In the second book of the Dark/Carpathian series, Jacques Dubrinsky is no longer the man we met in book one. While none of the Carpathian men are really gentle and carefree, Jacques was one of the least violent and least dark of the men. After a trusted Carpathian betrayed him, human vampire hunters drugged, imprisoned, and tortured him. Only the need for revenge kept him alive. After seven years of captivity, he’s finally free, but his sanity is hanging on by a thread.
Shea O’Halloran used to be a surgeon, but now she’s on the run for her life. Strange men want to kidnap her and experiment on her because she has a rare blood disorder; they think she’s a vampire. For years now, dreams of a man in severe pain have tormented her. He always called to her for help, but Shea ignored him, thinking he was just her imagination. Once the dreams/compulsions grew in strength, she finally set out to find and free him.
Jacques is so damaged and deranged. He barely remembers who and what he is, but he knows Shea is the other half of his soul. He feels it in his heart and in his shattered mind. Shea feels it, too, but she’s lived her life alone and doesn’t know what to make of this handsome, savage man who is both cruel and kind to her. Trust and love blooms fast between them, but Jacques’s hold on reality is tentative at best and the monster in him is always just below the surface.
Wow. I forgot how much I love this story. It’s my second time reading it, first time reviewing, and it really pulled at my heartstrings. Jacques and Shea are perfect together and helped each other heal from their emotional and physical wounds.
Mikhail, Raven, Gregori, and Byron are back and help Jacques regain some of his memories. The scenes with Mikhail and Jacques together are especially hard to read since Jacques doesn’t remember or trust his guilt-ridden older brother.
The story is predominately told from the H/h’s POV, but the point of view does shift into all the other characters, the good guys and the bad. I normally don’t like so many POV shifts, but the story flowed well, so I wasn’t confused.
Though I’ve read a lot of books in this series, this book stands out as one of the deeper, more heartfelt ones.
5 Stars ( )

not bad ( )

Atrapado en la más espantosa agonía, torturado y enterrado en vida, Jacques sólo conserva la vida y la cordura gracias a los poderes de su raza y al contacto telepático con una desconocida mujer, capaz de intuir lo que los demás piensan. Cuando ella finalmente le encuentra y le rescata, él está enfermo y débil. Apenas recuerda que es un carpatiano, un ser de la noche capaz de increíbles hazañas, ni tampoco la traición que permitió que un grupo de humanos casi acabara con él. Pero hay algo que sabe a pesar de su lamentable estado: la mujer que le ha hallado es su compañera eterna, y sólo ella puede salvarle de la locura. Shea es una cirujana de éxito que descubrirá en Jacques a un hombre diferente a todos, pero para poder amarle antes ha de sanarle... y aceptar la aterradora verdad sobre su propia naturaleza, sobre la fabulosa estirpe de los carpatianos.

My favorite of the Dark novels. I love the tortured half crazed hero. ( )

Okay, so 2.5 stars I think. This is the first book of the series I'm reading and well, it didnt really leave me all that excited to continue on. Maybe I will, maybe not.
The first third of the book was amazing but after that, I thought of dnf'ing the book multiple times. It was hovering really close to misogynism to me and well, though Shea was a really-string willed doctor who was determined to stick to her principles and make her own decisions, Jacques rarely respected those decisions - at least in the second third of the book. This could be somewhat understandable in the sense that his was a different race of people, but well, difficult for me to adjust. Anyway, the last third of the book was much more exciting and I guess by that time I had more or less accepted that if I wanted to finish this book I had to overlook certain asects of it that I dislike strongly.

Another issue for me was that the Carpathian came off as expecting/valuing the females only for their child-bearing abilities. Hated that aspect ( )