The short version: this is a fun, fast, sexy story, though I felt like the individual pieces didn’t quite come together into a seamless whole.
The long version: This book starts off with a bang, with our heroine Tella running for her life from an angry dragon who has kept her captive and starving for the past six years. Her goal is to cross the Wall , an impenetrable barrier to dragons, into the lands of the Wolves. She has always been told that the Wolves keep human women as breeding slaves, but she figures that any women expected to bear young must be fed regularly so at least it will be better than what she’s fleeing. The chase scene was gripping and I was on the edge of my seat at this point.
Once over the Wall she is discovered by Epsilon who immediately recognizes her as his fated mate. She is barely conscious so he rushes her to a hospital. After this, the two characters are kept apart for months, and that was when the story started to lose me. There is a conversation with a doctor, another rescued human woman, about life with the Wolves (it’s not like Tella heard) where the doc alludes to an initiation ceremony. Then, a two month time jump. We get to see none of Tella’s healing, physical or mental, nor do we get to see Epsilon struggle with the separation from his fated mate or with his knowledge of what faces her during the initiation. Without that insight into these two characters, what followers seemed a bit superficial to me.
And then, the initiation. Without going into detail, I found the initiation uncomfortable and disturbing to read. I believe that was intentional on the part of the author. It certainly fits with the dark tone of the story up to that point. However, I also got the impression that readers were supposed to find Alpha to be a sympathetic and tragic character, which I did not. The supposed explanation for why the initiation is necessary made little sense to me and left me with the impression that either I was missing essential pieces of world building that would make it all work or everyone else was brainwashed into not acknowledging the obvious alternatives. In that light it was hard not to see Alpha as a villain.
The story then shifts gears into courtship mode. This part was sweet and very sexy. The courtship takes up the largest part of the book, even though it covers just a few days. Epsilon is determined to do everything by the book. He is obsessed with taking care of Tella and meeting all of her needs, including her sexual ones, without making any demands of his own. This culminates in a final private ritual in the forest.
At this point the story comes full circle. What started with a chase has to end with one as well. Tella’s old dragon captor makes an appearance once more and the story switches back into action mode. The dragon tries to gaslight Tella into coming back with him of her own accord but she is having none of it, and Epsilon eventually shows up and saves the day. For something so physically imposing, it was not clear why the dragon bothered talking to Tella instead of just snatching her and flying off. I would have preferred an action scene that was longer and featured more doing, less talking, like the opening chapter. Overall, the final confrontation with the dragon felt rushed to me.