The Dust Between US

Morra is dying. Death visits her in the prologue and confirms this. As readers, we shift to chapter one to get background on Morra's life before Death continues.

She already had Leukemia in her childhood. Now, as an 18-year-old, it has relapsed. The story starts with Morra finishing her last chemo at the Cancer Center in Eugene, Oregon. She returns to her small-town home, somewhat relieved but apprehensive. She isn't so hopeful that her cancer is gone. Valen, her brother's best friend and her secret crush, visits her.

When she arrives back home, her mother and father are distraught and tell her the Oncologist called: her cancer isn't gone. Receiving this news is overwhelming, and Morra abruptly escapes to be alone. There, Death visits her again.

Death tells her she was never meant to relapse and actually die from her Cancer. An evil force known as Destruction is disrupting Destiny's and Death's rules. Further yet, Destruction is using Morra's life as a gateway back into the worlds. They need her help, and Morra is ultimately the one to stop this.

She is pulled into a dystopian world, where the night is ruled by creatures that hunt, and the vow of survival grows thinner with every dawn. Her life is living in an underground shelter, where she has her mother and brother, Alec. Her father died by nocturnal creatures known as the Slaugh, or beasts. She sneaks out often, following her brother and his hunting party while training herself how to use weapons. Her brother wants her to be prepared in case she should ever need to use a weapon.

Unfortunately, the time arrives all too quickly. The shelter collapses in an assault of Slaugh that get inside. It is chaos and savage. Morra and her family barely escape to the surface. Her brother and she split up in order to divert the beasts. She then loses her mother to the monsters, and gets traumatically injured herself. All the while, she never finds her brother Alec.

This is how Valen, a desert warrior, and his lions, Seerah and Kalais, find her. They bring her to Kalmaria, a desert city, to get healed by Valen's mother. As readers, we dive into the world of Kaw-saleks, energy-warriors. They train from the age of eleven and become bonded to lion guardians when they turn 18. This gives them the magic of the Kaw, an energy magic, that is directly associated with their lion. Each color is a given attribute and is reflected in their energy as well as lions' eyes.

Morra finds out her bonded lion is Kalais and she is also gifted with the Kaw, a power that grows inside her, and it just might be what she needs to stay alive. Valen and the lions will help train her.

But beneath it, something darker waits too: the Nex, and it only desires control. She finds out that this darker energy is directly related to the wounds she received from the Sluagh, and unless she learns how to control it, it will eventually consume and kill her. As of yet, there is only one other person who has been known to survive the disease. Alcandor, and he lives with the rebel group, Tahan, in the mountains.

What ensues is a self-transformation journey of Morra to understand herself and the power she holds; a slow-burn friends-to-lovers romance between Valen and herself; discovering and deepening the bond with her lion Kalais; a search-and-rescue for her brother Alec; and ultimately stopping the ancient evil awakening before Destruction rules the world.