Okay. So this is a well-written book. The author has managed to pique my curiousity about some of the other characters, like Tristan and a bit about Darius, but definitely Nikita. I’m finally more comfortable with the rules of this universe and the creatures and beings involved and everything and I kinda like it. And while I’m drawn to the universe itself and some of the situations that the characters find themselves in, each book so far has had something in it that pretty much riled me up. I’m struggling here.
Where do I start? I think I should start with the fact that women are merely pawns in this series - they have no actual power that the men don’t want to take away from them. Each and every book so far has a woman who has her choice taken away from her in some way or another. In this one, Lexie gets blackmailed into living with Jackson for 7 days because he needs a mate. Standard set up - see this a lot in Harlequin Presents and it doesn’t typically bother me. But something about the way this is presented - where Jackson never sees anything wrong with his manipulation - bothered me. Because in HPland, the hero usually comes to understand that blackmail=wrong. Here, because the male wolves are alpha, and I guess because Jackson is in lurve, it’s completely acceptable. Doesn’t matter what Lexie wants. And Jackson claims he’s not forcing her because she wants him, but she says “no” and he still holds her to their bargain...that’s still force - just not the physical kind. I’m thankful that in the end, Lexie was totally on board with the sex, but I resented the fact that she’d been manipulated and seduced to that moment. I wonder what’s wrong with all these males that they have to coerce, manipulate and force women to stay with them. I don’t know if I can keep reading this series. I’m not sure I can handle the increasingly obvious message that women need not have any choice in their futures because the men have it all sorted and their futures don’t matter anyway since they’ll be getting hot sex on the regular.
I could also start with the ridiculous (and totally contrived) threesome that gets thrown in there at the end. Apparently in order to take in women from other packs, the Alpha has to actually have sex with them (even those already mated) and so in order to be able to handle that, Jackson and Aiden have sex with Lexie together. And Nikita, Aiden’s future mate, gets to watch. RME. That basically ruined this book for me (and probably theirs). Because Aiden supposedly cares for Lexie and desperately wants to mate with her...so surely she’d like to watch him having sex with someone another woman. But that seems to be how things go in this universe. Jackson supposedly loved Lexie and wanted to mate with her all this time and he certainly wasn’t celibate during their 2 year separation. He knew “last week” that she was coming for her horse and that he wanted to mate her, but that didn’t stop him from having sex “last week.” So I’m not sure why he bothered masturbating instead of going into town to get laid when Lexie was “off limits” for 3 days. Apparently it’s the same thing to him… But that’s the equivalent of infidelity for me. When a hero loves the heroine and plans to actually be with her, then he doesn’t go out and fuck other women. For me, an out of control libido that gets satisfied elsewhere while his “heart” remains dedicated is not sexy. Sexy is a man who is so dedicated that he is strong enough to NOT seek sexual satisfaction elsewhere. So that made me wonder how much Jackson really loved Lexie. Methinks it was just a case of lust. Also, Jackson wasn’t much aggressive/growly/possessive or in anyway upset that his alpha had butt sex with his woman. He put up a show about being afraid of getting violent over it, but he didn’t care one wit about it. Neither did Lexie. That bugged me a bit too. The author tells us that wolves are territorial over their mates and now I’ve seen two examples of wolves sharing their mates with other guys. You can’t have it both ways.
And for the love of God, why all the animal sex?!? I don’t want to read about wolves graphically having sex, licking each other’s genitals and what not. No. no. no. no. Humanoid sex only please. Animal sex is totally not sexy.