PSYKER, the debut Hiveworlds novel coming out in the summer of 2022.

Excerpt: Camouflage

Asher whispered, “I saw the video.”
Her green and yellow camouflage dress worked perfectly. No one ever saw the anxious young woman hiding underneath.
“So, that’s why you brought me new boots,” I replied.
The last pair, soaked in blood, had been incinerated in the Medicae ward along with the rest of my clothing. Even my body armor had gone into the recycler. Asher had thought through every detail, and it woke me up.
I sent everyone out of my bedroom suite. Everyone except Ash. She didn’t want to sit down, and she couldn’t hold still long enough to look me in the eye. Having shocked her before, I’d utterly broken Ash’s reality with my back-alley execution. She was anything but bored. I led her over to my bed and told her to lie down. I gently slid her hands into my over-large restraints, but I didn’t activate the locking sequence.
“Do you trust me?” I said.
“You canceled our date.”
“Is that what it was?”
“Maybe. Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you cancel?”
“You saw the video. Would you have gone out with me after that?”
“That was the same night?”
“I messaged you twenty minutes before it happened.”
Ash pointed her chin at me, “Nobody has ever been that desperate to avoid seeing me.”
“I was. That video showed the highlight of my night.”
Asher finally looked me in the eye, searching for the truth. “It was the first shot, wasn’t it? When they blew the bottle of Starfire out of your hand.”
She was right. How could she know that?
I pressed the activate switch, slowly clamping her wrists in place. “I’m impressed by your insight. Starfire. That’s my safe word. What’s yours?”
Her anxiety fled, replaced by a fire that burned right through her dress.
“I’ve forgotten mine,” she whispered, “but maybe you can show me what it means to need one.”