Amber

This is the way the world ends...for the last time. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the Earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

I know how to handle men who won't take no for an answer, but Silas isn't a man. He's a beast who takes what he wants, as long and hard and savagely as he pleases, and tonight, he wants me. He's not even pretending he's going to be gentle. He's going to ravage me, and it's going to hurt.

Thirty-one, recently divorced, and behind on the mortgage for my farm, I scrape my last savings together and buy myself a farmhand. That big, horned alien I end up with? He’s a Vandalar saikh, a male concubine, and he wants to plow more than just my fields. Guess I should have read the fine print of the purchase contract better because the trader refuses to take him back. Now I’m stuck with weed-infested fields, red letters from the bank, and a guy who says he studied one million ways to please a female. (His words, it’s not like I’m going to count...)

We’d heard rumors about the Vandar raiders — everyone in the galaxy had. Terrifying and ruthless, they were a scourge on the Zagrath empire and destroyed everything in their path. Few had actually laid eyes on the Vandar or the notorious warlords who led their fleets of warships — and survived to talk about it. So, when the ruthless aliens boarded our ship intent on destroying it and killing the crew, I did the only thing I could do. I gave myself to the dark and menacing warlord.

I conquered her planet and pillaged her body. Now I’m back for her heart. A decade ago, I brought war to Solgad, home of the Jal’zar. I sacked the planet and slaughtered the people, all to save my race from extinction. Until one of their female warriors hissed defiance, promising me death at her hands no matter how her body longed for mine. Each night, she came to end me, only to succumb to the raw urges of her mating heat. Each night, I gave her hungry womb what it needed, the way we coupled neither safe nor sane. I was the enemy she couldn’t kill.

My female matches two Vetusians: me, and the warrior she just killed. Fate is unpredictable. One moment I lose my destined female. The very next, I walk in on the kill of the other male who intended to claim her. For the Empire, the punishment for murder is death; her execution inevitable. Until I steal Katie and her daughter away to Odheim. A planet where all the ugliness of the universe comes together, including the darkest memories of my past. I’m a sgu’dal, an ex-addict. The shame of the healer stratum. But unsuitable, I am not, and now is the time for me to prove it.

She’s everything I shouldn’t want. I capture her anyway. What humans hail an invasion we call Garrison Earth: A mission to save our species from extinction. But while my warriors will soon have the stomachs of their new mates swell with daughters, I know this planet holds nothing for me. Until a fierce, red-haired female points her gun with her eyes blazing fire, and I know I have found my mate. A bullet and a tranquilizer pad later, I carry her in my arms. Against my better judgment. But who argues fate?

The Laconian Empire has fallen, setting the 1,300 solar systems free from the rule of Winston Duarte. But the ancient enemy that killed the gate builders is awake, and the war against our universe has begun again.

Getting abducted by aliens wasn’t exactly on Cara Call’s bucket list…so when she’s taken captive by a massive, overbearing alien warrior, she comes out with fists blazing. Too bad her new captor is about as wicked and delicious as they come…nipple piercings, scars, and all. Devix was once a proud warrior of Luxiria - impossibly strong, universally feared, and full of carnal lusts and desires befitting his race.

Maisy Cunningham was the youngest doctor to graduate from the Fleet Academy, but that doesn’t stop the rest of the crew from treating her like a helpless little sister. Maisy’s had enough of their coddling and volunteers to take a dangerous assignment on a rebel spaceship with a bunch of pirates to prove she’s just as strong and capable as the rest of the Earther crew.