October Updates
Happy Halloween!
Early, but I wasn’t waiting until the last day to send out my newsletter lol
I am so happy to say that the editing for Verdant is going incredibly well! I’m over halfway done and I’m seeking beta readers to get this ready for publication asap. You may have seen my poll on IG about whether readers preferred illustrated or typography covers. Illustrated won by a long shot!
I definitely can’t afford the same artist as Bare Your Teeth & Sharpen Your Claws. That hit my wallet hard, and while it made its money back sales have been rough for a lot of us indie authors this year. Understandably so. I might do what I did with Speak the Truth and get character art done then edit the wrap around myself, but only time will tell.
I’m not sure when to expect publication. I will have my first round of editing done this week, then there needs to be time for beta reading, editing, and finally ARCs. Maybe January would be a good guess for ARCs? I don’t think I’d want to risk having ARCs out during the holidays. And speaking of early copies, I will be using a different service. You won’t need an account for this one. I’ll be using bookfunnel, so all you need is your email and an ARC will be sent to you, so hopefully that’s easier for everyone.
Now, as thanks for waiting, let me present the VERY ROUGH summary for Verdant, as well as the first chapter. If sci-fi isn’t your cup of tea, don’t worry, this is heavy on the romance, so really the occasional fight involves blasters instead of swords and shuttles instead of horses lol
Enjoy~
Summary:
Ethin “Lucky” Katlan doesn’t take orders, so one might wonder why he sold his life to be a lapdog to the Intergalactic Militia. The answer isn’t that simple, and Lucky isn’t that interested in sharing, especially with Roys Malik, the annoyingly attractive and rule-following commanding officer always on his ass.
When a job gone wrong results in the two of them being lost on a planet where the flora wants to eat them, their bitter relationship takes a lustful turn. Lucky learns Roys can order him to do a great deal of things, so long as clothes are off. What starts as good sex to pass the monotonous days becomes an unexpected pathway to divulging the worst and most hidden aspects of themselves.
A story about messy men, inescapable past, futures we dare to wish for, and unraveling the hearts of cowards, this spicy MM romance will tug at the heartstrings and make you want to spend a rousing night under the stars.
Chapter One
The Planet unfurled below like a blossom during the first spring. Not that I knew what spring looked like, having been born in a colony. Changing the seasons in a place that never saw a sun would have been a waste, and so, I fought Ryker for a window seat.
I didn’t expect there to be so much green in all the universe, let alone on a single planet. The color reached across the land, and as the clouds dispersed, blue greeted us, an ocean wide as could be. The Planet, titled something completely fucking ridiculous that we ignored because we wouldn’t be capable of pronouncing it anyway, resembled what Earth once was, based on the adverts. Land and water, serene and full of life, spread upon its surface, entirely untouched by colonization.
“Breaching lower atmo,” the shuttle’s gravely com declared.
The seatbelt light blinked on, painting the cabin in crimson. An alarm went whump, whump, whump, and the engines sounded more of a beast than metal.
“When we land, no one leaves the shuttle without my say-so,” Roys said from the front of the cabin.
“Yes, sir,” the group agreed, except me. I kept my attention on the porthole.
“Ethin,” Roys warned in that low voice that made my teeth grind.
“Lucky,” I corrected.
“Repeat my last order.”
Beside me, Ryker laughed and earned a fist to the gut.
“No one leaves the shuttle without your oh so special permission,” I said.
Roys’ eyes rivalled space itself. Practically black from a distance, and a deep, unreal blue if one dared to risk proximity. The many scars across his needlessly attractive face made him all the more intimidating. Each scar spoke of a battle that he survived and most of us wouldn’t have. The shadow of a beard formed along his square jaw, always set firm.
“Good. Now share with the group what our mission is, so I know you paid attention back on Main,” he ordered.
More snickering bled from the group. Twenty-four soldiers spread throughout the rattling cabin. The red lights hastened, signaling the upcoming landing. The shuttle’s timer blinked at fifty seconds. Roys would make us wait long after landing if I didn’t follow orders. Mostly because I didn’t follow orders.
But this time I would, because I had never felt fresh air on my face or grass or unfiltered water, and no bootlicking captain with an attitude problem would impede that.
“We’ve been sent to neutralize all threats within a ten-click radius of the habitat to ensure the safety of all future tenants. Our biggest threat, based on scans, is not the animals that inhabit The Planet, but the flora. We are never to go out in less than a group of two, and we must all report our findings to you immediately to ensure our safety and that of the survey team that will join us in two weeks,” I said without breaking eye contact.
Ryker whistled and blocked my punch to the gut that time.
“Twenty seconds to landing,” the shuttle comms announced.
Satisfied, and far too smug, Roys turned away.
Annoying fucker.
We abandoned the cloud cover to observe the flora we were so warned about. Corporate’s report didn’t have more than a dozen dangerous flora listed because that was the most the droids gained prior to being demolished. Initially, Corporate believed animals tore the droids to shreds. After vid feed returned detailing the eradication of an unfortunate droid, they learned flora caused the varying degrees of violent demise.
The flora of this world were peculiar creations, an array of plants ranging from gleaming orange bulbs that caught fire to their surroundings when agitated, to towering structures with stems as thick as a grown man’s waist and broad tops where tendrils snatched prey to be wrenched into the canopy and dissolved little by little.
A particularly nasty flora paraded itself as an agreeable yellow flower that, when approached, ripped out of the soil to reveal a monster of rooted decay that enjoyed ripping the flesh off its victims and devouring their innards. That video, involving a regrettable rabbit-like creature, made the entire troop sick to their stomachs.
The shuttle landed in a field previously cleared by droids, the remnants of which were sprinkled about. From the window, their remains studded the landscape, broken hands and feet protruding from the loose soil. Grass and moss ravaged their exoskeletons, making the droids appear as if they had been there for decades rather than a month.
The Company didn’t lend the best of the best AI to non-colonized planets. Too much risk of losing big tech like security units. They didn’t consider droids much of a loss, or us, so the militia investigated instead.
The shuttle landed with a lurch. Arana hurled into a bag. Her stomach never enjoyed landing. She wiped the remnants of sick from her mouth and launched to her feet.
“Don’t give the captain a hard time.” Arana retrieved her canteen to wash out her mouth. She spat into the pack, then brushed her teeth. She always carried a toothbrush for potential shuttle rides.
“He’s going to be more pissy than usual, and I am in no mood to run the perimeter when we could be snatched by who knows what to be eaten nice and slow.” Arana leaned over the seat to seize me by the collar. “I have two good women waiting for me back home, and if I do not get to fuck them again before I die, I will kill you myself.”
Smacking her hand away, I said, “Good to know that sex is more important than our friendship.”
“You bet your ass it is. I haven’t had a decent fucking since we left the last port.” Arana gave a great sigh, her eyes drifting to Iylene lifting their packs out of the overhead compartment. “If I weren’t in a closed polycule, I would jump your bones tonight.”
Iylene spoke with no inflection in their voice, as Aevid’s often did. “If you tried, I would shoot you.”
Aevid’s were known for two things; apathy and shedding. The latter of which I could have gone my whole life without seeing, but unfortunately, Iylene shed once a year, leaving remnants of their skin throughout the barracks. Had a horrendous smell too, like baked rotten meat.
At the front of the cabin, Roys stood. The captain wasn’t the tallest guy on the shuttle but certainly had the most presence. He had been on more tours than the rest of us and to planets far more deadly than most.
Ryker always tried to sneak into the captain’s bunk because he swore the man purposefully bought shirts a size too small so they’d struggle to contain his figure. Arana argued the guy was just big, and I agreed with her. Roys was made entirely of muscle, spite, and a pinch of dick. Arana disagreed about the pinch, but her attempt to convince me to sneak up on Roys in the shower to prove otherwise never worked.
“Our priority is securing the area so we can set up the habitat and energy shield,” the captain said in a booming voice. His commands always sounded as such — words that shouldn’t be ignored. “I’m sending your orders through the commlink, which must remain on at all times.”
The commlinks flashed. Ryker, Iylene, Arana, Lilea, Zavir, and I were together. Over the years, most of the troops found their groups and stuck to them. As much as Roys could be a pain in the ass, he understood breaking apart units never brought desirable outcomes.
“Visors on.” Roys took his from under his arm.
Visors started as a face mask that spread over and down our necks to connect with our exoskin. The Planet had a breathable atmosphere for all species aboard the shuttle. However, because of the heat, humidity, and unexpected threats, gear remained on.
When Roys next spoke, it came through our connected visor comms. “Follow your orders and watch each other’s backs.”
The shuttle doors buzzed and descended into light and heat that our exoskins couldn’t wholly cool. The humidity put a fog on the visors. Silhouettes piled down the ramp into the world beyond. My visor adjusted to the abrupt brightness, and I stepped out.
Flora surrounded the field, of all colors and shapes, spiraled and puffy, tall and thin, budding and sleeping, but all their caps striving to reach the suns. Two of them danced in the sky, one to the east and the other to the west. Real light, nothing artificial about any of it, that I wanted nothing more than to touch my bare skin.
“Move along,” said Roys.
Over my shoulder, the captain paused in the shuttle’s threshold, taking up half the opening. Soldiers marched past. My visor wasn’t on blackout, so I offered a contrived smile. Zavir and I argued over beers that Roys couldn’t smile because he was secretly an android in disguise that hadn’t figured out how humans worked. Again, no one has tested the theory.
Slogging along, I descended to stand on an actual planet. This would make my fifth tour, but it was the first planetary one. Born and raised in a colony, I had always been on a mining vessel leeching off asteroids. I breathed recycled air, drank recycled water, and saw flora on adverts or the incredibly rare and expensive flowers that decorated the upper circle’s yards. The richest of the rich lived there, the ones who worked for The Company that survived off the asteroid materials my people mined. And now there I was waltzing along The Company’s future venture because no one ever really escaped them.
I joined my group before Roys could do anything to piss me off. Lilea and Zavir came last while the droids took more time unloading. Everyone had their duties on their commlink. When I opened ours, I growled, but Arana was the one to whisper, “What the fuck? Why do we have habitat duty?”
“Because Lucky is in our group and Roys hates him,” said Zavir with an eager hop. All four of his hands spread out in a display of excitement. “Once again, your luck is helping us out.”
“In what way?” Arana countered. “We’re stuck with the droids that could put the place up without our help.”
A screen popped on all our visors about a flora the droids encountered prior to being smashed. The flora stood tall with a single thick bloom that hung low from the top of the stalk. That bloom opened to reveal petals lined by teeth as thick as our arms.
“Do you want to risk running into that?” Zavir asked, each of his four gold eyes locking on a different person. “I sure don’t, so let’s enjoy setting up the habitat and getting in a nap before the captain returns.”
“I like that idea,” said Lilea, who wandered over to the habitat materials.
I wasn’t entirely against the idea of setting up base, but following Roys’ orders always put me in a foul mood. He’d been with us a little more than a month and acted like he owned us. Every superior officer did, having those sticks of superiority rammed too far up their asses for it to ever be pleasurable.
“Don’t make that face, Lucky. Think of it this way.” Ryker swung an arm around my neck. “The captain isn’t here to breathe down our necks. We’re likely to have most of the day without him.”
“True, and if my name holds out, one of the flora will eat him,” I replied.
“Let’s hope you’re extra lucky today.” Laughing, Ryker departed to join the others.
Around us, soldiers traveled into the flora, disappearing among the thick and unknown jungle. At my feet, grass sprouted to brush against my ankles. I fell to my knees and ran my hands over the grass, yearning to feel it, so I removed my visor and fell forward. The grass touched my cheeks, cool and wet. I wondered how humans supposedly came from such beauty and why they would ever destroy it.
Selling thirty years of my life was entirely worth this.
I realy resonate with what you wrote about the covers; like choosing a new book for my evening reading, I'm always drawn in by the visual first, so I'm very excited to see what you craft for Verdant.