If one more person questions me, people are going to start dying.
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To Kill a Fae
Jamie A. Waters
Dragon Portal, book one
Kindle Edition, 338 pages
Published September 26, 2019
ASIN B07TW9JG8N
ISBN 9781949524178
Amazon Free Read
The darkness holds more than just secrets...
Marked for death, Sabine escaped from her home more than ten years ago.
But the Wild Hunt will never give up.
It should have been easy to stay hidden. All Sabine had to do was keep her head down, avoid telling anyone about her past, and above all else -- not let her glamour drop.
Even the best-laid plans eventually fall apart.
When a charismatic stranger arrives in the city, Sabine finds herself unwittingly drawn to him and the power she can sense hidden within him. Keeping her distance is nearly impossible, especially after a life debt is called due and she’s tasked into helping steal a rare artifact.
Sabine is the only one who can break the magical barriers protecting the item, but that means revealing the truth about her identity and exposing her darkest secrets.
Unfortunately, the Fae aren’t the only ones hunting her.
And the most dangerous monsters aren’t always confined to the dark.
When Sabine is attacked by four men looking for a payout for her assassination, she makes quick work of two. The third manages to draw blood but is easily dispatched alongside his companions. When she turns for the fourth, Sabine discovers him in a pool of blood at the feet of a stranger.
A tall, dark-haired, lethal male with a deep blue aura being escorted by the town goblin? Things just got interesting.
Malek Rish'dan. Captain Malek Rish'dan. A man who possesses Fae knowledge without any Fae appearance. Not quite human but something else Sabine can't pinpoint. A man with sensitivity to magic, or so she summizes as he tracks her glamouring her assailant's tattoos and enchanting a wooden coin for a lanky child on the street.
Sabine's power had called to him from the moment of his ship's arrival at the dock. When she offers to honor the debt of his aide, he strategically negotiates a simple dinner.
To ask for more than what's due would have negated the debt entirely.
In a world with demons and trolls, goblins and fae, it's Sabine whose spoken name silences a room. No one dares cross her. No one dares touch her. If she isn't enough of a threat on her own, then it's the demon, Dax, whose protection she is under that would give them pause. If not him, then surely his estranged brother, Bane. Heads of the thieves guild and assassins guild, respectively.
When the goblin, Pozgil, informs Dax of the attack against Sabine it becomes clear that heads are going to roll and limbs are going to tear.
When Dax finds Sabine's mark on Malek's wrist the threat of violence is just as imminent.
The book occasionally shifts from Sabine to Malek's POV and it's a feature I adored because Sabine can't fingure him out. And even Malek withholds his true identity and intentions from the reader for most of the story.
Leave it to Bane to finally solve the mystery.
Malek is a dragon. Not the average ship captain nor common smuggler. He's hunting Fae artifacts to mend the failing seal on the closed portal. Should it fall completely, war will return to their kinds.
This is a good read for anyone into kickass females surrounded by overprotective alpha males and all the pixies, witches, goblins, demons, and dragons one could hope for. That said, it's merely an introduction to the series that will span about six books. This installment ends just as Sabine's twin brother, Rhys, has recalled the Wild Hunt to track her down. He wants her dead in order to claim the magic he believes her existence has stolen from him. Sabine, accompanied by Bane, flees Akros aboard Malek's ship and that's where book one closes.
Without waiting for a response, she turned away from the demon and walked toward a dragon. And behind her, the city continued to burn.
Dax. Bane. Jacoby. This author watches a lot of American television. Malek. Riven. Rhys. Now she's just teasing outright.
3 out of 5 stars.
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