The Devil and the Deep Cover Piece + Excerpt Reveal #3!

Ready for Chapter One???

After reading the prologue last week, you’re probably interested in knowing WTF is going on with Myra and The Devil’s Playground. Well, chapter one is going to give you a healthy update, along with introducing most of the cast and bringing back that charmingly adversarial fae who’s bound to cause a little chaos in her life.

Or maybe a lot of it…

COVER REVEAL PIECE #3! Scroll down to see the third piece of the cover of The Devil and the Deep.

Enjoy!

Did you miss the first two cover piece and excerpt reveals???
Cover Piece + Excerpt Reveal #1 | Cover Piece + Excerpt Reveal #2

THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP
A The Devil’s Playground Novel
2026 © Amber Lynn Natusch

CHAPTER ONE
Myra
Two Years Later

Gripping the stainless steel countertop, I closed my eyes and slowly counted down from ten.

It was either take a moment to breathe through the overstimulation and calm the rage inside me threatening to boil over, or murder everyone within arm’s reach. Given how packed the bar was at that hour, it would be quite the mess to clean up, and even though I planned to dip out early, I’d still be stuck trying to get the blood and other sticky bits out of the cracks in the old plank floors.

“Myra!” Curtis shouted from the kitchen, his deep, booming voice pulling me from my crime scene musings. “Your order’s up!” When I didn’t jump at his call, he burst through the swinging dutch doors with a sense of self-righteous enthusiasm that fell away the second he laid eyes on me. Apparently, Ravi hadn’t warned him properly about my prickly demeanor when he’d hired him a few weeks back, but one look at the homicidal fury brewing in my sea-blue eyes made his rich umber skin go pale and sent him skedaddling back to the kitchen where he belonged.

Good. I’d run my fucking food order when I was ready to deal with the rogues and miscreants filling The Riff Raff.

In fairness, rogues and miscreants were pretty much all that comprised our little seaside neighborhood in Seattle. The Devil’s Playground had the highest concentration of supernaturals per square mile of anywhere in the world, and it was plain to see why; it seemed that the more of us there were, the more we repelled humans. Only the occasional junkie or drunk frat boy ever wandered down our streets, their senses too altered to feel the wrongness of it all. Sometimes I’d sit by my apartment window in the morning and admire their sheer terror when they woke up from their passed-out slumbers. The Playground didn’t have much wholesome entertainment—that was as close as we came—and I enjoyed it immensely.

Hung-over humans moved much faster than you’d expect. I grinned at the thought.

“Hey, Myra,” a thin, shaky voice said from behind me, interrupting another tiny slice of joy I’d managed to carve out of that shift. I turned to find Laney, the world’s worst bartender/server, staring back at me, tears filling her ice-blue eyes for the third time that evening.

“What now, Laney?” I asked with a groan. The waiflike blonde sprite opened her mouth to answer, then closed it as she gestured to the hulking, bearded male leaning over the bar top to help himself to whatever we had on tap. “Oh, I think fucking not.” I stormed over and snatched the half-full pitcher from his hand, then dumped its contents over his head in one fluid motion. “Nobody goes behind the bar,” I cooed at him with a saccharin smile. “Nobody. And if you make her cry again, Danny, I’ll rip off that precious dick you’re always begging to bury deep inside of me and show everyone in here just how lacking it really is.”

“What did you just say to me?” he asked, as though he didn’t have superhuman hearing. The little growl he added at the end was a nice touch too.

“You know exactly what Myra said,” a male voice called out from behind me, “and if you don’t back away from her now, I’ll let her do it.” I looked over my shoulder to find Ravi Singh, my illustrious boss, wiping a chef’s knife clean with a towel as he made his way over. “Or would you prefer I did the honors?”

The overgrown, flannel-clad shifter eyed the blade for a moment, then the one wielding it, before he backed away with his hands up. “Your bitches need to lighten up, old man.”

“And your privileges here have been officially revoked,” Ravi replied. With a flick of his wrist, the scruffy lumberjack flew backward over the tables and through the door. It slammed shut behind him and shuddered for a moment, cutting through the din of the bar. All eyes flew to the dark-haired man with the flash of grey along his forehead staring them down. “The next one of you to refer to anyone here as a bitch will find yourself in the same predicament, is that clear?”

A hushed chorus of “yes, Ravi” echoed through the room before the standard Friday night ruckus resumed. Then the man himself turned to Laney and me, nodded once, and walked back into the kitchen like he hadn’t just been ready to carve up a werewolf and serve him as tomorrow’s dinner special if he hadn’t backed down.

While I marveled at his savage dismissal of Danny-boy, Laney wiped her pale hand across her brow and exhaled hard. “That was close.”

“Don’t ever let them see your fear,” I snapped at her as adrenaline raged through my veins. “And don’t ever—EVER—let them see you cry, understand? Predators love prey. Stop giving them what they want.”

Her bottom lip quivered even as her head bobbed in agreement. “Okay…”

“Starting now, Laney.”

To her credit, she rallied and dragged her sleeve across her face to wipe away the evidence. It felt wrong to yell at a girl younger than me with nearly zero skills to survive the Playground, but that was exactly why I did it—to toughen her up. Thicken her skin. Prepare her for the onslaught of bullshit headed her way, living in a place like this. Without Ravi and The Riff Raff, she’d have been eaten alive the second she arrived. Literally.

Laney needed harsh truths to make it in an even harsher place. I knew a thing or two about that. Unfortunately for me, I’d learned those lessons the hard way.

“You conniving little ingrate… you thought you could use your power to usurp me? Could replace me on the throne?” The queen stared down at me, hatred burning brightly in her dark blue eyes. “You wished to take my crown. For your treachery, I’m going to take your tail.”

I turned away from Laney before the weight of her fear and pain could pierce my emotional armor and headed back to the kitchen so I could run the order getting colder by the minute. My hands reached up to shove open the half-door on the right, but instead of batting the rusted metal out of my way, my palm met the bare skin of the being that suddenly appeared right in front of me. I crashed into them, my momentum too strong to be stopped, and together we fell to the cracked concrete floor of the kitchen in a heap.

Apparently, it was just going to be one of those nights.

Fitting, since it would be my last.

“You slapped me!” a shrill voice cried out as I scrambled to get up and see whoever I’d just mowed down. It was difficult to disentangle myself while she was fumbling to get away from me, but once I was firmly on my feet, I realized whom I’d just unwittingly attacked. The feisty brunette on the floor stared up at me with chestnut-colored doe eyes wide with shock and anger.

“Sasha.”

“You. Slapped. Me!” she repeated as she struggled to get up while cupping her reddened cheek. “I can’t believe you did that!”

“Can’t you?” Ravi said without even looking up from the burger he was preparing.

“No,” she snapped as she straightened her black t-shirt, “I can’t. Is this because I was a few minutes late? Because that wasn’t really my fault. I—”

“A few minutes?” I asked, incredulity thick in my tone. “You’ve been gone for weeks, Sasha. We’d have listed you as a missing person by now if anyone in this godforsaken place actually gave a shit.”

She looked at me like I’d lost my damn mind. “Weeks?”

“Yes, Sasha. Weeks. Which means the rest of us have been here taking it up the ass while we were a man down because you decided to go gallivanting around through the portals and got fucking lost. Again.”

“But I swear it’s only been like thirty minutes.”

A collective groan rang out through the kitchen, and I cast a weary glance Ravi’s way. “Do you want to take this one, or do I get the honors?”

“You do it. I’m too tired to explain it again.”

Taking a deep breath to curb my anger, I clamped my hand down on Sasha’s shoulder and pulled her in close, doing my best not to slip my hands around her neck and shake some sense into her. “Sasha, this is the last time I’m going to break this down for you. When you use the portals, the space-time continuum does not necessarily function the same where you end up as it does here, okay? Using them when you’re out of town in an attempt to get to work on time will not play out how you think it should, so stop fucking doing it.”

“But I thought I finally had the hang of it,” she said, hanging her head in defeat.

I stepped even closer and folded my arms across my chest to keep from slapping her again. “No. You don’t.”

“Well, you don’t have to be such a bitch about it.”

A hush fell upon the entire kitchen. I didn’t need to look at their tense expressions to know they were on edge, waiting to see how badly I would take Sasha’s closing dig.

I leaned in and smiled maliciously. “But I do it so well…”

She flinched as I reached past her, snatched the plates from the warming shelf, and stormed out of the kitchen. Without a word, I plopped them down in front of the couple eye-fucking each other across the table and continued on to the rear corner booth to rage-clean it and collect the bill. I counted up the cash and stuffed a surprisingly healthy tip into my back pocket. The guys that had eaten there must have a kink for women verbally abusing them.

As I stacked the plates and silverware into a manageable pile, public enemy number one (aka Sasha) squealed like a hormonal teenage girl and ran out from behind the bar, headed toward the main entrance behind me. When I looked over my shoulder to see why, I instantly regretted it. Just inside the front door stood someone I’d thought I’d never see again—correction, someone I’d hoped to never see again—Yael motherfucking Kristoris, right-hand man of the fae king and all-around arrogant pain in my ass. Looking every bit as haughty and calculating as ever in a perfectly tailored black suit with his dark hair perfectly styled, he flashed a smile at Sasha as she ran up and all but tackled him for a hug.

While she occupied him, I hurried toward the kitchen with my stacks of dishes positioned perfectly to hide my face.

“What are you doing back here?” Sasha asked in an unnecessarily high-pitched voice.

“I came to see you,” he replied, the lie slipping off his tongue as smooth as honey, “and the others too, of course.”

I spun around to push open the kitchen doors with my back as he lifted his head to survey the room. Thankfully, I disappeared before that piercing green gaze fell on me. As much as I loved a good fight, that was one I didn’t have the time or the energy for that night.

Any other time, though, I would have been more than willing.

I handed the dishes to the new guy, then headed into the tiny adjacent office where we stored our things during our shifts. I pulled out the bill I’d collected and slapped it down on Ravi’s makeshift desk, then grabbed my messenger bag.

“Always a pleasure, Laney,” I heard Yael say as I made my way through the kitchen where he’d worked alongside the others only weeks earlier. “Tell me, is Myra here, by chance?” That question spurred me on, and I rushed toward the side exit. Ravi tracked my movements like the wizened elder he was, and a pang of guilt along with a hint of something I didn’t feel like unpacking right then lanced through what was left of my heart.

“You never saw me leave,” I said as softly as I could to still be heard over the clanging of pots and barking of orders.

“Myra…” he replied, voice full of warning, as though he knew there was more to me leaving early than just Yael’s surprise appearance. As if he could sense that something more ominous was going on.

“I’m sorry, Ravi. I have to go.” Before he could question me, I broke out into the alley next to the restaurant and shut the door. Even if his lie bought me some time, it wouldn’t be long, so I pulled the cash out of my back pocket and counted it quickly. “Two seventy-five,” I mumbled as relief washed over me at the realization that I’d finally done it; I had enough to buy my shot at returning home. I smiled down at the wad of bills in my hand and bit back the tears stinging my eyes. In the years I’d spent exiled from the Deep and my people, courtesy of the queen’s banishment, I’d never truly believed this day would come. It had taken countless shifts at the bar, numerous shady back-alley deals, and more near-death experiences than I cared to think about to amass what I needed to buy my ticket home. Now that I had it, it still didn’t feel real. A mix of fear and rage bubbled deep inside of me, reminding me that this journey would be a risky one, but worth it if it brought me the vengeance I craved, as well as the chance to make the queen see the truth.

See how Finn had poisoned her against me.

I exhaled hard to calm my thundering heart and tucked the money safely into my pocket as I rushed down the darkened way, nerves and anticipation driving my every step. A few feet away, the alleyway opened to the main street, and I looked forward to escaping the shadows. But just as I was about to step into the scant light of the road beyond, a tall male with a devilish grin stepped out in front of me, blocking the way.

“Going somewhere, little mermaid?”

All Myra Morningtide wants to do is go home.

Unfortunately for the cursed mermaid, she’s been banished from the sea and landlocked in The Devil’s Playground—a rogue pocket of Seattle that the outcasts and miscreants of the supernatural world call home. Myra would do anything for the chance to return and enact revenge on the one who betrayed her; the one responsible for her punishment.

And Yael Kristoris plans to exploit that truth.

The charming yet cunning fae from Myra’s recent past can’t be trusted, but when deadly events force her into a magically binding deal with him, she has no choice but to use her secret power to help find what he seeks if she wants a shot at the vengeance she craves.

But as it goes in The Playground, exposure is dangerous and secrets can kill, and Myra fears Yael will risk both to meet his end—even if it causes hers.

THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP, the first gritty urban fantasy romance novel in the The Devil’s Playground series by USA Today bestselling author Amber Lynn Natusch.

Coming April 9, 2026
Preorder Your Copy Today

Romance Tropes + Plot Bunnies
Badass FMC With Stabby Tendencies
Morally Gray Shadow Daddy MMC
Enemies-to-Lovers
Secret Past
Emotional Scars + Baggage
Betrayal
Estranged Family
Exiled From Home
Chosen Family
Forced Proximity
Forced Alliance
Fish Out of Water (Umm….Literally)
Revenge
Volatile Powers
Unique Magic
✦
Critters + Creatures
Mermaid
Fae
Shifters
Vampires
Witches
Druids
Ogres
Incubus
Adorable Cuddly Otters