Summary
I am a lesser from a servant world.
But even before I was taken?
There was no rescue for me.
The night sky isn’t the only place that’s filled with darkness.
And cages look different, but they’re all the same.
I might be fragile as glass, but I shielded my daughter with my own body. I’ll withstand these brutal aliens.
Their leader. The one who has blades in his wrists and a fractured look in his eyes? I’m all that stands between him and Earth.
But now I think I have the advantage.
Because he sees through me, which means he doesn’t see what’s right in front of him.
And I’m not afraid of anything.
This glass holds oceans. Planets. Stars.
Just try and make me break.
Excerpt
Our bodies move together in the dim half-light of this secret room in his spaceship.
It’s quiet here.
Far from the noise of the engineering office, the bustle of officers on the bridge.
He caresses my nape, draws a finger down my curved spine, grips my hip to better align our bodies for his thrust. And I push to deepen every sensual undulation as he fills my pool of longings, eases my aches, quiets my silent screaming. In his gray arms, I am not a woman anymore. I am nothing but desperate hungers finally being fed.
“Do you love me?” His voice is edgy in the half-darkness. His breath ghosts across my shoulder, shivering with unintentional dominance, thready with buried need. “Do you love me now?”
But this crazed and broken man does not know what love is. The concept doesn’t exist in his celibate, highly controlled race. During this coupling I’ve pushed on him, he tries to understand me, who he rules over.
And he does this only because he too is searching for what he’s supposed to become. He was crushed to pieces by his people. By their rules. He’s no longer an obedient cog in their machine. They haven’t realized it yet, but they will, and then he will face consequences.
How long can a person survive beneath a suspended blade?
How long can you walk on the empty shore, knowing at any moment the unnatural tide will return and the thundering tsunami will wipe out everything beneath you—and there’s nothing you can do to save it?
The unsteady danger is present in his fractured irises, in the surgically embedded blades twitching beneath his wrists, in the way he nibbles on my soft shoulder even though touch is forbidden.
“Do you love me?”
I bite my lip.
And yet, my moans burst through as another body-convulsing orgasm floods me.
I was the one who started this.
It was easy to answer his question then.
No, I do not love you. No, humans can share bodies without sharing feelings. No, this attraction is only chemical. Remove it and there is nothing between us.
That was before.
Now, I remain quiet.
Because I’m terrified of what will change when I say yes.
Review
(audiobook) I loved the story itself. The intergalactic plot from the previous books continues, with a couple of new interesting twists. We also learn a bit more about the Arrisan society as a whole. And, of course the love story is unique once again.
Lia and Atana were interesting characters together. They had a lot in common, as they were both passengers in their own life, as Lia says. But by the end of the story, and because they met each other, they take back control over their life. They find their place in the world. Lia is a betrayed politician’s wife–little more than a trophy wife–and Atana is a blade whose dreams have been crushed and who doesn’t believe in the Arrisan world anymore. They have little to no power, or so they think.
The main thing that separates them is how they connect love and intimacy. Lia has been infected by lusteal, so she has unnatural urges. Hence she totally dissociates love and sex. Furthermore, she hasn’t experienced love from her husband. On the opposite, Atana knows neither love nor desire, but once he discovers the latter with Lia, Arrisan myths make him connect it with love and he’s trying to understand the feeling. Fun thing is, they’re both wrong, as they learn at the end of their journey. You can have intimacy without feelings, and love without intimacy, but they enhance each other.
The book is mostly about how they grow as an individual, and how they grow together–what they discover about themselves–punctuated with a few more violent scenes and hints at an intrigue. When they’re on the verge of becoming a real couple, action takes the front seat. It was even a bit confusing at times. I’m not sure the author is up for space opera. But the pace was good, with enough dangers and time-sensitive action to keep me on the edge of my seat.
Unfortunately, the audiobook wasn’t up to par. Both narrators were perfect for their character–I could hear Atana’s nonchalance and Lia’s discretion–but not so good with other characters. It took me out of the story a couple of times. It wasn’t totally bad though, as they’re both experienced storytellers. It just could have been better.
Quickie
- Series: Blades of Arris #4 (can be read as a standalone)
- Hashtags: #SF romance #fated mates #virgin
- Triggers: violence, deaths, past emotional abuse, torture
- Main couple: Liliya Nazarivna & Atana
- Hotness: 5/5
- Romance: 4/5
- + interesting reflection on the link between sex and love
- – it deserved a better audiobook
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