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Vera: An Honor Bound Story
Fourteen years before Honor Bound, Vera Novak found herself caught in the crosshairs of the terrifying Stormbeck syndicate…
Vera is a cop, assigned to an undercover mission to infiltrate a human trafficking ring in her city. She is prepared for a long assignment with little support, but a job is a job, and times are hard.
When a simple meeting with her contact goes very wrong, Vera must fight to escape from the very syndicate she has been assigned to investigate. She finds herself in the clutches of the most dangerous man in the city, tormented by her captor by day – and by night is guarded by a man who could prove to be her ticket out… if only they can trust each other.
Vera is a cop, assigned to an undercover mission to infiltrate a human trafficking ring in her city. She is prepared for a long assignment with little support, but a job is a job, and times are hard.
When a simple meeting with her contact goes very wrong, Vera must fight to escape from the very syndicate she has been assigned to investigate. She finds herself in the clutches of the most dangerous man in the city, tormented by her captor by day – and by night is guarded by a man who could prove to be her ticket out… if only they can trust each other.
311 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 19, 2025
About the author
Athena Ryals
9 books6 followersAthena Ryals is the award-winning, Illinois-based author of the Honor Bound series. Their short fiction and poetry have been featured in Erato, Z Publishing's Colorado's Emerging Writers and America's Emerging Poets, and Colorado School of Mines' High Grade.
Honor Bound: Book 1 is the winner of the Wishing Shelf's Red Ribbon Award and is a 5-star Reader's Favorite Awards book. It is also a Finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.
Honor Bound: Book 2 is the Silver Medalist for the LGBTQIA category of the Reader View's Literary Awards, and is a 5-star Reader's Favorite Awards book.
They are currently working on final book in the series, Honor Bound: Book 6, set to release in winter of 2025. Vera, a prequel/companion to the Honor Bound series, is currently in the works as well.
They graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a Bachelor's degree in Mining Engineering. While they were there, they took every writing elective available to them. When they were laid off of their engineering job in 2015, they had to start a new career, this time in EMS.
A writing challenge in September of 2019 threw them back into writing and they have not stopped since.
They work on an ambulance as a paramedic.
Honor Bound: Book 1 is the winner of the Wishing Shelf's Red Ribbon Award and is a 5-star Reader's Favorite Awards book. It is also a Finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.
Honor Bound: Book 2 is the Silver Medalist for the LGBTQIA category of the Reader View's Literary Awards, and is a 5-star Reader's Favorite Awards book.
They are currently working on final book in the series, Honor Bound: Book 6, set to release in winter of 2025. Vera, a prequel/companion to the Honor Bound series, is currently in the works as well.
They graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a Bachelor's degree in Mining Engineering. While they were there, they took every writing elective available to them. When they were laid off of their engineering job in 2015, they had to start a new career, this time in EMS.
A writing challenge in September of 2019 threw them back into writing and they have not stopped since.
They work on an ambulance as a paramedic.
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