Hey !

May is here, and I'm officially descending into my creative underworld to write. Devil's Deal is on track to release on summer solstice this year and I'm excited to dive deep into the story! If you already know Jaga from my other books, this is her story. But remember, Jaga is ancient. And this book begins with her as a young woman. We'll watch her grow into the irreverent, powerful witch we know.

I'll share some teasers in the weeks to come, seeing as I already wrote over a quarter of the book and will soon have more. For now, let's see how it starts. Here is the beginning of Chapter 3.

Thick, heavy drops of blood fall into the water and swirl, slowly dissolving. I watch the spectacle, breathing deeply as tremors run down my legs, my knuckles white from keeping myself upright.

Drip.

Another crimson bead of my blood lands in the basin, so red, it’s almost black. It spreads around, growing thinner at the edges, more translucent, until it becomes one with the water.

The water’s dark pink now. In the right light, it would look so pretty.

I squeeze my nose with one hand, bracing on the table with the other as my head pounds with vicious pain. Drip. Drip. Drip. At least it’s not gushing like minutes ago.

Darkness gathers in the corners of my cottage as the last rays of the sun dip under the horizon. Dazhbog goes to sleep after his day-long trip over the sky, and people prepare for the shortest night of the year.

There is only one small window in my cottage, and the fire went out along with the candles when I did the spell. I can barely see the vague reflection of my face in the surface of the bloodied water. My skin seems to have a deathly pallor, but it might be because of the bad light.

Normally, I would open the door to catch the last glow of twilight, but then people would see me. And I can’t show them my weakness.

The time between the heavy drips grows longer as I breathe through my mouth. The shaking in my legs eases. Yet, it won’t stop, no matter how strongly I bid my body to harden. And time’s running out. I’ll have to walk out of here soon, and I’d rather eat dirt than show up weak and trembling.

A bout of nausea squeezes my gut when I consider the weight of all the scorn and disdain I’ll have to bear tonight.

To help myself calm down, I focus on my cottage and don’t think about anything else. I have only this one room, with an old, crumbling hearth, a threadbare rug, a few pots stacked on my old table, and a narrow bed filled with hay. The walls should have been whitewashed in the spring, but I didn’t have enough to trade for the lime.

Like my mother when she was alive, I am given prices much higher than everyone else. Most villagers hope I’ll get tired of the unfair treatment and leave, but that would be certain death. There are deep forests out there, full of wolves and bears, and likho knows what else.

The worst are all the creatures Viesna told me about that avoid human settlements but don’t mind eating a stray wanderer. Upirs, werewolves, vilas, strigas, poludnitsas, and others. Too many to count, all vengeful and deadly.

I can’t walk away even if I dream of it every day. So every time it seems I can’t bear it here any longer, I just grit my teeth and toughen up.

I am as tough as oak bark now. It’s a wonder I bleed at all.

I'm planning to include a small glossary at the end of the book. Since Devil's Deal is filled with Slavic folklore, many of the folk creature names have to be adapted to be readable in English, but I'm doing my best to keep them close to the originals. If you know The Witcher, you'll be familiar with some of the names!

Once I'm finished with the first draft, I'll also share the full trigger warning list. It's a dark romance, so that list will be rather long.

All right! Devil's Deal is available to preorder on Amazon. Here is the cover. Poppies are a big theme in the book. The MMC calls Jaga "poppy girl", for example.

Have you read Wed to the Basilisk?

Now, just a quick reminder that my final book in the Arranged Monster Mates series went live last week! It's available to read for free in Kindle Unlimited. You can get it here. And here's the main male character, Voss, waiting for his ssalamiya in bed 💗

New monster prison romance 👀

Safia Nyx is a new monster romance author who just came out with her first book called The Minotaur's Motivation! It's the first book in her series called Fated Inmates that takes place in a monster prison - yummy! The book is a novella and it's free to grab in KU. You can get it here, and this is the cover.

If you're looking for something new to sweeten a work week evening, this is the perfect bite-sized read!

That's all from me today! I'll do my best to be back next week with more Jaga updates, but if it's radio silence for two or three weeks, don't worry. It just means I'm diving deep into my story. I wish you a fantastic rest of the week!

Love,

Layla