ORDER A COPY: Enraptured (Eternal Guardians)
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Publishing Date: April 2, 2012
Paperback: 416 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Orpheus may have joined the elite protectors known as Eternal Guardians, but they’ve never trusted whose side he’s really on. And the half-daemon couldn’t care less. Orpheus has only one goal: rescue his brother from the Underworld. He’s not expecting a woman to get in the way, especially not one sent by Zeus to seduce, entrap, and then ultimately destroy him. A woman who will dredge up a past he doesn’t remember, a love that once condemned him, and a dark and deadly secret as old as the Eternal Guardians themselves.
This series is about the seven guardians. They are the descendants of the original seven Argonauts who journeyed with Jason to find the golden fleece. The Argonauts were favored by the Greek Gods and granted a home called Argolea. They protect their kingdom and the world of the humans from daimons, who are lead by Atalanta. She was an Argonaut not favored by the Gods (because she was female) so she made a deal with Hades for immortality.
The series involves the Argonauts (the Eternal Guardians), the Argoleans, the misos (who are mix of half argolean/half human), humans and the daemons, and don’t forget those rascally Gods who are always causing trouble.
Orpheus is once again on a search for the Orb, but this time is it not a quest for power and glory. This time he needs the Orb to return his brother’s soul to his body. When Gryphon’s body was stolen by an evil wizard, his soul was sent to the hell realm of Tarturus to be tortured for eternity; a fate which should not await a Guardian as brave and strong as Gryphon. Orpheus is determined to rescue his brother’s soul and return it and his Guardian markings back to Gryphon’s body.
Skyla is a siren, an assassin for Zeus. Her mission is to keep the evil half-demon Orpheus from obtaining the Orb, and she is to bring it to Zeus. When Skyla realizes she has been lied to by Athena and Zeus, she joins Orpheus in his quest to save Gryphon.
Although Demitrius is still my favorite guardian, I was very excited to read Orpheus’s story. Being part-demon, the presumption is that Orpheus would be untrustworthy, dangerous, etc., etc., and encompassing everything bad from the daemon side. He has spent a good part of the last two hundred years doing things and making choices for his own personal gain, but could this be less daemon in nature and more to do with the fact that he was passed over in the Perseus’s lineage for his younger half-brother simply because Orpheus was half-daemon. Now that Gryphon’s soul has been ripped from his body, his Guardian markings transferred to Orpheus who is the last of the bloodline.
I did have a hard time getting into this story since there is a lot of jumping between various characters in the set up of the story. I always find too much switching characters to be distracting to the story. (See too many POV) Although I understand that in this series, the demons and the Gods are always plotting go get ahead, between Zeus, Hades and Atalanta all plotting to get the Orb from Orpheus so they could be the most powerful, it was distracting and I had a hard time being interested in Skyla and Orpheus when every time the story got going, we had to be pulled away to watch Hades rant or see where Atalanta was in her goal to be released from her imprisonment.
Take out all the additional distractions and the story was enjoyable, the characters are well written and the quest to save Gryphon was engrossing. The tortures that Gryphon endured and the resulting trauma to the usually happy-go-lucky guardian are heartbreaking and I will be keeping my eye out for his story.
Received ARC from netgalley.com courtesy of the publisher.
Favorite Scene:
She bent over, grasped the arm of the closest hybrid, but Orpheus blocked her with his hand on her forearm. Shards of heat penetrated his skin when he touched her, spread deeper, amping that arousal he shouldn’t be feeling. “Before we do that, why don’t you tell me just where you came from?”
She rose. “And ruin the mystery? Where’s the fun in that?”
She was toying with him. He didn’t know why, but the knowledge eased the tension inside him. “You’re not Argolean.” He tapped into his senses, this time focusing on her. On what he’d ignored before, because he’d been too distracted by his target to pay attention to her. “And you’re not a god. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but—”
“What in Hades…?”
She was staring at the ancient Greek text on his arms. The text marking him as a guardian of his race.
Dammit. When he’d lost his shirt in the shifting process, he’d forgotten all about his Argonaut markings. Markings he didn’t want and couldn’t wait to get rid of. Markings he’d inherited after his brother’s death.
Her eyes darted back to his face, and confusion—maybe even a little horror—slithered into their amethyst depths. “You’re an Argonaut? But I saw you shift. I saw you turn into that…that thing.” She shook her head. “Daemons can’t be Argonauts. They can’t be chosen. It goes against every law ever established. It goes against the natural order.”
She was definitely otherwordly, but he still didn’t know from where. And if she knew what he was, why wasn’t she slicing and dicing him like the others right this minute? When she jerked her arm out of his grasp, he didn’t try to stop her. ‘Cause, yeah, this whole fucked-up situation went against his order too.
Damn you, Gryphon. And damn the gods for marking him in Gryphon’s place. There was only one thing he wanted now. Once thing that would grant him vengeance against the sonofabitch god who’d cursed him to begin with.
He stepped back, perched his hands on his hips, breathed deep so he’d stay calm and not shift again. But it wasn’t easy because the fire in her eyes told him his night was far from over.
“Screw whatever it is you want to know about me,” she said. “What I want to know is…who the hell are you?”
