Excerpts Young Adult Read an Excerpt From Devious Prey by Scott Reintgen A young woman must survive the deadly mythical creature she smuggled aboard an airship after a crash landing on a deserted island. By Scott Reintgen | Published on March 18, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Devious Prey, a new young adult fantasy novel by Scott Reintgen, out from Margaret K. McElderry Books on March 31st. When an airship’s windmaster dies mid-flight, the crew and its passengers are swept out to sea by a violent storm. They crash on a desolate island, but they’re not alone. A dragoness had been stashed in the hold. After escaping a damaged cage, it begins preying on the surviving travelers in the hopes of remaining free.The stranded group’s best chance of making it home alive is the young woman who smuggled the dragoness on board in the first place—and the mysterious teen boy who was led onto the ship in chains before takeoff. Both have secrets that could help them survive on the island… but those same secrets could deliver a death sentence if they ever make it home. For the second night in a row, no one died. A minor miracle that Warden Kell was all too happy to claim as his own divine handiwork. He walked around camp like a deity who’d granted his worshippers rain during a drought. The man was so confident, in fact, that he missed the smaller details that Marken had trained his entire life to notice. Something was being passed around from deckhand to deckhand. Some private word or instruction. He saw the way it moved from one corner of the camp to another. Just a whisper and a subtle nod before it found the next person. He also noted the way that same message, whatever it was, skipped over the areas where Kell’s guards patrolled. Whatever was being spoken wasn’t some generic camp message about food or the patrol rotations. Some game was beginning. How curious. The second clue was in the subtle shift in behavior around camp. Helene and Agnes set up a game of pegs. A few of the other deckhands participated. Yesterday, they’d been obsessively talking about logistical concerns—building a boat, exploring the island, rationing food—but today they were playing games and wasting time? All that urgency had bled dry that quickly? If the warden noted the subtle shifts in behavior, he didn’t comment on them to Marken or to any of his guards. In fact, when the patrols rotated, Kell closed his eyes and napped by the fire. Marken’s final clue came from Pearl Trask. She and her aunt waited for the peak busyness of breakfast and first conversations to slip off into the woods together. Too long for it to just be a bathroom break. Less than a minute after their return, he saw eye contact between Pearl and Helene. Then, for the first time since they’d crashed, the girl pulled her hair up into a ponytail. It brought out the starkness of her features. A sort of sharp beauty, he supposed. He hadn’t really even thought of that until now. When she was done putting her hair up, she nodded once to Helene, and then sat down by the fire to look out at the sunlit ocean. That exchange had his mind humming with possibilities. What else could the two of them have come to an agreement about? If not something to do with him? All I have to do now is wait. Be patient. It felt as if the island heard him, though, and now moved to offer the group alternatives to whatever plan was brewing. An hour later, that same metallic shrill from the day before sounded. Everyone reacted the same way. An initial tightening—the same way any prey reacts when, for a brief moment, they realize their concentration had lapsed and their hunter might be on the verge of leaping—and then there was the gradual realization that the noise was out there somewhere. He thought of the dragoness. Could that really be her? Roaring in some altered form? But then he looked up. The sun was tracing a path overhead. Unless he was mistaken, the noise had sounded at exactly the same time as it had the day before. Creatures, however predictable, did not function that way. No, the only things he’d ever encountered that repeated—day after day with such precision—were man-made. Humans liked their systems and their consistency. And that led him to a new set of rather uncomfortable questions. What if this island was populated? Could there really be a fishing town on some other unexplored part of the island? If there was, why had no one come for them? The ship crash had been loud enough to wake a god. Imagining  civilization  so  close  at  hand  had  Marken’s entire chest constricting. The null thread felt tighter than ever. Claustrophobic almost. He needed to escape it before they were rescued. Otherwise, he would be right back where he was at the start of this journey. Nothing gained. Everything to lose. It was the older deckhand—the man named Wally—who spoke the words that might ruin him out loud to the others. Buy the Book Devious Prey Scott Reintgen Buy Book Devious Prey Scott Reintgen Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget “That’s got to be machinery,” he said. “It made that noise at the same time yesterday. Like it’s running on a cycle. There’s something out there that’s man-made.” Marken considered making up a lie. He could pretend what they were hearing was some inexplicable magic that only he would know about, but what would his excuse be for not mentioning it the day before? He needed to dredge up some explanation—and fast. The warden was having a whispered conversation with his man Levi. The deckhands were stirring excitedly too. “Machinery means people,” Helene said. “Maybe it’s one of those drilling rigs. You know the ones they’ve got in all the northern harbors now. If there’s a little fishing village or something over there, we might be saved.” All eyes swung to Warden Kell. The man in charge of the guns. Marken waited, breathless, for what his response would be. Say no. Please, tell them no. Be your usual, stubborn… “Go,” he said, before adding a small clarification. “If you want to go, I won’t stop you—but no guns. They stay with us. My men and I have been charged to escort a prisoner safely home. We will stay with the ship and the wherestone. I wish you the best of luck if you decide to go on this little…” And here he paused to put an unnecessary amount of derision into his tone. “Jaunt of yours. I won’t stand in your way, but our guns stay on this beach.” A sense of relief flooded through Marken. It was the one time that the warden’s stubborn logic was working in his favor. Helene wasn’t as reckless as her sister. She wouldn’t take a trek around the island, exposing herself and her crew, without proper defense. And all of them knew that a few spears wouldn’t make anyone feel safe. They’d need pistols—or Marken’s magic. “Fair enough,” she said. “We keep waiting, then.” She turned away from the conversation, as if it were a settled matter, and returned to playing her game of pegs. Kell looked rather pleased with the result. Once more his pride was blinding him to the smaller details. The way fists were tightening amongst the deckhands. The cold impassivity that now stretched over Helene’s face. The almost violent way that Agnes moved her pegs as they resumed the game. Marken hid a smile. You’re a dead man, Kell. You just don’t know it yet. Excerpted from Devious Prey, copyright © 2026 by Scott Reintgen. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Devious Prey</i> by Scott Reintgen appeared first on Reactor.