Mated to the Enemy

Royal Mates #0.5

by Stéphanie Noircent

He is my sworn enemy, a blood-thirsty killer. I want nothing more than to take my revenge. Yet why does my body sing for him?

My name is Alicia, and I'm a rogue. I've been on the run for as long as I can remember, until I'm taken from the forest I call home. The handsome, brooding stranger that kidnapped me turns out to be my enemy, King Kaleb himself. I hate him with every fiber of my being, and yet my body sings for him. As I'm held captive, he's determined to chip away at the walls surrounding my heart. As I plot my escape, I can't help but notice that living in a cozy castle is more comfortable than out in the open. I crave my freedom...but I also crave his touch. Will I claim my freedom, will I give in to the sexy king, or will an unknown threat tear us apart?

My name is Kaleb, and I'm the Lycan King. For years, filthy rogues have ravished my homelands and killed off my subjects. When I finally catch one, I'm ready to make her suffer. I am surprised to find that she's a fragile little thing, but has enough fire in her to warm my entire kingdom. I hate that I admire her. Will I find the strength to rid my people of the threat she poses, or will I fall prey to her charms?

Written by #1 Amazon Bestselling Author Stephanie Noircent as a prequel to her novel Fated to the Triplet Kings, this story follows the beloved triplets' parents and their story. Each book in the Royal Mates Series can be read as a standalone. Intended for readers aged eighteen and over, this dark paranormal romance has content warnings that should be viewed at the beginning of the book before you dive in.

Genres: Shapeshifters, Enemies To Lovers

180 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2022

About the author

Stephanie Noircent is author to the Royal Mates series and the Moon Valley Clinic series. She lives in Canada and is a married mother of two. She has three goldfish, a dog, and two cats. She enjoys reading, writing, and spending time in nature. You can connect with her here: linktr.ee/stephanienoircent

Reviews

[Melinda Evans]

This page-turning masterpiece will have you howling for more!

[Ade Carson]

I'm not even the target audience and even I enjoyed this book.

[Jessica Gagnon]

No fluff, all action-packed story. I love every word. A work of art!

[Anabelle Murray]

Everyone loves an alphahole that's only a cinnamon roll for his girl. This is exactly what you'll find in this book. It's a good idea to read Fated to the Triplet Kings first if you're unfamiliar with the werewolf, vampire and lycan tropes and descriptions. This is a dark romance for a reason; I knew I would love this book because I ADORE my anti-heroes crazy, blood-thirsty and wild. Kaleb is all of that and more. WOW! I love this fast-paced book so much. The setting is set on the very first page of the book so you can't miss it!

[Hazel Harrison]

Holy crap! I was NOT expecting that. So many twists and turns! I love it!

[Leelee Kalipoon]

I read this entire thing in one day and I'm amazed. Wow! I'm OBSESSED with this whole series. Unlike other books, this one isn't afraid to speak of the flaws of its characters. They aren't two perfect beings, but imperfectly in love. The dark romance aspect is perfect, and I saw this was the author's first dark romance??? WOW she nailed it! It's not too dark, but just dark enough. I can't wait until the next one comes out.

[Samantha Spencer]

So I was super curious about the chosen mates trope and this author did not disappoint! I love her excited and enthusiastic writing style

[Miguel Molina]

It's a lot of steamy scenes and I love it, hate sex and angry sex is the best

[Charlotte 🦋]

I didn’t like this one. It was too fast paced and all over the place. I started skimming by 60%.
The way the heroine acted annoyed me. I don’t like the betrayed by my body trope. How can you go from hating someone so much you wanted to hurt them, to fing their brains out and then back to hating them? It also has the miscommunication trope- not drastically big but enough to enough you.

[Crystal]

Have you ever fallen in love at first sight? This book isn't like that LOL! But it's fast-paced and full of angst and it's just my cup of tea. Love me an alphahole that hates everyone but his girl, except at the very beginning as you can expect from enemies-to-lovers :) I LOVE it!

[Hailey Miller]

sadness.

Listen.

This had promise.
But this is the perfect example of “told me not showed me”. She’d use ! Instead of explaining why they were feeling excited or exclamatory.

Also, how can they be in love? They literally know nothing about each other. It was so corny and bad.

“I’m going to name him Kaiser after my brother Kyle” What? Just name the kid Kyle then. Why Kaiser?

By the end I was like scrolling pages to get done.

[ireneQ]

DNF @28%. This book is rudimentary. Nothing is fleshed out. There is zero world-building. There are lycans and there are shape-shifting wolves, but we're never told the difference between them. The FMC and her parents are rogues, but we don't know why nor do we know what happened to their pack.

The characters don't act believably. The lycan king meets FMC who is all dirty, starving, and injured. She has been in a cell in the castle dungeon, chained to the wall, for a week. One of his guards hurts her in his presence and he immediately lobs the man's head off. FMC is understandably confused; she is his prisoner, why would he do that? Later he tells her he killed the guard because the man was cruel. Well, I'm sure he already knew about the man's cruelty prior to that, so it's ridiculous that he only took exception to it when the guard was cruel towards her.

The king comes off as seriously unhinged and maybe schizophrenic or something. One moment he's bellowing with rage, next moment he's flirting with the FMC. He's not written in a way that's at all believable, and there's no proper flow to the story.

The king and the FMC have a conversation about her parents. She asks him to send someone to tell them she's alive. In what world would a captive feel that she could ask for such a thing? At this point, although the king has had healers tend to her injuries and has moved her out of the dungeon into a proper bedroom, she's still very much his captive and he hasn't said otherwise. She still doesn't trust him, and he has guards watching her all the time. But she asks him to send a message to her parents? The rogues whom he has sent his men out to hunt? What in the what???

I couldn't stand it anymore and had to DNF. Also, there is no working table of contents in this book. The table of contents at the beginning of the book is not clickable and it lists page numbers; the Kindle version of the book only has locations. It's very annoying. I couldn't even jump ahead properly when I was trying to see if the later chapters would get any better.

[Laura Billow]

Listen, this had so much potential. The plot was interesting and it was action packed from the start. The spicy scenes were pretty well done. It started off pretty strong but then somewhere along the way it just started like falling apart. Not sure if the author had a goal page/word count and they realized they were going to write a lot longer of a story if they kept going at the rate they were or what but something switched very dramatically and it’s very obvious exactly when it happens. Suddenly things were being glossed over, the writing became cringe and sloppy, there were so many typos and inconsistencies and just straight up things that didn’t make sense. Overall I had fun reading this but fun in the way that you have fun reading a really poorly written fanfic because it’s something to do when you’re bored.

Also tell me why the model on the cover has brown/black hair but in the book he has blonde? 😭 I was picturing him with black hair the whole time until like halfway through when it’s mentioned he has blonde hair

[Casey Newton]

Twists and turns throughout the book, unexpected heartbreaks and lots of action. I love how unique and other-wordly these characters are because who wants people that are too realistic? It's a paranormal romance ffs. I read this because I want something different, not the same old human bs. 10/10 would recommend

[B.Reads]

I always thought that he was to blame for us being rouges. I never knew that it was him that stopped all the harm his father caused.

I blamed my mate and made myself hate him until I discovered the truth. But sadly when i was ready to accept our bond, i was kidnapped.

My mate and our children are all i have

[Danielle]

Honestly I was disappointed. It felt immature and the characters di6dn't have much depth. The MFC is supposed to be in her 30s but still acts kinda like a teen. MMC wasn't believable at all.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

what was even the point of the sister? It didn't feel like it was thought out well and she didn't really add anything to the story.

[Felicity Smith]

Great read

I loved the fact it isn't jus wolf's there are lycans I loved a lot about this book amazing story cudnt put it down very gripping amazing description and detail if like steamy fantasy wid side of violence this book is it

[erica]

spicy but missing substance

I did not like this book. There wasn’t enough character development or plot details. The relationship between the main characters moved too fast. It just wasn’t good.

[Esmee]

Leuker dan verwacht eigenlijk! En fijn dat hij emotie toonde! Hij huilde en smeekte ook gewoon. Heftig dat zijn vader zo cruel was en onnodig voor oorlog veroorzaakte