Mia Luchese meets Colin Foxe during a hostage situation and they immediately become lovers. Mia doesn't realize that Colin is a vampire, though she does realize that vampires exist (coming from a hunter family and all that). Colin is drawn to Mia and doesn't realize it's a bonding call because in his mind, mortals are good for sex, but when he finally bonds it will be with a vampire. So this is why, after 3 months, he tells Mia that he needs to see other people and breaks things off with her, breaking her heart. 3 months later, Colin still hasn't gotten Mia out of his mind (not for lack of trying) and is stalking her when she's attacked by a vampire. He rescues her, has sex with her and leaves. Mia knew she was attacked by a vampire, so seeks out her hunter grandfather (who she doesn't realize is the vampire's archenemy) to learn how to defend herself. She's attacked again and rescued once more, but Mia doesn't let things end there. She seeks out her rescuers and learns they are vampires and that she is, in fact, bonded to Colin. Colin is furious at this, thinking his chance to bond with a vampire is lost and he's stuck with Mia. Lot of hurt goes around, but more important is dealing with Mia's grandfather and the Tribe vampires who have been attacking. The chance of losing Mia brings Colin around to his senses of course.
So this would have been much better if Colin hadn't been such a monumental douchebag. His belief that humans aren't for bonding is the behavior of, to quote Mia, a "racist pig." It surprised me that Alec, whose bondmate is human, didn't get on Colin a it more for that one. He breaks things off with Mia and goes off and has wild sex with lots of women without realizing that Mia, who is already bonded to him, knows every time he does it. How are they bonded? Because during sex, Mia had been biting Colin and tasting his blood. I don't know how he had no idea this was happening given her dull teeth, but it was. This was never explained to my satisfaction - the explanation being that maybe Mia's psychic power made him forget. Yeah. Okay. Then maybe it could have been explained why Mia thought drinking someone's blood was a-okay normal for sex...just because Colin was doing it? Having read and seen as much sex as she had, one would think she'd realize that drinking blood during sex was not standard practice. So that remained a confusing topic for me. Anywho, douchebag doesn't realize that he can't forget Mia because they're bonded so he continues to break her heart. He doesn't feel guilt and he doesn't care because she's mortal and not good enough for him. This is doubly proven when they end up bonded and he's still thinking of how he can get out of it and bond with a vampire. Yes, this is his journey, to learn how to appreciate what he's got, but he wasn't a very sympathetic character because of it. Mia, who was pretty much a fantastic heroine, deserved much better. I liked that she was strong, independent and resourceful. I love how she called him on his bullshit, but she should have made him suffer more. As far as the building of the prime universe, this story was pretty good for that. I'm beginning to understand how things work there much better and seeing how things connect. I will keep reading - hopefully no more douchebag heroes.