To my family and friends who put up with my flighty ways while I live in other worlds. And especially my husband and sons, who help search for everything I misplace while writing. To my editor for her endless patience and willingness to never say, “It’s too long, Sherri, cut it in half!” To everyone at SMP for their wonderful support and all the hard work they do on all our behalves (and especially you, Alex and John, for keeping up with everything).

And last, but never least, to you, the reader, for all the wonderful notes you send and smiles you give. I know there was a little wait for the next League book. Thanks for your patience, understanding, and support. You guys rock!!

PROLOGUE

Kill or be killed.

That was the single law of a League assassin, and it was the reminder that had been branded onto Sumi Antaxas’s arm when the devil had taken her soul in exchange for the life of the only family she had left. The only family that had ever really mattered to her.

Now…

As good as I am, I’m going to be slaughtered with extreme and utter prejudice. She had no doubt as she watched the video playback of the attack on a League prison from a few months ago. An attack led by the Caronese emperor and a joint Sentella-Tavali strike force.

Sumi suppressed a low, appreciative whistle as she watched them battling against an overwhelming League force. Heroic was one thing. Moronic was quite another. And in a move that was as brazen as it was stupid, Emperor Darling Cruel had led a group of rebels in to free his captured people – that included his wife – from League custody.

Then, right as he would have escaped clean-free, in a fit of rage, he’d revealed his identity to the prime commander of The League. Not only that Darling was the Caronese emperor making this strike, but that he was also a founding member of the High Command of The Sentella – the one organization that truly threatened the reign and control of The League on the planets that made up their universe.

And it didn’t help that The League’s prime commander, Kyr Zemin, had a personal grudge against the emperor from years ago. That only fueled the war that was now being fought between The League and The Sentella. A war that was quickly forcing all known governments to take sides.

“Right there! That’s the bastard!”

She forced herself not to cringe as Prime Commander Zemin pointed to the monitor in front of her and froze the scene of two men blowing the door on the prison.

Well over six feet in height, Commander Zemin had the same intensity as a homicidal psych patient. His right eye was covered with a black leather patch that didn’t conceal the scars of the wound that had taken it. Rumors claimed that eye had been lost in a furious fight with the legendary League assassin Nemesis – a man who was one of Emperor Cruel’s best friends, and one of the men who’d been in on that prison attack.