I, Gaius Domitus, one-eyed rebel dragon king of the Provinces, know that better than most, since I have to fight off half my ungrateful family on a regular basis to keep law and order here in my lands. But I never expected to have to consort with a barbarian human woman.

Kachka is beautiful, if you like them fierce—and of course I do. But she keeps complaining about how spoiled and decadent I am, and how a feared Daughter of the Steppes has no time for foolish dragons. I think she likes my eye patch, though. It is quite dashing. With death always at our tails, we take our passion like we take our allies. As they say, love the barbarian you’re with…

Gaius Domitus is the one-eyed rebel king of the provinces.  He is on a mission to find his aunt and kill all of his relatives who are evil and must be destroyed.  While on this mission he comes across Kachka Shestakova who is a Daughter of the Steppes (and sister to Elina from Light My Fire) and is on her own mission to take down the fanatics who are killing Queen Annwyl’s temple attendants.

Kachka isn’t impressed with Gaius and his “spoiled” lifestyle as she puts it, but there is some kind of attraction between them.  Kachka is very down to earth and makes no bones about her want of Gaius physically but as she never goes back for seconds with a man she thinks they’ll get together and then go their separate ways.  They end up working together and also end up falling in love…in a way that only Gaius and Kachka can – with not a lot of romance.

The eighth book in the Dragonkin series was another good one.  I loved seeing the characters from previous books as well as getting to know Gaius and Kachka and their interesting personalities.

Kachka cracked me up.  Her and her Daughter of the Steppes compatriots were a force to be reckoned with and they never hesitated to show their incredible arrogance.  They had no lack of confidence, that’s for sure.  They felt themselves above all the others – mostly in the whole world but especially to dragons who they considered animals.  Kachka herself didn’t understand her sisters love of Celyn as he was an animal (dragon) but the more she got to know Gaius the more she could see her sisters reasons.  I loved how she ever so slowly got more comfortable with him and then gave in to him completely.  He was pretty excited about that as well. 🙂 Their relationship was one of sex and fighting with not a lot of romance but it worked for them (and me) and was perfect for the world that Aiken has created.

The overall story arc with the religious fanatics intersecting with Gaius’s mission to decimate his family (for good reason) was a good one.  I liked how the story didn’t fully focus on Gaius and Kachka but blended well with everything else that was going on with the on-going story.

We also got to read more about the children of the dragon couples that we have read about so far – lovingly called the Abominations – and got to see them a little bit more clearly.  Their powers are incredible and I truly can’t wait to see what will happen next in their lives.

If you love a good dragon story with lots of action, witty banter, sarcasm and sometimes laugh out loud humor this is a great book for you.  If you haven’t started the series yet I would highly recommend it.

Rating: 4 out of 5