

Eight years ago, Roy Jones proved his self-invented fighting style was the best in the world by tearing through twenty-two martial halls across Sealand in a single sweep. The victory cost him his wife. He left everything, moved to the bottom rung of the city, and became a rickshaw driver—anonymous, careful, devoted entirely to raising his infant daughter in peace. The life is hard and he endures it. Then one act of public decency puts him in the crosshairs of Bliz Martial Hall, and his daughter gets pulled into the danger with him. Roy stops enduring. He moves through every obstacle Bliz puts in front of him with the same quiet efficiency that once cleared twenty-two halls, and he brings his daughter home.

Mia is a 19-year-old college freshman who's beautiful but broke. Her father tells her to sell herself. Her mother offers her a job at a bar. With tuition overdue and no way out, she accepts an offer from her African professor, Kofi: $5,000 a month for companionship. But Kofi has other plans. He injects her with drugs, ties her up, and films everything. He doesn't stop there. He uses the videos to blackmail her into delivering packages—drugs, money, things she doesn't want to know about. Just when she thinks she's alone, Nina, the quiet girl in her dorm, steps in. Nina saves her from Kofi in a dark parking lot. She holds Mia through withdrawal. She becomes the only person Mia trusts. Until Mia finds messages on Nina's phone. Messages that prove Nina wasn't just helping her. She was positioning herself. She was waiting for Mia to fall so she could be the one to catch her—and own her.

In 1976, nine-time world chess champion Mac Sullivan goes to the countryside with his wife and daughter. While foraging for wild vegetables, he stumbles upon two mysterious sages playing an otherworldly game of chess.Mesmerized by their match, Mac steps in to play a few moves, completely losing track of time. When the game finally ends, he discovers that 49 years have passed in the mortal world. To compensate for the lost time, one of the sages gifts him a mystical peach of immortality, but its supernatural power is too strong, and Mac is rejuvenated into a ten-year-old child, now possessing decades of chess mastery in a young boy’s body.

I plan a family trip at my mother Lucia Sweeney's request. While avoiding the danger zones, my sister Linda Harper and I are ambushed by rogues. To protect her, I throw myself in the path of their claws and get driven into a silver mine. As I fall, my back is slashed open to the bone, and shards of silver embed deep into my right leg. The searing silver poison spreads quickly, burning through me and my wolf. My wolf is whimpering—she's close to death. However, as the pack's chief healer, Mom gathers all the healers around Linda to give her a full check-up over a few minor scrapes. I sob and beg her to save me first. "Mom, the poison has almost reached my heart. I can't hold on anymore." She turns around impatiently and yells, "Are you seriously still fighting with Linda now? Do you have any idea how close she came to getting clawed in the face by a silver claw? Our pack doesn't have a wolf as heartless as you!" And in that moment, I hear my wolf's final whimper, saying goodbye. I finally fall asleep in the cold wind, never waking up again.