ORDER A COPY: Desire the Night
Publisher: Zebra Paranormal
Publishing Date: August 28, 2012
Paperback: 338 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Held captive in a basement prison, wrapped in silver chains, the vampire Gideon is too weak to fight the monster who enslaves him. For years, she’s tapped his precious blood like a fountain of youth – sustaining him with human females she captures for his pleasure. But with the latest victim she brings him, he senses something intriguingly different. Something dangerous, yet oh so tempting.
You would think after 360 years as a vampire Gideon Marquet would be too clever to fall into a witch’s trap. Now he sits locked in a cage, bound in silver chains, being used as Verah’s own fountain of youth. He had long ago stopped killing humans to feed his need for blood, but since Verah nearly starves him while taking his blood, his hunger is now too great to stop being the monster humans fear.
But his latest dinner offering is quite different from the usual human fare given to him, she is a werewolf. If only he can keep his hunger in check before the next full moon, they might finally have a chance to escape this nightmare.
Kiya Alissano was just going out for a night with her friend, and ends up drugged and then she wakes to find herself being offered as a midnight snack to a hungry vampire. Although they are natural enemies, Kiya and Gideon work together to escape the clutches of the witch, but she is not willing to let her prize go without a fight. Kay and Gideon are on the run as Verah scryes for their location.
When they turn to Kay’s pack for help, they are out of the frying pan and into the fire. The Alpha, Kay’s father, wants her to marry into the neighboring pack, not running around with a vampire.
** Some spoilers here **
This story started off so good. The meeting of Kay and Gideon was interesting and their working together to escape. They are both attracted to each other so they stick together, even after Gideon realizes that the witch cannot locate him (as he is dead) and she is scrying for Kiya. He won’t leave her alone to be found by the witch.
The story begins to lose my interest when decisions are made and things are done that don’t make sense. Gideon decides Kay would be safest surrounded by her own people. Gideon is attracted and intrigued by someone for the first time in a century, and he knows that Kay’s father wants her to marry the son of the adjoining pack Alpha, so why would he think the best place would be with her father? Once she is back under the father’s control, he forces her to marry the other werewolf, who then kidnaps her back to his compound to keep her away from Gideon. Since he is not “invited” onto the compound, Gideon can’t get to her.
So we have a lot of going back and forth between being captured by the witch, the werewolves and begin recovered by Gideon, to the point that after 250 pages, I was losing interest in the story. I did finish it, although there were many things that didn’t make sense in the story, beginning with Gideon giving Kay up to her father who intended to give her to another man. The father is the over the top Alpha with the “do as I say or I will actually kill you” attitude.
I was also very confused with Kay’s parent’s relationship. Her mother is human and she gets pregnant. She won’t have an abortion and Kay’s father decides to marry her against his family’s wishes. That would be great if they seemed more of a love match. Why such an über-Alpha was even slumming with a human is my first question. He seemed so “we are werewolves, we stick to our own.” The mother later indicates that she didn’t know what he was until after her second child, but that she was afraid of him even before they got married. That brings me back to why were they even having sex to begin with, and why did his father (the then Alpha) not kill him for first being with a human and then defying the family by marrying a human. I’m weird this way. I’ll believe someone can change into a werewolf. I’ll work with you on the vampire changing into mist. But the marriage between Kay’s parents, I just couldn’t understand.
If you like Amanda Ashley, I’m sure you’ll like this story. It wasn’t unreadable and it started off real good. She just lost me when the decisions her characters were making just didn’t make sense.
Received ARC from Kensington Books. Thank you.
Favorite Scene:
She wrapped her arms around her bent knees and drew them up to her chest. “Are you going to feed on me tonight?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“On you.” His gaze moved over her, lingering on her lips, the swell of her breasts beneath the white silk shirt. “I’ll leave you alone tonight in exchange for one kiss, freely given.”
“A kiss?” Was he kidding? How could he think about kissing at a time like this?
Gideon nodded. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman. He could have compelled those the witch brought him. He could have taken them by force. Neither option appealed to him. Nor had any of the women. But this one…there was something about her the intrigued him like no other. “So, what do you say?”
She eyed him warily. “How do I know you’ll stop with a kiss?”
He shrugged. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”
“Trust a hungry vampire? Yeah, right.”
“Is that a no?”
“Hmm.” He was a good-looking guy. Cleaned up and well fed, he was probably devastating. “One kiss,” she said, and scooted closer to him. “No tongue.”
He grinned, his shackles rattling as he reached for her. She could feel the power in his arms as he embraced her. For stretched seconds, he simply held her, his gaze locked on hers. She felt a tingle of awareness bloom inside her as his hand moved up and down her spine, then slid over her shoulder to stroke the edge of her breast.
She started to push him away when he claimed her lips with his, and all thought of protest—indeed, all thought, period—vanished as his mouth closed over hers. She hadn’t expected to enjoy his kiss. He was a vampire, after all, but his kiss was like nothing she had ever known. Her fingers tangled in the hair at his nape as she drew him closer, suddenly inexplicably hungry for the press of his body against hers.
She moaned softly when he took his mouth from hers, sighed as he rained kisses along the length of her neck. Lost in a maelstrom of sensual pleasure, she was scarcely aware that he had bitten her until, with a choked cry, he pushed her away, then retreated to the other side of the cell.
Kay blinked at him, confused and suddenly light-headed. And then, seeing the red in his eyes, the single drop of crimson at the corner of his lower lip, she realized what he had done. “You said you wouldn’t feed on me.”
“I’m a vampire,” he said, his voice faintly mocking. “I was only doing what comes naturally.”
She glared at him when she realized he was repeating what she had said earlier.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, then cocked his head to one side. “What are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your blood. It isn’t human.”
