Devoured (Brides of the Kindred #11)

Devoured
Evangeline Anderson
Brides of the Kindred, book eleven
ebook, 409 pages
Published June 5th 2014

Tess Hughes is on the run from her abusive ex-husband. The problem is, he’s a detective and there’s no place on Earth he can’t find her. Solution? Hide somewhere that’s not on Earth—the Kindred Mother Ship. That’s how she winds up posing as Pairing Puppet—one of the robotic mistresses that service the Unmated Males of the Kindred who need a little sexual stress release from time to time. Of course, Tess never actually performs a Pairing Puppet’s duties—she hides every time a new ‘customer’ comes in. But then she gets caught out in the open…at exactly the wrong time.

Garron of the Rai’ku Kindred has a dragon sized problem and it’s living right inside of him. His dr’gin, the ravenous beast that lives inside every Rai’ku male, is trying to get out. Problem is, if Garron lets it escape, it will eat the first person it sees. He’s burning with need and the more his desire grows, the greater the danger to those around him. Desperate to quench his smoldering desire and keep his dr’gin contained, he goes to the Pairing House…and chooses Tess.

Now the two of them are on the run. Expelled from the Mother Ship, Tess is once again menaced by her abusive ex who will stop at nothing to get her back. Garron has sworn to protect her but the beast inside him is more dangerous than any outside threat could be.

Can Garron protect Tess from the man who has sworn to destroy her without letting the beast inside him run free? If not, she will surely be… Devoured.

Brides of the Kindred has rocked my world since its beginning. Unfortunately, Devoured, book eleven, fell short of the awesomeness achieved by its predecessors with a plot that held so much promise for a riot of laughs and yet was detoured before it ever got started.

Tess is on the run from an abusive ex and, with the push from her best friend, takes to hiding aboard the Kindred Mother Ship in their Pairing Puppets house, home to robotic women provided to the unmated males in their times of need. Enter Garron, Truth's half brother. A Rai'ku Kindred, Garron is possessed by nature with a beast that will emerge on a set anniversary of his birth. He's held it off for years, fearful of the hunger that will come with the beast's first emergence. A hunger that thrives on sentient prey before ultimately brutally claiming a mate.

Years ago, he lost the female he loved to another Rai'ku's beast. Convinced he'll never want another, he turns to a pairing puppet as a safe recourse for the budding danger inside him.

Before you know it, he zeroes in on Tess. And with a blink her ruse is over. For all of us.

From there, it's a jump ship and run with her ex fast on her tail. It sickens me that men like Pierce actually exist in this world. Anderson did oh so well with the terror and brutality of an abusive, sadistic relationship. I've no experience, but those that do should take heart with the warning she delivers before reading.

On a brighter note, Devoured did set the stage for book twelve, Enhanced, due out later this year and supposedly the final of the series. Mei-Li, daughter of a U.S. Senator has been dream sharing with a Kindred of Zeaga Four, one who has had multiple enhancements done upon his person. An emotion damper for one. And an optic scanner for another. As a child, he joined those who swore to never take a mate and to live apart from emotion. Now, although Six has no idea how to claim a mate, or what he should do with one once he has her, the Kindred has been ordered to go claim Mei-Li from Earth.

And an all out war could rise up from that action.

Again, so much promise.

3 out of 5 stars.

Previously in the series: