Abel Jin and Delilah Johnson have lived their lives with a hole in their soul, yearning for something they don’t understand.

Until one night Delilah is in mortal danger and a man who’s otherworldly strong and supernaturally fast saves her. Delilah is then cast into a world where fiction comes to life in the form of Abel, her destined mate, a vampire/werewolf hybrid who claims her at first breath as his.

But Abel knows the danger isn’t done. He’s dreamed for centuries that his mate will perish and he will stop at nothing to keep her safe.

For Delilah, she’s not only coping with fantasy come to life, but a mingling of very different families. Not to mention, she has on her hands a man who doesn’t understand his true nature and has lived his long life thinking he’s a monster.

Abel and Delilah together fills the hole that has been clawing at them for decades. But finally finding each other, it also tips their destinies as the last of The Three. They must unite with the other destined lovers, who with Abel and Delilah, are fated to save the world.

Or die trying.

Abel and Delilah have lived all their lives knowing something in their lives was missing. On a quest to find the hole within her soul, Lilah goes to Serpentine Bay without understanding why. Unfortunately, one night she is attacked by werewolves and vampires. Thankfully, she is saved last minute by a man with one brown eye and one blue eye. Instantly, they know what was missing in their lives. They don't understand it, but they know they are lifemates. However, despite barely meeting each other, they also learnt they are the remaining couple of the Three and they are bound to save the world or die trying... 

I loved this book. SO. MUCH. What did I love about ?

- How simple Lilah and Abel relationship was. It was uncomplicated, they trusted each other, they knew what the other needed without having to say it, they apologized when they made a mistake, they were honest... Best. relationship. ever. 

- Despite being a cool, strong, alpha male Abel had that sensitivity and innocence that came from him not knowing what he was and growing up thinking he was a monster. He had everything to learn and was a bit unsure about many things. Made me love him even more. 

- How confident Lilah was. She was comfortable in her own skin, trustworthy, respectful, understanding... She helped Abel a lot and I loved that for him! And she was never scared to not have much to bring during the fight. She never thought she was less worthy than the other couples. 

- Reading about all the other couples. Yes!! Leah/Lucian and Sonia/Callum are back! I was so happy about this. We even had some POV from these characters. I was so happy!! 

- The side love story between Aurora and Yuri. They were so cute together. I would have loved for them to have some short story within the series. It felt a bit rushed and I'm sure we could've had an amazing story with these two! 

One night, Callum is driven into the woods by instinct, an instinct to protect. In the form of wolf, he meets a young human child who he is instantly drawn to in a fierce way he doesn’t quite understand.

Sonia Arlington has lived a lonely life. She has certain abilities that make her strange and she has a rare disease that, if untreated, could kill her. Her father makes her vow that she will never let others discover her abilities. This forces Sonia to stay distant, always guarding against exposure.

Intelligence leaks that Sonia is Callum’s human mate. He is now King of the Werewolves and has war on his hands. He’s forced to claim his mate and integrate Sonia into a world that is strange and frightening.

As Sonia attempts to adjust, Callum attempts to cope with the knowledge that his mate is mortal. He will have her beauty and gentleness only the length of a mortal life making their union unbearably bitter even as Sonia makes it unbelievably sweet..

The second book of the Three Series introduces Callum and Sonia. Both are pre-destined mates. Callum is the King of the werewolf and Sonia is a human, raised by vampires (it is not a big spoiler since Gregor was introduced in the first book) after her parents died tragically. Since she was a little girl, Sonia dreamed of a wolf whose life she saved from hunters when she was barely six years old. Little did she know that this wolf turned out to be Callum. 

Callum always knew that Sonia was his mate, but he waited for her to reach adulthood before claiming her. When rebels go after Sonia, all bets are off and Callum "kidnaps" Sonia and brings her to his private cabin in order to tell her everything about them, but mostly to finally claim her. 

Opinion:

I liked that Sonia was pretty resilient and Callum - somehow - patient. However, I was sometimes frustrated that he was not upfront with everything, which led to crappy situations. I feel like when you carry secrets, it's better to do like you would a band-aid: do it fast, do it all and you're done. It hurts, but at least, it's done. Even though it took time for them to be in the right set of mind about their relationship, they always managed to find their ways back to each other. 

I loved that despite being pre-destined mates, they did not fall in love with each other straight away. They still had to go through this discovery stage and learn about each other. It was not easy and a lot of secrets/lies were on the way. I enjoyed Sonia's quirky personality and sense of humor and I loved Callum's protectiveness towards Sonia. But he still deserved a couple of slaps for not explaining straight away to Sonia, even though it was mentioned that it is because of his nature and the fact he did not know about humans reactions. But still... Poor Sonia was completely overwhelmed by everything and he just made it worse. 

Anyway, I loved the actions, the storyline, the characters (even the secondary characters), the suspense/surprise, the steamy sex scenes... 

Can't wait for book #3!! 

Have you read it? Please leave a comment to let me know your thoughts on this book :) 

Ce jour-là, à la réunion du conseil de Cuelebre Enterprises, un siège est vide. Celui de Tricks, la porte-parole de la société et l'une des plus célèbres personnalités des Anciens.
Quelques jours plus tôt, on apprenait que Tricks était en réalité Niniane Lorelle, la fille de feu Rhian, le roi des Faes noires. L'héritière du trône, au coeur de toutes les convoitises, est portée disparue depuis la nuit dernière. Seul indice : une vidéo amateur de son agression dans une ruelle de Chicago. Tiago, seigneur de la guerre et puissant oiseau-tonerre, part sur ses traces. Il la retrouvera, même s'il doit y laisser son coeur.

Dans le tome précédent Le Baiser du Dragon, Dragos avait fait exécuter Urien, le roi illégitime des faes noires. Trick délaisse son poste de chargée de relations publication chez Cuelebre Entreprises et endosse la responsabilité qu'est celle de reine des faes noires. En effet, Urien avait fait assassiner sa famille afin d'accéder au trône, mais elle était parvenue à s'échapper et à trouver refuge auprès de Dragos. Mais il est désormais l'heure pour elle de délaisser cette vie. Elle reprend son véritable prénom - Niniane - et rend public son statut d'héritière à la presse. Elle pensait que le plus dur serait de parvenir à imposer son statut aux autres faes, mais c'était sans compter sur les tentatives d'assassinat et d'enlèvement des partisans d'Urien.

Avis :

Je ne connaissais pas beaucoup le personnage de Tiago. Il était brièvement mentionné dans le premier tome, mais sans aller plus loin. Clairement, il est le personnage qui rend le livre potable.

Je trouve cela dommage que l'auteure ne se soit intéressée qu'au début de la relation de Tiago et Niniane et ne soit pas allée plus loin. Il aurait été bien de savoir si Tiago et Niniane seront acceptés par les faes noires et de voir l'impact que cela aura sur leur relation. 

Ce livre manquait un peu d'actions et était trop répétitif sur bien des aspects, notamment sur la relation entre Tiago et Niniane. C'était un pas en avant et deux en arrière. 

Cependant, l'univers que Thea Harrison a créé reste magique avec les fonctionnements de chaque espèce. J'ai beaucoup apprécié en connaître un peu plus sur les faes noires. J'aurais adoré en connaître plus sur l'espèce de Tiago : l'oiseau-tonnerre. 

J'avoue que la lecture de ce second tome a mis un frein à la poursuite de la série. Je ne suis pas encore sûre de vouloir continuer avec le tome 3, même si les personages de Carling et Rune m'intriguent. 

Leah Buchanan’s family has been in service to vampires for five centuries. Even so, Leah wants nothing to do with her family’s legacy. But when she’s summoned to her Selection by the Vampire Dominion, under familial pressure, she has no choice but to go.

Lucien has been living under the strict edicts of the Vampire Dominion for centuries but he’s tired of these ancient laws stripping away everything that is the essence of the vampire.

So he’s taking it back.

And this is because Lucien has been watching and waiting for decades for Leah to become available for a Selection and he will not be limited with what he can do with her. He will have her, all of her.

Therefore, Lucien is going to tame Leah, even if he gets hunted and killed for doing it.

What neither Leah nor Lucien expects is the strong bond that will form between them, connecting them on unprecedented levels for mortals or immortals. And what will grow between them means they will challenge their ways of life and their union will begin The Prophesies which makes them one of three couples who will save humanity… or die in the effort.

Forget everything you knew about the vampires/humans stories. Kristen Ashley completely re-wrote this! In this series, humans and supernatural beings have coexisted for centuries. Some humans knew and fully live in adéquation with supernatural beings, but most of the human beings did not know other creatures lived among them. 

Centuries ago, vampires could mate with humans. But in order to protect both species from extinction, it has been forbidden for vampires and humans to have any kind of relationship besides for humans to be concubine. Concubines are willing humans who serve vampires for a certain amount of years. This helped maintain balance of power and to keep vampires from hunting humans. Willing humans attend a gathering called The Selection, where a vampire chooses his next concubine who then serves them on a contractual basis. Being a concubine is a great honor. You are cared for throughout your service and until you die. 

Leah Buchanan was born into a family of concubines. Her lineage is extremely famous for being the most desired concubines. But where her family finds pride, Leah is nothing but uninterested in serving a vampire. For her, being a concubine is close to a death sentence. When she reluctantly attends the Selection, she is surprised to know that Lucien - a very famous, powerful vampire - has been waiting for her for years and selected her. But everything goes downhill for her then. He tampered with the contract forcing her to be a concubine until he decides otherwise, agrees to having sexual intercourses with him and should she choose to run away, he is allowed to track her and punish her the way he sees fit. When she is close to refusing, Lucien compels her to sign the contract and carries her away, cutting her from her family and the outside world by taking away her wallet, passport, phone, bag... 

Leah is not the regular concubine Lucien is used to: she defies him all the time, frustrates him on every single thing he asks of her. Despite his patience, Leah is more stubborn than he anticipated. But both characters are in for a wild ride...

At first, I thought Lucien was a real a**ho*e! Yes, he is a very respected vampire and he is expecting Leah to treat him accordingly. Let me tell you that Leah cannot give two crap about what he wants and I loved that! Anyway, by the end of the story, I started liking Lucien a lot. He turned out to be caring, loving and super sweet. BUT... I am still pissed at him that he didn't explain better to Leah what the taming is exactly (see below for more explanations). The other thing he did and bugged me was he claimed loud and clear he waited for Leah for centuries, but as soon as he runs out of patience, he almost cheats on her. That was a big NO for me. But thank God, he didn't do anything reprehensible. 

I loved that Leah was a strong, stubborn character.She had a mind of her own and I found her to be super funny. I was just frustrated every time she resisted Lucien only to give in ten minutes later. I just wanted to yell "Girl, get your act together!". But she was a funny, relatable character. I just struggled with her age. It is said she was 40 years-something and I couldn't help picturing her as a teenager or in her early twenties. For example, she was expelled of Vampires Studies for passing notes, exchanging texts and writing her will. I thought it was hilarious, but not really fitting for a 40-year-old woman. 

The only reason (at the beginning of the book anyway) Lucien selected Leah is because he wants to tame her. Now, I can see the wheels of your brain turning and be like "Say whaaaaaaat?!". A guy calls me pet and tells me he wants to tame me, be sure I will run the other way screaming at the top of my lungs after spraying his face with some pepper spray. Anyway, the taming is actually the moment a concubine gives herself wholeheartedly to her vampire. She lets go of everything and relies completely on the vampire. But Lucien did not explain any of this to Leah and of course, she made (the wrong) assumptions, which he never corrected, but only replied with a "You need to feel it" stuff. Ugh... if he had told her from the beginning, a lot of things would've been much easier for the both of them. 

I was also disappointed by how Leah gave in to the taming. It is like all of a sudden she had an awakening of some sort and was super happy about the taming and understood what it was despite not having a clue for the first three quarters of the story. It kind of came out of the blue. Anyway... 

I did enjoy Kristen Ashley's writing. I am a huge fan of hers anyway, so it shouldn't be too surprising. I couldn't put the book down when I started it and like I said before, I read it at least five times. Overall, I liked the plot and the universe KA created. There is also an upcoming war that will most likely run throughout the series, so I cannot wait for more actions and you can be sure I will read the other two books. 

Depuis la nuit des temps, les Anciens cohabitent avec les humains.
A New York, Pia Govanni, mi-humaine, mi-dragonne, a été choisie pour une mission ultra-dangereuse : dérober un élément du trésor de Dragos Cuelebre. Il est le chef incontesté des Wyrs, le dragon le plus redoutable au monde. Simple pion dans la guerre qui oppose le roi des Faes noires à Dragos, Pia sait pertinnement qu'elle devra subir la fureur de la ténébreuse créature. Car Dragos est à ses trousses, et il la retrouve en territoire elfique. Mais aucun des deux ne s'attendait à ce qu'une telle alchimie se révèle entre eux.

Bienvenue dans un monde où les humains vivent en harmonie avec des espèces surnaturelles (vampires, wyr, faes...) dans des villes telles que New-York, mais les espèces surnaturelles ont également accès à d'autres contrées qui recèlent de magie. 

Pia est une jeune femme mi-humaine mi-wyr qui a été surprotégée tout au long de sa vie par sa mère. Lorsque cette dernière décède, elle fait jurer à sa fille de vivre avec prudence et de ne jamais révéler ce qu'elle sait faire, ni de dévoiler son vrai nom (car oui, les noms ont une grande importance chez les wyrs). Malheureusement, après le décès de sa mère, Pia enchaîne les désastres amoureux et son ex, justement, lui fait du chantage afin qu'elle pénètre dans l'antre du Dragon - appelé Dragos (original, je sais !) - afin d'y dérober un objet. Personne avant elle n'avait jamais réussi cet exploit. Et surtout, personne n'en était jamais sorti vivant. Lorsque Dragos découvre qu'un de ses trésors a disparu, sa rage ne connaît aucune limite et Pia a intérêt à décamper le plus vite possible... 

Mais tout ne va pas se passer comme prévu...