Every thirty years, an ancient god hosts a very dangerous game.
After Ryder Copeland wakes in a hospital after a suicide attempt, two people immediately try to murder him. A woman named Juliet saves his life and then reveals that he succeeded in his suicide after all. They’re both dead, but a mad god has granted them five more days of life… if they’re willing to kill for it.
Thirteen teams of former suicides now have five days to kill each other, after which Lyssa, the divine progenitor of this death game, will reincarnate the single surviving team into luxurious new lives. Stranger yet, Juliet had the chance to watch Ryder’s life after she died, and now, she’s in love with him.
Ryder can’t imagine falling in love with a woman he just met, let alone killing for her. Yet as they fight other teams of doomed lovers across the urban sprawl of Washington, DC, he can’t let Juliet die. He has to play Lyssa’s game to save a woman who loves him, but he can play it his way: by challenging its god.
She’s not playing to save the man she loves. She might even have to kill him.
Juliet Cooper’s life isn’t exciting, but it’s secure. She works at a sandwich shop, babysits her little brother, and helps her parents out with the bills. She also has no idea she used to be dead.
One dark night as she heads to her latest tabletop game, sinister men rise from the darkness and chase her down. After she’s rescued by two old friends, Juliet learns that a life she no longer remembers has caught up with her. A bloody life or death contest in Washington DC was only the start.
In the Hermaea, the Superbowl of god contests, Juliet must fight to protect her parents and her friends. To protect them, she must also defeat the man she loves… and find some way to save his life.
After surviving two death games, they’ve finally earned a vacation.
Ryler Copeland and Juliet Cooper might not be mortal any longer, but they’re still madly in love, even if they can only see each other once every few months. After months of toil in the Greek underworld, Ryder has finally earned enough vacation time to visit Rome and vacation with Juliet and their friends.
It’s all going quite well until they both end up stuck in an otherworld called limbo.
Trapped in a dead copy of the real world, it will take all the skills they developed as the champions of two different gods to evade the horrors trapped with them and escape. As the nightmares Ryder and Juliet once faced together grow increasingly real, all they can depend on to survive is each other. But if they survive, they may finally earn the happy ending they’ve lost so many times… together.
T. E. Bakutis, Author 