An all-new, stand-alone tale of two improbable lovers, their daring secret,
and the gamble destined to alter the course of their worlds forever!
The
Champion of Barésh
Star World Frontier #1
Star World Frontier #1
By: Susan Grant
Released May 26, 2016
RITA-winner
Susan Grant is back with an all-new, stand-alone tale of two improbable lovers,
their daring secret, and the gamble destined to alter the course of their
worlds forever!
She was playing with fire...
Jemm Aves battles to keep her dreams
alive on a dead-end world. Working for the mines by day, she’s a successful
bajha player at night, disguised as a male to be allowed to compete in the colony’s
dangerous underworld where club owners will go to extremes to retain the best
players. Every win puts her one small step closer to her goal: saving enough to
escape Barésh with her family. When a nobleman from one of the galaxy’s elite
families recruits her to be a star player for his team, it's because he doesn't
know her secret. Her ruse proves to be her most perilous game yet when it puts
both their lives—and her heart—at risk.
Prince Charming he was not...
Prince Klark is eager to reverse his
reputation as the black sheep of the Vedla clan, a family as famous for its
wealth and power as it is for being a bastion of male-dominated tradition. If
his bajha team can win the galactic title it would go a long way toward
restoring the family honor that his misdeeds tarnished. He travels to Barésh to
track down an amateur who’s risen to the top of the seedy world of street
bajha, offering the commoner a chance of a lifetime: a way off that reeking
space rock for good. But his new player comes with a scandalous secret that
turns his plans and his beliefs upside down. He sets out to win a very
different prize—his champion’s reluctant heart.
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Sir
Vedla reached for her hand and pulled her to her feet. His golden eyes were as
warm as dome-rise on the badlands. “You think I’m sending you home without an
offer?” he purred in his smooth brogue.
She
tugged off her helmet and tried to make sense of the bewilderment in his eyes.
“I know the kind of players ya need for your team. I’m flattered ya thought I
had a chance, though.”
“I have
every intention of inviting you to play for Team Eireya, Kes. I thought that
much was obvious.”
It took
every ounce of restraint not to let loose and scream. “You do?”
“Of
course! I could not be more pleased. You played an excellent match—against my
best player. In fact, for a moment there at the end I thought you had him. It
had me on the edge of my seat. Oh, and when you slapped him back…” Sir Vedla
clapped his hands. “Bravo.”
Skeet
laughed. “Whose side are you on, sir?” he pretended to complain.
“Your
first time with regulation rules, too. It could not have gone better. You
exceeded every expectation. Well done, Kes. Truly. Well done.”
It was a
blur after that, the genuine congratulations and pats on the back from the two
pros, the thanks from members of the crew who had stayed for the entertainment,
all while so many thoughts tumbled through her head. Would she train here? Or,
away? If it was away, she would have to tell her supervisor. They would fire her,
of course, and her feelings on that were a jumble of relief and nerves. What
about Ma and Button? What would she tell them? How long before she would be
able to have them join her? And Nico… She loved her brother but if he had
access to all the money she would be paid while she was gone, well, he could be
a wee bit too free-spending. She would need to make arrangements with Sir Vedla
to make sure the family had what it needed while she was away. She would ask
him to leave out a percentage so Nico did not have access to all of it, and go
off knowing that her family was taken care of until they were reunited.
She was
so immersed in her thoughts that she did not realize she had followed the men
into the locker room until Xirri started shrugging off his boots and bajha
suit, and then his underclothing as he walked, bare-bottomed to the showers.
All three men had been exercising most of the day and now were eager to clean
up for dinner.
“You’re
probably hungry,” she heard the Vash say. He was
stripping off his clothing also.
“I’m
hungry, aye.” As much as she wanted to take advantage of her disguise to see
how closely he measured up to her preconceived notions, she didn’t take a
gander. She was better than that. Wasn’t she? She pretended to adjust the strap
of her gear bag that she had dropped onto a bench made from a slab of polished
real tree wood.
“Help
yourself to the showers, then. Afterward, we will dine and discuss the rest of
the details.”
She
nodded, not trusting her voice, and unzipped her bag to fetch her towel. It was
covered in Nico’s dried blood. She yanked the zipper closed before anyone
noticed.
The
sound of bare feet padding on the soft floor circled around to her. The Vash was naked—to the waist, she realized with a peek
lower, and he was incredible: lean and muscled, broad in shoulder and chest,
narrowing to tight hips and a skin-tight pair of black undershorts leaving
hopelessly little to the imagination.
She had
used less effort moving a canister weighed down with ore than it took to drag
her eyes from that body.
Susan
Grant is a New York Times bestselling author who enjoys being able to
indulge her love of travel and adventure by piloting jumbo jets around the
globe. Her careers as a commercial pilot and air force pilot have provided
endless inspiration for her books. Susan is the author of The Star King, launch
book of her popular Star series about a spacefaring Earth family, as well as
the RITA-winning novel Contact. Her new series debuts in 2016 with The Champion
of Barésh. Susan and her family live in the scenic foothills of northern
California.
Love to
arm-chair travel? Sit down, strap in, and visit Susan's Come Fly With Me blog
at her website
Thank you for featuring THE CHAMPION OF BARESH!
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