Man, I'm not sure why I'm even giving this book two stars... Wistfulness, I suppose. This one totally killed the series for me. I liked the first one just fine, though sometimes the characters were so daft is was painful and it was riddled with editing errors. In this one, the errors have been dramatically reduced. It is literally the only improvement made.
Demon Slave was, incredibly, a DNF for me- probably one of maybe three books ever. I was seven tenths of the way through the book when I threw my hands into the air with a hysterical "REALLY?!" and couldn't go on. THAT'S BAD, when the end is in sight, you're that far in, and you can't even give the book a pity finish. Nadua, this is your fault.
Ok, the male protagonist wasn't exactly a shining star either. He was kind of dense and caveman-like in his pursuit of an uppity bitch. It did not escape my notice that the Marik from the first book and the Marik from this book are almost completely different people. The Marik in this book is too busy grunting and gyrating to have an actual formed personality. It's as if the author wanted to stuff this book SO FULL of drama and angst that she employed bad plot devices (chapters upon chapters of meaningless misunderstandings, lack of proper communication, pridefulness without reason, mental black-outs, and let us not forget random hot secks between every character possible- all of whom are TORTURED for some reason or other) rather than actual character development. But, I digress. Marik could not have single-handedly made this book as hard to stomach as it was. The real reason that this book is terrible is NADUA.
I love a strong female protagonist. Notice I said strong female, not "a bitch devoid of feelings." Nadua is created from a female archetype that could best be titled "The woman everyone hates for a very good reason." She's unapproachable, selfish, and doesn't earn her arrogance. It's not like she's a super badass or anything, so she needs to calm the hell down. She's ill-mannered. She's rash and simple-minded. She doesn't stop to puzzle things out at any point. She is a woman who is so pigheaded and self-absorbed that she KNOWS she's right. Even when she's dead wrong, she's right. She's so busy shrieking wild accusations, spit flying and arms waving, that she literally can't see shit that is RIGHT in front of her. Then, suddenly, it's time for SEX! Then she's pissed, dumb, and mean as a snake again right afterwards.
Also, jeez, ANYA wasn't close enough to ANALIA? Like, you wouldn't think to yourself "oh hey I DO happen to have a sister with a somewhat similar name that I haven't seen in 400 years. She may have gained a nickname in that time."
When I was most of the way through the book it sort of hit me that yeah, sure, there were some faceless minions trying to kill her in the beginning and some minimal dastardly plotting going on, but the biggest enemy in this book is Nadua herself. Throughout the huge majority of it, the only real conflict is that some demons are stuck in a cave with a huge bitch.