Book Title: Cressida’s Agents
Author Name: Mikala Ash
Date Published: June 7, 2025
Genre: Steampunk, Murder Mystery, Romance
About the Book:
Replete with all the trappings of an alternate world -- airships, steam powered aircraft, automatons, moon bases, and witches with psychic powers -- Cressida’s Agents is a steamy thrill-a-minute ride in a universe of what could have been.
Cressida Troy, after being mesmerised into betraying humanity, is now the wife of Mon Ilson, the alien leader, and is crowned Empress of Space. While pretending to be the love of his long-life, Cressida is desperately seeking a way to redeem herself, and somehow save human civilization from destruction at his hands. Then her former fiancé, Jacob, is captured and brought to the moon. Can she earn back his love, or has her seeming betrayal hurt him too much?
Meanwhile on Earth, Marjorie, in the guise of brothel madam and casino owner is acting as an agent of Mon Ilson. Her goal is to learn from him the secret of immortality, and for now she must do his bidding. A violent assassination attempt on her airship Fortuna brings her into the strong arms of handsome Squadron Leader, Sir Christopher “Kit” Colby. Her attempt to uncover the mastermind behind the plot leads them both into deadly danger.
Retailer Link: https://books2read.com/CressidasAgents
Changeling Press: https://www.changelingpress.com/cressida-s-agents-empire-of-the-sky-3-b-3635
READ AN EXCERPT
Bauble-like, the Earth shone down on ash-hued desolation, embarrassing the barren scene with exuberant fecundity. Patches of white lace speckled the deep blue of the oceans and brushed the rich ochre of North Africa. Above was Europe and, if I squinted my eyes, I fancied I could see my island home, the lush green of England.
My breast ached with a fervent yearning.
My husband, Mon Ilson, the self-anointed Emperor of Space, drew me closer and kissed my neck. “It will all be ours, my love.”
“When?”
“In due time, my darling.” He pulled me to him, and I snuggled against his muscular chest. “Do you miss it so?”
I thought a moment and shook my head. “Not when I am with you.”
His lips brushed my earlobe. “We will return soon. I promise. Our plans advance by the day. Once again you will walk upon the green grass and feel fresh air upon your cheeks.”
I turned my head and returned his kiss, deepening it, allowing the stirring in my quim to mask the confusion of my thoughts. As homesick as I was, did I really want to go back? Could I conquer my guilt? I feared that with the first step the grass beneath my feet would turn to cinders as dead as the lunar dust.
Much had happened to me in the year since I’d left the world of my birth. I was no longer the same woman, the naive and selfish Cressida Troy who’d been fooled into betraying humanity. That silly girl had become Nil Ilson, Empress of Space, wife to Mon Ilson, and co-leader of the Lunarians. I was no longer responsible only for myself. Thousands now depended upon me, be they hideous goblins, or those who’d “adopted” human bodies.
In the deepest recesses of my mind, where I was safe from mental probing, I knew that I’d been possessed, mesmerised into being a traitor to humanity, deceiving my fiancé, Jacob McLeary, and then killing the two greatest threats to Mon Ilson’s plans, Fleur and Horatio Cumberland.
The problem was only the agent of my apparent treachery knew that. The spirit of a murdered girl, Marjorie Gilbert. She had taken over my mind and had deluded me into believing I loved Mon Ilson, and deceived him into believing it too. She’d also tricked him into giving her advanced knowledge of witchcraft. My anger at her was tempered by the realisation she had not done this to me out of maliciousness, but so she could regain her body which had been stolen by Mon Ilson’s goblins. Because she loved me, Marjorie had confessed this, and passed on all the magical powers and knowledge Mon Ilson had given her, including the ability to hide my deepest thoughts.
That was the past. I had committed myself to saving humanity from enslavement at my husband’s hands. How I would accomplish this I did not know. I was impatient. Biding my time waiting for an opportunity to present itself was both frustrating and dangerous. Not only could I be discovered, but I ran the greater risk of letting my growing love for Mon Ilson blind me to the chance if it arose, and then could I bring myself to exploit it? That I had come to love him no longer surprised me. Over the last year I’d learned his dreams, ruled alongside him, and shared his bed. I’d seen firsthand what an extraordinary and charismatic man he was, and in other circumstances I would have unreservedly given him my heart and soul. However, those benign conditions did not exist. The reality was Mon Ilson was a murderer.
A moan escaped my lips as Mon Ilson caressed a hardening nipple. We were lying on a couch in the top deck of the royal barge, he behind me, with one leg draped over my hip. In the crease of my posterior his cock stirred.
I wiggled against him. “Make love to me,” I murmured.
“That was my intention.”
My husband deftly lifted the hem of my robe and pressed the swollen head of his cock against my quim. He gently nudged apart the moist lips and effortlessly slid inside. With a slight adjustment of his hips the tip of his cock touched that especially sensitive flesh on the roof of my cunny. Pure pleasure flooded my system.
Mon Ilson was over a thousand years old, and with countless sexual liaisons behind him he had developed techniques that ensured a woman’s complete satisfaction, and men too. He used sexual magic to bond his people to him after he transferred their spirits from their goblin bodies into the vacant husks of murdered humans, a process they termed Adoption.
When Marjorie had occupied my mind she would stimulate my senses from the inside, maximising my pleasure, and bonding me even more tightly to Mon Ilson’s influence, and made him even more convinced of his devotion to me. He had been trapped in Marjorie’s web of deceit just as tightly as I had. His hold over his people was not just through sexual magic, but the promise of eternal life. Only he could give them that. Only he could transfer their goblin souls into human bodies. That was why Marjorie stayed his servant, hoping to learn the trick. Though she had possessed me, she didn’t know how. That was the one secret Mon Ilson did not share with her. Marjorie wanted so much to live, over and over again, that she would do anything for him.
Now that she was gone from my mind, my physical reactions to his lovemaking were under my control. To overcome my natural aversion to him -- a murdering megalomaniac goblin in a human body -- I used magic to bury my repugnance, project lustful thoughts, and intensify my physical reactions.
“Fuck me harder,” I encouraged him.
His technique, with my magic, quickly filled my body with the pulsating energy that took me to the precipice of climax, a cliff edge from which I gladly launched myself, and was lifted like a skyrocket to an explosive culmination.
My response caused him to reach his own conclusion, and he filled me with his copious essence. He wanted children, and my tardiness to provide the gift was, from his perspective, the only negative aspect in our relationship. Not that he put any pressure on me -- he loved me too much, but I’d felt his need. The reality was that any unnecessary delay would need to be explained and defended. I knew of no reason to defer the inevitable any longer. Though I had control of my fertility, when and by whom I became pregnant, it was not something I expected to enjoy despite my intention to use magic to remove the more onerous aspects that plague many women. At most it would be awkward. Being with child might give me the leverage I needed to control Mon Ilson’s ambitions and hopefully mitigate the worst excesses of the invasion, if not avoid it completely.
My husband’s kisses became more fervent, and he resumed his lusty thrusts. He used his own magic to remain hard, and he fucked me to another shattering climax. Another glut of his seed filled me to overflowing, and those fireworks exploded in my head once more. We lay in each other’s arms, his cock still rigid, while our ragged breathing slowly returned to normal.
“My Lord,” Gloria said diffidently. While we recovered, she had waited by the bed, head bowed, her hands clasped before her shaven quim. Gloria had befriended me after I’d been first kidnapped. She was blonde, with caramel eyes, and a deliciously curved mouth. Like all Lunarian women who’d adopted a human body, Gloria was not only beautiful with a spectacular bosom and narrow waist, but she was also obsessed with sex. I gave her a smile, and she nodded acknowledgement. “Nil Ilson, I am so sorry to interrupt. The humans have sent a vessel beyond the atmosphere.”
Mon Ilson sat up. “Have they really?”
Author Info:
Publisher on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok: @changelingpress
Author on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikala.ash.9
Author on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ash_mikala
Aussie Mikala Ash used to be a mild-mannered training & development consultant by day, and a wild sci-fi and paranormal adventure writer by night. Now she is a brazen full-time writer and nature photographer who is concentrating on having among other things, “… bags, and bags of fun!” Mikala can be found on Facebook and on Twitter.
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