Fighting Darius

by Nicole Riddley

I still remember the first moment our eyes met, something happened. Those icy blue eyes. I couldn't take my eyes off him. I could feel the magnetic pull and we're both helpless against it. Our eyes constantly met across the room. He would always be the first to pull away.

He's so powerful though, so charismatic. He's a lycan, I'm just a regular werewolf. I couldn't stop thinking about him. I made up my mind that I would make him want me. I would fight for what I want. I would deny my own mate if it means I would get a chance.

Three years I went after him single-mindedly. I laid my heart for him, he kept pushing me away. Then one day he pushed too far... and I'm tired of fighting for us. There is no use, I am a fool. I am done fighting him. I've made up my mind. I am going to forget him. I'm going to go out there and lose over and over again if I have to. What am I holding onto? It's not likely my mate will hold on for me. Darius certainly didn't. So why can't he just leave me alone? Why is he so hellbent on breaking me?

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The moment I laid eyes on her, I knew she was my erasthai. The one. The exotic-looking dark-haired beauty. Dark eyes taunting me, haunting me. Only I am not looking for the one. I am a warrior, with no room for a mate. A mate will make you weak, a weakness for your enemies.

Then it happened, she finally gave up. For some reason, it made me mad. Not only did she give up, but she was also going to give herself away to some stranger! That's not going to happen. Nobody else is touching her. I'll make sure she waits to find her mate. She's so stubborn though, driving me crazy, so why can't I leave her alone?

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal, Enemies To Lovers, Dark Romance, Werewolves, Fantasy Romance

ebook

About the author

Nicole Riddley lives in Ontario Canada. She likes to travel, swim, read, write, paint, draw and take pictures in her spare time. She takes thousands of pictures every time she travels. She loves drawing portraits of people that tell stories. She loves coloring outside the lines.

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm never trusting booktok recommendations ever again. This book made me want to die genuinely, everything about it is so wattpad coded to the writing to the characters oh my god i can't believe this is a real published book. I dont recommend this to anyone older than 15 omfgg its seriously so bad. The FMC is so pick me and "i'm not like the other girls!!!!", every female character other than her was written like a boy crazy bitch that was instantly seen as competition by the fmc.

[Maddi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did enjoy the premise of this narrative. The reason I only gave it 2 stars is that there was a LOT of telling what happened and not enough showing what happened. The author would foreshadow and say what is going to happen next. Building that tension and then would just tell the audience what happened rather than showing us what happen. They would quite literally say x, y, z happened and what people said in the conflict or the tense moment rather than showing us. Then would spend way too much time telling us, as the audience, details on the getting ready process and what everyone was wearing.

I did enjoy the romance between Penny and Darius, and the inclusion of the others in the pack. The characters I wouldn't say developed a whole lot but I still enjoyed the banter back and forth between Penny and Caspian and the silent angst of Darius.

[Margo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this series. It's silly and fun and I like the H's a lot. Darius is a classic tortured alpha H who just happens to be a lycan. Penny is a bit overly dramatic but she is also very emotionally honest, which makes that more tolerable.

[Aditi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most amazing book!! Have read it almost more than ten times. Absolute love Darius.
Penny is my spirit animal, just love her sassy and bold nature. She doesn't hesitates in speaking her mind and that's what is the main highlight.

Spoiler : For anyone thinking that Darius sleeps with other woman, then no he doesn't. Before, even I felt the same and I had actually left it midway before picking it up again and I have no regrets.

Darius doesn't cheat on her nor does she. It's the perfect book of love and friendship. Especially between her and the Lycan Prince. Their bonding is just everything!!

Darius is a sweet pea, and I want to rant so much about the book, but my fingers would be really tired ;)

[Raffaella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another young adult paranormal with beings that are hundreds of years old but are frozen into high school the poor guys. In this one the beings acts 22 which should be improvement but also very immature imo. The hero is a warrior and a soldier so he saw many atrocities, and he’s not willing to have a mate, since he witnessed how enemies use to kill mates to hurt and control the soldiers. Basically. So he rejects repeatedly the heroine even if he knows she’s his mate and she knows it. The poor heroine tries for three years to make him change his mind but when she sees him in bed with another woman she decides it’s high time to move on.
And of course that’s when the hero changed his mind and decided he wants the heroine regardless of the dangers.
The heroine is not a saint and she has a lot of guy around because she’s hot, and she kisses and makes out with a lot of them with great chagrin of the hero that can smell them on her. She also has a human mate that she decides to reject after she finds out there’s not that much chemistry as with the hero, and also because the human mate is in love with another woman he was in a relationship with for years. In the end all is well, there’s a lot of fights, enemies, friends and false friends, and basically the hero confesses that he never slept with another woman since he met the heroine. He wanted to mate with a woman that was not his mate because he knew that he couldn’t allow the heroine to be killed but in the end he wasn’t able to do it. And the scene in bed with ow was only for the heroines benefit, he actually never did anything with her. There’s a lot of kissing and touching though in that bed scene. And the heroine kisses a lot of other men which I found fair since she thought the hero had betrayed her and since she’s not a total doormat, mate or not mate. Nice and fun reading, not great angst and a lot of action.

[Esther]

Anyone has safety info?!

[CHARIFA · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hated the part when he cheated on her, even if they weren't together but she's his mate, he really shouldn't have done that

[🅙𝔲𝔩𝔷 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I unfortunately didn’t like this one. It had to much ow and om drama for my liking. I found penny to be really annoying, desperate and childish. I am looking forward to caspians story though.

[Beth Klump · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love this book!! It is definitely a must read. Nicole has such a way with words that you are literally on the edge of your seat waiting to see what happens next. I love that each book is so completely different with their own unique storyline but the same amazing characters. You can’t help but fall in love with the characters and their relationships with each other, especially Caspian and Penny. I can’t get enough of their banter. I love Catching Genesis but this book is definitely my favorite of the two. I can’t wait to see what Nikki has in store for Caspian’s story.

[Errica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whenever Riddley writes a new protagonist, she gains a sassy inner monologue and the last protagonist (and their love interest, to some degree) loses their sass to become a caricature of what she once was. It's giving pick-me. It's giving "I wish I had more female friends but I still need to be Special".

[Nemesis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a mental breakdown and read the whole thing. Was it good? Debatable, did I like it? It depends, did I enjoyed it? Very much, because she was so stupid, that I kind of laugh a lot.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely no. A waste of time. But it has plot, and Wattpad characters. She's not like other girls main character vibes.

This book return my mind to 2012 Wattpad and my fried mind its greatful for that.

[Johani Johanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

it was an amazing book and i am ur wattpad fan ><

[Aimée · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can’t believe I read this

[Lygeri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so in love with this series, Darius being my favourite character of all.
Nicole Riddley is a really talented writer and even though in some parts her books need a little bit more editing, the world she has created is complete with depth. Moreover, the perspective we have of the book's characters is well rounded and you cannot help but fall for them - even find one that you can identify with.
Well done.

P.S. Darius is my forever book crush!

[Anso · Rating 1 out of 5]

the writing is... not good. please, this was terribly written and had no real story. safe to say i'll never be trusting BookTok again.

[Harlequin Madness · Rating 2 out of 5]

The push/pull got very tiresome after a while. Particularly since we’re not made aware of exactly why Darius doesn’t want his erasthai (even though he doesn’t want anyone else to have her) until the end of the book. I feel like I missed some books leading in to this book. It seemed like I should have known about some of the established relationships, but I didn’t.

While I wouldn’t dissuade someone from reading this book, I would recommend that if you have other books in you TBR pile, you prioritize them higher.

[Nilsu Cosgun · Rating 5 out of 5]

BEST BOOK ONE ID MY FAVS LOWKEY WOLF TYPE STUFF BUT ONG ITS SO GOOD long story short. I explained you this I LOVE

[ThreonineReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an unexpectedly charming read. Every character was delightful in their own way.

First, Penny. You my girl stole my heart. Usually some of your immature traits I would find it infuriating in any other character. But you were so endearing and well written. You were the right amount of sass, courage, stupidity and loyalty. You are almost my top 20 fmc. I love characters that act their age.

Darius oh darius. Welcome to my book boyfriend collection. You are residing here with great fictional men. THE POSSESSIVENESS. It had me whipped. You were just amazing.

I know a lot of people were annoyed by the excessive ow and om drama. However, to me it felt like a necessary evil to build the story. If Pen just went back to Darius with her tail tucked in like a doormat I would have been pissed. The drama to me though a bit dragged on felt like a necessary evil. And it didn't make the read boring. No worries my friends there is no cheating exactly

Biggest honorary mention to my prince Caspian. The name is so special to me (chronicles of narnia Ben Barnes anyone?) that I knew I was gonna love you. And love you I did. I adore you. The sibling relationship between him and pen *chef's kiss * I am gonna start Caspian's book after this review

Plus there is the little mystery that I have yet to solve.

But why 4 not 5 stars? Because I feel the writing needs a bit of polishing and editing.

Overall, so unexpected, maybe because I went in with 0 expectations. Overall a really fun read. I don't usually enjoy werewolf ya/na series (it is way too PG to be considered adult). But this was really good.

[Daisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m such a sucker for these lol. Rating this based on my experience when I was 13

[Alex]

When is this going to be released on Amazon? The royal lycan Court is on Amazon, but not this one or Quincy. So sad. I LOVE these books!!

[Simran · Rating 1 out of 5]

what the sigma

[Skittles Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book that sparked my curiosity about this series, and I enjoyed this one better than the first book!

There is one thing that does bother me about this lycan werewolf universe that does not make sense to me- why do the lycans, who have been around for centuries, prefer to attend high school and college? It doesn’t add up for me. They can hire private tutors if they really want to learn and actually can keep their identities better guarded as they are exposed to as few people as possible, especially if they are as good looking and rich as they’re supposed to be, which will definitely make them stand out in a human crowd, and hence a human’s mind.

But, despite this minor detail, I actually love the storyline and the characters. They may get boring and predictable- but hey if the gimmick isn’t broken…

Penny is kick-ass. I actually like her better as a heroine than the overly sweet Genesis in the first book. Penny has flair and she is spunky, and she knows what she wants. She sees Darius, and she knew she wanted him. She also knew he wanted her, and when he pushed her away in the most cruel way possible… well, I just wanted to see Darius crawl and beg for it.

Turns out he has good reasons as to why he did it, but his reasoning were a bit off for me, especially in choosing Polina to be his mate… like come on, laying it a bit too thick, Nicole!

All in all I DID have a good time, and I absolutely LOVE Caspian in this book. Can’t wait to read his love story next, and the mystery that is behind the threat to the lycan kingdom.

4.5 stars. There are details that would need polishing especially in the suspense side of it but I came here for the love story and I got it.

[Toni FGMAMTC · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been reading this on Galatea. Most of the books unlock the next chapter after 6 hours on the app, but for some reason this one takes a day or more to unlock the next chapter (the time between chapter unlocks has grown as I've been reading). I started out liking it well enough, but I got bored with it before long. I think most readers have read other books in the series, so they are familiar with the characters, but I'm not sure in which order they're supposed to be read. The main couple have too much involvement with other love interests. I couldn't understand why they couldn't just get together. Later a reveal showed why the male lead didn't want to accept the female as his mate. Then after they are mates finally, they're going to play it off like they aren't. Idk I would maybe like this better if I didn't have to wait so long for the next chapter, but I'm bored with it now. I'm at least 2/3 the way done, but I don't know if I will end up finishing it. If I do, I will update my review. Even though I've been reading it for so long and am so far into it, if I wanted to finish it today, it would still cost around $20 to completely unlock the book all at one time. And if I just continued reading as a chapter unlocked it would be at least 2 or 3 weeks to finish it.

[Dr M S Bhagyalakshmi Bhat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good action💪🏻🦵🏻
Nice paranormal setting in modern world💙
Loved the lycans♥️
Predictable and repetitive romance/angst (skipped through all the sizzly bits) The description of Darius' 8 packs got annoying and how hot a lycan is compared to a mere mortal or werewolf, yes, yes, i have it ingrained in my blood enough to recite it when i next see the beginning of the same sentence😱
Bored of the too realistic way of convo, ugh, gah, darn, meh... This just shows that the author is still budding and not a linguist with enough vocabulary (just my opinion, no offence). It could also be that the author wanted to make it look natural, like how we would speak... But i do not like that way of writing because writing and speaking are different forms of language expression and written form mirroring spoken form specially like a tween without eloquent speech grated on my nerves.
Also, didn't like the endless description of their dresses/attire... This is a novel... Basic description is more than enough... Not a costume/designer's competition.

Can be read as a series or as a standalone
Since the writing style is not to my taste, i won't be reading the other books.

[Saja Khalid · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t think I’ll be completing it because it’s simply too boring and too repetitive. I might, though I still don’t know I’m taking a break. I reached the 50% Mark. And he already told her that he loves her. But they can’t be together because he’s trying to protect her. I personally think that’s bullshit. But you do you. It’s too big. What do you mean 800 fucking pages? Do you have to say that it has to be 800 pages? I read half of It and I am bored. Why CANT they be together? I have no idea?! He said he’s protecting her because of his mission and shit but Im not buying it. She is supposed to die at the end of the book. And him regretting everything. And all the time he wasted. Of course I will never actually know if she REALLY dies or not because its too much work. I might skip and see. I kinda like the girl she’s relatable but that is it. I don’t like everything else about her. She’s dumb. Dumber than Patrick star. The one guy that keeps bugging her tho… I LOVE HIM. If he has a book Im reading it. Goodbye

[cara · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8 ish
Okay so the h has a different fate chosen mate and the H sort of makes out on purpose in front of h to drive her away for her safety.

But…. It all sort of worked for the plot !?
If I had read the spoilers about this then I might have not picked it up so I am glad I didn’t.
The connection h and H share is actually beyond what u felt for the late entry mate. It was actually good to know she had a plan B. The way the whole ow make out scene is later explained also reduces your initial anger toward the H.
I was really surprised the whole mate thing didn’t bother me. I think it was the way it was written. Like her connection to that mate was very baseline attraction type whereas her connection with H was wild and untamed.
Them both being celibate since they met each other also helped.

Overall like the OOT H and the connection.
Good read

[Noelani · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I read this on Inkitt. An okay read. I really like this world. I really like this author’s writing style. The action was fun to read and it was was interesting seeing where the story would lead. The alpha was too alpha for me to the point he seemed like an insecure beta, but the female was a pretty strong alpha character that was just right. There were grammatical errors, simple ones, so editing is definitely needed. Also, can we talk about the repeated chapters??? So annoying!! I’d get to the end of a chapter, click “next chapter” and it would be the same chapter I just read. Sometimes I had to click next chapter 2-5 times!!! The page count is totally off. Ridiculous! That is why it gets a 2 star rating in the end: the stupid chapter repeats!!

[kea · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was alright. penny’s naiveness and her exaggerated words made me cringe so much, to the point where I had to slip over multiple scenes. Darius is charming, but the name Darius is really not serving…it reminds me of my very sassy childhood friend 😔 at least give the man a hot name like Christian or something 😭.

I liked the banter between the characters, I thought it was refreshing to see and it was quite funny. At times, I liked penny, especially in the beginning, her delusions and optimism made me say “she’s just like me fr” so many times 😭 but then she became a bit too aggravating and made it difficult to read on. Idk why I’m surprised though, this is quite literally a wattpad fic turned paperback

[Rebecca Kamerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I accidentally discovered this book during an internet search for something unrelated. I started reading and was hooked. The story line is not original - girl meets boy, instant attraction, boy resists out of misguided something, underlying drama - but the author's work shines. The story and characters are well developed and I never felt like slapping the FL for being silly or irritating. There is a happy ending and apparently books that came both before and after this one. I will be searching those books out and reading them VERY SOON.

Five Stars. Would recommend. Fun read. Drama without much angst.

[Ak.if_ah · Rating 4 out of 5]

🌟 3.5 ~ It was suchhhhhh a good read, I love Penny's personality, she's fiery, confident, a literal crackhead and jokes. I love her banter with Caspian. And damn, of only Darius manned up and communicated with Penny smh, it was hard to read the parts when they had sooo much tension but yes the wait was worth it in the end. As usual, Caspian stole my heart. He's my faveeeee. I was a little taken back by all their reactions to when she found her mate but at the same time I get why they did tht, I woulda thought Genesis would've been really supportive it ofs she's afraid that they'll be separated... Anyways very very good read!,,