The ULTIMATE Futuristic Romance Bundle

Get the entire 13-book ebook collection by USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Rebecca Rode. This collection includes the full NUMBERS GAME Saga (with two bonus exclusive ebooks that aren't available anywhere else) and the EMBER trilogy (including Swoony Award-winning Flicker)- with over 1600 5-star reviews!

This offer is NOT available anywhere else. 

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ "Fierce & fabulous characters & stellar writing...SUPER FASCINATING!!! Very much up there with Hunger Games & Divergent series!!" ~Anne-Marie (Annie) K.

Numbers Game: My enemy is supposed to turn me in. So why is he protecting me instead? 

Ember trilogy: She's the galaxy's destined hero, her victory written in the stars...except she must choose between saving everyone else and saving the love of her life. 

**EXCERPT**

AMETRINE DOWELL. YOU ARE COMMANDED TO APPEAR IN THE EMPRESS’S CHAMBERS IMMEDIATELY.

I stared at the glowing letters, expecting to feel horror or nervousness. Instead, there was nothing.

This was it, then. Would they execute me privately, in the seclusion of her chambers? Would Konnor be relieved that I wasn’t staining the family name anymore? Would Dresden miss me at all?

I dressed slowly. When I opened the door, I sensed someone waiting outside. 

“I was ordered to escort you,” Vance said solemnly. He didn't meet my eyes.

I didn’t answer. I just passed him and made my way toward the hallway, feeling the cold more acutely than usual. Maybe it was best that everyone else had gone for a run, leaving us alone. Less awkward this way—no goodbyes.

I turned on the lights in the training room as we passed through, glancing around one last time. The girl that had entered so long ago seemed like a distant memory. Vance was stiff, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here. I knew the feeling. Even now, his musk-and-leather scent was positively intoxicating.

This would likely be the last time I would experience it.

I reached for the handle, but it wouldn’t open. Vance’s lock was still in place. He stood in silence for a moment before he finally spoke. “You can still run, you know. Just climb out the ventilation shaft.”

“No, thanks.”

“No, thanks?” He stared at me. “I’m not offering you a food pill or a new shirt, Treena. I’m trying to save your life. What’s this about? Punishing yourself?”

“Take a good look at yourself, Vance,” I shot back, suddenly done with all of this. “You spend every day arresting your own people and then beating yourself up over it. You keep trying to prove to the world that you’re this horrible person, that you deserve this life. I don’t think you should be lecturing me right now.” 

His eyes flashed with anger. “This is not about me. This is about you doing something stupid.”

I yanked at the lock as I’d seen him do before, and the door clicked open. The air in the stairwell was cold and stale, but I strode into it and started climbing the stairs. Vance gave an exasperated sigh and followed. 

We walked in silence for a few minutes. I had no idea what we’d find at the top. Guards? Monitors? The commander?

“Your Rating is wrong,” he finally said. “Their precious Rating system says absolutely nothing about you and what you’re capable of.”

“So far, everything I’ve done has proven my number absolutely correct.”

“Treena.” His tone softened. “I don’t know why that happened to you. But I do know one thing.” He stopped on the step below me, and I whirled to face him. We were the same height now, and his expression was fierce. “You are the most loyal, most determined, and most fascinating girl I’ve ever met. No stupid number could ever describe you.”

The deadness inside me cracked, and the pain came flooding back. I felt like a five-year-old again. Falling, grasping for a handhold, for something to save me. “It doesn’t matter now.”

He gave me a long look. Then he sat down, right on the steps, easing me down next to him. I lay my head on his shoulder and let him pull me close. The warmth of his embrace felt completely and utterly right. For a long moment I allowed myself to forget about the past few days. There was no empress, no punishment mode, and no mission. Just us.

The world was cool and dark, and his touch sent my heart pumping as if it had just awakened from hibernation. 

Vance looked thoughtful. “Do you remember what I told you in our first training session?”

“Yeah. You told me to stop retreating and fight back instead.”

He chuckled. “When you took on a dozen men at the warehouse, I thought I’d created a monster.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” I said. He just hadn’t known me very well yet. I’d never been one to run from a fight. But wasn’t that exactly what I was doing now—beaten, helpless, and too guilt-ridden to think straight?

I tilted my head back and allowed myself to look up into Vance’s eyes. They were so dark it was as if they were absorbing all the light that entered and saving it for some future purpose.

His eyebrows were choppy, untrimmed, and his lips chapped. But somehow it worked. It was simply . . . him. No surgeries, no tallies of volunteer hours and checklists. Vance just took life one day at a time, keeping his family safe, trying to put the pieces back together. I could see it, the pain in his heart. It was something we shared now.

The man who'd trained me, lectured me, protected me seemed to have trickled away now, leaving one gallant, vulnerable boy. A boy who saw me as something precious—who looked at me instead of at my Rating. His eyes stared at me questioningly, his usual confidence replaced with uncertainty. 

I, on the other hand, suddenly knew exactly what I needed to do. "I'm afraid I won't be going with you to see the empress after all. If that means I have to hit you over the head, so be it."

He gave a knowing smile that did something to my insides. “It feels good to finally choose a side, doesn’t it?”

“Whose side are you on, then?” 

As he looked into my eyes, I felt like he could see into my soul. His fingers brushed my cheek, then he cradled the side of my face in his hand, gently tilting my chin upward, and I felt his breath, felt the battle within him as well as I felt it in myself. But something pulled me toward him. 

“Yours,” he said. Vance slowly closed the distance between us.

And our lips met.

He was hesitant at first, just a soft brush of his lips on mine. Then the cool, damp air around us melted away in an instant. His strong arms went around me, pulling me closer, holding me tightly. His kiss became more insistent, and the pain and fear within me began to fade as I felt myself giving in. His chin was rough against my skin, but it only fueled the heat that pulsed through my racing heart.

It felt like hours, that brief moment of pure joy mixed with pain and longing. For the first time I saw past the rough exterior he hid behind to the soul beneath, and it was beautiful. It was a world I’d never known existed, communicated with perfect understanding. 

Footsteps sounded overhead.

**Continue reading Numbers Game if you enjoy:

• Enemies to lovers romance
  
• Forbidden love
  
• Fierce, kick-butt heroines