Here’s the link to the Weekend Writing Warriors central page, so you can visit all the participants sharing excerpts today…a fun way to sample new books and find new authors! (Also welcome to the Sunday Snippet visitors!)

May be edited a bit from published version.

I’m Taking excerpts from my new release KYDEN: BADARI GLADIATORS SERIES BOOK ONE.

The excerpt, from the beginning of the book, after Kyden went to investigate an outcry in the gladiators’ assembly room and found two women who say their presence is a mistake. He takes the girls to his cell. As the top gladiator in the Five Systems, he has more of a room than most and a private bathroom. Continuing on from last week…

Easing back in his chair, Kyden shook his head. “I’m something entirely different and we were talking about your sister not me. I won’t deny the occasional wife or girlfriend manages to sneak in here for a night to see their man, after bribing the guards and Big L a year’s worth of purse money, but we’ve never had noble born girls on a spree. Utter foolishness.”

“I don’t disagree. I think Diandre was set up. From what she told me as we were transported here, all her friends begged off or failed to meet at the agreed-upon place, except for one, who pretended friendship and then abandoned her once inside the holding pen at the whorehouse and wasn’t seen again. Diandre said she was sharing feelgoods with this other girl to give themselves courage. I don’t know what she was taking.”

“And she actually believed she’d be able to simply meet the fighters and then walk away unmolested?” He couldn’t keep all of his disbelief out of his voice.

“Bored, rich nobleborns do stupid things sometimes,” Elara said.

“Young ones do anyway.”

“I think she was set up, in order to embarrass our father. He has a big speech soon in the Senate and having one of his daughters found in this situation would be ruinous.” Elara swallowed hard. “I heard about this escapade of hers almost too late to intervene. When I got to the whorehouse and tried to extract Diandre, I ended up inside the pen as well. The guards derived much amusement from abducting the sister of a whore, which they assumed Diandre was since she was already in the pen. No one paid any attention to my protests. Well, other than you, for which, thank you again.”

“My people are sworn to protect those smaller and weaker than ourselves,” he said.

“Except for other gladiators?” Her laugh was a rich sound inviting him to share her amusement and Kyden kept his composure with great effort.

VS Note: Oh he’s falling fast and hard here…but she’s a Senator’s daughter…

KYDEN: BADARI GLADIATORS SERIES BOOK ONE by Veronica Scott

Kyden is the top ranked gladiator in the Five Systems but he’s hardly there by choice. Unscrupulous guards faked his death in the lab where he was created and sold him into slavery in the galaxy’s hinterlands. He has no idea where his home is or how many years have passed since he was condemned to a life of endless combat. Kill or be killed is the rule and a Badari never gives up. He’ll fight to stay alive until the Badari goddess sees fit to decree his death.

Elara Vasclavian is the daughter of a senator, as far removed from the life of a gladiator as a noblewoman can be until through the machinations of a political enemy, she ends up in terrible jeopardy. Abducted and given to a group of drunken gladiators for their amusement the night before the games, Elara vows to put up a fight but there’s no real hope of saving herself. Until Kyden steps in, responding to the goddess’s commandment to protect those who are smaller and weaker. And discovers she’s his fated mate.

Rescued, Elara returns to her life of privilege but she can’t forget the man who saved her life. The gulf between their places in the Five Systems is unbridgeable, no matter how much Kyden longs for even a glimpse of her in the arena audience. No matter how much she feels the pull to be by his side. As matters stand, they cannot be together…Or can they?

KYDEN is the first book in a new series, spun off from my ongoing Badari Warriors series. Kyden is a Generation Five Badari whereas the main characters in the long running series are from a later time and are Generation Eight. This new series stands alone and you don’t have to have read any of the other books to enjoy this one. I couldn’t resist the temptation to tell a few other Badari stories, set in the galaxy’s Hinterlands, and who can resist gladiators?

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My Tiktok video about why I wrote KYDEN… here