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!)

Sharing from my second scifi romance gladiator novel RENNYR. Probably two more excerpts to come from this book and then I’ll switch to the third book, TALINN, releasing in the CLAIMED AMONG THE STARS  anthology on July 26.

If you want the full story of what they go through and how they battle to survive and protect each other, and their romance, with all the nuances and details, the book is available wide. 

The excerpt, continuing on with his attempt to break into the arena to rescue Jaine:

There was a fresh roar from the crowd. Glancing up, he saw himself on the giant trideo screen. With a shrug, he focused on identifying Jaine’s scent among all the conflicting smells. There! He was off and running full tilt, the beast roaring defiance at those who threatened his mate. He located her all the way across the arena, ringed by five men in blue, poking at her with spears. She was swinging a weapon he didn’t recognize and keeping them at a relative distance but being an apex predator himself, Rennyr knew the men were only toying with her. Their demeanor was casual, several were laughing and his rage spiked higher.

See if it’s all so funny when you have to deal with me instead of a frightened woman.

Already in motion, Rennyr hurdled a pair of dead or dying fighters, zigzagged around a trio of men fighting with swords and ran straight through a melee of hand to hand combat, leaving more than one fighter in blue moaning on the sand, bleeding profusely from the wounds inflicted by his lethal talons.

Ducking a well thrown spear, he made an unplanned leap sideways and landed already in fighting stance as a team of three men confronted him, shields raised. One cast a weighted net, sparking and crackling as the charge in the webbing activated. With a roar of defiance, he stood tall and plucked the offending object from his head and shoulders, unfazed by the neural blast. Badari tolerated much higher pain and disruption from Khagrish force whips and kept fighting. He threw the net to the ground with disdain and tore the shield from the nearest man, who stood there in shock for a fatal moment.

VS Note: So does he reach Jaine in time or not? We’ll see next week…

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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Releases July 26