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Monster hunting comes with health hazards…like falling for idiots with abs and attitude.
Yun thought surviving Reject Squad would be the hardest part of her new life, but it turns out living with them is a whole different battlefield. Between their bad habits, worse tempers, and complete refusal to follow any rules, her job as their guide is less about keeping them sane and more about managing the chaos.
But the dungeons aren’t slowing down, The Pitt is still coming, and now the Guild is taking far too much of an interest in Yun and her abilities. With every fight, their powers grow stronger, their bond grows tighter, and the lines between teammates, lovers, and liabilities blur. Attraction was never supposed to be part of the mission, but apparently no one told her squad—or her body—that.
They’re still a disaster, still unwanted, and still the worst of the worst, but they’re her disaster now. When it comes to fighting monsters, corruption, and their own pasts, Reject Squad has only one rule: if you’re going to screw it up, do it with style.
General Release Date: 17th March 2026
Yun
“You are mine.” The voice repeated in my head, reaching deep inside me, a whisper that never fully went away.
It had remained only in very rare nightmares at first, then later in most dreams, and now? I heard it—no, felt it—on the outskirts of waking, like a piece of string that kept tightening around me, dragging me back to a place I never wanted to return to.
There, in the depths of my mind, the horrors surrounded me. A hand reached for me, clawing through the darkness, always getting closer. I remembered when it could grab me, when I had no chance to escape it, and everything it had taken from me.
I jerked awake, my eyes snapping open to find myself in a dim room, orange light from the rising sun pouring in through a window. I had no idea where I was, didn’t recognize anything around me, couldn’t make out enough details to know if I’d been here before.
I twisted, then froze when a pair of purple, glowing eyes met mine. They were so bright in the room that they cast deeper shadows on the outskirts.
Did he find me?
I yanked backward, scrambling over the soft surface of what had to be a mattress. At the end, I toppled, trying to catch myself, reaching blindly for anything. He’d said I was his, that he was coming back. Was this another dream, or had I finally lost my mind, or maybe it was all real and he’d done what I’d thought impossible?
Light filled the space, so bright I had to shield my eyes from it. It took a moment to adjust, but when I did, the terror from before washed away.
It wasn’t him in the room, not my nightmare, not my past, but Carter. He’d turned the light on, a familiar smile painted across his lips.
With his face came back the events from…whenever it had been.
What had happened in the lobby with that corrupted—along with my time with the entire squad before that.
Heat flamed across my cheeks at the reminder of how I’d lost myself to them, to the feelings, to things I’d never experienced or dared to risk before.
Worse, I felt so much better than I had recently. I wasn’t even sore, which didn’t seem possible, given just how many rounds we’d gone. Even if none of them had actually fucked me, I should have hurt.
“Kenyon healed you.”
How did he always know what I was thinking?
Instead of addressing that—doing so would mean me having to think about and acknowledge what we’d done—I ignored his statement. “What happened to the corrupted?”
“Dead.”
Right. I recalled the sickening crack when Ingram had snapped his neck. While it was needed, that didn’t mean I had to like it.
I tried to slow my still-racing heart, standing up straight so I could figure out where I was.
It appeared similar to the hotel room from before, the same general décor to suggest the same building, but it wasn’t quite the same. “Where are we?”
“Same hotel, but different room. The other needed…cleaning.” The way he said that last word said it all, right?
Then again, after all we’d done, it wasn’t a shock that it might need some work. I tried to ignore what the staff would think at having to clean all that, however, and prayed I didn’t run into a single person.
“How long was I out?”
“Almost a full day.”
“A day and the Guild hasn’t been here yet?”
“Oh, they were, but I refused them access to you.”
That surprised me. In my experience, squads gave in to whatever the Guild wanted, always too afraid of screwing up their ranking to refuse.
Then again, hadn’t Reject Squad proven they didn’t give a fuck about their place in the Guild or how others viewed them? The exact same trait that had bothered me so much before now seemed like an unexpected benefit.
“Aren’t you going to ask?”
“Do you want me to?”
Did I? I wasn’t sure. Perhaps I just expected it so much that the idea of him not questioning what I’d done to that corrupted, of not addressing it, felt strange and oddly unfinished. He cared about little, but did he really not give a damn about how I’d done something previously thought impossible?
“You told me not to ask questions I don’t really want the answer to. Is that all this is?”
He smirked, his smile seeming slightly realer than before. “You want to hear the other part of that advice? Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”
“So you know what I did? And how?”
He plopped himself down in a chair, far enough away to keep me relaxed. “What you did was pretty damn obvious, don’t you think? You pulled the corruption out of a corrupted until they were so weak they were almost dead. You also nearly got yourself killed doing that.” He leveled a not-at-all friendly look my way, an unexpected expression for him. “Don’t do that again.”
“Trust me, I don’t plan on it.”
He offered a wide smile. “Good. Glad we’re on the same page there. If that happens again, you just stay back.”
“And let you die? Not a problem.”
“Wonderful. Well, you haven’t eaten, so let’s order some food then head back to the compound.” He rose, slower than usual, but I took nothing for granted when it came to Carter.
He might seem stupid and slow, but I’d peeked beneath that carefully crafted exterior now and then, caught glimpses of something darker and far more dangerous beneath the surface. I got the feeling everything he did was to get others right where he wanted them.
And I refused to play the part of a pawn.
He opened the door to the bedroom of what had to be another suite, but instead of an empty doorway, two bodies fell into the room.
Kenyon and Ingram tangled, thankfully with Ingram on top. Kenyon’s massive frame might have crushed the stealth expert, after all. Ingram hopped up and brushed himself off, looking around as though confused as to how he’d gotten here.
Smooth…
Kenyon lacked that same ability to play things off, however, and lumbered to his feet, a goofy grin on his face as he rubbed the back of his neck. “You should make more noise when you’re going to open a door,” Kenyon said.
“You shouldn’t listen in through doors.”
“Listen in?” Ingram snorted, dragging his fingers along the doorframe as though that had become the answer to all questions in the universe. “We were just checking the structural surety of the building. Do you want to stay somewhere unsafe?”
I stared at them and wondered exactly how this could be normal already. Their absurdity helped ground me, helped to erase the nightmares, that voice. It also eased the heaviness inside me from the extra corruption that my body still worked to process and get rid of. It didn’t take it away, but it gave me something else to focus on.
“And how does it rate?” Carter asked.
Ingram pressed his lips together, then shrugged. “Good enough.” His answer went to show he had no damn idea what he was talking about, something that I found charming for a reason I couldn’t understand.
“Since the hotel isn’t going to fall apart, why don’t you all help me order and set up food before we leave?”
Ingram’s and Kenyon’s expressions reminded me of children given a task when they were bored—begrudging acceptance. Still, they followed him out, leaving the door open.
Just when I thought it was over, when their voices trailed off to parts of the suite I couldn’t see, when I released a breath, I spotted one more.
Shear stood just outside the door, behind where the others had been. He stared at me with an intensity that said he hadn’t been part of their conversation, perhaps hadn’t even heard it at all. Something about that expression had me wrapping my arms around myself, as though that shielded me, as though it somehow protected me from those piercing, shockingly blue eyes of his.
He knows.
The words whispered through my mind—mine, not his—drawing a shiver through me. It was in his expression, in the serious set of his features, in the way he studied me. I didn’t know exactly what he’d seen, what he’d figured out, but I knew he’d picked up something he didn’t care for.
I had secrets, but I didn’t think they’d stay secret for long.
And when they came out?
Everything would change…
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