Kresley Cole - MacRieve

Book 13 in the Immortals After Dark series, published July 2, 2013.
Genre: paranormal romance
Cover: ugly. MacRieve is supposed to be extremely handsome. This cover model certainly is not.



A beast in torment.
Uilleam MacRieve believed he’d laid to rest the ghosts of his boyhood. But when a brutal torture revives those ancient agonies and destroys his Lykae Instinct, the proud Scot craves the oblivion of death. Until he finds her – a young human so full of spirit and courage that she pulls him back from the brink.
A beauty in chains.
Seized for the auction block, Chloe Todd is forced to enter a terrifying new world of monsters and lore as a bound slave. When offered up to creatures of the dark, she fears she won’t last the night. Until she’s claimed by him – a wicked immortal with breathtaking eyes, whose touch sets her blood on fire.
A full moon on the rise.
With enemies circling, MacRieve spirits Chloe away to the isolated Highland keep of his youth. But once he takes her to his bed, his sensual mate becomes something more than human, evoking his savage past and testing his sanity. On the cusp of the full moon, can he conquer his worst nightmare to save Chloe … from himself?


Uilleam (Will) MacRieve was one of the Lore captured by the Order and experimented upon. When the compound fell, and everyone was freed, MacRieve was almost killed by 5 hungry succubi, and that brought back all his bad memories of his childhood, 900 years ago. When his lust for revenge cannot be slaked, his enemy, the leader of the Order, Commander Webb is nowhere to be found, he wants only one thing: to kill himself. Which is not really easy for an immortal Lykae to do. But then word comes that Commander Webb’s daughter has been found and she is up for auction. MacRieve and his twin brother Munro won’t have a chance of buying her, there are so many extremely rich species who want the same revenge MacRieve wants. But when they arrive at the auction, all thoughts of revenge are gone, as MacRieve smells his mate. His Lykae Instinct has been gone ever since the torture, but now it is back, and his brother confirms it, as he smells “sister”. The two brothers, nicknamed by the nymphs as Hot and Hotter, make their way to the front of the auction, and find Chloe Todd, the human female up for auction is his mate! This is not good, a mere human will never be able to handle the full strength of the Lykae. And during the full moon, a Lykae Beast will come out to have sex with his mated female all night long. But MacRieve has no choice, she is his mate, and he will take care of her. So when the auction is over, and the centaurs have won her, he takes her from them with force.

But Chloe is not fully human, she knows she is becoming something different, but her father refused to tell her what before he disappeared. He only handed her the Book of Lore, filled with all the different species and told her to read it. And now, being wooed by MacRieve, the change is upon her. MacRieve is already falling in love with his beautiful mate, but when he finds out what she is, he despises her, breaking his promises to care for her and her cherish her forever.

As a 9 year old boy, MacRieve was taken by a succubus and kept for four years, and only the fact that his beast took over during sex saved his life. But when his parents finally found out, his mother was killed and his father quickly followed her in death, leaving Munro and MacRieve as orphans. MacRieve has blamed himself ever since, and has hated and killed all succubae on sight. And now his mate is one of those blasted creatures and she will have to feed on him through sex? No way!

Chloe has no clue about anything of this; she has no idea what she has become and how to deal with it. She was a very good soccer player; it was all she ever wanted out of live since she was 5 years old. She has now been scouted for the Olympic team and should go to training camp in two weeks. Her whole life is gone up in flames since the witches captured her. Seducing men to feed for the rest of her life abhors her, but she can no longer eat normal food.

Munro tries to convince MacRieve that it is not so much different than having a vampire mate, she would have to feed of him as well, and having sex is just what a mated pair does all the time. But the memories keep tormenting MacRieve. Still, he cannot allow her to feed on other men either, and so he takes her to his ancestral home in Scotland where they will be alone and will have to rely on each other. Perhaps they can start anew. Chloe certainly does not act like all the other succubae he has met over the centuries…


I can’t believe I completely forgot to order this book when it came out as a paperback. I recently saw it at my best friends’ home, and then of course I had to remedy that. So when it arrived this Saturday morning, I had to read it immediately. I have been a big fan of this series for many years now.

I liked Chloe, her whole life was falling apart, her goal of being an Olympian athlete was almost achieved when everything went to hell. Her father is missing, her body is changing into something she doesn’t know, and now her so called mate is refusing her, hurting her and breaking his promises. She does not fall apart, she tries to make the best of her new life as it is, she makes new friends. But she cannot change what she has become, and MacRieve won’t let her contact others of her species to find out more about herself. She is half human, half succubus, perhaps she can control her lust? She kept giving MacRieve new chances which he kept ruining, as she has fallen for him pretty quickly.

I am not sure I like MacRieve. Yes, his childhood was horrible and he has been tormented like so many others by the Order, but Chloe had no part in it. She is innocent and ignorant and his mate. He kept hurting her, and now he will nobly sacrifice himself in their marriage bed so she can feed? Like he does not need to sleep with his mate at all, or want to? He sure is not thinking about what it all means for her. She is not the one who hurt him 900 years ago, nor does she pray on the children she has met. Chloe does not want to sleep around and seduce men, she just wants her mate like she has never wanted another man before him.

As always, I just kept reading and reading deep into the night, I could not stop. Even though I was crying for them, I kept hoping that MacRieve would wake up and see the truth. The ending of the book was very good, when all he had ever believed was proven to be a lie. His perceptive changed, and his attitude with it. Just in time …

I already look forward to the next book, with Munro as the hero.

9 stars.

© 2014 Reviews by Aurian