Purple Sky

Pack #4

by Cardeno C., Jae Ashley (Editor), JK Hogan (Illustrator)

An Alpha shifter confidently strolling through his smooth, easy life meets his unexpected mate—an Alpha whose journey has been wholly different and who has long since given up on hopes and fairy tales. Two different backgrounds. Two different views on power. One perfect pairing.

Purple Sky Alpha Brian Berger has led a life blessed with familial love, good friends, and success. He is certain of his place in the world and confident in his destiny to be a powerful Alpha leading a strong pack. The only thing missing is the sweet, obedient mate he’s awaiting.

Brian’s expectations are upended when he meets Keith Iredell. He’s damaged, he’s strong-willed, he’s chaotic, and he’s an Alpha. Keith is the opposite of what Brian thought he wanted, but he is exactly who Brian needs.

Word 42,267

Genres: Shapeshifters, M M Romance, Supernatural

156 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 6, 2026

About the author

Cardeno C. - CC to friends - is a hopeless romantic who wants to add a lot of happiness and a few "awwws" into a reader's day. Writing is a nice break from real life as a corporate type and volunteer work with gay rights organizations. Cardeno's stories range from sweet to intense, contemporary to paranormal, long to short, but they always include strong relationships and walks into the happily-ever-after sunset.

Heartwarming Stories. Strong Relationships. Forever Love.

Website: www.cardenoc.com

Blog: (Shared Blog) https://gayromanceauthors.blogspot.com/

Twitter: @CardenoC

FB Profile: http://www.facebook.com/CardenoC

FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Carde...

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX6M...

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/cardenoC/

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, but oh how I've missed the fluffy Cardeno C gooeyness.

[BWT · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Fun, paranormal romance with two alphas...what's not to like? For me, the only thing I didn't love was how long it took Brian to listen to Keith.

[BAG of Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Book 2, Red River Pack and Purple Sky traded Alphas. Brian Burger left Red River Pack to go to Purple Sky.

In Book 3, the main character was Golden Valley Alpha Morgan Peters. There was a side character, Keith, who kept challenging Morgan. They didn’t kill each other in these "challenges."

Now, Brian (33) is the Alpha of Purple Sky. Keith (25) is living in the neighboring pack, Green Field. Keith was the Alpha heir of GF, but another Alpha (Rupert) has taken over the pack after Keith's father died, and Keith has been rejected by his mate. Keith has been on a hunger strike, just waiting to die.

PS and GF are next to each other, but separated by a river, so the two packs don't interact.

Brian's worried about his new pack’s land. They need water to irrigate their land, but they’d need to form a treaty with GF to use the river. Brian travels to GF to talk to Alpha Rupert.

Brian can sense darkness in the GF pack land, but he can also sense there's something inside the Alpha's house he needs to see. The Alpha's not there, but Keith is, almost dead from the hunger strike. Brian thinks Keith is being starved against his will and resolves to take Keith away to save him.

Alpha Rupert shows up. He doesn't really didn't try to stop Brian from taking Keith, because he wants Keith gone.

Brian takes Keith back to PS. Keith gets taken care of and eventually wakes up. Keith is a little confused about how Brian could be his mate, because he thought he was already rejected by his mate. He has a tragic backstory involving his “other mate,” Tim, but realizing Tim wasn’t his mate kind of makes everything better. He starts acting really upbeat, euphoric, when he was just about to die 10 minutes ago, so now Brian is confused!

Brian doesn’t know any of Keith’s back story, or why he was starving. He needs to find out what’s going on, and Keith’s too out of it to talk.

Morgan Peters, who Brian doesn't get along with, shows up at PS accusing Brian of kidnapping Keith. And Brian’s like, What are you talking about? Rupert had alleged that Brian had come to GF and kidnapped Keith.

This was a weird scene, because Morgan tells Brian that out of the three of them, Keith is the strongest, Morgan is 2nd, and that leaves Brian as the weakest of the 3! I thought that Morgan was kind of rude to say that! LOL! Not very good diplomacy!

But anyway, it’s obvious that Rupert sent Morgan there to kill Keith, since they have a history of fighting each other in "challenges" in the previous book. When that doesn't happen, Rupert sends a woman, a former PS resident, to Brian’s house to ask Brian for help, and she tries to poison him. But she’s a cartoon villain, very obvious about it, and Keith sees her put the poison in Brian’s drink.

Part of Keith’s backstory is that Rupert was his Regent and was only supposed to rule until Keith turned 18. Rupert had introduced him to his “mate,” Tim, who really wasn’t his mate, and being rejected messed Keith up for a long time. Did Rupert somehow make Keith falsely believe Tim was his mate, to hold onto power? How?

Keith says he’s going to go back to GF to defeat Rupert. Brian’s worried because Keith was just on the verge of death when they met, but Keith says not to worry, he’s strong enough to defeat Rupert.

[Kirstine Hansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This final book is about Brian, who took over the Purple Sky pack instead of Wesley Stone in the second book, and Keith who has gone completely off the rails after his mate died in an explosion. He caused a lot of trouble in the last book.

Brian is the golden boy who grew up in the prosperous Red River pack - not a lot of surprises there. He is strong, kind, dependable, and effective, and he is making good progress bringing the Purple Sky pack back on track. His life has been easy in many ways.

Not so with Keith. He grew up in the Green Field pack, not far from Purple Sky, but his parents died when he was a child and he was left with his mother's shitty ex. Keith was supposed to take over the pack when he came of age, but then his omega mate died and he has been spiraling ever since.

Now they have to get to know each other's very different personalities, and get to the bottom of a surprisingly convoluted plot years in the making. A very satisfying end to the series. Except I could have used some more details about the deaths of our villains, preferably bloody ones. What? They were bad men!

[Rissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG, I feel like I haven't read anything but Heated Rivalry fanfiction these days and I need to actually finish some books for my ongoing challenges.

So I decided to grab a Cardeno C book and this was classic Cardeno C. I love Keith. I feel like I need to reread the rest of this series books as a refresher but I wasn't lost because the author took the time to explain. As usual, I want more after the ending but that's expected from this author.

I'm hoping for more from this author, fingers crossed. It feels like they are finishing their ongoing series so hopefully there's new one(s) in the horizon?! 🤞🤞

[Victoria Poulter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m so happy Cardeno C is writing again, I’ve really missed them writing and so snapped this up. It didn’t flow as well for me as the books written before their writing break, but it was still an enjoyable read and I look forward to more books.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this

I LOVED Keith! I am so glad this author continues to give us awesome stories. I always feel good after finishing one of their stories.

[August June 💘 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Keith is super awesome and Brian is a super bore. He irritated me through out the story, disliked his character.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to follow

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good story and series and author

Good story and series and author it's worth reading this book and all of her other books too binge read everything enjoy 💞 🌻 🥂