Oct 28 2022

Why I Wrote TALINN #SciFi Romance Gladiator

NOTE: I added about 15K words to the book and released it as a standalone once the anthology was over.

When I had the opportunity to join the CLAIMED AMONG THE STARS anthology lineup, I knew the basic premise for all the stories was to be about a woman on an interstellar cruise ship who ends up on an alien planet and falls in love. Happy ever after ending of course! I thought it would be fun to write my third scifi romance gladiator novel and have that be my entry in the (no longer available) anthology. I’ve really enjoyed writing some Badari Warriors spinoffs, as a way to tell different stories about Badari, away from the central timeline of the main series, which involves them fighting for freedom and their human fated mates on their own planet.

And besides that I’ve always been fascinated by gladiators!

I knew many of the stories in the anthology would probably feature aliens as the male main characters and that led me to choose a Tzibir Badari, who were created using alien reptilian predator DNA. (Other Badari packs were created using alien feline and canine predator DNA.) This makes them my most ‘alien’ humanoids. I’d written one fairly recently in TRATUS so the concepts were fresh in my mind. “Handsome, not human” is my motto for the Tzibir.

I try really hard not to write cookie cutter series, where each succeeding book is the same plot, just plug in new names and proceed, so I turned the gladiator concept on its head a bit with the world where Talinn has ended up after he was smuggled out of the original lab and sold. He belongs to the leader of a wandering nomadic clan on a desert planet, where he fights as one of a team of aliens for the amusement (and betting) of the people on this planet. The battles occur at oases and in dusty venues almost like fairgrounds, rather than in elaborate arenas with all the pageantry. As someone observes at one point in the book, the teams of alien fighters are regarded as being somewhere between pets and children by their owners. I also made the dominant species on the planet bigger and stronger than even a Badari, which gave Talinn a new element to cope with. Badari are used to always being the strongest person in the mix.

Now here comes my very bewildered but determined heroine, Bailey, brought by a defective lifepod from the wreckage of her cruise ship in the stars to a planet outside the borders of civilization as she knows it. She’s literally dropped into the situation and has to cope, with Talinn’s help.

Of course there is crossover to the first two books in the Badari gladiator series although I tried hard to vary the manner in which Talinn discovers he might not be alone as a single Badari marooned in the stars. This book is a standalone though, so even if you haven’t read the other two (KYDEN and RENNYR), no worries. If you like Fated Mates, the one bed trope and some steamy ‘alien love’, then I think I’ve put it all together in TALINN!

The blurb for TALINN: Talinn was a genetically engineered senior soldier in his Badari Warrior pack until unscrupulous laboratory guards faked his death and sold him into slavery in the galaxy’s hinterlands. Purchased by a nomadic warlord and forced to fight in games for the amusement of the crowds, Talinn has endured through sheer strength of will. He sees no possibility of escape but a Badari never gives up until the goddess calls him to the afterlife.

Bailey Kingsmere was a talented and ambitious entertainer on an interstellar cruise liner when her ship was destroyed in an accident. She escaped in a defective cryonic lifepod, which eventually drifted out of the Sectors entirely and crashed on a primitive planet. Superstitious locals decide to place her in the arena as a prize for a lucky gladiator.

Talinn needs only one look to know Bailey is his fated mate. He’ll do whatever it takes to rescue her from the other fighters and claim her as his prize but how can he ensure her safety thereafter? Since he’s not human and has alien reptilian predator DNA which gives him extra capabilities, will Bailey accept him as a mate? And can they ever escape their desperate situation and find a way to freedom?

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Short Excerpt:

After a lot of loud cheering, which meant the city’s ruler had arrived with all his court and distinguished guests in tow, the gate was opened and the mass of fighters erupted into the arena. There were small stacks of prizes scattered around, for those men who didn’t care to risk themselves going for the true riches the kalishka laid out on the far side of the dangerous obstacle course. It was generally frowned upon to take the easy way out, although one year it was said the freedom token had been planted in the grab and go stacks. There were always men who opted for the simple, safe route, usually newcomers still uncomfortable with their status as fighters.

Talinn headed straight for the obstacle course, using his Badari strength to leap to the top of the first barrier, a wall which was supposed to be difficult to climb. Not for him. He always fought barefoot in order to use the powerful claws he could deploy on his feet and he clung to the barrier with these daggers firmly dug into the soft wood. At the top, ready to leap to the next challenge—ropes hanging over a pit filled with acid-tinged water and predatory fish with fangs as big as his—he hesitated as the mysterious scent overwhelmed him again. A flash of color caught his eye and he turned his head to see what lay at the other end of the obstacles.

A human woman, bound to a pole and looking ready to collapse.

And she was his mate.

Talinn nearly lost his grip on the top of the wall where he balanced as the overwhelming, unexpected and unwelcome realization flowed through him. Now, of all inopportune moments, the goddess gave him a mate? One who had to be savagely fought for and then protected in this harsh place? What sin did I commit to bring this upon myself? Why does this woman have to suffer?

The beast wrapped around his DNA didn’t hesitate and launched them into the air toward the vines, which Talinn grabbed from pure instinct, swinging across the churning, stinking water with ease, even as another man slipped and fell to his death beside him. Landing neatly on the far side, Talinn made it two steps toward his objective when he was challenged by a Jorvathian, who’d decided to be a spoiler today, or who had been paid off to eliminate certain elite fighters. Talinn didn’t care which—he was in an immediate fight for his life, as the alien got a grip on his shoulder with its savage pincers and tried to inject him with poison from the tentacles wriggling obscenely on its carapace. Yes his system could fight off and neutralize toxins but not if too many flooded his body at once. Jorvathians could deliver a massive dose of their poison.

Talinn’s claws had been genetically engineered to pierce and rend super hard metals and materials used by the Sectors military, so he had no problem cracking open the Jorvathian’s bony chest plate and sending the fighter reeling away in his death throes. Without a glance, Talinn pressed onward, running the obstacle course as required because there was no other way to reach the main prize dais, where the woman was bound. Although he’d had an excellent head start, his brief hesitation when he saw the woman and realized what she was to him and the delay caused by the need to defeat the Jorvathian had allowed others to make up time on him.

He judged three to be actual rivals for the woman. Any one of the fighters was a deadly opponent, none would have her. Sprinting ahead at times, pausing as required to fight men or aliens who got in his way, working through the fiendish obstacles, Talinn extricated himself from the last barrier, a quicksand like bog with clinging carnivorous plant life and rose to his feet, shaking off the sparkling sands and crushing one stubborn tendril like a bug.

The woman didn’t look well and was plainly terrified. He caught her eye and nodded, even as he was moving into combat stance against a four armed alien he’d fought and bested before. The fighter was deadly with the curved knives it preferred and Talinn forced himself to concentrate on parrying the opening blows, waiting for his opportunity.

And don’t miss the first two books in the Series KYDEN and RENNYR!

Aug 19 2021

Why I Wrote TRATUS My New Release in the Badari Warriors #SciFi Romance Series

One of the challenges I enjoy most about writing a long running series is keeping things fresh and always bringing new wrinkles to the situation for the readers. Fortunately I set up the series in the beginning with a number of hooks to use for adding new twists and turns, one of which was the existence of the Tzibir variation of the Badari Warriors. The Tzibir were created using the same Badari humanoid stock but with alien reptilian predator DNA instead of feline or canid. The Alpha of this pack refused to swear allegiance to Aydarr and Jill and in fact entered into a loose alliance with the same hated Khagrish scientists the other Badari packs are battling.

Enter Tratus, the deeply conflicted senior enforcer of the Tzibir pack. He first appeared in CAMRON and at that time I already knew he was so intriguing to me that I would be giving him his own book eventually, when it fit into the overall series arc. Tratus wants to follow the commandments of the Great Mother, their goddess and he is repulsed to be in any kind of arrangement with the Khagrish. After 800 years of the scientists enslaving, abusing, torturing and executing his kind, Tratus wants to be truly free and to join the rebels in fighting them.

But his Alpha is the absolute ruler of the pack by Badari law and so Tratus does his best to mediate between the dangerous bully Briator, the Tzibir Alpha who’s addicted to a human feelgood, and what’s best for the pack. He keeps things running on a daily basis in the Tzibir settlement in the desert and quietly despairs. Every day is a crisis of conscience for Tratus.

And then he meets the human woman who could be his mate in a more perfect world – Katrin Rodgerr, Third Officer of a free trader ship, abducted like so many other humans to become fodder for the Khagrish labs and their grisly ‘experiments’. She’s in the crowd of women who his Alpha is going to choose from, for breeders to live with the pack as captives and help create the next generation. Tratus digs in and demands to be given Katrin, determined to protect her.

And all the events in the book spiral from there.

I had many things to research for this book, never having written Badari with reptilian aspects. It’s not my trope to write ‘alien’ aliens but Tratus has scales and other much less obvious characteristics which Katrin learns about along the way, shall we discreetly say. I’ve had the TRATUS cover from Fiona Jayde for a long time, waiting for me to write the book, so it’s pure coincidence his book is releasing at a time when ‘alien’ aliens are the hot trope. He’s a bit more alien than my other Badari!

DepositPhoto Komodo Dragon

One of the most unusual pieces of research I did for this novel was to watch actual footage of two Komodo dragons in a fight for supremacy. I always research my fight scenes to try to make the action realistic but in this case I figured the Komodo, which are the world’s largest living lizards, would be the closest thing I would find to what the alien predator DNA in Tratus’s and Briator’s bodies might have come from. The biggest one ever recorded was over 10’ long and weighed nearly 400 pounds so I figured the size was about right (Badari men are 7’ and 300 pounds but Briator is a bit bigger, as the Alpha).

I’ve seen Komodo dragons at the Los Angeles zoo, not fighting but still with the ever present air of danger.

Not to give away all my research secrets but one thing I was intrigued by after watching and re-watching the filmed fight (which occurred in the wild – no one staged it) was how the two huge males battled for position, versus going in for a quick kill. They each clearly were searching for just the right moment to…do what a Komodo dragon or a Badari Tzibir Alpha would do.

A word about Katrin – she’s a cool headed, ex-Space Navy veteran from the Sectors and I enjoyed the challenge of writing her believably, from where she started as Tratus’s hostile prisoner to where she ends up, as his loving, claimed, fated mate. She’s not at all on board with any of the what’s going on when the book starts, needless to say.

DepositPhoto

An excerpt, after Tratus has chosen Katrin: Katrin watched the two large men standing together and savoring a private joke. She was thoroughly confused but she appreciated whatever her protector had said to the guards to get them moved into the shade. Surprised at herself, she drew a shaky breath and tried to find a more comfortable position, which was difficult with her arms held behind her back by the force cuffs. Was he a protector? He’d been gentle with her, which impressed her even more after she saw the huge brown talons and the deadly fangs he deployed when he and the one who was in charge argued about her. And he was getting her out of the Khagrish lab, which was no small thing, given the horrors she knew awaited their experimental subjects. It was nothing but a matter of time until each human ended up being selected for the next experiment. So far she’d been chosen for a few but one had been relatively minor as far as the pain and in the other two she’d been a control subject, observed but not forced to undergo the actual experiment in full.

But she had few illusions about what these handsome aliens wanted women for, or why the Khagrish were giving them ten females. For some reason she couldn’t define, she had a hard time imagining the man who’d chosen her forcing himself on her. The boss—yeah. Not only was he apparently drunk, he seemed cruel and careless. The other soldier—maybe. The person who’d plucked her from the line? He made her feel safe, which was of course ridiculous.

Still, she was free of the black bracelet and the pain it could confer at the touch of a button from any bored Khagrish guard. And the indications were the group would be were leaving the lab for another destination. She’d take her chances and see what happened. Stay alert, stay frosty, seize any chance to escape and take the other women with her if she could.

Cinnthea scooted closer to her. “What did he say? What did he tell you?” she asked in an intense whisper.

“Not much, just a few words of Basic. He said everything would be all right.” Rolling her eyes, Katrin added, “I’m not so sure.”

“But what are they going to do with us? Where are we going?”

“He didn’t say anything about that. I can guess what they have in mind, can’t you?”

The woman shot a scornful glare at the two large men. “Yeah, unfortunately I can. This planet is a hellhole, isn’t it?”

“While there’s life, there’s hope,” Katrin said. “And at least we’ll be out of the labs. There’s no future there at all but pain and death.”

The blurb:

Katrin Rodgerr, ex-Space Navy, was perfectly happy as Third Officer on a tramp freighter in the Outer Sectors, until the day she and everyone on board the ship were kidnapped by alien scientists to become subjects of gruesome experiments. Far away from home or help, Katrin does her best to bolster the other prisoners’ morale and look for a way to escape.

Until one day she’s chosen for an experiment of another sort – given to a pack of alien supersoldiers as a prospective breeder.

Tratus, senior enforcer of the Tzibir pack, never expected to find his mate, much less to meet her among the human prison population of the labs. But there she is and there’s no denying the instincts. Despite his Alpha’s objections, Tratus manages to convince the alien scientists to give Katrin to him and he vows to protect her. Deeply unhappy with the way his leader runs the pack as he disobeys all their goddess’s commandments and refuses to ally with other Badari packs to fight the scientists who created them, Tratus plots a revolt.

Despite herself Katrin is drawn to the giant humanoid warrior with alien predator DNA who treats her so respectfully. His scales and other differences from human males only make him more attractive in his own way. But the Alpha distrusts her and Tratus, and time is running out for them both…Can Tratus defeat the Alpha leading his pack to inevitable doom? Can he and Katrin survive the consequences and find their way to claiming each other as true mates or must he let her go?

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Jul 10 2020

Why I Wrote IVOKK: New Badari Warriors #SciFi Romance Novel

Genetically engineered soldiers of the far future, the Badari were created by alien enemies to fight humans. But then the scientists kidnapped an entire human colony from the Sectors to use as subjects in twisted experiments…the Badari and the humans made common cause, rebelled and escaped the labs. Now they live side by side in a sanctuary valley protected by a powerful Artificial Intelligence, and wage unceasing war on the aliens.

Ever since I released book four in the Badari series, JADRIAN, I’ve had comments and requests from readers to revisit one of the supporting characters, Sandara the Sanctuary Valley chef. People wanted to know her back story and they wanted her to have a chance at her own happy ending, since she and Jadrian didn’t end up together.

I’ve been pondering that as the series went along. It’s always a tremendous compliment when readers like one of the secondary players enough to ask for more! I felt it would be something of a challenge to match Sandara with any of the existing Badari because she pretty thoroughly put the pack’s teeth on edge with a certain scene wherein she and Jadrian were extremely unpleasant to each other in public, to the point the Alpha’s mate Jill had to step in.

But then when I wrote DAEGAN, the world of the Badari opened up (trying not to do spoilers too much here) with the addition of an entirely new pack who’d been prisoners in the South Seas. As I wrote Daegan’s story, I kind of kept my eye on his number one enforcer, Ivokk, who I thought might be a worthy mate for Sandara. He didn’t know her before, he wasn’t a pack brother of Jadrian’s and since his group of Badari grew up somewhat differently, I felt like I had more room to take a fresh look at Sandara herself in the context of how the two of them might relate to each other. I could take her out of her comfort zone, send her off on a mission with Ivokk and see what happened between the two of them.

In my opinion, she needed a strong, senior level Badari as a mate.

As far as her back story, right from the beginning she was an anomaly to the colonists among whom she’d lived before they were all kidnapped, because she was a three star chef and had almost nothing in common with them, yet there she was, running a restaurant on their frontier world. I won’t give the details away here. I will say that I love the reality program “Top Chef” and have watched every single season, some of them more than once, and while Sandara of course is not based on any real person, I think my Muse absorbed all the wonderful detail and passion about cooking from the chefs and judges on the show over 17 seasons (plus 5 Top Chef Masters seasons) and brought that richness to who Sandara is at heart. Then from there her backstory became clear to me and I was off and running. I found a few points where her interests and Ivokk’s could intersect nicely, giving them a bit of common ground. And a believable – I hope – and critical mission, under the circumstances.

From 1908, one of my grandfather’s favorite books as a boy. I loved it too! Full of adventure…

There’s a wild boar hunt in the book and I have to say I was somewhat influenced by certain episodes of “Yukon Vet”, where the vet has encounters with really large male pigs, as well as some other pretty fierce herd animals. Those episodes gave me a foundation for the sequence, along with a lot of internet research, which of course authors loooove to do. Endlessly. This author anyway! Also, many years ago I attended an event where an entire pig was roasted, which made a huge impression on me and I drew on that a little bit. And one of my grandfather’s favorite books as a boy, which I inherited and also loved, was an adventure by G. A. Henty wherein the plucky heroes had a run-in with wild pigs in South America and had to climb trees to escape and that made such a huge impression on me as a kid.

At one point Sandara has an episode of atrial fibrillation (afib) and believes she can feel her heart quivering and/or doing the irregular heartbeat. This is based on myself, because I have afib (several types in fact, lucky me) and during some of the episodes I can feel my heart fluttering in my chest. I wish I had a Badari healer close at hand to help! So please, no notes that this scene is unrealistic. I’ve lived it.

Yup, my Muse and I really are all about synthesizing my own life experiences, everything I’ve ever seen or read or been fascinated by, plus the fruits of research, and weaving the elements into what I hope will be an enjoyable story for my readers!

I’ve got a couple other surprises in the course of IVOKK that I’d love to talk about but can’t without doing spoilers…

I hope if you decide to read the book, you’ll find the romance and adventure exciting and satisfying…

The blurb: Proud enforcer of the Badari South Seas pack, Ivokk undertakes a secret mission back to their former home, in search of a cure for a mysterious illness affecting his soldiers, now in exile in the north. He’s ready to make any sacrifice to find the answer and help his pack brothers stay strong. He’s even willing to accept responsibility for the human woman assigned to the mission, although she’s a headstrong civilian, difficult and rumored to dislike his kind.

Sandara DiFerria was once a three star chef in the Sectors, but that was before the alien enemy kidnapped the entire adult population of her colony to use for experimentation. Rescued from the labs by the Badari, she does her part to support the rebellion now by running the vast commissary operation in Sanctuary Valley. All she asks is to be left alone until she can get back to the Sectors and pick up her old life again. Her one previous romantic brush with a Badari soldier turned out badly, ending in public humiliation. Add to that post-traumatic stress from her life before moving to the colony and she’s the last person to pick for a top secret mission. Or so she believes.

The Alpha running the pack disagrees and sends her to do the job under Ivokk’s watchful eye. Thrown together by the nature of the task they must undertake, the undeniable attraction they both feel grows. Will the dark secrets of Sandara’s hidden past create an insurmountable barrier between them? Can Ivokk and the tempestuous human chef find the answer to the Badari illness in time? Or will the elements and the enemy bring disaster?

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The excerpt – Sandara is called to a mysterious meeting: Pulse pounding in her temples, Sandara stared at the appointment notice on her handheld’s calendar. There had to be a mistake. She wasn’t required to attend any meetings at the Alpha’s administrative building. What she did had no bearing on the waging of the war and if anyone had an issue with the kitchen or the dining hall, she heard about it from Nicolle or very rarely from Jill, the Alpha’s mate. She did not go to meetings. Even when the huge contingent of South Seas Badari, including cubs and cadets, was suddenly added to the population she had to feed, she’d only received a call from Nicolle a short time before the first wave of newcomers was flown in.

Sandara was tempted to call Nicolle and ask her what the seven hells was going on but a tiny reserve of caution made her hesitate. Aydarr and Jill had taken great pains to be clear she was important to the valley operations and her efforts were valued by them after the whole unfortunate episode involving her and Jadrian months ago. She didn’t feel at any risk in her position. Be hard to find anyone else who could run this damn commissary in a cave and do half as well. Didn’t they know an army—even a genetically engineered one—traveled on its stomach? They need me. But…a little voice in her head whispered she’d better not push Aydarr too far. He had a temper, he had absolute power and he didn’t tolerate challenges.

High strung and difficult she might be (and even prided herself on the attributes, if truth be told), a summons to his conference room for a meeting wasn’t to be ignored.

With a mix of respect for the Alpha and unease over what he might want from her, she made sure her under chef had a good grasp on the preparations for the next meal and made her way to the tiny cave she’d been given as her own residence, in view of her position as head of the kitchen. Badari were all about rank being recognized.

Her rooms were in a cave complex located close to the kitchens and luckily there was a side tunnel leading from the one where the community dining area had been established to the residential area. MARL had installed his lighting units in the tunnel and there was also the soft luminescence from the lichen which grew profusely on many of the cave walls. She ducked into her modified chambers and changed into clean clothes, making a face as she did so. Tee shirts and utility pants weren’t her normal mode of dress in the Sectors, but it beat the Khagrish khaki colored prisoner jumpsuits. Then she was on her way outside, hastening to the administrative complex further up the valley.

Not many people were out and about at this time of the day, which was given over to work assignments and military drills, with the Badari cubs in classes. Sandara was happy about the lack of people on the trails. The Badari guards didn’t challenge her as she climbed the steps to the admin building, which meant she was expected, further indication the meeting notice from Nicolle was no mistake.

Inside, she hastened through the hall to the conference room and entered, only to stop short on the threshold as she realized there were a number of people already there, although thankfully she didn’t seem to have interrupted a meeting. “Oh, sorry, I—”

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At all major ebook sellers….

Feb 28 2020

Why I Wrote HONEYMOON FOR THE ALPHA with Excerpt

Actually, what started me thinking about this story was Valentine’s Day, as in “wouldn’t it be nice to have a special story to release for the holiday?”

A little background – I post a photo of a different pair of earrings from my massive fashion jewelry collection every day on my Facebook page and my Instagram and in mid-January I was going through the drawers to see if I had enough heart-shaped ones to go with that theme for the entire month of February. Which put me in a Valentine’s mood – romantic. I’ve always felt that Aydarr and Jill, the couple from my first, award winning Badari Warriors (Sectors New Allies Series) novel, got a bit shortchanged in the romance department. They were apart for a chunk of the book and although they are each other’s fated mate and love each other deeply, they never really got much chance to enjoy their romance. There was too much other stuff happening with escaping the alien scientists’ lab, rescuing all the prisoners and starting a war for survival. They have their HEA by the book’s end and are a deeply devoted couple but never got to have hearts and flowers and a courtship. One night in a cell…

As I sorted through heart shaped earrings, I thought, what if they went on a belated honeymoon? My late husband and I took our honeymoon on our one year anniversary, so that was part of the inspiration. We went camping in the Sequoias and it was wonderful.

I loved the challenges of figuring out what they could do to “get away from it all”, what would make sense in this environment, how would a Badari Alpha feel and what would he say to the human woman he loves? And vice versa?

I didn’t want the story to be all steamy sexy times. There always has to be some adventure in any story I write. Jill is a tough, take charge ex-soldier and so I felt she needed a time to shine and show that side of herself. I won’t give too much of a spoiler here but I also have had a lifelong fascination with quicksand. When I was a kid, people were always falling into quicksand in movies and TV and as some famous person has said (paraphrasing here), as an adult I’m really surprised how little quicksand I’ve actually encountered. I thought the darn stuff was everywhere! But of course, since the novella is science fiction, this is no ordinary quicksand…

The other thing I was fascinated by and believed Jill and Aydarr would be intrigued by was the question of what if they’d met in some other place and time. Would they still have become mates? What would that all important first encounter look like? The challenge was, as Jill says at one point, “…you were here and I was there [in the Sectors].” How could they ever have met in any way other than the way they did in book one, as prisoners in the terrifying lab?

I love a good challenge and when I came up with the answer how to satisfy this whimsy for myself and them, I was excited to write the resulting scenes. I didn’t get the book done in time for a Valentine’s day release but close!

And Fiona Jayde did her magic with the cover art!

The blurb: Thrown together as helpless prisoners in the punishing conditions of a Khagrish lab, Jill and Aydarr fell in love. Claiming each other as mates despite only having one night alone in a cell, they formed a deep, loving mate bond. Now, a planetary year later, after escaping the lab and leading the ongoing rebellion against the enemy together, Aydarr longs for more. He wants a chance to show Jill how much she means to him.

He decides to risk everything to take his mate away from it all for a few days. But will the Khagrish, the threats lurking in the planet’s unexplored wilderness and the Badari goddess allow them to complete A Honeymoon for the Alpha?

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The excerpt as the story begins:

When Aydarr walked into the cave he shared with his mate Jill, there was no sign of her, which was hardly surprising given the late hour of the night and the fact she’d spent the day training cadets and cubs in field exercises on the new obstacle course deep in the forest. He assumed she’d gone to bed quite a while ago and he couldn’t blame her. There was also no sign of her ancient alien Artificial Intelligence MARL.

MARL had his own small room in the Alpha’s cave suite, which represented a compromise since Aydarr hadn’t wanted him in their private space at all and MARL insisted on remaining at Jill’s side at all times. Fortunately Jill saw things the way her mate did, believing humans needed privacy. Grudgingly MARL had agreed to spend his nights and other downtime in the special room constructed for him. The pack depended on him to keep their sanctuary valley safe from Khagrish incursion, to obtain and analyze enemy data and to provide power for operations so there was a thin line to be walked here. Aydarr was glad it was his even tempered mate who had to handle the delicate relationship rather than himself.

He paused at their dining table, eyeing the barely touched remains of what had obviously been quite a feast, prepared and sent over to their quarters by Sandara, the valley’s human chef. Dipping a finger in a rich sauce, now cold and rather unappealing, Aydarr took a taste. Many of his favorite dishes were arranged on the table. With a sinking feeling, he remembered Jill had made him promise to get home in time for dinner when she’d left their admin offices.

Of course he’d promised and of course he’d then gotten drawn into a deep discussion with Daegan, another Alpha and the promise was forgotten. He had to grin, surveying the table. Instead of putting the food away for later, Jill had left it out to confront him. An unmistakable message from his unsubtle mate. She must have been genuinely angry to waste so much food. He’d broken too many of these promises lately, after taking Daegan and his huge pack into the valley and numerous other challenges.

Better get this over with. Squaring his shoulders, he marched into the bedroom.

Jill was asleep, her black hair tousled on the pillow. Curled up on her side, she seemed to be having a deep dream.

Undressing quietly, he slipped into the bed behind her, spooning her small frame with his much larger Badari body and holding her close to his heart.

Jill yawned and snuggled into him. “Meetings finally over? Is it dawn yet?”

“I’m sorry I missed dinner after all,” he said. “Were you angry?”

There was a spurt of quickly suppressed laughter. “What do you think?” Opening her eyes, she rolled onto her back so she could see him. “Yes. And no. As best as MARL and I could figure out, today was our anniversary, so I was going to surprise you with your favorite meal. I’d been planning it for a week. “

“Anniversary?” He’d heard the term used among humans and with a sinking sensation in his gut he guessed he’d missed an important occasion.

“A human thing,” she said. “It’s been one planetary year since you and I met. We think. Close enough to the exact date anyway.”

VS Note: This post first appeared on Pauline B. Jones’s website.

Nov 15 2019

Why I Wrote KIERCE Badari Warriors #SciFi

The basic premise of the Badari Warrior series: Featuring genetically engineered soldiers of the far future, the Badari were created by alien enemies to fight humans. But then the scientists kidnapped an entire human colony from the Sectors to use as subjects in twisted experiments…the Badari and the humans made common cause, rebelled and escaped the labs. Now they live side by side in a sanctuary valley protected by a powerful Artificial Intelligence, and wage unceasing war on the aliens.

I’m about to release my eleventh book in the Badari Warriors world, DAEGAN, and it’s a bit of a follow-on to KIERCE, which was the sixth book (but they can be read as standalones). In KIERCE I established he was from a completely different pack, from the southern hemispshere of the planet, which had been kept isolated and raised under different rules than my primary characters.

With DAEGAN, the new book, I’m about to take the readers to visit that other pack and Kierce reappears to some extent. So I thought it might be a good day to talk about KIERCE.

I think the first thing I need to say is that I really try hard to tell a different story with each book in the Badari Warriors series. Yes, at the center of each novel will be the love story between a genetically engineered soldier of the far future and a human woman, but I want the circumstances and the action and adventure to contain new elements each time. I can’t imagine telling the exact same story over and over! I also have to advance the series plot arc at least a little bit with each new book and I want to bring in the characters the reader has met in the earlier books to some extent.

The original kernel of an idea for Kierce was actually to write a story where the hero and heroine were kept apart by well-meaning people who didn’t understand they were actually good for each other. The Badari are all about people being fated mates and falling in love, and are usually totally supportive of a couple finding each other, so I set myself the task of figuring out under what circumstances the pack would not be on board. Although I wanted the reasons to be something external, not that either my hero or my heroine weren’t good people who deserve each other!

The Badari are also totally devoted to taking care of each other, after centuries of being little more than lab animals for the alien scientists’ experiments. So I had to set up a situation where Aydarr, the pack Alpha, wouldn’t see the positive aspects of allowing the human, Elianna, to be with Kierce.

Turns out Kierce has been subjected to a particularly unusual experiment and when we meet him, he’s been forced into the form of an alien predator. (It’s always interesting to me how the Muse solves my plot dilemmas.) No one but Elianna really understands what Kierce is and she’s sworn to keep his secrets. I had fun going from there and unspooling my story.

The one scene I had in my head from the getgo was where Aydarr and his soldiers are liberating the lab and first meet Kierce (in his alien form) and Elianna. Then I kind of worked backward (how did the couple get to that point?) and forward (what next?). I had the chance to work in some details about how the pack is handling new arrivals to the Sanctuary Valley and a few other details of the world building.

Jake in a non-predator moment

I included my very own Jake the Cat in the dedication this time because I used close observation of Jake to help with some of the details of Kierce’s alien form. And of course Jake regards himself as a deadly predator on any world!

I also indulged myself a tiny bit by giving Elianna, who is a technical genius, some dialog straight from my own days doing root cause analysis, which I was trained on at NASA/JPL as part of the Lab’s Lean Six Sigma program. I’m actually a NASA Black Belt in that business process area! Not to worry though, what she says is only a few sentences and not too geeky or tech-y!

The blurb: Elianna McNamee, spaceship engineer, is far from her home in the human Sectors, kidnapped along with all her shipmates to be used for horrifying experiments conducted on a remote planet by alien scientists.

Her captors decide to toss her in a cell with a ferocious predator, expecting him to kill her…but Kierce, the Badari warrior in question, has too much honor to mistreat a human woman. The trouble is, he’s trapped in a form drastically different from his own as a result of twisted genetic meddling and hiding dark secrets to save other Badari lives.

Able to become a man again briefly with Elianna‘s help, he and Elianna bond over their mutual hatred for the enemy but when rescuers finally arrive, the pair are separated by well-meaning Badari authorities.

Kierce struggles to overcome flashbacks from the torture and drugs the alien scientists inflicted on him. He and Elianna despair over whether he’ll ever be able to regain his rightful place as a man and a soldier in the pack, much less be ready to claim a mate.

Elianna accepts a risky but essential assignment far away from where Kierce is being held, working with another man who’s more than professionally interested in her. Her heart belongs to Kierce and she can’t forget their two nights of shared passion but will that be enough to lead them to a happy reunion?

The excerpt – Elianna has been thrown into the cell of a massive alien predator. She escaped to the animal’s outdoor enclosure and took refuge in a tree. She refers to the beast as a tiger because it has stripes but we’re not talking about an actual Earthly tiger.: She sat in the tree all afternoon, growing tired, hungry, and thirsty. Eventually, one Khagrish guard appeared, staring from the cat to her then running inside, presumably to report.

Did the Khagrish mean to leave her there until the cat got hungry enough to eat her? Elianna sighed. The aliens were unpredictable and cruel so maybe they didn’t care how long it took for their oversize pet to finish its task and kill her for the bootleg vid.

Eventually, the tiger rose as if response to a signal and went inside the cell.

The sun was beginning its descent for the night, and Elianna shivered, goosebumps pebbling her flesh as the breeze grew stronger. She startled as the tiger reappeared, butt first, half carrying, half dragging in its huge jaws a bowl full of what resembled kibble, which it brought to the base of the tree then backed away from. Making the guttural sound deep in its throat, the cat put one massive paw on the bowl, gazed at her blandly, and then retreated to the wall, sitting with its tail curled over its paws.

“You’re kidding me, right? Trying to lure me out of the tree with cat food?” Despite her dire predicament, Elianna laughed. But her mind was racing. Could this huge predator be a higher level sentient? Kidnapped from its own planet perhaps and brought here for experimentation? Was it trying to make friends with her?

“I must be insane.” Decision made, Elianna descended and then dropped from the tree, freezing for a moment to see what the tiger’s reaction would be. The beast merely sat, golden eyes watchful. The tip of its tail flicked once or twice. She scooped up a handful of the kibble and took a sniff. Vaguely fishlike but not unpleasant. “Like dried nutrient rations.” She put one in her mouth, prepared to spit it out. The taste was salty but not off-putting. “Thank you,” she said to the watching cat. Elianna crunched her way through the handful of nuggets, wishing for some water to wash them down. She probably couldn’t live on these, but the dry fare did allay the hunger pangs.

White tiger isolated on black background

DespositPhoto – an earthly tiger but you get the idea!

The tiger rose and made his way inside again. Now what? Elianna waited by the tree, hand on the branch, ready to ascend if needed. When the cat re-emerged, he was dragging a haunch of raw meat, clearly from some kind of hoofed animal. Elianna took a deep breath of relief because for one horrified instant she’d feared the meal might have come from its Khagrish victim of earlier. As she watched, the cat tore strips of the meat from the offering with its claws and laid them on the grass to the side, making soft sounds as it did so.

“For me?” she asked. “Thanks, but I’ll stick to the kibble. I don’t eat raw meat.”

The tiger picked up the rest of the meal as if to say “suit yourself” and moved off to the side of the enclosure, where it laid down again and devoured the meal with ruthless efficiency.

Elianna shivered as the sun disappeared below the horizon. In her torn clothing, which was thin to begin with, she doubted she could survive the night outside.

The tiger padded to the flap door leading inside, pushing it open with one giant paw then turning to stare at her. The beast uttered a soft sound.

Not really having any other choices, she walked slowly to where the tiger waited. He retreated a step or two, allowing her to pass in front of him. She forced herself through the tight opening, tumbling into the cell. Rising quickly to her feet, she was glad to see the floor was bare and unstained, a bit damp. Evidently the Khagrish had come at some point to retrieve the remains of their dead companion and washed the floor.

As the animal bumped into her with his cold nose she shrieked and jumped. She faced him with her hands raised in self-defense.

He made the soft sound deep in his throat again and padded to the far corner of the cell, where a nest of blankets lay on a shelf raised off the floor. The tiger made a small leap onto the crude bed and lay in an elegantly casual curved position on his side. His eyes were warm jewels of color in the darkened cell.

Self-pity and resignation swamping her like a heavy blanket, Elianna sighed. Her only choice was terrifying, but she couldn’t see herself making it through the night shivering on the bare floor in a corner. She was already numb and lethargic from the chill. Slowly, she walked to where the beast waited and sat gingerly on the edge of the platform.

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Portions of this post first appeared on Pauline B Jones’s blog…

DAEGAN: A BADARI WARRIORS SCIFI ROMANCE NOVEL

Ex-Special Forces soldier and mercenary Flo Michetti is bored with her assignment as a pilot for the genetically engineered Badari pack in their fight against the evil Khagrish scientists. She jumps at the chance to take a dangerous undercover mission. She infiltrates a group of human prisoners on their way to a secret lab in the southern ocean, where the Badari believe many more of their own kind have been created and are being experimented on. Once Flo has located the lab, found the Alpha among the Badari there and sent a report back, the plan will be to attack and rescue all the prisoners.

Arriving at the island Flo learns the true nature of the horrific experiment for which the humans have been brought to this remote location. Time will be perilously short to escape before it’s too late for all of them. She has to locate the Alpha of this captive southern pack, who conceals his identity to escape death at the hands of the Khagrish, and get him to join with her and her allies.

Daegan feels an instant attraction to Flo when the Badari and the humans are forced together by the Khagrish scientists, but there are mysteries and questions surrounding her. Before he reveals himself as the incognito Alpha she’s seeking, he wants answers to allay his doubts. He also wants Flo in his bed…but can he risk his heart to claim her as his mate?

Complicating the situation is a dangerous rival for Daegan’s position as Alpha, an oncoming hurricane and Flo’s resistance to abandoning her life as a soldier of fortune…as the Khagrish scientists prepare to initiate the experiment, the clock is ticking for humans and Badari alike.

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Sep 20 2019

The Story Spark for REEDE Plus Excerpt

If you haven’t read any of my award winning Badari Warriors series, here’s the background:

When I thought about what elements went into writing my latest Badari Warriors novel, I realized there were several threads coming together that influenced Reede’s adventure. I really hadn’t done much with him since he’d been introduced in the first book as being the Alpha’s second enforcer and then in MEGAN AND MATEER’S BABY I showed how fierce and unsympathetic he could be as he tracked down the human accomplices in Megan’s kidnapping. He had no mercy.

But of course being the author, I knew there was a sweet guy well-hidden at the core of the intimidating enforcer. I started thinking about how life in the Khagrish labs would have affected him as a boy – what if he’d had other dreams for himself but was forced by the alien scientists to accept the deadly role they’d genetically engineered him to fill? How would that affect him and his actions as an adult, especially now the pack is free of the labs?

The Badari treasure their freedom but as I’ve alluded to in previous books, they have found challenges they never expected.

On the bigger series arc, I thought it was also time for the Sectors to have sent someone out to look into the message that was sent way back in book three, JADRIAN. Of course nothing can be simple on this planet, so the scout crashed and was captured…and is a woman.

The romance is at the core of everything for me, although the action and adventure are important as well, and I’d been thinking for a while since having a mate is the most wonderful thing that can happen to a Badari, what would cause a man who met the woman who could be his mate to resist that bond. And what other complications might there be?

I also liked making Fallyn, the Sectors scout, an active duty military officer on a specific mission because she took a different view of how the Badari operate and what her priorities had to be than the rescued civilians might. Jill, the heroine in AYDARR, book one, was a retired Special Forces tech and a badass, but not active duty. In addition Jill was really the first human to encounter the Badari and the Khagrish so her experiences were vastly different than anyone else’s.

And of course because I write romance, there had to be a Happy Ever After ending for Reede, within the series arc that is ongoing.

So I took all of those thoughts and ideas and sat down to tell Reede and Fallyn’s story. Usually I write a book in chronological order, start to finish but in this case I felt strongly compelled to write a specific scene, which occurs toward the end of the book and is a long conversation between Reede and Timtur, the pack’s healer. Doing that scene, which runs about 8K words, really unlocked the character of Reede for me, as he and Timtur discussed some of their past, and then I was able to go back to the beginning of the adventure and write Reede as the complex person he is. It was unusual for my Muse to want to work that way but I always give in to whatever my creative impulse might be!

Readers have asked me with some concern if REEDE is the final book in the series (no spoilers here!) and let me hasten to assure you there are quite a few more books to come. The series arc is nowhere near wrapping up! I already have the cover for my next book in the series, DAEGAN (with the human pilot Flo as the heroine) and hope to release it in late November/early December 2019.

(REEDE is the 10th book in the series, although the cover says book 9, because TIMTUR was book 2.5 and Amazon won’t list it as part of the series. Sigh.)

The blurb: Lt. Fallyn Damara was sent by the Sectors to investigate a strange transmission from an isolated planet and determine whether the residents of a vanished colony had been transported there by alien enemies. Fallyn’s ship crashes and she’s taken prisoner by the Khagrish scientists, to await her fate in the slate of horrifying experiments being conducted.

Reede, the second ranking enforcer in the Badari Warrior pack, volunteers to be recaptured by the Khagrish in an effort to locate and rescue Fallyn inside the deadly lab complex.

While a prisoner Reede discovers Fallyn is the woman destined to become his fated mate but the moment is bittersweet because Fallyn will be leaving their world at the first opportunity, to report back to the Sectors. He refuses to complete the mate bond, believing to do so will lead to nothing but lifelong misery for them both, separated by lightyears and interstellar politics.

For her part, Fallyn wants to shake up the rule-bound enforcer and persuade him to take a chance on love.

But first they have to escape the Khagrish.

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The excerpt (Fallyn has been sitting in her cell at the Khagrish lab and hasn’t met Reede yet): Two guards came by, one stopping in midstep as if struck by a thought. Fallyn stayed slumped against the wall in an attitude of unconcern but she listened intently.

“What about this one?” The first guard gestured in her direction.

“She’s a special prisoner. Waiting for pickup by the main security detachment at central. I guess the death of Commander Parryfilmunn at the hands of the escaped animals must have messed things up. He was supposed to be the answer to all the security problems and now no one knows what to do over there since he died.”

“Well she’s human and she’s female so she’s covered under our orders.” The second man sounded impatient. “Do you want to explain to Dr. Enishiggama why we left her out of whatever crazy test the old red hair is running now?”

“Not especially, no. She’s terrifying when she gets upset. One of the worst I’ve ever seen in fact and I’ve been stationed at more of these so-called science centers over the years than you can imagine. But the pay beats anything I could earn on the Home World so I shut up and stick it out.”

“I hear you. So, we taking this one with the next group or not?”

The guards studied her and Fallyn watched them, keeping her face blank. Being out of the cell could mean opportunity. She was trained to resist and escape the enemy whenever possible. Of course she’d only practiced those skills in simulations.

“Yeah, bring her. No harm done if she wasn’t supposed to be included. The animal’s not reacting to any of them anyway.”

Fallyn kept her excitement from showing in her face or her demeanor as the guards opened a gap in the force barrier and gestured for her to join them. One stood with his neurocontroller aimed at her while the other put her wrists into force binders behind her back, quelling any hope she’d had of attacking them. If she could get her hands on a weapon…

With the guards, she walked further down the corridor, past a few empty cells and then stopped in front of a large space full of humans.

Pushing her against the wall, the guard yelled, “Next ten females, in order of your number, assemble on the muster line. All others will retreat to the cots.”

Fallyn watched with interest as the prisoners obeyed. She was surprised the group didn’t try to attack the Khagrish, since there were only two guards, but the captives behaved quite passively. One or two mustered up the strength to glare at the enemy but no one made a move as the ten women left the cell one at a time through a narrow gap in the force barrier, were put into restraints like the ones on Fallyn and assembled into a line.

“Where are you from?” she whispered to the woman next to her.

The other prisoner stared. “Taken off a ship, the Galaxy Cluster Swan. Most of us here are from the same ship. And you? I haven’t seen you in here before.”

“I was working a freighter.” She lied. Maybe the aliens knew who and what she was but no reason to admit it. Prisoners had been known to betray others for special treatment and her active duty military status was no one’s business. “Where are we going, do you know?”

With a shrug, the woman shook her head. “Another experiment. Sometimes you get lucky and it’s nothing too bad. Sometimes you get luckier and die and this nightmare is over.”

Portions of this post first appeared on Pauline B. Jones’s blog…