After a second read of this book, I had to tab it up. I first read Mortal Consequences in April this year and its now July, I've used 200+ tabs, and I still can't get over everything this book makes me feel.
MORTAL CONSEQUENCES is a dance with death, obsession, passion and twisted wickedness, gift-wrapped into the very thing that is Griffin and Balakai. Awful, insane, depraved--they fit each other just right. Griffin, a disgraced trans witch who can also hunt his own kind for the right price, and Balakai, a demon who walked out of Hell with his own borrowed skin, meet after years of Balakai stalking Griffin, thus the start of their whole twisted journey together.
Wickedly magical, darkly indulgent and possessively violent, MORTAL CONSEQUENCES is the book waiting on every corner to drag out the most twisted desires and dark wants. Its projected onto a witch who has survived his own self for centuries and a demon who just wants to make good on a promise to kill him.
What CJ Twining and Rien Nadie have done is created something from the pits of every dark, wicked, delightful thing and said "this is for those who need it", and, oh boy, did I need it. Griffin took hold of me, shook me, dug nails into me, spat in my face, and I could only say "thank you". He's depraved, he's glorious, he's shameless, and I love him with every inch of my being. This book is beautiful and expansive, a spiral into morality, mortality, indulgence, and past wounds that we force closed over time--and borrow some more time, and then more, and then more.
With a shameless plot full of debauchery, voyeurism, masochism and downright kinky flavours, MORTAL CONSEQUENCES leaves a somewhat decadent taste on the tongue, begging for more. I can't repeat just how wicked and so full of heat it is. Balakai's and Griffin's pleasures alone blaze through the pages but together they are a mess of teeth and dark promises and blood.
As Griffin hunts down his ex-lover while leaving his moral compass behind on the pavement after he dies over and over, never quite staying dead, Balakai seizes his life with a heavy promise to be the one to end him, to wait for him to return, if only to kill him again. If you love tropes where they will literally tear each other apart and laugh in the carnage, this book is for you. If you love shameless s1utty characters, this book is for you. Read it for the demon who curls up on the witch's pillow to sleep, who wears a Christmas jumper and sleeps beneath a Christmas tree at the end. Read it for the heartbreaking backstory, for the devastation that can lie within the depraved pages. Read it for the glorious smut and how not one inch of this story shies away from the ugly parts of ourselves but instead embraces them, twists them into something we can control a little more. Read it for the study in witchcraft that Griffin delves in as the Lord of Crows, for the heartache he convinces himself he's mended, for the demon he falls into obsession with. Read it for the clucking aunt figure and the demon who is just as unhinged as the witch he both protects and seeks to tear apart.
This book has grips on me that's made these authors and auto-buy. Griffin is embedded in me, and Balakai is coming right up after him, and I only want to know more of their story. This book is needed and its delightful and an absolute wrench-the-breath-from-your-lungs kind of read. This book kept me awake at night, kept me in a daze throughout the days, and created so much good brainrot I can't not think of them pretty much 24/7. Thank you, CJ Twining and Rien Nadie.
MORTAL CONSEQUENCES isn't to be taken lightly so please, please take care of yourself and read the trigger/content warnings which are at the start of the book and website of the authors!
Can I interest you in some quotes?
"Even though Balakai had murdered him, Griffin had known he would eventually and wasn't actually bothered by that. It was more strange, and more compelling, that he had stayed."
"There were still memories of sunny afternoons just watching the sky go by and pretending to forgive a life that had been too damned long. He'd slipped up, had fallen for the lie that either he, or life, would ever be anything else than it was. The hurt of hope was so much worse than nails on his skin or claws rendering flesh from body."
"Balakai's eyes glowed in the darkness of the room, curled up where he was high on the pillows near Griffin's head."
"'Give me carnage', Griffin whispered, as he popped the quick release on the collar."
"Balakai was a feast at which he would gorge himself, would so easily be a gluttonous sinner."
"He wanted him. To own him, and debase him, to consume him and give him the entirety of himself. To cascade until there was nothing left but oblivion."
"'Impaled on a demon dick. Does a number. Smug fuck.'"
"'I'm going to breed you like a bitch before breakfast.'"