Raven Smile

A prequel novella of The Inbetween Archives

They were sent to kill a senator.
They were never supposed to fall in sync.

Karina Chekova is an Ethereal: one of SID’s elite operatives, trained to seduce, manipulate and eliminate.
Sinjin Gray is her assigned partner.
Charming.
Controlled.
Very, very good with swords.

Their mission is simple enough:
Infiltrate an exclusive political symposium on Kratos.
Destabilise a powerful senator.
Leave no trace.

Their cover?

Newlyweds on honeymoon.

This should be fun.

GET RAVEN SMILE

Meet the happy couple

Karina

Before Ghost Command knew her as Spook, Karina was Raven.

An assassin.
A seductress.

The woman SID sent when somebody important needed to die without anybody being able to prove why.

The smile is part of the job.

So is making people underestimate what happens after they see it.

During her years as an Ethereal, Raven specialised in high-profile assassination and understood exactly how useful relationships, attraction and perception could be as weapons.

Sinjin

Sinjin Gray was raised in traditions written in blood on one of the oldest Central Planets in the Confederation.

He can charm a room, lie convincingly enough to make people grateful for it, and put a blade exactly where it needs to go.

Like Rina, he’s an assassin and a seducer.

In other words: perfect husband material.

For approximately one week.

Probably.

Honeymoon protocol

The assignment places them inside a decadent political gathering where almost everything is performance.

Status.
Sex.
Violence.
Marriage.
Power.

The symposium is full of people watching everyone else, elaborate social games and traditions where an insult can end in blood.

Rina and Sin are supposed to blend in.
Pretend to be newly married.
Pretend to want each other.
Pretend the touches, kisses and private looks are all part of the operation.

They’re professionals.
This should be easy.
It isn’t.

The problem with pretending

Rina has spent years using intimacy as a weapon.
Sin knows exactly what performance looks like.

Which means they’re both uniquely qualified to recognise the moment something stops being one.

Not romance.
Not quite.
Something more dangerous.

Trust.

Not soft trust.
Not safe trust.
The kind where you put a knife in someone’s hand and turn your back because you know exactly who they’ll use it on.

As the mission unfolds, that trust becomes the one thing neither of them expected, and the thing they may need most to survive. The novella’s central premise explicitly pits their fake marriage against surveillance, violence, drugs that compromise consent and a target accustomed to treating both people and power as possessions.

Unfortunately, the senator is worse than advertised

Senator Silas Adrestos is powerful.
Connected.
Dangerous.
And very accustomed to winning.

Duels.
Politics.
People.

He also has access to Silk.
A drug that strips away inhibition and control while leaving the person trapped inside the consequences.

Which turns an unpleasant assignment into something much more personal.

Karina knows exactly what Silk can do.
Sin knows exactly what someone tried to do to her while she was under its effects.

At that point, the mission objective becomes somewhat academic.

Years later, both of them still remember the week-long SID-mandated marriage fondly, with the notable exception of “that little drugging incident” and the shared opinion that the bastard responsible died too easily.

Consent matters

This is one of the things at the heart of Raven Smile.

Both Karina and Sin come from worlds where bodies, intimacy and attraction are routinely treated as tactical assets.

The story deliberately puts that against the difference between:

performance and choice;
seduction and coercion;
wanting someone and being chemically forced to want;
touch used as manipulation;
and intimacy freely offered.

This is not a romance.

Except for all the parts that sort of are.

Karina and Sin are not each other’s grand romantic destiny.
That’s not what this relationship becomes.

What forms here is something that lasts much longer.

Partnership.
Loyalty.
Trust.
The sort of intimacy that doesn’t require them to be lovers to remain fundamental to one another.

Years later, Sin still calls her Dove.
Rina calls him her best friend.

They have separate loves, separate lives, and still function as one another’s lodestones when the world gets ugly.

This is where that begins.
With a fake marriage.
Naturally.

Expect

Assassins behaving badly

They’re professionals.
This does not mean they make sensible decisions.

Fake marriage

Complete with cover identities, public affection and considerably more commitment to the bit than SID probably intended.

Political intrigue

Old families.
Power games.
Duels.
People smiling politely while calculating murder.

Competence

Karina and Sin are extremely good at what they do.
Watching capable people make other capable people regret underestimating them is part of the fun.

Friendship with teeth

This isn’t will they fall in love?

It’s:
How far will they go for each other once trust becomes personal?

The answer is approximately:
too far.

Violence

There are blades.
There are traditions.
There is a bridge.
Some problems solve themselves once gravity gets involved.

Reader advisory

Raven Smile deals directly with sexual coercion and compromised consent.

Content includes:

Drugging without consent
A fictional drug that affects inhibition, desire and behavioural control
Threatened and attempted sexual exploitation
Sexual coercion
Violence and assassination
Duels and serious injury
Blood
Murder
Political corruption
Manipulation and espionage
Power imbalance
Strong language
Consensual sexual content between adults

The story distinguishes clearly between chemically compromised behaviour and freely chosen intimacy.

Where does Raven Smile fit?

Raven Smile takes place during Rina’s earlier career as a SID Ethereal, long before the present-day events of the main series. Flight Risk places their fake marriage roughly fourteen years in the past.

Can I read it on its own?

Yes.

The central mission is self-contained.

You’ll understand Karina, Sin and why somebody at SID thought marrying them for operational purposes was a reasonable use of government resources.

It wasn’t.

Where do you recommend reading it?

If you’re following The Inbetween Archives, I recommend reading Ghost Formation first.

That lets you meet Rina in the wider history of Ghost Command before taking this detour into her Ethereal past.

But if fake marriage + assassins + political murder is your particular weakness?

Go ahead.

I support your priorities.

VIEW THE FULL READING ORDER

Already know Rina?

Then this is the file that answers a question the main series eventually raises:

Wait. Rina married Sin?

Yes.
SID made them.
There were rings.
There was a honeymoon.
There was a mission.
There was absolutely no reason Shade ever needed to learn any of this.

Unfortunately, he did.

Before Spook, there was Raven

Ghost Command knows Rina as the person you point at a problem when diplomacy has failed.
But she had an entire career before them.
One built on changing faces without changing herself.
Reading people.
Using what they wanted against them.
Smiling.
Waiting.
Striking.

Her Raven smile wasn’t charming.
It was a warning.
Seeing it usually meant someone had made their last mistake.

Raven Smile lets you meet that version of her.
And then introduces the man smart enough to recognise exactly what she is—
and stand beside her anyway.

Ready for the honeymoon?

One senator.
Two assassins.
One fake marriage.
A great deal of surveillance.
Several terrible people.
And a partnership neither of them expects to keep once the mission is over.
That part doesn’t go according to plan.