Annette Blair – Vampire Dragon

The third book in the Works Like Magick series, published april 2011.



In Salem, Massachusetts, the Works Like Magick employment agency matches clients in need with magical temps. This time it brings two heart mates together, but when neither is who they appear to be, true danger could be even closer than true love …

Darkwyn, a former Roman warrior turned dragon, has landed in the 21st century – in stark-naked human form – needing the help of Works Like Magick to build a new life. His first job is as a bouncer in Drak’s place, a club for local wannabe vampires. But that’s just a cover – his real assignment could kill him.
Bronte McBride is on the run from the mob with her twelve-year-old nephew Zachary. They both know too much, and a place like Drak’s offers the kind of anonymous protection they’re seeking. Darkwyn has what it takes to protect – and serve – even when he begins to suspect that his vulnerable charge, a woman he recognizes as his heart mate, isn’t everything she claims to be. Then again, Darkwyn has his own secrets. And now, as the past catches up with both of them, nothing less than ultimate chaos will be the next thing these guarded new lovers are destined to share.


The first human Darkwyn sees when he opens his eyes after his hard landing on Earth, is his heart mate. A beautiful masked woman, dressed to kill, in thigh high boots, a corset, and a mask. He knows it is her immediately, and he senses the woman is attracted to him, but then she runs away. As he doesn’t know how to speak yet, he cannot call her back. Then he realizes he is not in an alley, but behind the bar in a pub. A pub with woman, all looking curious at him, and with desire. He sees their hearts, and knows they are not his heart mate. He was told it would be difficult to find her, but it wasn’t.
Just when he is about to be accosted by the woman, he is saved by Vivica, the owner of Works Like Magick, who takes him with her, to train him in everything he will need to know to survive here. His two brothers who arrived before him, Bastian and Jaydun, are with her. His heart mate, a woman named Bronte McBride, who owns the place, needs help. She needs a Vampire Master to her Vampiress, as she owns a tourist / vampire place. She needs him to keep the more persistent vampires and vampire-wannabe’s of her self, and as a bouncer and such. So Darkwyn promises to take the job, after Vivica has teached him what he needs to know. But when one night Darkwyn senses Bronte needs him, he leaves before he has learned enough. Which leads to him exposing himself as a dragon to a reporter, damaging Bronte’s cover as she and Zachary are hiding from the Canadian mob.

Bronte is severely attracted to Darkwyn, but she doesn’t want to act on it, she cannot risk getting close to anyone and perhaps put them in danger as well. She doesn’t know who she can trust, and who will be working for Sanguedolce. But she cannot fight Darkwyn for long, especially when she finds out about his extra special manparts, who put the most sophisticated vibrators to shame. It can do so much more, and seems to have a mind and memory of its own. So after one night filled with lovemaking, she accepts him in their life, but not yet trusting him with her secrets, or her face behind the mask she wears always.



The book is totally original, and funny, and filled with action and some hot love scenes. But to me, it was lacking something. It was not as funny as the first part, in which I could really feel with McKenna, the heroin. And it certainly had not the dept of feeling as the second book, which is one of my most treasured books. Perhaps I should not have been comparing them.
Darkwyn was a Roman warrior before a bad witch/goddess turned his whole platoon into dragons, and banned them to a distant star. There he was a fierce dragon, called Black Ice. And now he is on earth for one purpose only: to find his heart mate, to make her goals his, and help her, and to defeat Killian, so Andra the good goddess who protects the dragons, can get her magic back, to send the next dragon back to earth.
So, Darkwyn finds his heart mate at once, he is not curious about her, what she likes, or dislikes, he just wants into her bed, and protect her. He really did not have any other feelings. Also, there is nothing at all about his personal past. What he was like, did he lose someone? What made him a good man, or dragon.

I loved the place Bronte and Zachary made for themselves, the place for tourist, and the club for vampires and everything. But still, not much background on Bronte either. The only thing that made her ticking was her love for her nephew Zachary, whom she raised from birth, and to keep him safe. And for the rest, not much info on her either, so I just couldn’t get a feeling for the both of them. Instant lust, okay, heart mates, okay, fine, but also no time for love to build. A hurried marriage for the wrong reason.
I am very sorry, but I am disappointed in this book. I did enjoy parts of it, but it lacked what I loved in the previous book. The passion, the characters I totally loved and could feel for, and understood why they were as they were.

6 stars.