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11.05.2015

Born of Betrayal (The League #10)

"Hey Ma! Dad just figured out how to do the math
to calculate my age and date of conception.
He's having some kind of apoplexy over it."



Born of Betrayal
Sherrilyn Kenyon
The League, book ten
(Nemesis Rising)
ebook, 512 pages
Published November 3rd 2015 by St. Martin's Press
ISBN 9781250042972

Years ago, family loyalty caused Fain Hauk to give up everything he loved: His military career. His planet. His fiancée. Even his name.

Now decades later, everything has changed. He's built a new life out of the ashes of his old, and he's vowed to never let anything threaten his loved ones again.

But when old enemies align themselves with new ones, he's caught in the middle of a brutal war. And when fate throws his former fiancée back into his world and she has her own agenda that includes taking his head for what he did to her years ago, more than just his life is at stake. The fate of the Ichidian universe and that of his brothers-in-arms hangs in the balance. Winner take all.

It's kill or be killed, and never has the battle been more fierce.

Fain has long been overshadowed by the assumption that he was disinherited by his family for daring to love a human, and eventually marrying her. Well, like many other matters when it comes to the Sentella, appearances can be misleading. The truth is out: Darling Cruel wasn't gay and Fain Hauk never loved a human. But Fain did screw up. And he screwed up badly.

Years ago, Fain was promised in marriage to a young female named Galene. They were sweethearts, completely enamored with one another. And despite the hell Fain endured at home with his parents and elder brother, Fain lived for his Storm Dancer. For her, and his younger brother, Dancer. Unofortunately, as we now uncover in this installment to the Nemesis Rising Saga, a moment came where Fain had to choose between keeping his female, or losing his brother. With a heavy heart, and hope, Fain allowed Galene to believe himself to be a cheating bastard. And on the night of their graduation, she not only cursed his very existence and shamed him before their people, as he was very much doing to her in the breaking of their betrothal, but she disappeared from his life, taking his unborn child with her without ever even confessing the babe's existence.

Having her heart brutally broken, Galene fled the shame of Fain's infidelity and her family's abandonment of her, and was forced to raise her son alone. A son that would be deemed the bastard offspring of an Outcast, hated and spurned for most of his life. Much of Talyn's story was told in the previous book, Born of Defiance. While it wasn't a necessary read at the time, as it is a prequel to book one of this series, I have a much higher respect for it now that I've read Born of Betrayal. Don't skip it! This author, if you haven't figured it out yet, knows what she's doing.

Unfortunately for Galene, fate, and Nykyrian's generous promotion, has led her right back into Fain's life when the two are partnered to command a number of military forces in the Alliance.I just love it when a woman's first reaction to a man is to shoot him, and she actually does it! Right there, I was missing Shahara and Syn all over again. When will those two get out of my head?!

I think everyone had a part to play in this book. Every single one of them came out from under their rocks in one form or another. And so many more were added to the roster that my head was nearly spinning. My heart hurt for Fain so many times. For him and Talyn. For him and Galene. And oh... my.. when he had to go to his friends, Nykyrian, Syn, Caillen, and Maris, with news that an attack had leveled the Andarian palace, murdering their wives and children.. I was aghast. If not for Nykyrian and Syn managing to keep it together, I would have been in tears. And I, like any reader/Leage-fan already knew everyone was still alive. Now, who was responsible for getting them out in time, that I did not see coming.

Why are all the bastard villains suddenly becoming redeemable assholes?!

Is everyone in this gods damned galaxy simply a victim of being misunderstood? Kyr won't harm a child? Jullien has a family? And now, Psycho Bunny got hitched?! And and AND... Hadrian and Nero have a long lost brother named Trajen. Whaaaaat? There's actually someone cooler than Nero?

Am I the only one who has the urge to find hard liquor after reading a Sentella adventure? It's such an exhausting roller-coaster and yet it wraps around such deep lessons in acceptance and understanding. Love and loyalty. Survival and endurance. Friendship and family.

It's just so damn good for the soul.

5 out of 5 stars.

Previously in The League (1st Generation): Nemesis Rising


Previously in The League (2nd Generation): Nemesis Legacy

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