Ragoru Beginnings

Three stories of human women finding love among their alien Ragoru triads, set in a dystopian version of Earth.

Red:

There were certain truths everyone knew. Never wear red or any other bright color. Make as little sound as possible if one had to be outside the protection of the sanctuary settlements. And never, ever, go out in the wild places alone. The Ragoru, an alien species set down to live among them, dwell within the forests, and everyone knows that they crave all things red.

Arie’s life has always been one of playing by the rules. She doesn’t draw attention to herself. She doesn’t leave her home without her hood that conceals her bright red hair. It is a secret from everyone, and her hood protects her secret so that she may continue to live safely within the village until one day that secret comes to light.

Absconding into the woods soon becomes her only safety, and she will risk her very life into the care of the very dreaded beings that all people fear, the Ragoru, in hope of making it to her grandmother’s house in the citadel at the other side of the great forest.

When circumstances reveal them to not be the monsters of human imagination, but that they stir the ravenous beast within her, Arie finds that she is willing to risk far more to find a way to be with them forever. Even if that means severing ties with her grandmother, rejecting the human comforts of the citadel, and facing the horror of the Order of the Huntsmen.

A new spin on the Little Red Riding Hood Story, bringing a well-known fairy tell to a dystopian future with a wolfish alien species.

White:

Before Arie and her mates, there was Emala. Before the Order fell, there was a Master who governed over it and all of the citadel.

Raised in a gilded cage, Emala was given everything she wanted from the very day that the Master rescued her mother from execution. Born of a maternal lineage in which human brides were mated to the clannish northern Ragoru triads, Emala grew up listening to her mother’s stories of the Ragoru, though she never expected to follow in her mother’s footsteps.

She didn’t fantasize about a triad of mates to shower adoration on her, but a simple life in a village far away from the Master’s watchful eye. Though she knows nothing of surviving outside of the grand manor, when the Master comes to her with an impossible offer on her 20th birthday, Emala dares to risk it all to find her way to freedom. Even if it brings the order down on her head.

When she is saved by a Ragoru and finds shelter with his triad through the winter, she discovers a possible love that could mend old wounds and may promise her the happy ever after that she always wanted.

Huntress:

Heidi was raised to be a huntress ever since the Order took her off the streets and trained her in the deadly arts. Foremost among her peers, she was chosen by the Master to be his assassin. She never imagined that she would fall until the day she went against his will and saved his stepdaughter by helping her to escape from his formidable mansion. It made her a target, and she became the hunted. They nearly killed her. Nearly wasn’t good enough.

Seven years of healing, training, and hunting the Master, victory is finally in her grasp. She would kill the Master and satisfy her vengeance. When her plans are foiled by a triad of Ragoru after the same prey, she finds herself thrust into a strange alliance of huntress and predator as they seek the male that has wronged them both.

The Ragoru are after him for their own reasons - to satisfy an oath made. It is the only reason that they agree to an alliance with the huntress when seven revolutions of plotting and stalking is foiled.