Falling into Chaos, page 1
Falling Into Chaos
This book(s) is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are all products of the authors’ imaginations and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblances to persons, organizations, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book(s) may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations used in articles or reviews.
Fated by Blood. Copyright © 2019 by Elizabeth Knox
Queen of the Pack. Copyright © 2019 by Courtney Lynn Rose
Into the Storm. Copyright © 2019 by Lulu M. Sylvian
Lillie of the Woods. Copyright © 2019 by Iris Sweetwater
Moments. Copyright © 2019 by Kelly A. Walker
Hopeless Untold. Copyright © 2019 by A.K. Koonce
Nocturne. Copyright © 2019 by Nikki Landis
Pharoah-mones. Copyright © 2019 by Kendra Moreno
Seven Souls. Copyright © 2019 by Nikki Hunter
Cover design by Clarise Tan, CT Cover Creations
Content Editing by Courtney Lynn Rose, Knox Publishing
Copy/Line Editing by Kim Lubbers, Knox Publishing
Formatting by Erin Osborne, Knox Publishing
Proofreading by Jackie Ziegler, Knox Publishing
Created with Vellum
Contents
LM Slyvian
Into The Storm
Into The Storm
Special Thanks
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
About the Author
Liz Knox
Fated by Blood
Fated by Blood
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Iris Sweetwater
Lillie of the Woods
Lillie of the Woods
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Other books by Iris Sweetwater
Kelly A. Walker
Moments
Moments
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
About the Author
Books by Kelly A. Walker
A.K. Koonce
Hopeless Untold
Hopeless Untold
Copyright
A Note From The Author
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
A note from the Author
Also by A.K. Koonce
About A.K. Koonce
Nikki Landis
Nocturne
Nocturne
Copyright
Blurb
Untitled
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
A note from the Author
Playlist
Also by Nikki Landis
About the Author
Kendra Moreno
Pharaoh-Mones
Pharaoh-Mones
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Courtney Lynn Rose
Queen of the Pack
Queen of the Pack
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Other Books by Courtney Lynn Rose
Coming Soon
Connect with Courtney
Nikki Hunter
Seven Souls
Seven Souls
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
From Author
Also by Nikki Hunter
The Magic of the Jin Series
Into The Storm
LM Slyvian
Into The Storm
By:
LM Slyvian
With special thanks to Peter Blood, Geoffrey Thorpe, Brian Hawke, Jamie Waring, Will Turner, Jack Sparrow, Fredrick, DP Roberts, Vallo, and most definitely, Rafael Sabatini.
Chapter One
The entire Raptor rattled and shook with ferocity. This was not good. It didn’t help that alarms blared through my head like a hot spike thru warm butter. Yeah, I got it, this whole thing was not good, with capital letters. I didn’t need the fucking alarms.
I scanned the readouts, half of them were dead. What I wouldn’t give right now for some old-fashioned analog dials. Analog and space used to work really well together. Why not now?
The joystick between my knees fought me hard, and I pulled with everything I had to port. It barely seemed to help. I continued to pitch to starboard. I fought against the gravitational forces that kept me plastered back into my seat. It was tempting to hit the release on my harness, so I could really put my upper body strength to use, but with the shaking, I would get knocked against the canopy and then knocked into the next life.
The bird leveled enough that I could hold on one-handed. I reached above me, flipped the cover off a dozen switches and began pounding at buttons. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Already!”
Blissful lack of alarms. But not silence. The entire bird creaked and rattled, and the wind made an unholy rush of sound. But I could think.
I slammed my fist against the system reboot, located above and behind my head, in a very hard to reach place, on purpose. It effectively cut power to my control panel and then turned it all back on three seconds later. Two seconds. One.
Everything that had been on came back on with a flicker of red warning lights. The half of my controls that were out before stayed out.
I had no idea where I was, or where I was headed. All I knew I was coming down fast, and it was dark. Dark was good, dark meant no population center for me to become the latest news tragedy of the Jupiter Mission. But dark also meant I had no idea how close I was to the ground.
Fucking ground. I shouldn’t have been in the atmosphere. I should have been dozing in a gentle orbit, waiting for my ride to catch me and ferry me in the relative comfort of my own cockpit, without the use of my near depleted fuel reserves, to Juno Station. It always cracked me up, Jupiter with its moons named after the god’s nonconsensual lovers, and the station that served as our gathering port before launch, named after his wife. In our case, Juno was enabling us to get to her husband. Back in the time of the Roman gods, I’m pretty sure Juno wasn’t involved in getting Jupiter some side action. Maybe she was an enabler by not interceding on his victims’ behalves. Maybe she never learned how to say, “Jupiter, no.”
Well, I had said “Jupiter, fuck yes,” and that’s where I wanted to be headed, instead I was headed nose down into a hostile atmosphere— hostile to my Raptor, because it was trying to tear it into small pieces right out from underneath me— with my instruments out, and no freaking clue how soon I needed to pull the eject lever.
Too soon and there wouldn’t be enough air to fill my shoot. I’d end up spinning out of control, I’d blackout, and then I’d go splat at terminal velocity. Too late, and I wouldn’t have time to gain enough air to slow anything down and I would go splat at terminal velocity. Really too late, I wouldn’t clear the canopy, and yep, splat. Terminal velocity sucked.
The shaking doubled down in effort, and I was back to double fisting the joystick. Right now, all I could manage was to keep her steady and pointed toward the dark. Terminal velocity was in my future. At this point, I needed to make sure it was limited to only me.
Damn it. This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to go. The launch was stupid easy. I literally only needed to fly the bir
There was no pulling back on the joystick, no matter how much I fought it. I tempted fate and let go, back to one hand. I searched the side of my seat for the emergency “this bitch has got to ditch” eject lever. A simple handle, that’s all I needed to do was give a yank, and I would be launched up and out like a chocolatier’s glass elevator.
Where was the fucking handle? My hand flailed about. I could picture it in my mind, it was bright yellow, and located just under my right thigh. Fuck, wrong right thigh. I fought to switch hands. No, there wasn’t a handle under that thigh either.
“Arrg!” Where was the fucking handle? Damn it. This was a new bird; they moved the handle right between my thighs.
G-forces were doing their job and keeping me back in my chair. There was no reaching down in front of me to yank anything. My hand flailed around between my legs, and then back up to the joystick. I took a deep breath and tried again. My fingertips brushed the top of the handle, but I could not lift myself another freaking inch against the forces pushing against me. The shaking was considerably worse. My teeth were going to start falling out any second.
I needed out of this bird. I needed out— right fucking now! I no longer cared if there was or wasn’t enough air to fill my shoot, I didn’t want to meet terminal velocity in this tin can. A firefly caught my attention. No, no, no, no, no. There were no fireflies in my atmosphere-controlled ship. That was a spark, and it had friends. Lots of them, and they flew around my head in a happy little fiery deathtrap dance. This took Not Good to a whole new level.
The pop sounded very far away.
. . . and then blackness . . .
I awoke with a start. My eyes opened and I sat up, trying to suck in as much air as possible. The room felt confining. I kicked out from under the blankets. The dog sleeping by my feet lifted his head and whined, while lightly thumping the mattress with his tail.
Did I have a dog?
I didn’t recognize where I was. This was not a standard-issue bunk.
The sound of something breaking and roar of laughter rolled in from the open windows. Maybe I was on leave? I lifted my hand to my head. I didn’t have a headache. Maybe I really had overdone it, and managed to sleep through the hangover?
My feet hit cool hardwood, and I stood up. A breeze billowed the curtains inward. I brushed them aside and discovered the openings were more like doors than windows. I still had to step up and over to get through them and out onto the small balcony, but only two or three inches.
The crashing of waves and moonlight dancing on water held my gaze as I stepped outside. The beach was just beyond the courtyard. It was comfortably cooler outside.
“Ah-ha,” a deep voice bellowed up from the courtyard below. “The fair mademoiselle has awoken. Speak fair maiden so that we may be gifted with your sweet graces.”
The speaker used a fake British accent. He was tall with long blond hair. He wore clothes for some Ren Fair, or Shakespeare revival. I would put my money on Shakespeare. After all, that was some pretty flowery vocabulary flowing from the . . . okay, the man was hot and even hotter in that getup, so yeah, those words flowed from lips that made a girl think naughty thoughts. He was tall, broad-shouldered, defined pecs, and I caught a glimpse of some serious ab definition from the open front of his dark shirt. His pants had that weird square flap at the front of period-appropriate costuming and they weren’t form-fitting, so who knows if there was a shapely ass under there, but his hips were slim, and his thighs long. Oh, and those over the knee leather boots about did me in.
“Where the fuck am I?” My voice sounded like a frog, and my mouth tasted like someone killed a goat with cotton balls and hid the evidence behind my teeth.
The laughter from his friend pulled my attention from the tall blond standing below to seek him hiding in the shadows.
“Our fair maiden sounds like she may have spent a little too much time with some of our friends. Who should we thank for teaching such a pretty mouth such foul language?” At least this guy’s Spanish accent sounded authentic.
I swallowed when he stood up and crossed the little courtyard to stand next to his friend. Equally as tall, easily as handsome, and dressed for a show in dark red velvet and lace. He bowed low, and the swords at his waist clanked together. He had darker skin, his dark hair was pulled back into a braid, and a thin beard hugged along the lines of his sculpted jaw. And, yes, another set of naughty, naughty, thought-provoking lips.
“Guys, I don’t have time for this.” I wanted to know what was going on.
The dog from the bed pressed against my hip. He was huge, looked like a wolfhound, but I wasn’t up on my dog breeds. My hand instinctively rested behind his ears and scratched.
“We have plenty of time. I have it on good authority that Cavenaugh’s fleet is two days from here. We are safe as houses,” Blondie said.
“I would rather be safe and under sail. She is better, no? We have done our good deed and pulled the beautiful siren from the watery depths. She has her land legs, we should go.”
“I can hear you. You know? What do you mean pulled me from the watery depths?” I asked.
“You were out there, in the middle of the ocean, floating on something I’ve never seen before. We pulled you in. To be honest, in case there was a reward for your rescue. Who are you, dear lady? And is your father rich?”
“My father?” I shook my head. He just mentioned wreckage. My bird! That hadn’t been some nightmare. I had gone down. I blinked hard to suppress the anger motivated tears. Too many years in training, too many years making sure I was going to space, all for nothing.
“I’m Captain Jane Way.”
They made an audible taken aback sound, not quite a gasp, but still, I told them something they were not expecting. That was no surprise. I got that a lot.
Everyone at the flight academy had been familiar with the fictitious captain of the same name. While her first name was Katheryn, my full name matched her last. While she had a penchant for coffee, my go-to drink was tequila. Hell, most of us had come from families with fans of the franchise, and I grew up going to school with many Kirks, McCoys, and even a Tiberius or three.
