Bound by Flames

Bound by Flames (2015) Jeaniene Frost

Third book in the saga of Vlad and Leila finds them still searching for Vlad’s enemy Szilagyi.

It also finds Leila again kidnapped and tortured. I really didn’t care for how many times Leila was traumatized by Vlad’s enemies over the course of this series. I think reading the books once after the other made it more noticable.

On the plus side, however, I did like the dealing with the PTSD she suffered.

“She doesn’t need an avenging warrior right now,” Cat was saying. “She needs her husband, so save the crushing of your enemies to hear the lamentations of their women for later.”

And admitting that Vlad has been broken by this as well.

“At first, I believed you couldn’t stand for anyone to do so, which I understood,” he went on. “For years after my boyhood captivity, I couldn’t tolerate another person’s hands on me. In truth, it’s why I’m so particular about that to this day, although now I’m only angered instead of disgusted when people touch me without my leave.

One of bits I was fascinated by was how Vlad recruited new staff and vampires: from the dying, the homeless, and the unjustly incarcerated.

“Why do you want to know who he’d like to kill?” I asked.

“I want a hardened man, not a mass-murdering, pathologically vengeful one,” Vlad said. “There’s only room for one of those in my line right now, and that’s me.”

Again: I dislike the cover. Of course I do.

He wore sand-colored pants and a white silk shirt, an open button at the neck showing only the cleft at the base of his throat. The rest of his body was concealed by the rich material, which stretched to highlight his muscles as he moved with his usual stalking grace. The effect was sexier than all the bare-chested men I’d glimpsed around the pool earlier. Vlad didn’t show off his seething masculinity by wearing fewer clothes. Instead, he wore more to taunt people with what he didn’t allow them to feast their eyes on.

It’s an interesting story, but it is full of boinking and torture.

Publisher: Avon

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