Showing results by narrator "J. S. Arquin" in All Categories

Trouble is dead. Long live trouble. Killing the leader of a violent cult was supposed to make the city a safer place, but instead it created a power imbalance that’s left a deadly war raging in the streets of Bulari. When Willem Jaantzen is approached for help by local casino magnate Phaera D, he has the sinking feeling the only way to end this war is to betray the people he loves the most. And he’s starting to suspect that Phaera wants more from him than just his help. Whatever decision he makes feels like the wrong one.

The war in the north is coming to an end, but more and more it seems neither brother, Arthur nor Sebastian, will end as the true victor. The priest Luther rallies an army of Karak, his aims unclear. Further north, Cyric continues to proclaim himself a god, and his followers are many. Caught between two enemies, Darius and Jerico must stand together to prevent the destruction of everything they hold dear.

Having fled the defeat at the Green Gulch, Darius and Jerico, believing themselves the last two paladins of their kind, must separate once more in order to survive. While Jerico rushes to the aid of Lord Arthur and the siege at his Castle of Caves, Darius travels east, determined to remove the bounty on his head. But on his way, he encounters a young priest following an older way of faith, whose desire for their return will risk destruction upon all the North. Sacrifice must be made in blood.

Charles is a low level drug runner with a small crew. While taking a lunch break at a strip mall, they end up in a bizarre fight with their German Shepard morphing into a manbeast and the old lady at the pizza parlor opening a vortex to escape with one of his crewmembers. As he searches for answers he learns the organization he works for is run by aliens. When an extraction team shows up to save him from near death, he finds himself on a different planet; and the leader of an almost extinct race.

Willem Jaantzen didn't ask to be a hero. He just wants to keep his family safe in the shifting sands of Bulari's underground - and to get the city's upper crust to acknowledge just how far he's come since his days as an orphaned street kid. With his businesses thriving and his dark past swept into the annals of history, it looks like he has everything he could ever ask for. Until, that is, his oldest rival turns up murdered and the blame - and champagne - begins to flow.

Admiral James Henry has traded a war of weapons for one cloaked in diplomacy as leader of the fledgling Independent Systems Fleet. Fighting alongside the Terran Coalition to rid the Sagittarius Arm of tyranny was the easy part. Now forced into the political arena, he’s never missed the freewheeling spacer’s life more.

The second wave of the Siberian Flu catches the country completely unprepared. Instead of killing the old and frail, the young and healthy are dropping . . . in hours, not days. Kate, a new doctor, will sacrifice everything to break her and her sister free from a controlling stepfather and a dead-end small town existence. Moments from landing the critical job she needs, St. Louis falls apart around her.

Both sisters are trapped. Kate fights to escape a city with closing borders as the leaders desperately try to contain the outbreak. Betrayed by family and embroiled in the chaos of an organized crime syndicate, Alisa struggles to get out before she breaks under the unbearable strain. Even if she escapes, Kate still faces miles of lawless country with dangers even worse than the virus. Back home, Alisa can’t turn her back on the other trapped victims and is determined to find a way to save them all.

Hundreds of deadly miles stand between Kate and her sister fighting for her life back home. Kate fights through the desperate people and a terrain that becomes more treacherous by the day. No longer waiting to be rescued, Alisa braves the powerful cabal that has taken over their small town and risks her own life to protect the innocent. The sisters can’t give up. They won’t. No matter the cost.

Helping a holy order find a missing sister should be a simple enough job—and Ruby owes the Aymaya Apostles everything after they took her and her brother in as children. Simple enough, until the missing holy sister's trail takes an unexpected turn, landing Ruby and the rest of the crew in the middle of a high-society soirée—and into the crosshairs of Ruby's ex, Kitty. Something sinister is lurking beneath the surface of whatever Kitty and the holy sister are caught up in, and the skills of the entire crew are put to the test when they go head-to-head with the ultimate con artist.

When a ghost from Lasadi’s past hires the crew of the Nanshe to find a crashed plane with mysterious origins, they take the job despite the troubling client. The good news? The cover story is Lasadi's childhood dream: flying in the Liluri Star Run, a wildly popular off-the-grid race through the Liluri Mountains. Soaring through emerald jungle canyons in search of their prize—and the fabled Blood River—this job has the potential to do more than net these five misfits a payday. It could turn them into a real crew.

The common people have become the currency, outlaws have shifted to mercenaries, and freedom is no more than a thought of the past. Fear, violence, slavery—throughout his adult life, Barloc has known no other way. A quarter of a century has passed since King Sclavus decreed slavery legal in the Kingdom of Kuldaire, certain it was the only way to keep the economy strong. When Barloc is sold to Lord Harbor, his new owner offers queer promises of freedom, promises only King Sclavus can honor after a thirty-day trial.

Build, train, drill, and prepare has become the mantra of the Terran Coalition’s newest member worlds. As warships roll out of orbital shipyards for shakedown cruises and classes of new recruits graduate, Major General David Cohen reminds all of their singular resolve: destroy the nanite scourge. Despite bringing together once bitter enemies and saving countless souls from oppressive regimes, David questions his decisions after each battlefield incursion as the stack of condolence letters rises.

Amid exhausting preparations for a battle to end all battles, Major General David Cohen celebrates a momentous event. At long last he’s tying the knot. The good news keeps coming as enmity between rival worlds of Sextans B has vanished, drawn together to confront the sinister swarm.

Major General David Cohen must accept the truth. It’s only a matter of time before the nanite swarm obliterates all life in the galaxy. With irrefutable evidence of the swarm’s devastation, David convinces twin alien worlds to join the Terran Coalition in exchange for technology that might save them.

Home is on everyone’s minds, but none so much as General David Cohen. The weight of the universe grows heavier with each passing week as the CSV Lion of Judah searches the Sextans B galaxy for answers to how they ended up four million light-years off course. But all they find are more questions as one solar system after another turns up empty.

Haunted space stations? Puzzling totems? Cursed relics? No job's too bizarre for the crew of the Nanshe. Lasadi doesn't like strangers on her ship, but she'll need a bigger crew if she's going to steal a mysterious artifact from a dead pirate's long-lost space station. She takes a chance on a charming grifter named Raj, along with a skilled hacker and her genius little brother. And it's . . . nice? If Lasadi isn't careful, she's going to start enjoying having a crew aboard.

On Earth, Logan Specter was the estranged scion of a tech billionaire, living a life of leisure, art his primary passion. That is, until the day his ruthless and ambitious father, Malcolm, grew weary of his son's inertia and had him surgically spliced with a powerful AI program. Now, with a superintelligent computer fused to his brain, Logan has become humankind's last hope in the face of annihilation.

The wild storms are getting worse, pounding San Francisco and changing everyone in their path. For Val Keri, the friend she has today may be tomorrow's enemy. Or worse....

For centuries, the wizards of the north have pretended to be gods. They call themselves Odin, Thor, and more but Gage knows they are only men—men with magic who oppress those without it. But that time is coming to an end.