Trial by Fire — Frey Ortega

Hundreds of years into the future, mankind has been enslaved. The earth has been taken over by aliens that humans only call buzzards: vultures who picked on humanity until they were forced into servitude. Tanner Jacobsen is just a gladiator trying to make a living in a cutthroat world when everything he knows is thrown off-kilter by a man he meets in the arena. Arad Mizrahi is an ex-gladiator. When he won his freedom from his arena, he first sought out the Resistance: a group of humans intent on finally breaking free from alien oppression. But now he's back, and on a mission to find more soldiers for the Resistance. But then he meets Tanner, and both their priorities shift. Caught in each other's orbit, Tanner doesn't know what to make of the world he now finds himself in, but what they feel for each other is becoming realer by the moment. The question that now hangs in the air is whether or not these emotions can help him pass through a trial by fire or risk losing Arad and a chance at happiness forever.