Pleasure is their ultimate weapon . . .
Runa Wagner never meant to fall in love with the sexy stranger who seemed to know her every deepest desire. But she couldn’t resist the unbelievable passion that burned between them, a passion that died when she discovered his betrayal and found herself forever changed. Now, determined to make Shade pay for the transformation that haunts her, Runa searches for him, only to be taken prisoner by his darkest enemy.
A Seminus demon with a love-curse that threatens him with eternal torment, Shade hoped he’d seen the last of Runa and her irresistible charm. But when he wakes up in a dank dungeon chained next to an enraged and mysteriously powerful Runa, he realizes that her effect on him is more dangerous than ever. As their captor casts a spell that bonds them as lifemates, Shade and Runa must fight for their lives and their hearts—or succumb to a madman’s evil plans.
While reading this book, I had to put aside my personal feelings on slutty heroes. As a Seminus demon, Shade has an insatiable need for sex and one person can’t satisfy him. If he senses that a woman wants him, he’s bound (literally) to give her what she wants. That’s exactly what happened when he first saw Runa at a local coffee shop. Their “relationship” was going along quite nicely until Runa walked in on Shade doing a vampire and a demon…at the same time. Devastated (as a human, Runa obviously can’t comprehend), she runs from his apartment out into the night…only to get bitten by a werewolf.
Yes, kiddies, Runa is now a werewolf. A pissed off werewolf at that. She blames Shade for every bad thing that’s happened to her since that night and she can’t wait to have her revenge. So when they wake up next to each other, both abducted, she has to put her revenge plotting on hold and help Shade figure out how to get them out of there.
Before they can do that, they’re tricked by the evil villain into bonding with each other. That’s bad enough in and of itself. When you add to the fact that Shade was cursed by a pissed off warlock many years ago, well, that’s a recipe for disaster. According to the curse, when he falls in love, he’ll just fade away to nothing. While Shade would love to break the curse, he was never worried about it. Then he met Runa. Now he’s bonded to her.
If that’s not enough for a demon to process, Shade also has to deal with his psychotic brother who has come back from the dead. Roag was already going a little psycho before he supposedly died in a fire, now he’s just bat-shit crazy. He wants to kill Shade, kidnap Wraith and force Eidolon to transplant all Wraith’s organs into himself. That way he can stay with his mate. After that’s done, he’ll kill Eidolon.
This book started fast and didn’t slow down. I really enjoyed how Larissa continued to build the Demonica world. I just find the idea of a demon hospital fascinating. Having demon doctors and paramedics is just really interesting reading. I do wonder what would happen if a human heroine ever came along. In the first book, the heroine was a slayer. In this book, Runa is a human-turned-werewolf. So I’m interested in seeing how Larissa would write a human-turned-nothing into this book.
I’m glad we don’t have much of a wait for Wraith’s book. I can’t wait to see what he has to go through to get his hea.
4 out of 5.
This book is available from Grand Central. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
Good review but one oops, Runa is a human turned WEREWOLF not vamp!
Thanks, Zeek. My fingers were obviously typing faster than my brain.
I just finished Wraith’s book and it’s definitely on par with the first two! But now the fourth book doesn’t come out until 2010, which seems like such a long wait.
I loved this one. Really enjoyed the fact that whilst Shade was bonded to Runa, by some twist she wasn’t bonded to him, so she could just up and walk away at any time.
A real rollercoaster read. Fab!
2010? crap.