Excerpt of The First Starfighter by Grace Goodwin

Was someone at my door?

I rolled over and blinked at my alarm clock. Three freaking thirty in the morning?

I must have been dreaming.

The pounding repeated, louder.

No one came to my door this late. Ever. Hell, no one came to my door at all unless I had a delivery or one of my neighbors needed something. I threw off my covers and slipped my toes into cold slippers.

“Coming!” Was my apartment building on fire? Was it the police? Had the neighbors been screaming at each other again? She really needed to kick that deadbeat boyfriend of hers to the curb.

The pounding intensified, and it was obvious that whoever was on the other side of the door had no problem waking up the entire building.

“I said, I’m coming!” I opened the door and stopped dead in my tracks. A huge man stood in the hallway wearing a helmet of some kind, as if he’d been riding a motorcycle. Which was crazy because it was cold and wet and not motorcycle weather.

He removed the helmet, and I stepped back. My eyes widened in recognition. Black hair, those familiar sparkling green eyes. Perfect olive skin. Full lips. Square jaw. A familiar uniform with a crest on his chest, the one I’d just seen on my gaming screen.

“Jamie.”

I stared, my throat and mouth frozen. Holy shit. That voice. I knew that voice.

He was as big as I’d imagined. No, bigger. Broader. More intense. That gaze, it bored into me, past my flannel pj’s and to a place that left me speechless. My heart pounded, and I feared I was losing my mind. Hallucinating. This had to be a dream.

“Jamie Miller, you must come with me.”

“Um… what?” I finally said.

“You are the first Starfighter. And you are mine. Queen Raya has mobilized the Dark Fleet, and together we must save Velerion.”