The Rules of War Chess (The Destroyer King, #2)

In War Chess, a person playing a piece cannot just take another piece as in normal chess but must fight to take possession of the square, with the knights, rooks, bishops, and especially the King's Champion piece, all superior to the pawns. Yet occasionally, a pawn will unexpectedly defeat a far greater piece and upend all the carefully laid strategies of those playing the game.

Jonathan Goldspear and Myste Bannon want nothing more than a normal life together. But when the Scottish King decides to give her Prima Nocte to the winning team of a War Chess match as a way of playing politics, he sets off a series of events which may well lead to Myste's enslavement or death at the hands of those who believe they are the ones controlling the board. Yet, they in turn are merely pieces in the cosmic game played by Chronos and The Lord of the Night, with the fate of the world as prize. Jonathan knows he is only a piece, yet he fights to be that pawn who, beyond all hope, beyond all reason, upends the strategies of both players and forges a different fate for the world. For he knows that, if he fails, the meek shall inherit the earth...

Because everyone else will be dead.