I'm embarrassed to say that I don't remember a single thing from the first book (Tempt Me with Darkness other than I gave it 5 stars because I read it too long ago. As with all series books, there are certain elements of the world building that come right back but the personal injuries done to the characters, that's harder for me to remember. This book started with something that I don't recall at all so I was a little behind the times from the get-go. However, even without knowing why or how it happened, it wasn't difficult to jump right back into the Doomsday Brethren's fight with Mathias D'arc.I really liked Caden MacTavish and his fight against magic use was heartfelt. Magic had done him wrong and he was loathe to forgive and forget until of course the magic affected his mate. Reporter Sydney Blair was obsessed with proving Magickind existed and her reports are what draw Caden to her. When he realizes she is his mate, he does everything in his power to resist since he doesn't want to draw her into the magic life and trap her there if that isn't what she wants. But like all heroes and heroines, they don't talk about the important stuff and where a word here or there would have solved the problem, nothing was said and they both suffered needlessly.
The tale was believable (so to speak) until Sydney goes to the dungeon to interview Zain and suddenly the bars of his cage mysteriously weaken and he breaks out and kidnaps her. Come on, what the hell are the chances of that happening. All in an effort to get the heroine in danger so Caden could rescue her and finally put his feelings into words. With a war going on, I'm sure something more in keeping with the story could have been developed. This just kind of blew the 5 star rating for this book. I really did love it up until this point but this was just too ridiculous to believe.
