Styx's Storm-Lora Leigh

Styx's Storm
Lora Leigh
Berkley, Oct 5 2010, $7.99
ISBN: 9780425237397

Growing up in a household in which her father was too busy to spend time with her because he was always working at the Council lab on Breed research led to Storme Montague resenting the species. Irate with Breeds, she is over the top with rage when she witnessed a Coyote Breed kill her father and brother during a liberation raid; his research apparently destroyed.

Storme’s late father gave her a chip containing information that would help the Breeds. However, a decade has passed since she observed the murders of her family, but she refuses to give the data to either the Council or the Breed; distrusting both sides. On the run this whole time, Storme knows the enemies are closing in on her, but remains suspicious of the Council and loathes the Breeds. Styx Mackenzie is assigned to capture Storme whose blood apparently marks her as his mate before she is taken and sold by the slavers.

Styx’s Storm is a refreshing Breeds entry (see Lion’s Heat and Bengal’s Heart) due to the psychological scars the lead female has from witnessing the murders of her father dedicated to helping the Breeds and her brother by a Breed. Her prejudice is to lump all Breeds in the same category as violent beasts just like the Coyote psychopath who murdered her family. Thus Styx has his work cut out to not just bring this woman in who he distrusts, but to persuade her they are soul mates and not just sex mates.

Harriet Klausner