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Release Blitz + Giveaway: Returning Heroes (The Galatic Captains #6) by Harry F. Rey

Returning Heroes (The Galatic Captains #6) is out from NineStar Press! Join author Harry F. Rey and IndiGo Marketing in celebrating the new release! Enter in the NSP credit giveaway!

Title: Returning Heroes

Series: The Galactic Captains, Book Six

Author: Harry F. Rey

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 01/11/2022

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male, Male/Male Menage

Length: 83100

Genre: SciFi, LGBTQIA+, action,adventure, aliens, dark, MM romance, #ownvoices, royalty, sci-fi, futuristic, space, folklore, gods, intercultural, interspecies, war of worlds

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Description

Captain Ales has returned to the galaxy, forever changed as the powers have prepared for war. He’ll accept help from anyone if it leads to the mysterious Turo from whose cage Ales must free himself if he ever wants to return to the Red Moon.

Meanwhile Daeron has been offered the deal of a lifetime by the ruler of the Seven Suns. Marry Osvai, the Kyleri prince, and become heir to the richest star-state in the galaxy while raising an army to restore the prince to his rightful place as Emperor of the Million Suns.

But Viscamon’s grip on Jiwani has only tightened as the nobles imprisoned in the Royal Baths still refuse to bow to the immortal’s cataclysmic theology of destroying the Galactic Balance. It seems the only way for Imperial Guard Captain Antari to avoid a massacre is outright treachery.

While dynasties play galactic politics, the Outer Verge is being torn apart. From a prison cell, Mahnoor watches The Rip destroying Targuline, until the Kyleri rebels offer him the chance to save himself by flying into the heart of danger. He might even become Jansen’s most unlikely hero.

Heroes and villains run riot around the galaxy, unleashing destructive forces and sliding the great powers toward a war from which no one will be safe.

Excerpt

Returning Heroes
Harry F. Rey © 2022
All Rights Reserved

The sleek, spacious travel pod sliced through the swirling burnt-orange clouds of Bazman. Daeron edged forward on the puffed, pillowy chair that consistently failed to relax him. He tugged at the high collar of his pure-white Dalvian silk jacket—yet another gift from President Ezreal. He stared out the window at the spindly towers stretching in and out of the clouds above and below. The teeming city-world of Bazman, capital of the Confederation of the Seven Suns, supposedly the richest star-state in the Shakti Democria, was to Daeron no better than any of the thousands of worlds he’d been on. The rich lived above, flying around in these perfumed and carpeted pods, while the poor shuffled in and out of a noxious atmosphere far below.

Daeron could go anywhere he wanted on Bazman; no store, restaurant, menagerie, or cultural complex was too exclusive for President Ezreal’s new favorite son. Six weeks ago, they’d barely escaped the Kyleri fleet which had blown up Aldegar’s megacollider. Daeron and the remaining crew of the Daring Huntress chased Turo and the double-crossing Ezi into the Shakti Nebula, only to end up invited to land here by Ezreal’s security forces. On Bazman, where he could go anywhere at all, just not leave.

“What’s wrong now, Daeron?” Osvai said, relaxing in his similarly styled—but all black—Dalvian silk suit. The missing heir to the Kyleri Empire sipped on a Lactarian malt from a crystal glass while grinning at an entertainment package broadcast on the holoscreen in front of his seat. Lest His Imperial Majesty get bored in the half hour it takes to get from Bazman’s presidential palace to the restaurant opening. Daeron glanced over at the prince who was now biting his lip to keep from laughing at the holovid. Daeron watched for a moment. He’d never seen anything so stupid.

“What’s so funny about people walking into things? It’s cruel.”

Osvai wasn’t listening. He gasped in laughter as some poor unsuspecting holo-person had a pile of trash dumped on their head. Daeron flung himself against the seat, but it only absorbed the shock and began to massage his lower back. Daeron could huff all he wanted, but Osvai had stopped caring about what bothered Daeron. He stroked his thick black beard, forgetting it was still glistening in the fancy oils Osvai made him use. Daeron wiped his greasy hand on the plush arm of the chair and returned to staring out the window at the traffic lanes of pods gliding through the clouds and between the towers—with no end and no beginning.

“Are Xenia and the rest of the crew coming tonight?” Daeron asked, breathing slowly through his nose, trying to let the fury of being stuck in a gilded prison subside. It wasn’t going anywhere. Just like him.

“They left.”

Daeron spun on the chair to face Osvai.

“They…left?”

“Yeah. Didn’t I tell you?” Osvai said, not looking up from the holovid. Daeron yanked at the silk collar constricting his neck, and it let out a satisfying rip.

“No…you didn’t tell me. That was…my crew. My ship.” Daeron was doing everything in his power to stay calm, but he knew his string was about to snap. Maybe if Osvai understood that, they wouldn’t spend half their nights screaming at each other in their apartment in the presidential palace.

“I guess they went to meet your mom.” Osvai drained his glass, then stretched and placed it inside an alcove grooved into the wall where a nozzle filled it back up. “Isn’t it her crew again now she’s back?”

Daeron fell into a sulking silence at the mention of his mom. Maybe Osvai knew him better than he thought. Because the moment Captain Sanya was raised, Daeron shut down. It had been weeks since she and that Tevian girlfriend of hers, Sallah, had crossed back through the horizon point with her brat, Ales. Had they come to see him? No. Daeron had only learned their mission had been successful from the newscasts. The returning hero Captain Ales, who apparently had an Ingvarian fleet at his disposal now, as well as the entire Outer Verge, had been spotted at the Mayo resort in the Central Star States. After their collective trauma, Captain Sanya, Sallah, and Ales had decided to play happy families and treat themselves to a little vacation at one of the most expensive systems in the galaxy.

It hurt Daeron hard. He’d still not seen her. Not even a holovid call. He stretched out his hand and opened his palm-tech to flick through the only messages his mom had sent since she’d returned.

The megacollider is gone then?

Yeah, as if a rebel Kyleri fleet blowing up an ancient sphere surrounding an entire sun had been his fault. Then, loving, motherly message number two.

Why is Osvai not back on Jiwani? And you lost Turo? Can’t you do anything right?

Good point. Why was Osvai not back on Jiwani?

“Don’t you care at all?” Daeron snapped, spitting his frustrations at Osvai. The prince finally looked up from the holovid, staring back with those thin eyes and sunset skin that Daeron couldn’t deny filled him with lust. Even if he was perpetually pissed off at him.

“Care about what, Daeron?”

“Your fucking empire.” Daeron stood up, kicking the chair hard so it spun like a ship out of control. Osvai drained his glass again and, with an overly audible sigh, came over to Daeron and slid his small arms as far around Daeron as they could go. But Daeron wriggled out of his half hug and slunk to the back of the pod, watching the dusty clouds spinning like a vortex as they flew.

“What do you want me to do, Daeron? Fight Viscamon for my throne with what army, exactly?”

“My mom said to take you home.”

“Oh, your mom said. It’s always the same story with you, Daeron. Your mom says you have to stay on Jiwani with a father you never knew, and you stayed. Your mom says look after me until I’m back on Jiwani, and you blame me for staying in the one place in the galaxy no one’s trying to kill me!”

Here we go. Another screaming match.

“Can we not do this now?” Daeron said, arms folded and his back to Osvai. “The president invited us to this restaurant opening, and since he’s the one keeping you safe and letting us stay for free, we don’t need you getting drunk and making a scene.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, more drunk.”

Osvai sucked in a short breath. If they’d learned one thing about each other since escaping Jiwani together on the night of Osvai’s father, Emperor Kantori’s, assassination, it was how to push each other’s buttons.

“When was the last time you saw Xenia?” Osvai asked, lathered in bitterness. “Or Tal, or Bindi? Or even Voros? When was it? Kaj’s memorial service?”

“Shut up, Osvai.”

“You haven’t asked about them in weeks. So don’t pretend you didn’t know they’d leave. You didn’t want to know.”

“I said shut up!”

“You can say I’m afraid all you want. And yes, I am afraid of going back to Jiwani when Viscamon is imprisoning nobles until he’s blackmailed enough to crown himself emperor. That’s a normal thing to be scared of. But you—”

“Osvai, I’m fucking warning you.” Daeron spun around to see him sauntering around the pod with a look of victory splashed across his face.

“You might look like a big scary man, Daeron, but you’re just a little boy. Afraid of what his mommy will say.”

Daeron had already exploded. Fury prickled his body; sweat soaked the suit. He’d throw Osvai out of this pod if he could. His fists clamped together, ready to test just how much of a punch this glass could take.

“You have arrived at your destination,” the pod’s soft female voice said with a ding. “Have a pleasant evening.”

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Meet the Author

Harry F. Rey is an author and lover of gay themed stories with a powerful punch with influences ranging from Alan Hollinghurst to Isaac Asimov to George R.R. Martin. He loves all things sci-fi and supernatural, and always with a gay twist. Harry is originally from the UK but lives in Jerusalem, Israel with his husband.

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Release Blitz + Giveaway: The Gemini Strand by L.J. Hasbrouck

Author L.J. Hasbrouck and IndiGo Marketing share The Gemini Strand release blitz! Read more about sci-fi tale and enter in the NineStar Press credit giveaway!

Title: The Gemini Strand

Author: L.J. Hasbrouck

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 12/28/2021

Heat Level: 1 - No Sex

Pairing: No Romance

Length: 91600

Genre: Science Fiction, sci fi, family-drama, futuristic, dystopia, gay, ace, professional assassin, cloning, Mars

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Description

Life on Mars is no fairy tale for Morgan, a scrappy adventurer who plunders Earth’s carcass in search of loot—and evidence of an elusive scientist. She hopes he can cure her father’s dementia, but instead he kidnaps her father and flees into the deceptive dreamlands of Mars. During her frantic search to locate them, Morgan begins experiencing strange hallucinations that make her think she’s losing her mind.

Meanwhile, Nil, a tormented killer struggling to repress his humanity, thinks his hallucinations are a flaw in his system. Soon his pesky emotions roar back to life, throwing a dagger into the whole “cold-blooded assassin” thing. While he pursues his next mark, a witty hacker trying to save Nil’s other victims, he battles with his disorienting visions and burgeoning emotions.

What he doesn’t realize is that he’s falling in love for the first time—and the hacker he’s falling for is also the scientist who kidnapped Morgan’s father.

Drawn together by their common target, Morgan and Nil harness their mysterious visions to find each other amidst holographic recreations of Oz, Wonderland, Neverland, Atlantis, and Camelot. Before she loses her father forever, Morgan must work with a killer and kidnapper to discover the sinister truth behind her father’s illness and her bond with Nil. And Nil is forced to decide between protecting the man he loves and helping the girl he’s inexplicably linked to.

Because they share more than disorienting hallucinations—and what they share will change everything they thought they knew about themselves.

Excerpt

The Gemini Strand
L.J. Hasbrouck © 2021
All Rights Reserved

NIL

I don’t know why I kill. I’m ordered to, true, and it’s all I’ve been trained to do. I’m good at it.

But that doesn’t mean I like it.

Lately, I’ve been losing my touch. Each time I suffer an emotional episode, my handler remedies it by sending me in for reconditioning. The guilt goes away, my efficiency improves, and the nightmares stop.

But the guilt always returns. And so do the nightmares.

Up to the point I awoke at the Guild’s headquarters, all I remembered was a dim, murky muddle of nonexistence. My eyes opened to a roomful of shadows. Vague shapes hovered over me, surrounding me in a nebulous circle. My vision remained hazy, my awareness cloudy—I mistook what would be my first memory for a chilling dream.

“Good morning, my son,” a cold but cajoling voice said. Lilith. My handler. “Your slate has been wiped clean. Let’s see if you do better this time.”

I was floating. But when I moved my arms, I displaced something thicker than air: water. My bare, pale limbs drifted in the translucent pool. Reflecting on it now, it was my birth. And the darkness delivered me.

Which makes Lilith the closest thing I have to a mother.

Tonight, she’s ordered me to slip into the Emerald City, Oz’s entertainment subdistrict. The buildings are green and glittery, disorienting like the rest of Mars’s vast and vacuous districts. Citizens stumble along a yellow brick road nestled between fields of red and pink poppies. A tiny dog frolics through the field alongside his mistress, an adolescent girl in a gingham dress and silver slippers. She darts in front of me, but I walk right through her. The image shimmers, light particles interrupted by my mass, until she reassembles and skips off without a sound.

None of it is real. It’s a projection, both literally and metaphorically, an idealized vision of our world according to the minds who invented it. A fantasy brought to life. All I’d have to do to destroy it is smash the lenses installed on the construction’s framework, strip the taciturn gray structures of all their glimmering emerald, and reveal the ordinary bricks beneath the yellow. Dorothy and Toto would disappear. The poppy fields would vanish, expose barren cayenne clay and ashen rock.

At least shadows are real. Honest. I slink into them, darting between hologram-cloaked buildings and grappling to the rooftops. Ads promising the improbable—the cure for any ailment, all at the low cost of submitting yourself to the Pantheon’s experiments—glint and glitch at the skyline’s zenith. I set up a zipline to the adjacent roof and grapple from rooftop to rooftop, leaving as many lines as I can in my wake. Haste isn’t necessary when entering the target zone, but a speedy exit is crucial.

As I traverse the rooftops, I scan for thermal signatures beneath and behind me. No one’s noticed me. Good. Though I pass several Bouncers patrolling below me on the street, they’re all underneath the Guild’s thumb and therefore instructed to ignore us. Even if a civilian sees me, they’d never see my face again—or see it at all. I use a different shroud on every job, but I sometimes leave them turned off in lieu of the full black bodysuit, which means I resemble some subverted superhero creeping and swinging through the night, mask and all. Not the most outlandish sight on Mars, believe it or not.

I send Isabeau off to survey the area around the soaring spires of the Emerald Castle, my target’s last known location. The synthetic falcon launches from my shoulder, wings shimmering as she slices through light beams shining in the air. I close an eye and perceive what she sees, one camera transmitting an image to another. This eye isn’t mine; it’s a replacement implanted with a chip. I don’t recall how I lost mine, but Lilith says it had something to do with the traumatic incident that sabotaged my memories.

I’m not sure I believe her, but I can’t question the woman who controls my life—unless I want to risk losing it.

Isabeau perches on a ledge outside the building. She monitors the area through a faux stained-glass window, her viewpoint displaying in my cybernetically enhanced eye. Inside the Emerald Castle, writhing clubgoers surround my mark.

I activate my shroud and shimmy down the side of the building with my grappling hook. The regulator installed in my chest controls the speed my heart beats at, keeping my pulse and temperature low at all times. Makes it tougher for thermal imaging and pulse readers to pick up on my signal. There shouldn’t be many people around with tech that can outdo mine, but a few paranoid denizens carry them as a precaution.

Not everyone trusts the Pantheon. With good reason.

I glance into a compact mirror to ensure my shroud works, then stow my gear and waltz into the street, blending with the crowd. The music inside the club vibrates beneath my feet as I approach the front doors, so I prepare my ears for the decibel assault. I nod at the Bouncer, make eye contact, press my palm into the scanner. It approves my print and accepts my false identity with a beep.

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NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Knowledge-seeking animal-lover, supporter of diversity, and OG Floridian. Lifelong gamer who grew up drawing Disney characters, whales, and dinosaurs. Proud INTJ (which I share with the likes of Hannibal Lecter, Batman, and Ellen Ripley).

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One lucky winner will receive a $50.00 NineStar Press Gift Code!

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Release Blitz: The Fourth State of Matter (Valence Chronicles #1) by D’Arcy Arden

Celebrate the release of sexy sci-fi, The Fourth State of Matter (Valence Chronicles #1), with author D’Arcy Arden and Gay Book Promotions!

RELEASE BLITZ

Book Title: The Fourth State of Matter (Valence Chronicles #1)

Author: D’Arcy Arden

Publisher: The Wild Rose Press

Cover Artist: Jennifer Greeff

Release Date: May 31, 2021

Genres: Futuristic/Sci-Fi, erotica

Tropes: aliens, polyamory

Themes: BDSM, Gay-Lesbian, Menage/Multi-Partner

Heat Rating: 5 flames

Length: 86 889 words/ 349 pages

It is the first book in a series.

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Space is cold, the sex is hot, and the rebellion is right on target.

Blurb

Earth is dead. Humanity survives by selling the only resource available—themselves. 2689 has signed away his rights as a living being and become décor, living artwork that rich aliens use to decorate their homes. It's a stable existence but a boring one. Until one day his owner plays host to three unexpected guests. Large, loud, and more potent than anything 2689 has ever experienced, this trio of ship-dwellers from the wrong side of the universe awakens a desire he can't ignore.

However, blissful days of sex and companionship with Brog, Desmodian, and Xavis come to an end when 2689 discovers a plot that could land the trio in jail...or worse. 2689 will have to make a choice—stay silent and allow three innocent lives to be ruined or give up his stable life to protect the ones he loves.

Book Trailer

Excerpt

Pet fumbled his drink, creating a clink of glass against glass and spilling pink droplets onto the table’s surface. He had encountered Décor Preservation Services once before, at his first auction, when they evaluated his quality and determined what price to charge his buyers.

“And what does DPS want with us?”

Desmodian sounded too calm, considering the tremor Pet felt running through the hand on his head.

Vige scoffed. “Really? A trio of dirty ship-dwellers running around with one of their precious décor, and you don’t think they’re going to intervene?”

“We’ve done nothing wrong.” Xavis ruffled his feathers again, filling what little space remained in their alcove. “Pet was transferred to us legally. Anyone can check the license.”

In a different situation, Pet would have stroked the feathers back down, but he was too scared to do more than stare dumbly from person to person.

About the Author

D’Arcy Arden grew up in Akron, Ohio, where she attended creative art schools and was surrounded by beautiful country landscape. This combination cultivated an interest in literature, art, and the natural world around her. In college, she earned a Masters Degree in Fiction Writing, which primarily taught her that there is no one way to tell a good story. So, she turned around and went back for a degree in Animation as well. This love for both visual and written stories has given her a preference for stories that are memorable, easy to picture, and, most importantly, fun.

That was her main goal when she started writing The Fourth State of Matter—to provide readers with a fun story featuring the three S’s. Science, sex, and spaceships. It is her first published novel, but only the beginning of a great adventure.

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Release Blitz + Giveaway: Between Empires and Continents (Luxor City #2) by Sasha Hope

Author Sasha Hope and IndiGo Marketing return with a new release blitz for the latest in the urban fantasy omegaverse series, Between Empires and Continents (Luxor City #2)! Find out more and enter in the $10 NineStar Press credit giveaway!

Title: Between Empires and Continents

Series: A Luxor City Novel

Author: Sasha Hope

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 05/10/2021

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 55300

Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, Romance, futuristic, urban fantasy, gay, bisexual, Alpha/omega dynamic, cruise ship, traveling in disguise, bodyguard, arranged marriage

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Description

Luxor City, a once lawless metropolis on the brink of civil war, is now at peace, but even in lighter times there are always shadows. In the technicolor streets of the Southern Empire, Junsu Sun, the Alpha heir to one of Luxor City’s great crime families, busies himself by dealing with a blacklisted group known as the Underground.

After taking down one of the Underground’s notorious leaders, Junsu assumes he’ll be given time to rest and recuperate, but his mother, Alpha Xijuan Sun, has a new mission for him, involving a luxury cruise and a new mate, Omega Kaito Yamaguchi, of the powerful Yamaguchi family. Ever the dutiful son, Junsu obeys his orders as if it were any other mission, but this sort of engagement isn’t exactly the type of thing he’s used to and Kaito Yamaguchi certainly isn’t the sort of Omega he’s used to either.

Kaito is impatient, impassable, and impossible. He’s a spoiled Omega who is pissed off that his family have reorganized his life and thrust him into this arranged mating with some Luxor City Alpha he’s never met before. Kaito hasn’t even seen a picture of Junsu Sun, a fact that Junsu uses to his advantage.

Faced with a week spent trapped on a luxury cruise with a rude, bratty Omega who doesn’t even know who he is, Junsu decides to play a little trick on his future mate. But just how far will he let things go and where is the line between a little trick and a painful deception?

Meanwhile, other secrets floating between empires and continents are about to spill out onto the deck.

Excerpt

Between Empires and Continents
Sasha Hope © 2021
All Rights Reserved

The Southern Empire glittered like a neon jewel at the tip of the vast island metropolis that was Luxor City, offering visitors and locals alike a chance to live another life. Between the intersections of technicolor streets, every threshold was another opportunity to experience the height of southern entertainment and luxury. The South’s booming city center was a shining district renowned for its fine dining and nightlife. People from all over the world sailed for weeks just to pay a visit. But, as is the trouble in all cities, dark corners filled space among the shadows cast by dazzling lights.

Junsu Sun was proud of the Empire he would one day inherit. Recent increases in corruption were no surprise in a city founded largely on the drug trade between Luxor and the Second Continent. Still, Junsu wasn’t pleased to find out just how deep the opium-coated rabbit hole went. The underground world that had been built up in the back alleys between skyscrapers both enraged and fascinated him to no end.

Since the unification of Luxor City and the newfound peace between the island’s three territories—North, Central, and South—Junsu had been on a quest to know more about his Empire and the inner workings of their expansive business. As the sole heir to Xijuan Sun, the aging Alpha of the Southern Empire, he was starting to feel the weight of duty falling more and more heavily upon his shoulders. Despite only occupying the southern tip of Luxor City, the territory his family’s Empire encompassed was vast and densely populated.

Junsu had no idea what went down in some of the red-light hotspots dotting the city’s entertainment district, but over the past few weeks he’d been carefully slipping into the inner circles of some of the city’s most notorious gangsters, learning more and more about the Southern underbelly, what the Sun family and their allies simply called the Underground.

This was how he found himself sitting around a table playing Mah-jongg with a group of Alphas his mother would have killed as soon as she’d looked at them. These were members of the Underground, people whose fidelity to the Sun family was always in question. They stepped around rules and edicts to run their shady district nightclubs off the grid.

This evening, however, they were all sitting together glowering at Mah-jongg tiles with knowing black eyes.

Four Alphas were seated as is required in Mah-jongg, one person per side of a perfectly square table: North, South, East and West. Junsu occupied the East seat. He leaned into a soft chair with its back to a large loading bay door. Though prominent industrial pieces of architecture were blatantly scattered about the Underground hideout, there was a luxury apparent in the chic den only the highest rollers could afford. Eccentric art pieces decorated the walls and were often lit with neon beams, adding ambience to the eclectic atmosphere.

Junsu hadn’t been expecting this Underground gang to literally be inside an underground venue, but he found something vaguely amusing about their headquarters. In the darkness, dull violet lights illuminated the faces of gamblers and socialites. Their smirking features glowed in an ominous manner. The exposed piping above their table rattled and hissed, probably taking on the tide water from the nearby shoreline. The noise was almost drowned out by the pounding music coming from the club on the floor above.

Junsu stared down at his onyx and jade Mah-jongg tiles, running his thumb over one of the gold-painted engravings marking it. He smiled at his latest pick and flipped his pieces down onto the table, showing off the winning hand.

“My game again,” he uttered before reaching a lazy hand over to his drink. He hid a smirk around the rim of his glass as the rest of the Alphas at the table groaned.

Junsu, the newcomer, had won his third game in a row.

“You know, Sun. It’s only polite to let your elders win sometimes,” the middle-aged man at the West side of the table grunted around the end of a newly lit cigarette. He was the Underground’s leader, an Alpha called Naoto Kim. His wrinkled features were drawn up in a smirk, visibly amused by Junsu’s luck even while his eyes were narrowed with a hint of suspicion.

Junsu could see it, but he simply chuckled and moved his tiles back into the center of the table. He was lucky to have secured this meeting with Naoto Kim, but he wasn’t about to lose on purpose just to stroke the other Alpha’s ego.

“My mother is a good teacher,” Junsu murmured as he drew a hand over the tiles, mixing them about over the velvet-covered tabletop. In contrast to this venue, his mother had a few high-tech tables back in the casino capable of shuffling themselves. Her tables moved the tiles into a mechanical repository under the green velvet before restacking and dealing them out in neat piles. Naoto’s club was a little passé, but Junsu was polite enough not to mention it.

Naoto’s lazy gaze traced Junsu’s hand as it moved over the tiles while he shuffled. With gritted teeth, he laughed to himself before taking a long drag off his cigarette. Smoke billowed from between his lips, momentarily obscuring his glaring eyes.

“I bet you regret inviting the Sun kid over for playtime now. Hey, Seijin?” Tae, the man on the North side of the table, said to the man at the South.

Seijin didn’t look too happy. As a younger member of the gang, his pockets weren’t anywhere near as loaded as his fellows’ and Junsu had practically emptied them out.

Junsu had met Seijin through a contact who’d infiltrated the Underground. Buddying up to the young Alpha had been a cinch. After a few meetups, money had exchanged hands and Junsu eventually convinced Seijin to let him in on one of their Mah-jongg games to give him a chance to meet with Naoto Kim. Junsu had a particular interest in the Underground membership and their trade. They were an up-and-coming group and, despite the conflict between the Underground and the Sun family, Junsu had paid great attention to their business.

“Look, Junsu didn’t come here to play Mah-jongg. All right, Tae?” Seijin snapped back. “He’s not just here to fleece me.”

“Seijin’s right,” Junsu said with a nod. He tossed a few tiles across the table with an absent flick of the wrist. “I didn’t come here to play. I came for business.”

Naoto stared at him, still glaring down the end of his cigarette. “Not sure if we need your mother’s business,” he muttered in response.

“Not hers. Mine,” Junsu replied curtly.

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Meet the Author

Crafting stories that embrace MM romance and erotica is her modus operandi. When she is not creating new worlds she is travelling this one looking for inspiration or enjoying her career in the videogame industry.

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Release Blitz + Giveaway: Electra Rex By April C. Griffith

Author April C. Griffith and Pride Publishing host today's release blitz for Electra Rex! Find out more about the QUILTBAG science fiction novel and enter in the giveaway to win a fabulous gift package and get a First For Romance Gift Card!

Electra Rex

April C. Griffith

General Release Date: 9th March 2021

Word Count: 68,269
Book Length: NOVEL
Pages: 269

Genres:

ACTION AND ADVENTURE

COMEDY AND HUMOUR

EROTIC ROMANCE

FUTURISTIC

FUTURISTIC AND SCIENCE FICTION

GLBTQI

MULTICULTURAL

TRANSGENDER

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Book Description

Electra Rex, self-appointed ‘galaxy’s greatest starship captain’ and last known human, is going to save humanity or get rich trying!

Electra Rex, the last human in known space, is broke—worse than broke, deeply in debt and out of options. After a desperate, drunken attempt to fix her faltering life, she finds herself in a deeper hole after stealing the most stylish starship she’s ever seen, but it comes with a massive lien.

She’s left with a fast ship, a nearly indestructible debt-enforcement robot named Letterman watching her every move and a lead on a lucrative job with the mysterious organization known as Bi-MARP, which is set to rebuild Earth on the two-thousand-year anniversary of its destruction.

Across two galaxies, she struggles to stay one step ahead of space pirates and creditors, all while trying to catch the eye of a beautiful, vivacious bisexual clone named Treasure, who was recently rescued from a top-secret university lab run by academic squids.

She succeeds in seducing Treasure—or perhaps it’s the other way around—while they run scams to find earthling relics like the original formula for Coca-Cola, a 1968 Volkswagen Beatle, a mostly complete Monopoly board game and a largely accurate, if not small and green, clone of an elephant. All the while, Electra has to hide the fact that Treasure is actually the most valuable item on the Bi-MARP list—a fertile human female.

When the truth of humanity’s demise and the goals of Bi-MARP are uncovered, Electra, the galaxy’s foremost transgender hero, decides that the riches and fame aren’t worth the sacrifices, and she turns on her former employer to rescue Treasure a third time, completing her search for money, what it means to be human without the rest of humanity and, most of all, love.

Excerpt

“I am the last of my kind, and I suck,” Electra mumbled to herself, throwing back another drink. On the first night of a planetary holiday, Electra Rex was drunk, scorned and looking to buy a gun. She couldn’t recall exactly which holiday it was, though, since there were so many. The planet took time off constantly to celebrate a googolplex of different accomplishments, important figures and momentous occasions across hundreds of alien species. It was a wonder anyone did anything but observe holidays. She sat in a window booth, watching ships both large and small land at the valet pad while she waited.

Little of her Embarker pedigree remained after years away from the flotilla. Endless toil and nomadic life marked her people’s existence, even if it didn’t describe her life. She’d lived in an apartment in Authrillia’s largest northern city for more than a year, which should have made her itchy to get back to spacefaring, but she wasn’t. In fact, she wasn’t much of anything. Apathy had settled heavily over her and it had made her careless—at least, more careless than she’d already known herself to be. To pay the bills, she engaged in the least Embarker type of work she could find—being a professional party guest. ‘Come see the last known human woman, drink with her, maybe even…’ But that was over. She’d frittered away too much money on fleeting things, another Embarker no-no. A job meant to replenish her account at the last moment and save her apartment, her precious creature comforts and allow her reckless lifestyle to continue for another month hadn’t paid out. Now she had only the clothes on her back and the cash in her pocket. Enough to buy a gun, she hoped.

She’d given the DJ of the club a copy of Margaritaville, promising a transcendent experience. Jimmy Buffet sang while a dozen different species of aliens attempted to dance on the multi-tiered dance floor to the ancient Earthling music. Electra’s dad had loved Jimmy Buffet. ‘The finest music in the galaxy,’ he’d said. Even with great effort and a good deal of booze in her system, she couldn’t hear what he’d heard. She must not have inherited his ear for classical music. What the hell is a flip-flop anyway?

Normally leering over spacecraft cheered her up, which was why she’d selected a window booth near the landing pad. She wasn’t into the functional caravan freighters that comprised Embarker fleets. She liked the chic, silky, beautiful spaceships that focused on form over function. The bleak, unrepentantly crappy mood that had clung to her throughout the day lightened an iota at the arrival of her dream ship in the valet station directly below her window. An oval saucer body, three hundred feet long, sleek and stylish, with three classic fins off the back, it was—it had to be—a Cadillux 1959 Dorado edition. And it was pink, the brightest, most beautiful pearlescent pink trimmed in the shiniest of chrome. Electra stood on her knees on the booth’s bench and pressed her face drunkenly against the glass. She wanted to lick it. She didn’t care that the thought was absurd. That ship was so gorgeous that it deserved to be licked.

The transparent arrival tube extended to the ventral port while a valet-bot lowered onto the dorsal spine above the cockpit that sat directly in the middle of the oval. Electra wanted to see what wondrous creature possessed such a magnificent spaceship. After several agonizing moments, the owner of the ship passed from beneath the edge within the arrival tube and Electra’s elation turned to fury—Weisella. Fucking Weisella. Her need to buy a gun redoubled, not to begin a life of mercenary work—which was the Embarker way after going bust—but for murder, satisfying revenge on the woman who had thoroughly screwed her. The fact that such a heinous, underhanded creature could own such a glorious ship was a crime on par with regicide in Electra’s inebriated mind.

Weisella was a Panaeus, a vaguely humanoid alien species with advanced telekinetic and telepathic powers. She was only a little taller than Electra’s five-and-a-half feet. Her heart-shaped face had two enormous black, almond-shaped eyes, no nose or mouth. Frilled spines replaced what could be called hair. A cluster of five ephemeral tentacles stood in the place of an arm on each side, and instead of legs, she had what looked like a jumbo, curved shrimp tail. Indeed, the only attractive features Electra saw in Weisella were her money and her strangely perfect breasts—three of them across the center of her chest, prominently displayed since Panaeus didn’t wear clothes. Weisella liked jewelry, though, and she was sporting a shiny new metal ring on her tail that was probably just brimming with expensive tech.

Electra’s memory of the night before was fragmented at best. She’d been hired to attend Weisella’s gala for the Panaeus New Year, partially as the spectacle of having a human in attendance and partially as Weisella’s date. Electra didn’t mind the escort portion of the work. Weisella was rich, enchanting, well-traveled and she’d paid extra for the pleasure. Except she hadn’t actually paid. The transfer had bounced back in the morning when Electra had tried to use the money to get the foreclosure lock off her apartment door. The timer on her lien had expired and everything in her apartment had gotten incinerated while she watched through the little glass window on the door. Everything her parents had ever given her, every keepsake from Transition Island, every souvenir she’d collected in her travels was gone in a flash of white fire and a quickly ventilated puff of smoke, all because Weisella had ripped her off.

Electra had done her part. She’d danced, charmed and been better than presentable in her skin-tight Utopalex pants, knee-high go-go boots and a black corset that made the most of what she had. The Panaeus guests had loved her. Weisella had loved her. By every measurement, Electra had performed perfectly. They’d retired to Weisella’s bedroom at the end of the night to continue the festivities. Things hadn’t gone as smoothly behind closed doors. Electra had been intoxicated from drinks, a few drugs she wasn’t familiar with and the high oxygen environment created in the penthouse, plus she’d never slept with a Panaeus before. The swell of Weisella’s backside, what looked like a delightfully curvaceous butt? Nope, that was a nose and ‘Please stop fondling it.’ Okay, the breasts were breasts, right? Close enough. Fondle those, lick them and fall asleep face-first in them. Was that why Weisella had bounced back the payment? Failure to consummate? It was explicitly stated in Electra’s contract that sex was not a guaranteed part of any escort arrangement. It was her prerogative. Besides, she’d tried. There simply weren’t obvious sex organs on a Panaeus—at least none Electra could find in her sloppy groping.

The valet-bot guided the Cadillux away after Weisella entered the club a couple of floors beneath Electra’s booth. The little bot was flying the beautiful ship toward the stacks. Not the stacks! That was where someone parked a junker that nobody would want to steal. The stacks were for heaps with so many scratches and dents that a few more might go completely unnoticed. The Cadillux could be scraped, dinged, stolen or breathed on wrong in the stacks. Only the worst kind of philistine would park such a beautiful vessel in the holding pen for pig ships!

“That tight little butt could only belong to the Electra Rex,” a gravelly voice sounded behind her.

Electra sat back down and glared at Fizan. Her underworld contact was a Gromphra, essentially an eight-foot-tall cockroach in every despicable sense. Fizan was too large and inflexible to actually sit in the booth, so she stood at the end of the table, inspecting Electra with her dead bug eyes. It wasn’t that Fizan was a particularly vile example of the species—all Gromphra were lecherous and blunt. It was considered a badge of honor to gross out other species—at least, that was what Fizan claimed.

The seemingly transparent shell on the front of Fizan’s torso opened up like a flasher’s raincoat. It was clothing and body armor mixed and wasn’t actually transparent. Within the shell, guns, knives and a dozen other nefarious items were concealed behind the projected image of her chitinous trunk.

“See anything you like?” Fizan asked.

Electra had enough cash on hand to afford a decent gun. A carbine worked best for mercenary work, although a small pistol would be ideal to assassinate Weisella on a crowded dance floor. Shooting anyone or anything wasn’t really her style, and the reality of what she was doing rolled over her in an unpleasant manner, accompanied by a wave of nausea. Electra scrunched her nose while she considered the weapons until she spied something entirely different.

“How much for the ID-clone?”

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About the Author

April C. Griffith

April Griffith is a lesbian, a rogue academic, and a giant nerd. She’s from Oregon, but calls San Diego her home. Her passions include LGBTQ+ political activism, creating safe places for women in Dungeons & Dragons, and writing the books she wanted to read when she was a kid. April worked on the Amazon Gladiator series (Anaxilea: Amazon Princess and Anaxilea: Gladiatrix) under a pen name.

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Review: His Surrogate Omega (Omega Quadrant #1) by Kelex

Omega Gray Tomlinson is positive he’ll remain unmated for the rest of his life. By his mid-thirties, he remains unclaimed and without prospects, and lives confined to the Omega Quadrant, where he’s sure he’ll end up dying alone.

When his older brother, Silver, and Silver’s alpha die in a tragic accident, Gray’s nephews come to live in his little sequestered world. Without an alpha, he knows he has little means to help support the boys. The only choice he can stomach is to offer his services as a surrogate.

The minute Gray meets Jamie, the infertile omega who so desperately wants a child, he senses a bond like none he’s ever felt before. It’s brotherly love at first sight, and Gray decides Jamie is the one, agreeing to carry his and his alpha, Rohan’s, child.

But when circumstances change, Gray is faced with new challenges, a new love interest, and a battle for the very life that grew inside him. And maybe there’s an alpha out there for him after all…

The tight grip I've had on fan fiction over the past year has been deadly. I have read some of the best written works in years during my fan fiction tight hold, creative, plot driven, excellent world-building. And one genre that I prefer fan fic style is ABO. A lot of the published ABO I've found to be more lighter, fluffier and while it's not bad, I don't mind more substance and a good plot.

I've been on a ABO binge lately (if you're on GR you can check my latest read books to see). I've found a lot of well plotted published ABO and haven't been disappointed yet. And this one that I'm reviewing is from a personal read that I am highly recommending. Because it had plot, great characters, angst, and it made me tear up...in fucking public as I read: His Surrogate Omega (Omega Quadrant #1) by Kelex.

Never read this author before but blurb read delicious to my angst loving heart. And I definitely don't mind trying new authors out.

Loved this. Loved it so much that I'll ignore the perfectness at certain parts just because on a whole, this story just works!

Triggers: cancer, death, infertility - lets get those out the way shall we.

In the Omega Quadrant world, omegas are sectioned off in part of land where their rights are restricted. Unless they mate with an alpha, they can't leave. Alphas have their own quadrant (where it's better-go figure) and there's a Family Quadrant where mixed genders reside. Beta are basically neutral parties but aren't revered as they can't procreate.

We start with nearly 35 year old artist omega Gray who hasn't been a prospect for a mate in many years. He's on the shelf and was happy until his omega brother and mate died. Now uncle Gray is guardian of his 3 omega nephews:19, 13 and 10 years old. (Yikes) Omegas can't work in any decent paying respectful jobs, so Gray comes up with one of the few jobs he could do: being a surrogate.

His oldest omega nephew is actually more responsible than Gray, but Gray's getting a crash course raising his nephews and trying to earn money. Gray meets the fabulous Jaime, who is infertile due to illness. The two share a bond in a instant like brothers. And they lean on each other on their journey to surrogacy.

Jaime's alpha, Rohan, however feels immediate attraction to Gray. But what does it mean for his bond? Between Gray and Rohan trying to deny their feelings, Gray's family issues, hell...Jaime's family issues- it kept me so engaged. This story isn't about knotting and omega slick. There's sexy and hormones but that secondary to the overall story. I was invested in their lives and found myself tearing up reading the grief and illness battle.

Is this a love triangle? Eh...no. Is there cheating? I didn't consider it to be.

The characters made an impression that stuck. Yes, there is pain. But the journey and battle made the happily ever after worth it. And I'll probably will reread this very soon. I want more of this world because there seems to be an omega revolution brewing.

I am chomping at the bit for the next in the series. (no pressure to the author) Just know I'll be on book #2 (AVERY and WILDER!) and any more from this series like white on rice.

P.S. Is Vaughn going to have a future book? He comes off as an ass and a half, but maybe he's redeemable? *shrug* He definitely has MUCH growing up to do.

Review: The Empires of Luxor City by Sasha Hope

In the aftermath of his father’s funeral, Dom Wesa, the new Alpha of Luxor City’s Central Empire, stumbles upon an Omega in desperate need of help. The Omega, Lin Vasiliev, wakes to find he’s been taken into Dom’s home to be rehabilitated. Dom thinks the young addict may have information about the illicit drug trade going on in his Empire. He gets Lin sober to question him only to discover that Lin is new in town and ignorant of Luxor’s laws.

Dom and Lin are both suspicious of each other at first for their own reasons, but as that wariness wears away a deep attraction develops between them. Dom dotes on Lin, leaving the once stone-broke Omega bathed in finery he never could have imagined. They start planning for Lin’s upcoming heat, when they will be driven together by their kindling bond and strong compatibility as an Alpha and Omega pair. However, in the midst of their swelling romance, Luxor’s most notorious Alpha reappears sparking a gang war that threatens to turn the entire city into a battleground.

Reading books and me haven't been seeing eye to eye lately. I've been devouring fan fiction in my free time. I've tried a good number of books in the interim but nothing stuck.

The Empires of Luxor by debut (published) author Sasha Hope however was one to finally catch and hold my attention. the blurb definitely is a SRAL magnet = ABO + mafia! Plus, the author is a fan fic writer so, it was a win-win-win on all fronts for me.

Overall, Empires is a solid story. We are thrown into a futuristic world where Alpha/ Beta/ Omega (ABO) society is supreme. The world is reformed after the great wars and Luxor City is the capital of New America. It's an island where gangster like empires run it in three different sectors, north, central and south. And we're thrust into the new leader of the central empire, Dom Wesa's reign. his asshole father just died and he tries to hold the empire together without resorting to drug use. And the illegal drug use leads him to a heroin addicted omega, Lin.

Dom and Lin were a cute pair. There was a little snark, some sass, a heavy dose of fluff with a little bit of action/illegal activity sprinkled in.

This read like fan fiction and I'm not hating on that all! I read lots of fan fic now, so it was super easy to jump into. But I can't rate this higher because I expected something more gritty with the world building and main characters and their positions.

I had a couple of issues:

Lin - he's given the least amount of background. It's disappointing. We don't know nothing of why he left his home. Was he an orphan? Was he running from his troubles? What job did he have? We get the gist of why he turned to drugs for a brief time (kinda quick on shaking the heroin addiction btw) And once he's clean, he goes from shy to vixen? And the pole dancing? It read more gratuitous that helpful to the plot.

The sex scenes between Lin and Dom - Lin has never had a heat partner. And yet he chose Dom, yet the knotting is glossed over and his first time was a bit lackluster. Again, it might be due to the author not fully laying out the ABO rules in this universe - knotting/mating seemed to be a big deal. The secondary couple's sex scene was way better than the main pair and they didn't even have half of the book to fully explore their plot.

The mafia - mmm...other than telling the reader about being gangsters and cool shooting scenes here and there, Dom wasn't all that bad. He was a teddy bear at the end of the day especially since he just took care of a random "junkie" without doing background checks, etc. My fave 'bad guy' was Jimena actually.

Dom/Lin relationship - This is an issue I've read in a number of books. If a bad guy finally lets someone in romantically into their lives, there should be a good enough reason as to why the other person is THE ONE. Dom didn't seem so affected when he clapped eyes on Lin. And vice versa. Dom was kind of standoffish/cold and Lin sort of seemed reserved...why mate so quick if the passion wasn't at an all time high? I can ignore insta-love/mating if the passion each character consumes them (I've read a good number of stories where it's believable) But these two go from 0 to 60 then boom 100. Like the indulgent car or strip club scene? It read more for the reader and less for the characters, which sucks because I wanted to love the main characters. I ended the story being more invested in the secondary characters *cough* Jimena (who I couldn't stop picturing as Jidenna after reading the author's blog post)

Overall, the story is good. It reads lighter than it looks. Good world building, wouldn't mind more backstory about this version of omegas. I'd try this author's future works. They have great ideas.

Guest Review: Paid to Pretend (Delphic Agency #5) by Romilly King

Christian De Olio, natural-born Boy Scout, head of the Delphic Security Team, exemplary son of a wealthy family, pretends every day of his life.

He pretends he is sexless in a world where arousal rules.

He pretends that he works for Delphic because it was the obvious choice after his time in the army.

He pretends that whenever he listens to the far-off voice of Michael Bond, the long-absent Director of Delphic, it doesn’t take him right back to one night 15 years ago. To the one night, he didn’t pretend. To the one night, he was himself.

And then the Director comes home, and Christian isn’t sure he can pretend anymore. Not when Michael looks at him the way he does, with such disappointment, because Christian can endure anything except being a disappointment to Michael.

Particularly when he thought he was doing so well.

Reviewer: Shee Reader

I have enjoyed all the Delphic books so far and this was no exception. It was rather different to the others, mainly because the story was of the elusive boss of Delphic. Michael Bond has been ‘missing’ and controlling his business at a distance for fifteen years. He left behind Christian, because he didn’t want to take the boy’s future. When in fact, all Christian had wanted was Michael to be his everything.

The time apart has been hard for both men, and now working together in the same special place that was once their joy, it is certain that their paths will cross. Is their connections still as strong and all encompassing as it once was?

The threat comes from an underground ‘Dom’ ring that abducts and abuses young men must be infiltrated by a strong Dom and skilful sub. Of course Michael and Christian have to step up to help protect the innocent and the lifestyle that means so much to them both.

The connection between them is sizzling. The relationship and real second chance at finding what they both want. I found Michael rather infuriating for his making decisions for Christian without communicating to him, but that’s a Dom I guess!

I really liked Christian and was so impressed by his willingness to forgive Michael for abandoning him, even though Michael left for what he felt were the right reasons. Christian was amazing for being willing to trust Michael again and their HEA was such a relief!

Such a moving story! Recommended.

I received a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Guest Review: Paid to Be Shared (Delphic Agency #3) by Romilly King

BIRCH is the sweetest sub at Delphic, but can he stretch himself enough to satisfy two Doms? Will they share him or break him?

When a pair of demanding doms need the perfect submissive to share they place a contract with the Delphic Agency.

Their needs are very different; Ivo is the master of pushing limits whilst Griffin is gentle but intense. Can one sub ever be enough to satisfy them and for how long?

Birch will always try his hardest, it’s in his nature, but how can he retain a professional distance when they each arouse such different passions in him and together, well together, they overwhelm him.

Reviewer: Shee Reader

This book was a new to me author, and starting out with a third in the series doesn’t always work, even with stand alone, but this book was the exception.

I found the assumption that the reader knew the world it was written within took a while to get used to, but once I was up to speed I thoroughly enjoyed the writing. The story is set in a relatable far future with the Delphic Agency available to those who can afford its services.

The story leads with a paid submissive being considered for a very challenging contract. A married pair of Doms who worked as a couple, but weren’t meeting each other's needs completely. The relationship between the married men was a warm and charming one, where each man had made sacrifices to stay in a committed relationship, and the dynamic was interesting and charming, but the relationship could have been so much more. Enter Birch. The sweetest sub at Delphic, and a dancer ready to take on the challenge.

Birch accepts the contract and meets the Doms at their home and here starts an up and down twisting tale with a delightfully satisfying HEA, eventually!

The writing was crisp and enjoyable, the character led story was charming with teasing glimpses into perhaps the next book in the series? All round, I loved the book and will definitely look out for more work by this author.

I was given a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Giveaway + Blog Tour: The Empires of Luxor City by Sasha Hope

💘 Happy Valentine's Day! 💝

Celebrate by checking out the deets on this ABO LGBTQ urban fantasy, The Empires of Luxor City, brought to you by author Sasha Hope and IndiGo Marketing. Find out more about this NineStar Press release, read an excerpt, check out the author's playlist inspired by the debut novel and enter in the giveaway for a signed paperback copy of your very own!

Title: The Empires of Luxor City

Author: Sasha Hope

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: February 3, 2020

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 77400

Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy, LGBT, futuristic, crime/thriller, family-drama, urban fantasy, alpha/omega, gangsters, criminal underworld, reunited, crossdressing, hurt/comfort

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Synopsis

Excerpt

The Empires of Luxor City

There had never been fewer tears shed at
a funeral.

It was strange. Crowds had wailed at
funerals for worse men, but not a single soul in Luxor City wept for Malik
Wesa, a business magnate who’d left behind a wife and two sons. They just stood
there, all of them staring straight ahead with cold black eyes as the funeral
director rolled the old man’s coffin into the crematory. Visible through a tiny
char-stained window, the man who’d once been their leader burned down to ash
and bone until there was nothing left of him but dust.

Shaking the image from his mind, Dom
Wesa walked out through a wrought-iron fence and left the inner-city funeral
home. He buried his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat and made his way
back across the busy city streets toward his office on the east side of town.

A chill rolled off the water near the
docks as the year moved into fall. Dom originally drove to the funeral home
with the rest of the family, but he couldn’t bear to spend another second with
them even if it meant enduring the icy wind.

When a family member dies, all too often
they are given a whole new life story. This was a universal truth Dom struggled
to wrap his head around. There weren’t any tears at his father’s funeral, but
there were enough artificial words of kindness to make him grit his teeth and
bite his tongue until his eyes watered.

They all loved to mention how hard
things would be for Dom with his father gone; how much weight would now fall on
his shoulders.

Dom wanted to laugh. He’d been running
this town without his old man’s help for ages. The death of the man he had
stopped calling father a long time ago wouldn’t change a thing in his
day-to-day life; it just made his position more official. Dom was now the
eldest Alpha of the Wesa family, one of the great crime families in Luxor City,
the capital of New America.

Decades back, when the government’s
power over New America first started to crumble, the gangs of Luxor City went
to war, fighting for control over the expansive city’s lucrative ports. As Dom
walked through the streets, he passed the remnants of that conflict in the form
of bullet holes etched into brick walls that lined the sidewalks and
boulevards. Luxor hadn’t always been a haven of prosperity. These wounds were
stark reminders that they should not let war tear their city apart again.
They’d been preserved during reconstruction.

After years of brutality and gangland
warfare, the dust finally settled over the metropolitan battleground. Only three
factions were left in a city divided by chaos. They brokered a peace treaty, a
deal that divided Luxor into three Empires, each ruled firmly by the Alpha
heads of the surviving crime families: Wesa in the Center, Faraji in the North,
and Sun in the South.

Dom Wesa was the sole Alpha heir to the
Central Empire, a great strip of land stretching from the high-rises along the
city’s eastern ports all the way to the cliffs on the western coast. Their
portion of city was the smallest, but the Center also included the West Island,
the final stretch of green pasture and woodland in Luxor, a place where only
the wealthiest families could afford acreage.

Sila Wesa, the family’s Omega matriarch,
still maintained an estate there. She would probably return home once the
ladder-climbing mourners all left her in peace. As an Omega, she was expected
to stay home and mourn her Alpha’s death for at least a year. Dom hated
thinking of her returning to that vast hollow estate, but she wouldn’t be
alone. She had his younger brother, Atsadi, with her.

Maybe they could be happy there now, but
Dom couldn’t stand the place.

He made his way to his portside office,
the private sanctuary where he conducted the family business, far removed from
his father’s offices across from the luxury hotels and nightclubs downtown. It
was an old-fashioned Deco-style building, relatively small compared to Luxor’s
expansive high-rises, but taller than the nearby brownstone residences lining
the old dock’s edge.

Dom entered through the public hall and
took the stairs to his office instead of his private elevator. He couldn’t
stand still, not even for a minute, not until he got a drink in him.

His office took up most of the fifth
floor. A large window lined the street-facing wall, giving him a view of his
docks and businesses as well as the swaying blue horizon of the Pacific Ocean.

Ships pulled in and out, always coming
and going. The ports were the center of all business in Luxor. They had been
around since the city’s foundation and wrapped around the entire coastline,
enclosing Luxor in a circle of docks extending out into the water like a sea
urchin’s spikes. It was a well-known fact that he who controlled the ports,
controlled the trade, and he who controlled the trade, controlled the city.

Dom was fond of the old portside
architecture. He had always been keen on the brutalist, Deco styles of ancient
cities. He even decorated his office to match with polished wood and geometric
patterns of gold emblazoned on black surfaces.

Inside the familiar space he’d made his
own, he poured himself a glass of whisky from a decanter on his side table. He
took a good long swig before taking a seat in the plush leather chair behind
his mahogany desk.

Sighing heavily, he closed his eyes
until a quiet thud on his desk drew them open again.

A thin newssheet folded down the middle
sat in the center of his desk. Images flashed across its holographic surface.
Dom recognized himself, his brother, and his mother in more than one. Fucking
paparazzi.

The Luxor City Times headline read:
Death of Malik Wesa leaves Central Empire in hands of son, Dominik.

Dom stared at the paper with a deadpan
expression. Unblinking, he took another sip of his drink.

“Somehow I figured you’d be back in the
office today.”

Dom’s gaze shifted in the direction of
the voice.

His right-hand woman, Isa Saqui, stood
over his desk smirking down at him.

Isa had been Dom’s eyes and ears ever
since terminal illness took his old man out of power and put Dom in charge. She
was an Alpha, a member of the dominant sex, like everyone in his inner circle.
Isa stood tall, a muscular and imposing woman with angular bone structure
casting dramatic shadows over her olive skin. Her long hair was tied in an
intricate brunette braid that fell over one shoulder.

Dom turned away from her and picked up
the newssheet. Without giving it another glance, he tossed it back across the
desk toward her.

“The headline is hilarious,” he muttered
before taking another drink.

Isa chuckled as she snatched the thin
device back up.

“Isn’t it?” she said as she examined the
article. “I mean, it’s not even news. Your old man hadn’t been running shit for
years.”

Dom huffed.

It was true. Even before his father’s
illness, Dom had been in charge, but Malik’s stint in the hospital had truly
put him in power. In under a year, he’d earned the city’s respect and made vast
alterations throughout the Central Empire to counter his father’s ineffective
rule. Dom had always been in control; nothing would change now Malik Wesa was
gone.

“We shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,”
Dom said, smiling around the rim of his glass.

“Then let’s talk business.” Isa grinned
like a shark. “Because I haven’t got anything good to say about the old
bastard. How was his funeral, by the way?”

Dom simply shrugged in response. “Let’s
talk business.”

With another snort of a laugh, Isa
pulled out her phone and started going over a list of the day’s imports. The
ships had come in on time, and their guys on the docks were already warehousing
their “product,” storing it until it could be shipped throughout Luxor.

“So, we finally received those luxury
cars we’ve been waiting for, two weeks late, but that’s the Southern trade
route for you. Same shipment had a few crates of unprocessed opium—”

Dom cut in with gritted teeth, “Make
sure that goes straight to the labs. Apart from heat suppressants, I don’t want
to see that shit on my streets.”

“Already done.” Isa hardly even glanced
up from her phone. “The independent Omegas of Luxor are already thanking you.
You truly are a hero, Dom, providing them with suppressants and saving them
from their dreaded heats. Less mating means more working. Off your backs and on
your feet. That can be your campaign slogan.”

Dom eyed Isa, trying to gauge her level
of sarcasm before gesturing for her to carry on with a short huff of amusement.

“What else?”

“Firearms from the mainland,” Isa said
before listing off the models and manufacturers. “About half of this shipment
is being sold to the Sun family in the south. They’ve got an underground trade
problem on their hands.”

In the south of Luxor City, the Sun
family controlled the majority of the city’s ports, but only imported from the
Second Continent, across the western seas. This made them an excellent trading
partner for Dom whose eastern ports shipped to and from New America. Whenever
the Southern Empire wanted products from the New American mainland, Dom was
their man, and when he needed Second Continent shipments, he knew just who to
ask.

“All right.” Dom stood from his chair,
rubbing his hands together. “The agent from the Sun family will want to see the
guns before we truck them over. I’ll call—” Dom stopped abruptly when a terse
shout erupted from the streets below, loud enough to resonate through the glass
window and into his fifth-floor office.

“What the hell was that?” Isa asked with
a furrowed brow.

Dom walked over to glare out of the
window. They were right above the lobby, so a glance down offered a clear view
of the ground below.

Across the street, a young man stumbled
along the sidewalk. Even from the distance, Dom could tell there was something
off about him. He swayed with each step, unable to keep to a straight line and
using one hand to balance himself against the wall of the opposite building to
keep from falling over.

He disappeared into an alleyway, followed
closely by another man. This much larger man was the one shouting furiously as
he marched into the narrow passage after the boy.

Dom turned from the window and grabbed
his coat. Without a backward glance, he stormed out of his office.

“Dom? Hey! What the hell was that?” Isa
repeated as he passed. She tried calling after him again, but he was already
out of the door.

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PLAYLIST

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/75AvU4CYJZz49VcWkRbnWm
Images from Unsplash

I always make a playlist when I’m writing. This isn’t music I listen to while I’m writing, it’s music that inspired certain aspects of the novel. Those pieces could be anything from characters to locations. There are quite a few songs from the album ‘Chief Don’t Run’ by Jidenna that almost entirely inspired the character Jimena. There’s Kpop because this is a speculative future and I have no doubt that genre is going to keep growing worldwide. And then there’s ‘Gangsta’ by Kehlani, a song that probably first sparked up the initial concept for ‘The Empires of Luxor City’, an Alpha gangster who saves a young Omega off the streets. Music is a huge inspiration for me! I can’t wait to start working on the next playlist… and my next novel!

P.S. Can you tell which songs inspired the erotica? ;P

Meet the Author

Sasha Hope is a lover of story, art and design based in Canada. As a writer and an artist, she enjoys having the opportunity to create new characters and build new worlds for readers to explore. Having studied linguistics and a myriad of languages from a young age, she is passionate about including characters of different backgrounds in her work. Whether the setting is fantasy or reality, she believes that a diverse cast with diverse languages and cultures is a wonderful thing.

Crafting stories that embrace MM romance and erotica is her modus operandi. When she is not creating new worlds she is travelling this one looking for inspiration or enjoying her career in the videogame industry.