Love is a weapon brought to bear. Love is blood spilled without remorse, and a kiss that’s so sweet they can ignore the taste of copper underneath.

“Shh,” Kakashi breathes against his lips, and there's a look in his eyes that he gets on the very worst missions, in the middle of a battle, when there's nothing left in him of restraint or anything beyond instinct and act-react. “You’re safe, Shisui. And I'm going to fix it.”

When Dark Woman orders him to fall in the name of finding the Sith Lord and ending the war, Jon obeys the way he always does. If it's in the name of saving more lives, he can believe it's worth it, no matter what he has to do. Rex and Cody getting dragged down with him was never something he intended.

The Republic falls in the span of a day. Xanatos, desperate to keep his son out of the line of fire, makes a reckless deal with the new emperor, whose face he's never seen. But there are dark secrets behind the emperor's fury and prophecies that won't let themselves be thwarted, and Xanatos is nothing but a pawn in a far greater game.

After decades of watching Xanatos play Imperial politics and neglect his family, right up until Tura's death, Granta decides to take revenge on his father. The best way to do that is to make sure Xanatos never reaches the throne he covets, and for that purpose, Granta proposes a marriage alliance with one of the top contenders for the crown and Xanatos's political enemy, the vicious and deadly Marshal Commander Cody. Granta has it all meticulously, ruthlessly plotted out, with no room for error. It's too bad that falling in love with his husband was never part of the plan.