Book Review: Matefinder

Title: Matefinder
Author: Leia Stone
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Fiction

What it’s about: Aurora drives from Portland, Oregon in her Jetta to Mount Hood, to a place owned by her friend’s family, when she stops at a gas station. There, she meet briefly in passing an East Asian, Dark-Skinned man with an 8 pack, who wears nothing but shorts and no shoes. Another man, also undressed, comes out of the station store and asks the East Asian man if they are going to continue their run. She watches them go into the woods, then grabs her coffee and heads out in her car. While driving, a deer and two fawns jump out of nowhere, and in order to avoid killing them, she steers her car away, veering off the mountain into the trees. She loses consciousness from the impact, and when she regains her consciousness, she finds that she is bleeding fatally from her wounds. She also sees the East Asian man, who suddenly changes into a wolf and bites her.

When Aurora wakes up, she finds herself in a building and she is confused as to where she is. Suddenly, a woman comes in–Emma, and she tells Aurora all about being a wolf, including how status works amongst the wolf pact. She tells Aurora that she is more dominant than her, as she is the most submissive wolf in the pack, and that Aurora will have to figure out where she falls within the pack based on her dominance. Emma also tells Aurora that female wolves are super rare, and rarer still when they are turned like Aurora was.

Kai, the alpha that turned her, introduces Aurora to the pack, and does the dominance ritual, where she faces off against each member of the pack. Turns out that Aurora is more dominant than Sadie, Emma’s nemesis, and even more dominant than Kai’s second, but less dominant than Kai. As a result, she becomes the pack’s beta, while Max, who was Kai’s second until Aurora came, runs off.

The Portland pack shows up to challenge Kai for Aurora, because she was originally born in Portland and the pack from there can claim her within twenty-four hours as their own. The leader of the Portland pack makes Aurora’s skin crawl, and challenges Kai to a fight either to death or to forfeit. Kai accepts and as a changed wolf, he has an ability that enables him to move fast. Since his opponent is also a changed wolf, he has the ability to withstand silver, which typically burns all other wolves. Kai does defeat the alpha of the Portland pack, but it comes with a great cost–he is severely injured from the silver that the alpha had worn. This now means that anyone can challenge him for his status as Alpha from within the pack, but he would be too weakened to survive it. Max does attempt to challenge him by Aurora takes him out with her own roundhouse kick, stuffing cotton into his mouth before he can say the words to challenge Kai, ties him up with silver and cages him in the basement. Kai heals, and they talk–she runs a nonprofit organization in Portland that she cannot walk away from, and he tells her that now that they don’t have a good standing with the Portland pack, she cannot leave to take care of the organization. Instead, he offers to start a branch of it in the city nearest to them and that he will hire a human to take care of the branch in Portland. He then lets her call her mom, and Aurora tells her that she met a guy a few months ago and is moving in with him. She also tells her mom that she got a big donation that will enable to hire people in the branch in Portland and open up a branch in Gresham, which is the town nearest Mt. Hood.

Finally, it is time for Aurora’s wolf to meet the pack and it is obvious that all of the men are hoping that she is their mate. When they change, they find that her markings are the opposite markings of Kai’s wolf, who has white socks while Aurora’s wolf has black ones, meaning that they are mates. Sadie attacks Aurora in a fit of anger, as Aurora had just shown up, out ranked her and is mated to the guy that Sadie was dating for some time. Suddenly, Aurora sees a vision of Sadie meeting someone in Seattle and joining that pack. Jake also touches Aurora, and she has a vision of a woman dying of cancer in Scottsdale, Arizona, before sh passes out.

When she comes to, she is dressed and asks Kai to take things slow as boyfriend and girlfriend in the human side of things because she has a lot of trauma. Kai agrees to it, as he had seen her memories flashing through his mind when they recognized each other as mates. Then he tells her that he thinks he knows what she is–a Mate Finder. They are super rare and are one of the most hunted wolves because of how difficult it is to find one’s mate, but that they will need to confirm with the help of a witch if it’s true. Sylvia, the witch, does confirm this and also tells Aurora that she is part witch and part wolf. Sylvia thinks that Aurora’s biological mom was a mate finder as it is genetic, and that she would have also been born as a twin with her brother being her protector. Aurora sucks in a breath as she had a twin brother who drowned trying to save her, which he did end up doing, and that death resulted in her father changing and becoming abusive towards Aurora and her mom.

A group of them go to Scottsdale, Arizona and retrieve Anna, Jake’s mate, from a cancer center. Jake wants to turn her, but Aurora tells him that it might be best to let someone else do it so that she does not get traumatized, which hurts Kai. Kai does turn Anna and she survives. Then the group goes to Seattle with Sadie, avoiding Portland because of their beef with the Portland Pack. They meet the Seattle pack, and Sadie meets her mate, Brett, thereby leaving the pack and joining the Seattle pack. On the drive back, Kai and Aurora talk about the vision that she had in which someone had attempted to force Sylvia to reveal Aurora’s location, though Sylvia did not reveal it.

When they come home, Sylvia is waiting for them and she tells them that a vampire tried to get the location from her, but is surprised that Aurora already knows. Sylvia then reveals that Aurora is part of the White Raven Coven, which is Sylvia’s own coven, so she has a vested interest in protecting these wolves. The reason that Sylvia knows this is because she had taken one of Aurora’s hairs during her last visit and tested it. Anna, who Aurora had checked on after returning from Seattle, had adjusted well and is jumping into the whole wolf thing with both feet–after all the doctors had told her to give up her fight with cancer even though she felt like she had more to live for.

The next day, Aurora’s mom comes from the bbq with all of Aurora’s things and the pack pretends that they are part of an alcohol rehabilitation program in order to keep the cover story that Aurora told her mom. Sylvia comes as a psychologist in case anything happens. For the first time, Aurora sees that there are differences between her and her mom, further confirming that she is not her biological mother. When Sylvia meets her mom, a look passes through her face, and later on, Sylvia reveals that she recognizes her own spell mark on Aurora’s mom. But she doesn’t know why the spell was created in the first place. Upon Aurora’s request, Sylvia does a spell and they find out that Genevieve was Aurora’s grandmother who was part wolf and witch. She got pregnant even though she was not mated with the man, and the man she was with could not believe that they child could be his as pregnancy only happens with mates. Genevieve gave birth to twins–Ruby and Cole, and both grew up as hybrids. Then Genevieve and Victor, the father of the children, got killed by a vampire coven, and Ruby grew up, got pregnant and also gave birth to twins–Aurora and Drake. Ruby got a vision of the future and has to have the twins turned human by their first full moon to give them a chance at life. She decides that they will go live with Beth, Aurora’s mom, and everyone’s memory would be wiped to protect them. Sylvia had done the spell–and Ruby knew the price–she must take her own life before the first full moon after the babies’ birth. Ruby heads back, and is captured en route before being forced to find mates for the wolves, resulting in them turning innocent children. Her pack had come to save her, though her mate had died trying to protect her, and when she was freed, she saw that the moon was not yet full, so she challenged the alpha of the pack that captured her and sealed her fate.

Sylvia explains that Genevieve was her best friend and she would’ve done anything for her and Ruby as if she was her own daughter–Ruby was a powerful seer, resulting in her showing Sylvia that the twins would not make it past their fifth birthday if they did not take these steps. Aurora gets pissed because if her mom was a powerful seer, how could she not see the abuse that her adopted family would put her through? She runs off and Emma follows her as a wolf. They chill and rest for a while as Aurora thinks everything through and then they return. As they return, Emma gives Aurora a quick hug, and Aurora gets a vision of her own wedding to Kai, where she sees Emma is pregnant.

Kai wakes her up and Aurora gets dressed in a Sari that she had from her six months in India. Together, they call his mom and sister for Diwali–Kai and his parents were attacked in Delhi, India by wolves. His sister did not make it, but Kai and his parents survived from the attack, and his father went on to make the biggest pack in India. Further, since his parents were mates, they ended up having more children–11 boys and 1 girl, making 13 kids total.

After the call, they spar, and Kai partners her with Emma so Aurora challenges him and is able to keep up with him but ultimately he beats her because he’s had over a century of practice in fighting. Kai partners her up with Trent, a worthy opponent, and when they touch, Aurora has a vision–Diya, Kai’s sister, is Trent’s mate. Once she tells Kai this, Kai questions Trent about everything as he and his family are very protective of their only sister. Then Kai calls up his family and tells them the news. He also calls his father separately and asks him to swear on his own pack that he will not tell anyone outside of his own family (not even the pack can be told this) that Aurora is the mate finder.

Kai’s mom, Diya and Jai come to visit them. It turns out that Maya, Kai’s mom, is an empath and she was also a psychologist for a few years in the 60’s, so she can see and tell everything, They go for a pack run and sure enough, Trent and Diya are mates. During the run, however, they come across vampires looking for Aurora, sent by the Portland pack, who had told these vampires that one of the wolves in the Mt. Hood pack smelled interesting. The pack protects Kai’s family, and Aurora but the vampires are insanely fast, and get in between them. Aurora decides to enter the fight to protect Maya, who is being attacked by a vampire and kills it with ease. Later, the family talk about it over food, and are shocked when they find out that it was Aurora’s first kill. Kai also says out loud that he will kill the Portland alpha for sending the Vampires after his family.

This results in an argument between Kai and Aurora, as she does not want him involved in needless fights. He explains that since he’s been around for 200 years, he’s survived all kinds of fights, making him a very good fighter, and Aurora gives up. She cannot fall asleep alone in bed at night, even though she demanded that they sleep in separate beds while his family is here, and she sneaks into his room.

Kai makes the announcement at the mandatory pack bbq that they are going to fight the Portland pack for Alpha. The two packs meet, and Kai struggles to beat the other alpha because of silver poisoning setting in. When Maya finds out that Aurora also has silver immunity, she quickly teaches her how to share that power with Kai, who then is able to defeat the other alpha. Some of the pack members of the Portland pack run away, but many of them stay, especially when Kai makes it clear that he runs a clean pack, one that is very much a family and that takes care of their females, unlike the Portland pack. Of those that join the pack from the Portland pack, one is a man who challenges Kai for the alpha role, though Kai is weakened. Maya tells Aurora that she could fight on behalf of the Alpha as his second in command, since Kai is severely injured. Aurora does and she wins, so the guy runs off. Amongst the pack, there is a woman named Isabelle–she explains that she was attacked by the former alpha of the pack, and was left for dead, but when she survived, he was very much delighted. She tells them that she has a husband and two small children that she would very much like to go home to.

While Kai tells her that she can’t do that, Aurora assuages her fears, and they do actually call Isabelle’s family. At first, Tristian, Isabelle’s husband tells them off, bu when Isabelle speaks up, he is in disbelief. He and the kids come to the pack lands, and Kai gets permission from the council to bring in three humans to the pack. Sylvia visits and offers to remove the block on Aurora’s witch magic, but she says no. Aurora asks if anyone else knows about their kind, and Kai tells her that the general population does not, but that every intelligence agency in every country knows about the three supernatural races.

The day of Sadie’s wedding arrives, and Diya comes into the room saying that Trent proposed. Emma flies into the room at a run, and announces that she is pregnant. That means that Aurora will be getting married in the next four to five months. During Sadie’s wedding, Aurora first encounters a Shaman named Nahuel. He freezes everyone at the ceremony and tells Aurora that his people have cursed the werewolves because they were greedy hunters and very territorial so they did not share. They reproduced quickly which made that worse, so the curse was placed so they wouldn’t reproduce as quickly. But that had an unintended consequence of reducing the werewolf population very quickly, when in reality they wanted to teach the wolves to share. He tells her that now the wolves are on the brink of extinction and the vampires are a threat to humans. Werewolves are the ones who protect humans, while witches tend to be neutral. If the vampires were to attack, they would wipe out the werewolves and eventually the humans, which cannot happen. Nahuel reveals that he performs a mating ceremony for the werewolves in order to pay a debt because the curse cannot be undone. He tells her that she will bring many mated pairings and explains about mates a bit more before he gives her the real message: In the near future, the Spirit is going to download hundreds of Mate couplings at once, and after this gets out, everyone will known who she is. All the packs will benefit from it, so they will vow to protect her. Aurora must come out to her kind as it is the only way to ensure that she is safe–her mother did not do that and died young. If she does it in the right time, exposing herself to as many of her kind as possible, she will unite them and as the pups are born and raise, people will know it is because of her. As a result, when the vampires come, the wolves will fight in her honor.

He also tells her that the vampires will come for her because of balance–she has the ability to find mates for her kind, but she also has the gift of giving fertility to female vampires enabling them to have vampire children with vampire mates. Nahuel tells her that the Vampire Queen knows this and will stop at nothing to get this. The Spirit has equipped Aurora with all she needs, including the light and dark parts of her and she needs to embrace all of her powers. Nahuel then gives her an Apache tear and tells her to bury it whenever she needs counsel as he is her guide. He then releases time and performs the wedding/ mating ceremony for Sadie.

On the way back home, after much pestering from Kai, Aurora tells him and the whole car what Nahuel had said. Kai does not like it, but leaves it be. The next day at a pack bbq, Kai reveals Emma’s pregnancy, and announces that Diya and Jai will be joining the pack after Diya’s marriage to Trent. He also adds that Aurora and he would be traveling to the Alpha conference, which is when Aurora realizes why Kai was so mad during their argument about what the shaman said regarding getting a massive download–she will have no choice but to reveal herself at the conference.

Aurora decides to remove the block on her witch magic, which Sylvia does, and her magic explodes–there is so much of it and Sylvia tells her that already the fact that she saw magic in the form of a mist even with a block on meant that Aurora is a powerful witch. Sylvia gives Aurora her full given name–something that is given through the person initiating the witch into the coven by the Spirit, and can be used to control a witch, though not by the person who gives her the name. Sylvia thinks that because Aurora was a changed wolf, which means she has a changed power structure, it could be that it changed her with powers and may explain why there’s so much magic. Aurora asks Sylvia if there is every a time, would Sylvia choose a side, to which Sylvia explains that there are good witches like her, and bad witches who only want to do dark and bad things, but that if there every came a time, her coven would side with humans and whoever protected them.

Even though they got the Portland pack under their jurisdiction, which means that Aurora could go back to Safe Haven in Portland, Kai still wanted to open up the branch in Gresham. The opening day was a hit, and shocking to him that there were so many women and children waiting for it to open. Even Kai did not expect to see this much, and vowed that he would do what he can to protect them. When they return home after opening day, he asks her for a run, and leads her to a clearing where there is a picnic waiting for them. He proposes to her and Aurora says yes.

Aurora wakes up the next day as Kai’s fiancée and they head to the council meeting, where people’s heads start turning as they walk by. Kai realizes it’s because Aurora smells like a witch and werewolves don’t like witches, so they have to prove that she’s a werewolf before they are able to go in. Shamus, and his second, of the Seattle pack come up and Shamus is confused as to why Aurora smells like a full-blooded witch. Kai gets to leave with Aurora when a council member yells at him about bringing in a witch, to which Kai response it’s his mate. The council man calls for guards, and both Kai and Aurora shift, showing the same markings. A council woman asks if Aurora does magic to appear to take on a wolf form, and finally Shamus speaks up that Aurora is a werewolf, and explains that Sadie recently joined from Kai’s pack, where she had seen Aurora survive the change. He also tells the woman to look elsewhere as to why Aurora smells like a full blooded witch. They try to argue even when Kai’s father steps in, claiming that she is a werewolf only for them to dismiss him as bewitched since Kai is his son.

Aurora locks eyes with the council woman and starts having visions–she becomes aware of all of the wolf energy signature in the building and her soul walks to them, touches them, and sees all of their mates. Before she makes it back to her body, she sees Nahuel, who tells her that the war has begun, that the future she sees may change, and to trust the wolves with who she is. When she gets back to her body, the council woman does not believe her about the mates and the mate finder, so she ask Aurora to see and Aurora shares her visions before passing out.

Aurora wakes up 10 hours later, and Jane, the council woman, reveals that she had projected the visions of the mates to all of the wolves in attendance. Jane does note that she made no mention of the Shaman or the vampiric war to anyone in her projection. Aurora feels that the whole group is hiding something, and finally Kai tells her that a female from their pack has been kidnapped–Emma. In her anger, Aurora starts making things fly.

They head home, and there was no clue as to where Emma may have been taken. Max and Devon were injured during the kidnapping, and everyone is called back to the town. Shamus offers to send some people to help them, while Aurora has Sylvia and two other witches from the coven do a location spell on Emma, only to find out that they are being blocked until Aurora adds in her magic. Sylvia then tells Aurora that every coven across the US had received the same message–the Vampires were waging war on the werewolves and if the covens interfered by siding with the wolves, they would be burnt. Sylvia tells her that her coven will help them.

The pack grabs some gear and heads to a private airport. Shamus is able to put the gear on a plane but Vampires attack them and only Kai, Aurora, Isabelle, Max and Devon make it onto the plane. The stewardess seems unfazed by everything and it turns out that she is a duff–her parents were witches but she was born without magic, so she can only serve the magical community through regular jobs.

They arrive in Los Angeles and meet the LA alpha and some of the strongest from his pack to help find Emma. The Alpha thanks Aurora for helping him find his mate, and they go to the house where Emma is being held. Aurora is the last to go in as she is a good fighter and will be in better form to help Emma as a human. But before she makes it to the house, she gets stopped by Layla, who introduces herself as the Queen of the North American Vampire Clan. They get into a fight, and the Queen admits that Aurora is the prize because of her blood’s potency to give fertility to Vampires. Unfortunately, Aurora can’t reach her pack because the Dark witch that is with Layla is blocking her communication channels with the pack. Suddenly, a black van shows up full of human hunters with silver crossbows. Someone grabs onto her and knocks her out.

Aurora gets interrogated by Research And Intelligence Division on Supernaturals (“RAIDOS”) and they seem to know a lot about the supernatural community and especially about the Mt. Hood Pack. They reveal that they have drones on Mt Hood, and Aurora agrees to an alliance with the humans, after Dr. Tavern, the leader of it suggests the alliance. The RAIDOS disappear like a well oiled machine, and she gets found by Kai and the team. They check into a hotel, and Aurora checks on Emma. Emma and Devon tell them that they do not want to leave the pack for a bigger one even after the attack, because this is their home. A doctor checks on them from the Los Angeles pack, telling them that Emma is about nine weeks along. When Aurora and Kai get to their hotel room, she tells him about the meeting with the government, and Kai calls his father to let him know about the detainment.

Few weeks later, Aurora returns from teaching a self-defense class at Safe Haven when she smells foreign wolves. She comes in quietly as instructed and sees that Kai has a message on the board. Sylvia arrives and puts up magic shields to keep the conversation safe and private. Once that is done, Raj (Kai’s dad) introduces himself and Jane thanks Aurora for helping her find her mate. Aurora tells them everything that transpired, and Raj says that she has no business making an alliance but Kai asks what would he have her do instead? Be Killed? The two of them reject Council positions that they’ve been offered, and Aurora asks about protecting humans, to which the Native American council member responds that it has been their duty.

Suddenly, Aurora feels sleep and starts falling into a vision where Nahuel tells her that the balance has tipped towards the dark, and that he wants to help her tip it back towards the light. He shows her a vision that the vampires are going to try to put barrels of silver into the water treatment plants in all of the major cities in order to weaken the wolves and then attack the packs. When Aurora comes to in her living room, she tells the council to start calling, emailing or finding ways to get in contact with all the packs to warn them that the vampires are trying to wipe them out by spilling silver into the water. At first, no one believes her, so Aurora has Jane project her premonition to everyone in the room, and only then does the council jump into action. Kai orders the Portland and Mt. Hood packs to split in half, with some of them going to the water supply plants in both towns, while others are to go get as much bottled water. Kai calls Shamus to tell him, but Aurora realizes that they won’t reach everyone in time. Sylvia offers to do magic that would enable for the message to get out to everyone but it would require alpha blood. Raj says no, and then gets into an argument with Kai about it. Aurora, seeing that they may get into a fight that they really do not have the time for at the moment, asks Sylvia to help, who in turn puts both men to sleep through a spell. They do the spell to reach everyone, and then they are left to hope for the best. Aurora gets a call from RAIDOS where Dr. Tavern tells her that they are en route to help protect the water treatment plant closest to Mt. Hood. Aurora wakes up Raj and Kai, and when Raj starts yelling about killing Sylvia, Aurora tells him off. Raj responds that she is Kai’s perfect match and welcomes her to the family.

Kai and Aurora run as wolves to the plant while she explains to him what happened with RAIDOS. It is complete chaos when they get there and Layla uses compulsion on Kai so he cannot move. Layla tries it on Aurora but it doesn’t work, so she injure Kai which in turn causes Aurora to shift into her human form. She conjures up magic and attacks Layla, but that causes the vampires to head towards them instead. One of those figures is the dark witch, but before she can do any real damage to Kai and Aurora, Sylvia arrives with he coven and fights the witch. It looks like Kai’s foot isn’t healing, but Suddenly Layla comes out with two Vampires and grabs Aurora. Not being able to reach behind her and grab her, Aurora starts shifting back into her wolf form, breaking Layla bones, but Layla is faster and sinks her teeth into Aurora. Dr. Tavern shows up with a silver sword and separates them, but Layla runs away. RAIDOS pursues her, because she had ingested Aurora’s blood and is fertile so she can have a child. Aurora and Kai attempt to follow them but Kai’s leg snaps and Aurora uses her witch magic to heal him.

Ultimately, the vampires get away, and a single drum of silver was released into the water treatment plant. Kai meets Dr. Tavern and takes a liking to her. Dr. Taven warns them that if Layla does have children, Aurora may be taken into custody and tells them that they may ask for a favor, if vampires make any moves towards humans. Kai and Aurora head off and meet up with the others who mentions that humans aren’t a weak race after all and that they may need to buy a helicopter.

A month later, after no showers and no drinking from water that isn’t bottled, the silver levels were low enough that it was safe for the pack to drink again. Kai had filters installed in every house that glowed blue if silver was present in order to protect the pack. He heads over to India with Aurora and three other members of the pack. During the flight, Kai asks Max why he doesn’t ask the attendant out on a date, to which Max replies that he was only looking and he already had his great love. Turn out that Max was mated for four years and that his mate died during labor with their first child–neither one survived because the baby shifted in the womb and they bled out. This happened over twenty years ago, and Max hasn’t been with anyone since.

Arriving in India, they are greeted by Nikhil, one of Kai’s brothers, and they make their way to the hotel. Once the henna party starts, Aurora talks to Diya asking about werewolf birthing. Diya assures her that she will help during Emma’s delivery as she’s helped throughout other deliveries in India and has the expertise to back it up, so Emma will be fine.

During the ride down to the wedding and especially at the beginning of the wedding, Aurora tells Kai that their wedding will not be as fancy as Diya’s as his parents are going all out, sparing no expense on their only daughter getting married. Kai tells her that his money is their money and their wedding will be just as expensive. Since Trent doesn’t have any living family, Aurora, Max and two other girls–one of whom is named Tara–walk with him for the Ceremony. Aurora’s hand brushes Tara’s and she has a vision of Max holding a beautiful woman with long, red hair whose body is limp before it switches to one of Max and Tara at their own wedding day in Mt. Hood, before it switches again to them at the hotel that Diya’s wedding is in, with Max telling Tara to go and just screaming at her. The vision ends with Aurora walking out and not telling Max anything. She’s confused by this fluctuation in visions, and when Kai runs up to her, she tells him what she saw. He stops dead in his tracks, and tells her that it’s not possible that Max as another mate as they mate for life and to not tell him about Tara, as Kai will be the one to break the news to him. They have an amazing wedding, and Tara and Max seem to enjoy each other’s company.

The next morning, they meet with Raj at his house and he takes them to a room where he has been interrogating a vampire for over a month by starving it and feeding it a truth serum. Aurora is not okay with this, but Raj asks to speak with her privately, which she agrees to. He admits to her that he truly thinks positively of Kai–his strength and leadership–but he does not want to tell his son this in case it will make him weak. Raj then tells her that she cannot go through with the mating ceremony because as long as she doesn’t, she remains infertile and that means that any vampire that drinks her blood stays infertile. As a result, Layla cannot become pregnant so long as Aurora is infertile. He tells her that the vampires have created a blood-letting device just for her and will sell it to the highest female bidder. He has been able to glean all of this based off of intel from a spy at RAIDOS and Raj gives her the result of her own fertility. He tells her that they are 99% certain of this theory based on what they have so far. When asked, Raj tells her that he is giving her this is his counsel as a councilman, but as Kai’s father, he wants them to be happy so he will support them either way.

Kai begins to pester her about the conversation with his father, and she snaps at him to give her time. At the hotel, she grabs her stuff and runs into Tara at the elevator. Tara asks her about Max and Aurora tells her that he is her mate, after telling her that he lost his mate and child. On the flight back, Aurora gets a message from Dr. Tavern that Layla isn’t pregnant and when they get home, she goes straight to sleep with the promise that she will tell Kai everything the next day.

That night, she is trapped in her dream, and is at her childhood home, where she finds her father but also finds Prudence, the Dark Witch, who has a child with her. Prudence starts to do some type of ceremony to get Aurora to become fertile. Kai tries to wake her up, which Aurora can see, as she feels like her soul is split into two halves–one watching the dream, and the other is watching what is happening around her at home. Kai calls for Max and Sylvia. Sylvia arrives and tries to counter the dark magic, but cannot fix it, so Aurora prays for Nahuel, who arrives at the house, and helps Kai find her through his bond. Kai tells her why he loves her so much and admits that she may even be more dominant than him because no one can make her do what she doesn’t want to. He tells her he loves her because of precisely that–she doesn’t let anyone tell her what to do. That frees Aurora from her fear, and she tells the four to run and go back to her mom. Then she jumps out of the window of the house and lands back in her body.

Aurora promises Sylvia to attend training, and promises Nahuel that she will wear an amulet. She then tells Kai what Raj had told her and shows him the document. He tells her that it doesn’t mean that they can’t marry, but rather that they have to take out the vampires first. And besides, vampires are like bees–obsessed with their queen, money and blood. Take out Layla, take out the hive. He tells her to let him worry about what he will do and she can go prepare for their wedding. Aurora realizes that this is where she is meant to be and that they will have everything they want.

My Thoughts: This is an entertaining story-I really enjoyed the premise of it, especially the spin on the fact that turned wolves have magical powers that the born wolves do not, which was kind of cool. And I really loved following Aurora through her story, and how she’s such a kick-ass woman, and what she does. I do think that it’s a little ridiculous that Witches, RAIDOS and Wolves were fighting together, and Layla still got away after biting Aurora. I’m curious enough to want to read the next book in the series, to see how the story progresses.