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!)

I had a new release last week, STAR CRUISE TIME LOOP – details after the RENNYR excerpt.

May be edited a bit from published version.

I’m taking excerpts now from RENNYR,  book two in my scifi romance gladiator series. KYDEN from book one had been in the gladiator system for many years, understood it well and had risen to the top, although he was still enslaved. RENNYR is brand new to it all.

The books can be read as standalones.

The excerpt from the beginning of the book. Last time the excerpt dealt with prospective buyers looking over the prisoners, including Rennyr. I’ve skipped ahead a bit to the person who did buy him.

“Listen, here’s how it works. You are now the property of Westklin Enterprises, to be utilized as I see fit. I run a lean operation and everything has to be earned. You want real food, you want clothes, you want out of the cage, you have to earn the privileges, got it?”

Rennyr raised his manacled wrists. “I can’t do much in chains.”

“Those will come off when you go into your first death match. If you survive, I may decide to let you go unchained, Again—and I detest repeating myself—it will all depend on your behavior.” When Rennyr didn’t respond, Westklin said with contempt, “You’re an odd one all right. On paper you seem to have unlimited potential as a fighter but in person you’re less than impressive, other than physically. I’m guessing it’s an act so be warned, I’m on to you. I know how to handle men like you.” Without another word the franchise owner walked away.

A few minutes later the robos came for Rennyr’s cage and he braced himself as the container was transferred with him inside to an automated cargo hauler, along with several other cages. The vehicle drove out of the slave market area and through a decidedly grubby and depressing city. Even once the road left the urban area, the landscape remained a sea of grays and browns. Hardly inviting. Coughing from the dust raised by their rapid passage, Rennyr took in as much detail as he could. It was obvious from the efficiency of this operation his owner was well versed in controlling his human and humanoid chattel and preventing escapes.

VS: Next week I’ll probably share the beginning of the ‘death match’ (not the actual fighting but the prep and entry into the arena).

RENNYR (BADARI GLADIATORS SERIES BOOK 2) by Veronica Scott

Rennyr was a genetically engineered senior soldier in his Badari Warrior pack until one day he woke up on a strange planet naked, disoriented and about to be sold into the gladiator arena for the rest of his life. Unscrupulous guards faked his death in the lab where he was created and sold him into slavery in the galaxy’s hinterlands. Kill or be killed is the rule in his new life and a Badari never gives up. He’ll fight to stay alive until the Badari goddess sees fit to decree his death and release him from the wretched existence.

Jaine Mitchel of the Sectors was on her way to an exciting research internship until pirates seized the spaceship on which she was a passenger and took her to feature in a gladiator ‘death match’ in the galactic hinterlands. She has no hope of surviving in the arena until a man she only glimpsed in passing breaks out of his cell and saves her life, declaring her to be his fated mate. Given to Rennyr as his reward for winning the death match, Jaine must share a cell and a bed with the handsome, not human, gladiator and together they have to find a way to survive in this merciless world of violence and death. Their mutual attraction is off the charts. Falling in love is the easy part, finding a way to escape or even to remain together is the challenge. At any time their mutual owner could decide thumbs up or thumbs down on one or both of them, or sell them separately.

Their only hope is a mysterious gladiator master from offworld who may be coming to buy Rennyr. Will he take Jaine as well? Could Rennyr win freedom for them both if he does well enough in the arena? Badari Warriors claim their mates for life and Rennyr has no intention of losing Jaine…RENNYR is an 80K word novel and can be read as a standalone. KYDEN is the first book in the series.

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My New Release!

STAR CRUISE TIME LOOP by Veronica Scott

VS Note: I always wanted to write a Groundhog Day style story because I love them and here it is!

Raelyn Cantorini, senior stewardess on the interstellar cruise ship Nebula Zephyr thinks the alien artifact she bought on the last planet the ship visited was just a pretty glass orb…until her pet Eyn knocked the ornament off a table, shattering it and sending her into an infinitely repeating time loop. Stuck reliving the same day over and over, Raelyn has only hours to try to save the ship and everyone on board from dying in a terrible catastrophe. As she tries to solve the mystery of what happens to the ship right before midnight each time the day repeats, Raelyn meets Kev Stevens, the former Special Forces soldier turned actor and finds herself falling in love with him. Each time the day repeats, she learns more about him while he has no memory of her. Can she persuade him they’ve met before? Will he trust her enough to help stop the Nebula Zephyr’s destruction? And if they do save the ship, will that reset time for Raelyn? This is a lightly edited rerelease of my novella from the Pets in Space 6 anthology. No new material has been added.

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