d tell you all about the world that once was—the shining city of Atlanta, back before the desolation of the Flares—for the cost of a few highballs.

Nina’s stomach twisted. She could still feel the hungry weight of those stares on her as she rose and backed away from the corpse at her feet.

Tonight, the vultures could have it. All she wanted was to get home.

The scavengers were already converging.

Perched on the rooftop where he’d been doing recon, Knox watched the gang of kids creep out of the darkness. They moved like shadows themselves, wraith-thin and nearly silent. The shitty streetlights dimmed and surged as the kids spread out in the bloodstained alley, swarming the dead bodies with tragic efficiency.

They worked fast, gathering up everything Nina had left behind. Bloodied clothes, worn boots, even the shitty gun wedged under a broken crate. A girl who couldn’t have been more than sixteen popped the magazine to check it before tucking the handgun through her belt. Before long, the group had stripped the men down to their underwear and melted back into the gloom.

The whole thing had taken only minutes. The men who’d tried to jump Nina lay sprawled and exposed on the cracked asphalt, their pale skin washed out by the flickering metal-halide lights. They looked even sadder like this. Naked, abandoned.

And dead. Very, very dead.

Knox eased back from the edge of the roof and rolled to his feet, ignoring the warning ache in his muscles. He got a running start and made the leap between buildings. The impact of the landing stabbed through his knees, and he rolled to disperse the shock of the force—something he wouldn’t have had to do a week ago.

Time contracted around Knox. He could feel each second that slipped away. He swung out onto the rickety fire ladder and slid toward the ground, ruthlessly forcing his mind back to the job.

But he kept seeing those dead bodies. Nina had killed four armed men in the time it had taken Knox to draw a deep breath, then walked away from the encounter without a scratch.

Of course this job couldn’t be easy.

His safe house was a mile-and-a-half hike through the shittier parts of Atlanta. This far south of the TechCorps HQ, security was lax, and Protectorate forces wouldn’t venture out without a direct order. There were no checkpoints like the ones lining the streets that wound their way up the Hill, where the TechCorps sprawled like a brooding dragon sitting on its hoard. There, disciplined squads made regular sweeps amongst the posh high-rises that housed elite scientists and distinguished executives. Farther down the Hill, haphazard patrols guarded the more modest homes and businesses that catered to the fortunate families who’d found a way to make themselves useful to the TechCorps.

None of that existed here. The southern half of the city could be on fire, and the Protectorate wouldn’t stir itself to piss in this general direction in a feeble attempt to put it out. Sure, they swept in every few months to remind people that the TechCorps still had one boot pressed to their necks, ready to come down. But the rest of the time, they didn’t give a shit if the people in the poorer neighborhoods tore each other apart, as long as the TechCorps had enough warm bodies to fill their support staff jobs and their experiment rooms.

People so desperate for money they’d do damn near anything for it? That was the only resource no one was running out of any time soon.

Knox knew that better than most.

Still, he hadn’t realized just how bad it had gotten until the Protectorate had pulled them in to deal with the growing labor uprisings. For years, Knox and his team had been deployed outside of TechCorps’ territory, entrusted with delicate missions that required a certain amount of discretion and finesse. Knox had advanced corporate interests and forged connections in dozens of regions—from the fiercely competitive shipping clans in Florida and the Gulf Coast to the warring crime syndicates that had taken over Washington, D.C.

Not that the word crime had much meaning anymore. The only rules left were the ones you were powerful enough to enforce.

Knox had seen lawless places that had descended into swirling chaos, as well as cities with rigid laws that made military discipline seem lax. He’d even seen towns where people had come together, pooling their resources to restore comfort to everyone. The mountain communities dotting the Appalachians, the close-knit neighborhoods ringing New York City’s boroughs, the cozy communes in New England—all were places almost idyllic in their relative peace.

Somehow, Atlanta had become a combination of all three. Though the TechCorps held the city in its brutal grip, their control didn’t extend to support, so the outlying neighborhoods had fallen into neglect. But within those neighborhoods, you could find sparks of light. Communities coming together. Workers fighting for better pay, for better lives.

Hope. That was why the Protectorate had recalled the Silver Devils. Hope had been bubbling up through the cracks in the TechCorps’ power, and they’d wanted Knox to snuff it out.

In those orders, Knox had finally found a line he couldn’t cross.

He broke free of the final line of buildings and left the streetlights behind. Darkness wrapped around him, another layer of safety, and he relaxed slightly. No one was likely to be wandering out this way after dark. The Devils had set up shop in West End, in an abandoned warehouse overlooking the reservoir. The crumbling remains of the old interstate rose beside it, dwarfing the squat concrete building. A huge chunk of the overpass had caved in over a decade ago, wiping out the community below and discouraging resettlement.

After the Flares, weak infrastructure had been their downfall. The federal government had been held together by tissue paper by that point, unable to function effectively, and state governments had filled the void with varying levels of success. Atlanta had been doing better than most of the rest of Georgia, with strong citywide leadership that might have rallied, given time.

Except that the infrastructure was already so fragile. And the TechCorps were right there, a monolith of recently merged medical and tech companies with the latest and greatest of everything. How generous they must have seemed in those first dark days, reaching out with their seemingly unlimited supplies of solar power, water, food, and medicine.

TechCorps offers were always too good to be true, and the hooks they sank into you went bone deep. Atlanta’s swiftly displaced city government had no doubt learned that lesson as harshly as Knox had.

Knox approached the abandoned warehouse they’d taken over. It was truly off the grid, not even hooked up with power or water. They had to procure or process both for themselves. Not the most comfortable place to crash, but it didn’t matter. They wouldn’t be here long.

Besides, the Silver Devils had stayed in worse.

Knox approached from the north and stopped precisely five feet from the back door. His embedded communicator beeped, and he activated it with a low command. “Knox here.”

“Gotcha, Captain. Disabling security.”

Conall’s reply echoed inside Knox’s head. They’d had the subcutaneous comms for almost a year, and Knox still wished they’d carved them out along with their trackers three days earlier. Conall swore he’d modified the frequencies to be unique and untraceable, but the things still creeped Knox the fuck out.

Implants to make him stronger and faster? Fine. To moderate his biochemistry to make him the perfect soldier? Okay.

Conall’s voice serving as his inner monologue?

Too far.

It took nearly a minute before Conall sounded the all clear. Knox crossed to the door, which popped open just as he reached it. Conall greeted him with a grin and an outstretched hand. “Glasses.”

Knox slipped off his glasses and relinquished them. “Pull the last thirty minutes of footage first and get it up on the wall. Everyone needs to see it.”

“So you caught up with the mark?”

“Yeah.” Knox eased past Conall and let the tech worry about resetting the security measures. The cavernous main room of the warehouse was well lit, with bright solar-powered LEDs hanging from the bare beams. Rafe and Gray sat at one end of the trestle table, the remains of a meal as well as one of Gray’s ever-present disassembled guns spread out between them.

Knox stopped at the other end and stripped off his tactical vest. “We have a problem.”

“How bad?” Rafe asked, his rice-laden spoon hovering in the air. “She got a security team or something?”

“She is a security team.” Knox shrugged out of his shoulder rig and dropped it on the table. His backup pistol followed, as well as the knife sheath strapped to his leg. “Watch the footage.”

Rafe obediently picked up his chair and turned it to face the whitewashed section of wall at the back of the building. Gray looked up without moving—or taking his full attention from the rifle components in front of him.

After another few seconds of fiddling and some muttered curses, Conall flipped his handheld projector upright, and the surveillance footage from Knox’s glasses appeared on the wall. The video from the night-vision camera was tinged with green, though Conall color-corrected it with a few keystrokes.

On-screen, Nina arrived in the alley. The video washed out the gold undertones of her skin, and the angle of the shot left her face in shadow. She surveyed the trap she’d walked into with no apparent alarm as the four men drifted into the frame.

Knox had almost intervened then. The instructions he’d received had been very specific—if he wanted his biochem hacker back, he was to deliver Nina to the designated coordinates, alive and unharmed.

He’d seen so much death in those four shadowy outlines—first Nina’s, when they overpowered her. Then Luna’s, when Knox failed to provide her ransom. Then each of his men, one by one, as their degrading enhancements slowly poisoned their bodies. Without a biochem hacker to regulate their implants, the Silver Devils might as well put bullets in their heads right now. Or go crawling back to the Protectorate.

Knox would prefer the bullet.

“Holy shit!” Conall’s shocked exclamation drew Knox’s attention back to the surveillance footage. Four bodies were already on the ground. It had happened that quickly—so quickly Knox hadn’t even had time to vault off the roof to help.

Rafe shoved his spoon into his bowl of rice and braced his elbows on the table. “Go back and play it slow.”

Conall obeyed. Even at half speed, Nina was fast. She dodged a fucking bullet before commandeering the man who’d tried to shoot her as a human shield. Then she used his gun to fire on two of his friends while the weapon was still in his hand.

Knox was good, the best the Protectorate had ever turned out. And even he wasn’t sure he could have pulled that off.

Gray sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin, his brows drawn together in a contemplative frown. “Who is she?”

“Fuck that,” Conall retorted. “What is she?”

“Trouble,” Rafe rumbled. “Hot, sexy trouble. Does this mean we go with plan B?”

Rafe always wanted to go with plan B, where he deployed his charming smile and his big, beautiful brown eyes, and everyone melted for him. Knox had relied on the man’s natural charisma on plenty of missions, but the thought of Rafe using sex to lure Nina into a trap . . .

“No,” he said, too curtly. “Plan A was to pick her up off the street. That clearly won’t work. Plan B would be to sedate her, not seduce her, but we don’t know what she is or whether our tranqs will work on her. So we go with plan C. She’s an information broker. We’re going to make her an offer no broker could refuse.”

Gray scrubbed one hand over his face with a rough sigh. “Maybe we should focus on figuring out another way to get Luna back.” He gestured toward the makeshift screen. “I already wasn’t crazy about kidnapping someone. I’m really not crazy about getting killed during the attempt.”

Knox wasn’t wild about the kidnapping, either. When he’d first joined the Protectorate, it had been with wide eyes and dreams of heroics. He’d decided that he would accept the biochemical enhancements. He’d train day and night, if that was what it took. And then he’d go back out into the world and do some damn good. Help people like his father, who’d died protecting a neighborhood store from petty thieves. Make things better instead of worse.

His eyes hadn’t been wide in a long time. The world wasn’t interested in being saved. And the only allegiance Knox owed now was to the men in this room, men who’d followed him into battle and the depths of hell and now into treason, where a ticking clock was counting down to their slow, painful deaths.

“We don’t have time,” he reminded Gray. “Conall couldn’t trace the communication. We don’t know who took her, or what they’ll do if we show up at those coordinates without the payment they requested. And every day we stall, our side effects are getting worse.”

“It’s Luna,” Rafe declared, as if that answered the moral dilemma. “Helping us is what got her into this mess. And sure, the lady is hot and all, but . . .” He waved a hand at the paused video, showing Nina frozen in the act of delivering her silent coup de grace. “You don’t get that good at killing by being a sweet little pussy cat.”

Gray relented, holding up both hands in surrender. “Understood. Still not too keen on dying, though, so this ruse of yours had better work, Knox.”

It would, because Knox had been saving this weapon since the day Conall had offered it to him. His game-winning ace. An information broker’s ultimate fantasy.

“Conall?”

“Hmm?”

“How thorough are those files you have on the Rogue Library of Congress bunker?”

Conall tipped his chair on two legs so he could snag a small data pad off his workstation. “Old Uncle Aiden was a little cracked, but he was fucking meticulous. So I’m guessing pretty thorough.”

“You’re guessing?”

“I never actually decrypted most of them. Seemed a little reckless.”

“How long would it take you to decrypt it and redact any references to location?”

Conall tapped his leg as his eyes darted back and forth and his lips moved in silent calculation. He’d always sparked with barely restrained energy, but now he was restless and fidgety all the time.

“Twelve hours?” Conall said finally. “Maybe twenty-four, if some of the files have multiple encryptions.”

Too long, but it was still the best chance they had. Knox slid an empty tablet down the table. Conall caught it. “Do it. We need schematics, paper trails. Proof. Redact anything that would lead her to the real location. Load it all on there.”

Conall raised one brow. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just throw together some dummy shit? I can make it look good enough to sell the con.”

Knox turned back to the video frozen on the wall. He’d underestimated her physical strength. He wasn’t about to make the same mistake with her mind. “This isn’t the time to take chances. Use the real data.”

“Yes, sir.”

And that was that, as far as Conall was concerned. He settled into his task, trusting that Knox would spend his family secret wisely. That he’d save Luna, save them, keep them all out of TechCorps torture cells, and probably score them enough credits to settle down to blissful lives of leisure.

Knox had worked hard to earn that trust. To deserve it. Somehow, he had to pull this off and be worthy of it.