Showing results by author "M. Tress" in All Categories

Drawn to another world at the behest of a goddess without hope, thrown into conflict to protect a people on the brink of destruction, and drawn into a conflict millennia old, Koda Burke should have been upset at the very least. But in exchange for answering the desperate pleas of Thera Ivorycrown, Koda has been given everything that he had wanted in his previous life and more. A people to call his own, a place to belong, and a purpose in his life.

Finishing up his first year as a cadet-adept, Desmond’s life is going pretty well as far as he’s concerned. Three beautiful and exotic women love him and have agreed to entwine their lives together. His powers as an Adept have continued to grow as he practices and refines weaving the threads of mana into the world. All while he continues to defy the expectations set by his origins. Sure, he’s still a member of the active military training for one of the most dangerous jobs in the entire Hegemony, but with his girls at his side, Desmond is confident he can handle it.

Sometimes in life, you feel like the world is out to get you. Nothing ever seems to work out the way you want it to, and everything just goes wrong all at the same time. But you have to bear up under the weight of life and just keep swinging. It can't stay bad forever, right? That is what Casey Sullivan believed when he spent his entire young life in an orphanage, fighting for scraps and doing his best to not get shanked by the youth gangs there. When he had the opportunity to make a difference, he seized it with both hands and did everything in his power to pass the police academy.

Promoted early, Desmond McLaughlin and his mates are now full members of the Hegemony military, with all the rights and duties that rank includes. Given the benefits of achieving the rank of full adept early, Desmond and company elected to be deployed aboard the battlecruiser Fist of Defiance, a ship that just happened to be part of the Seventh Border Fleet. The same fleet headed by a certain admiral whose daughter was saved by Desmond and his girls.

Keeping his head up and moving forward was what Koda Burke was best at. After having to emancipate himself as a teen and find his own way at a young age, it became part of who he was. The most important part, or so he thought. Until that the faithful day that chance aligned with fate, and his true worth lay revealed when he met with a dying goddess, someone who had lost hope and all but given up until she felt the call from across the void between dimensions.

Join Desmond as he learns to manipulate mana—a source of power that exists beyond the reach of most people in the universe—meets vastly different alien species, risks life and limb, all while trying to pass classes. If he’s lucky, he will find someone he can trust out here amongst the weird. If he's very lucky, maybe someone he can love.

A little over four months has passed since Desmond McLaughlin was physically yanked from his home and thrown to the mercy of a conquering alien empire when they demanded he be handed over for training as he was an ‘Adept’, one of the few able to harness the power of magic in the universe. During that time, he has learned how to manipulate mana and made several friends amongst the aliens whose culture he was now immersed in. And one lover.