About the story……..Warning! Spoilers!…….
This is a three part short story series about Luc Hellbourne by author Amber Kell and epublished by Literary Road. In the first part Luc is dumped by his werewolf mate, Bran, of twenty years for a female. Bran had a sudden desire for pups so he decides to take a female as mate. Luc leaves and ends up in a bar trying to drown his hurt and meets vampire master, Nikkolai, who falls for Luc and claims him as mate. They have hot, steamy sex which Amber Kell never disappoints on. But Luc finds another master vampire abusing a young vampire in one of the private rooms and blames Nikkolai because he didn’t interfere during the punishment. Of course Nikkolai wasn’t present while it was happening and their culture in very different than the wolves but that doesn’t make much of a difference to him. Luc leaves with the abused vampire and that ends the first part.
The next story opens with Luc living with the rescued vampire who looks on him as master now and Nikkolai trying to make amends with Luc. His werewolf mate also wants him back and Luc welcomes Bran back without too much trouble. This sets off a series of events in Luc’s life all leading to his birthday which you come to find out he spends being tortured by his brothers from Hell…..literally. Luc’s father turns out to be Lucifer himself and he wants Luc to stay in Hell with him. So on each of his birthday’s Lucifer tries convincing him by having him beaten, mutilated…..anything that comes to mind of his half brothers.
The final part takes place on his birthday and the trials Luc goes through to get back to the man he loves, Bran. I enjoyed the first part of this series and looked forward for the second like a lot of Amber Kell fans but I was disappointed with the ending. I liked Nikkolai at first and and I never could make up my mind about Bran, I just didn’t have enough to go on. Then to find out they are both soulmates to Luc but he wasn’t meant to meet Nikkolai until after Bran dies just ruined the whole thing for me. Beyond the sexual chemistry, Luc never gave Nikkolai a real chance. His love and thoughts were all for Bran and it seemed Nikkolai was just a rebound lover for Luc and he had no real feelings for the vampire. And then at the end of the story Nikkolai basically throws up his hands in defeat and says Bran can have Luc. It wasn’t something I expected the dominant master vampire we were introduced to do if Luc was his mate.
It started out great for me but again I felt rushed and the characters I could have loved got lost somewhere. I enjoyed Luc in the beginning but by the end I wasn’t sure if I even liked him or understood him. I felt the stories being so short hurt the plot and characters which usually doesn’t happen with Amber Kell. She usually delivers an incredible story with few words but this time I’m not so sure. I am not even sure what I wanted to see happen at the end because the characters changed so much I was never completely sure who they really were to begin with.
I would not judge Amber Kell on just this story alone. It wasn’t for me but I would recommend reading some of Amber Kell’s other work. Her moon pack series is excellent and you can connect better with the characters and understand them and most importantly I love her heroes. I am currently reading her Dragonmen series and hope it is just as enjoyable. I will keep watching her releases and hope that she starts doing some full length ebooks because she really is a wonderful writer and I know I would enjoy them more.
