THE LAST COHORT Rome has fallen. Its legions are gone. But one last mission remains. Britannia, 410 AD. The last Roman soldiers are boarding their ships, abandoning the rain-lashed island to darkness. Left behind to cover their retreat, the Cohors IX Hispana—a ghost legion already written out of history becomes the empire’s final, desperate rearguard. But they are not just fighting Saxon war-bands and vengeful Celtic tribes. An ancient evil is stirring, a primordial force of chaos that preyed on this land long before empires existed. It twists men into monstrous, soulless husks and commands beasts of shadow and bone. As the land itself turns against them, the century-old discipline of the legion is tested against a terror no shield wall was ever built to withstand. The fate of Britannia will not be decided by armies, but by an alliance of outcasts: · MARCUS, a young Roman officer holding fast to duty as his world crumbles. · BRAN, a disgraced Druid who wields forbidden blood-magic. · HROTHGAR, a weary Saxon warrior seeking a homeland, not a grave. · MORGANNA, a Celtic princess whose hidden royal blood may be the key to salvation. Thrown together by fate, these four enemies must unite their swords, their sorcery, and their shattered honor on a suicidal quest. They will race against the rising tide of darkness to find a legendary weapon lost to myth: the Sword of Mars, an artifact of god-like power that could save the world or utterly destroy it. For fans of the action of The Witcher, the brotherhood of The Last Kingdom, and the epic scale of The Lord of the Rings, The Last Cohort is a thunderous historical fantasy where the last light of Rome is about to be snuffed out… unless one last cohort can light the fire of a new dawn.

Damon Voss has a good life. That's the first lie.At thirty-four, he's a senior forensic accountant in Aurora Tower – a Chicago high‑rise wrapped in one‑way mirrors, where every badge swipe and keystroke is logged. He has a wife Nina who still laughs at his jokes, a six‑year‑old son Milo who thinks he's a superhero, and a suburban home in the gated community of Cedar Meadows.That was three days ago. Before Sasha Byrne vanished.Sasha wasn't a friend. She was a data analyst two floors down, with a nervous laugh and an obsession with vintage watches. Then a video arrived at 2:17 AM: Sasha in her cubicle, whispering his name over and over. Damon. Damon. Damon.By sunrise, Sasha is missing. Her apartment is spotless. Her work computer is wiped. Her phone pings from three states. The police call it voluntary disappearance.But Damon has been following threads for eight months – a colleague who quit abruptly, a client file deleted before he could close it, a late‑night printer that burst into smoke. He told no one. Not Nina. Not his brother Evan. Not his best friend Garrett.Then Nina finds a camera inside their bedroom smoke detector. The lens is the size of a pin, wired to a transmitter that feeds video to an IP address owned by a shell company that traces back to Damon's own employer.And Sasha is still missing. Someone is still watching.Damon's investigation leads him into a nightmare: an automated risk‑assessment algorithm that flags "anomalies" – people who ask the wrong questions – and authorizes their complete erasure. Not death. Erasure. Bank accounts emptied, medical records forged, families convinced you're insane.Sasha left behind one thing: a kill switch. A dead man's switch that will expose the entire conspiracy. But to find it, Damon must first outrun the system that's already marked him for deletion.The Kill Switch is a story about a man who discovers he isn't hunting a conspiracy – he is the bug in the code. And the code is being rewritten without him.

The hookAlvin Chen has always been the player no one notices. In junior high, he was the sixth man on Northside Elite — the best team in the region. Labeled weak. Too small. Too nervous. Every time the ball touched his hands, he panicked and gave it away.But Alvin loved basketball more than anyone. So he didn't try to get stronger or faster. He invented something new: the redirect pass — a lightning-fast tap, flick, or slap that sends the ball to a teammate before the defense even sees it move.The problem? Almost no one can catch it. Only elite players with freak instincts.In junior high, only three people could: Derek, Marcus, and Trey. They were the stars. They never thanked him.Now Alvin is a freshman at Westbrook High, a school with no talent. He's ready to quit — until he meets Michael Vance.Michael is everything Alvin is not: tall, explosive, arrogant. A scoring machine who trusts no one. Their first practice together, Alvin's redirect pass hits Michael in the face.But Michael doesn't get angry. He says: "Do that again."Alvin does. Michael catches it — and sinks the shot.The bond formsAlvin makes Michael a deal: "I'll be your shadow. I'll get you the ball anywhere, instantly. You be the light — the scorer, the star. Together, we take down Derek, Marcus, and Trey. They're at different high schools now. They still think they're unbeatable."Michael grins. "You've got a deal, shadow."The stakesBut the old stars are watching. They mock Alvin. They try to steal Michael away. And when Michael goes down with an injury in the biggest game, Alvin must become more than a shadow — he must become his own light.