Book Review: Tethered

Title: Tethered
Author: Elayna R. Gallea
Genre: Romance, Romantasy, Fantasy, Fiction

What It’s About: Luna has been asked by the council to marry the Prince of Darkness, who is the vampire prince of Eleyta, on the night of her birthday. She awaits to meet with the contingent of Vampires that will take her to Eleyta for the wedding, and speaks to her father before the doors open. There, she glimpses two vampires speaking to a third one—the one whose portrait she has as part of her marriage contract, and whom she recognizes as future husband. He seems to be upset and gestures to the two other vampires with him before disappearing into a puff of shadows. One of the two vampires come up to talk to her, and takes her back through the void to Castle Sanguis for the wedding.

Sebastian had returned earlier after seeing his future bride, and paces the room as he doesn’t want to get married, but this is part of his Mother’s will. He gets called in by his mother, who tells him that he will Bind himself to his bride, which surprises him as being bound is almost like having a fated mate, but it’s one that is chosen and extends the other’s life to the life of the vampire. He agrees as he knows that this is his mother’s will and going against this will be unpleasant.

The ceremony goes through, and Sebastian is acutely aware of his future Bride’s nervousness and fears—at one point he hides his wings to avoid intimidating Luna, and at another point, he pulls them out to hide her from the crowd as they share their kiss, which really turns out to be a peck on the cheek from him. Then, when it is time for them to be bound, he realizes that Luna didn’t know about this condition, so he asks for it to be done in Private. His mother approves it, but tells him that it has to be done by the time dawn comes or else he will be done. So he moves Luna through the void with him to another room in the castle, where Luna quickly grabs a candelabra to protect herself. He tells her that he wouldn’t do anything to her that she didn’t want him to, but he sees that she is more comfortable with holding the weapon so he lets it be. The priest comes in and they go through the process of doing the binding, which entails them pouring their blood into a shared chalice, and then each of them drinking it. That said, there’s some weirdness from the priest as he chants in a different language at some point. After drinking their blood, Luna passes out.

She wakes up three days later in a bed, which turns out to be Sebastian’s bed in the castle. He had moved her there since she had passed out and he wanted to keep an eye on her, but he let her maid tend to her. At some point, she asks him to leave and he decides to go for a walk outside of the room, while she speaks to her lady’s maid, who is really more like a friend of hers. While they are talking, Luna gets into a lot of pain, and so does Sebastian—one of the soldiers brings Sebastian back into her space, and the pain only goes away when they touch. At first, Sebastian is furious with her, thinking that she did something, but after hearing the fact that she also was in pain, he takes a look at their Bond markings and realizes that they have been Tethered—an old magic that no one knows about and that is more myth than reality.

They test out the distance, and then they agree that they will want to work on trying to figure out what they can do to get unTethered—after all, Luna is the researcher and the academic. So that is what they begin doing, while attending a couple of balls—one of them is in their honor for the wedding. During this particular ball, Luna sees one of the witches tending to Marius, her younger brother who has been ill all his short life as a half Fortune elf, half human, and they briefly talk. The witch tells her about a plant that could heal the Wasting Illness—as a lot of human villages have gotten that same illness as Marius in Eleyta. Sebastian comes over and the witch pretends that they have not met before, which Luna finds very strange.

She begins to research the plant as well as the Tether to Sebastian, but is not making my headway either way. Her maid continues to visit her, but has a purple ribbon around her neck to show that she does not want to be fed from, something that has become a system in Castle Sanguis for those who are willing to be Sources, meaning the source for blood for vampires. As a result of the Tether, Luna and Sebastian let the maid sleep in the room designated for Luna, and unfortunately, she gets attacked and killed in one night. The sight isn’t pretty, and it’s clear that attackers thought she was Luna, because of the room, which makes this an attack on Sebastian, and he wants to get to the bottom of it. Furtherly, Sebastian finds it strange that Luna’s family is not responding to her messages and letters, so he has his spymaster go check it out.

As time goes on, Luna changes her opinion from not wanting Sebastian to bite her and feed from her, to letting him feed from her as his Source—after all Bound and Tethered mates can only feed from their Source, none other will be appealing for them. This change becomes especially poignant when Luna and Sebastian head into the tunnels to try to figure out who had attacked Luna’s maid, and the tunnel collapses on top of them, leaving Sebastian severely injured until he feeds from her. Luna realizes that she enjoys him biting and drinking from her, and that she doesn’t mind him doing that in the future.

As a result of this investigation, Sebastian realizes that the attackers were People of the Night, a group of fanatics, who were entombed for the last century for their crimes. He speaks to his mother, Queen Marguerite, who confirms that she had let them go and that it is not up to him to question what she decides to do. Sebastian then goes to investigate by meeting with a friend of his, who tells them what he has heard about the People of the Night, and then Sebastian separately speaks with an inmate in the prison about the People of the Night. This part results in Luna leaving the cells and finding the Witch that has been taking care of Marius, who apologizes to Luna for what has happened and for revealing information to some people who turned out to be the People of the Night. As Luna speaks with her, the Witch gets killed and Luna gets knocked out.

Luna wakes up and realizes that she doesn’t feel Sebastian; their bond and their tether is empty, and she is forced to walk with the people who are pushing her—one of whom is Darcy, a female vampire that she had met during one of the events and who did not allow her to drink Fairy Wine. The next time she’s awake, she’s on a slab, and she realizes that Sebastian is with her, but that he’s extremely weakened. So she scootches over while the group is chanting, and she gives Sebastian a bit of her blood for him to heal. He then goes on a rampage, killing all of the vampires that are part of the People of the Night, but Luna is captured by one of them, and the Vampire uses her as a shield while also painfully draining her of blood. Sebastian gets to him, and kills him, but he’s almost too late to save Luna, and he has to make a decision—to Make her into a Vampire, or let her die. He makes the decision that he thinks is best for Luna.

My Thoughts: This is a fast-paced romance book with no spicy scenes, and is a good one if you aren’t a fan of those types of scenes. I did enjoy the story but I feel like the characters are a little bit under-developed in the book, and the way that Sebastian falls in love with Luna and vice versa is a little too fast, to the point that there is no tension between the characters. And in the enemies-to-lovers or forced proximity tropes in romance, I tend to prefer that tension between the Female Main Character and the Male Main Character. So that made the story a bit dry for me but the overall plot and storyline is interesting though it’s almost like every other chapters there is a big massive thing that happens in the story and you don’t really have time to understand the character’s own feelings on what happened, and get an insight into how they process these feelings or information. I’m curious to see what the next book will bring, as I am curious about this series and the world that the author has developed thus far.