I think that I have started all of my reviews for the books in the ETERNAL MATES series basically the same way and I'm going to do it again! This is another great installment in the series! In BITTEN BY A HELLCAT we get the story of Cait, a hellcat with a troublesome male on her tail (sorry I couldn't help myself) and Owen, a human hunter with a secret of his own.
BITTEN BY A HELLCAT has all of the trademarks of a Heaton paranormal romance. Strongly written and well developed characters, an engaging and entertaining plot, and plenty of steaminess that compliments the overall story. Heaton also teases the readers who, like myself, are aching to get more for the wonderful character Bleu. Heaton is great at giving her readers "say what?" moments and this one doesn't disappoint. Lots of action, a strong heroine, and a wonderful hero makes this one yet another book by Felicity Heaton that I will be adding to my favorites list!
Happy Reading!
Monica
**I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.**
Excerpt
“Done,” he said and she opened her eyes and turned to face him, surprised at how quickly he had dressed.
Or hadn’t dressed.
He stood before her wearing only a pair of black jeans that rode low on his hips, rubbing a small pale towel across his short hair.
Cait noticed something other than how honed and godly his body was as she looked at him this time.
She noticed all the dark bruises and the cuts that littered his arms, shoulders, sides and even parts of his stomach. He turned away from her, revealing a particularly nasty bruise on his left side, just above his bottom. She drifted towards him, staring at it and reaching out to touch it.
Owen spun to face her.
Cait jumped and snatched her hand back, her eyes leaping up to meet his pale green ones.
“Where did you get all the bruises?” she said, trying to make it clear she’d had a reason for wanting to touch him, one other than the desire pulsing through her again, steadily building back up towards a crescendo.
“The demon a few fae hired me to kill didn’t take kindly to my opinion that he should die for terrorising them. We had a little bit of an argument about it a couple of days ago.” Owen looked himself over and prodded a small mottled bruise on the ridge of muscle that curved over his right hip. “They’ll be gone in a few days. I just have to keep applying my salve to them.”
She was about to ask what he meant by that when he leaned across to his right, picked up a small black glass pot from the wooden dressing table beside him and opened it.
Cait flinched away as the smell hit her.
Aniseed.
She pulled a face at it. She never had liked that smell.
“It doesn’t stink as bad once it’s on,” Owen said, his deep voice curling around her, making her forget the offensive smell of his salve for a moment.
She looked up at him to find him staring at the pot, a flicker of something in his green eyes. When they leaped back to her, darkening a degree, revealing his desire again, she realised why he was concerned about the smell, and her reaction to it.
The heat inside her exploded into an inferno again, burning up her blood as she stared into his eyes, filled with a need to take him up on his silent offer.
She wanted her taste of him now.
Gods, she hoped he was right and the salve did smell less disgusting when it was on him.
She wanted to tell him to forget it, at least for a while. She could apply it later, massaging it into his bruises and wounds while he lay on the bed, spent from their lovemaking.
He looked as if he was considering such a thing himself but then sighed wearily and stuck his right index finger into the gunk.
He smoothed a little of it over each of his cuts and his bruises, and she couldn’t help but smile when she noticed he was doing his best not to grimace as he rubbed it in. Trying to look strong and manly in her presence? It reassured her a little. After all, she had been worried about appearing like a weak kitten in need of coddling too.
Owen twisted at the waist and grimaced, sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth.
“I can do your back.” The words were out of her lips before she could consider what she was offering.
It wasn’t the smell of the salve that had her regretting her offer as he nodded, because it smelled oddly sweet now that it was on him, as if the properties of it had changed somehow.
It was the fact that she was about to touch him, running her fingers over his bare flesh while standing in the middle of his bedroom.
Owen held the black glass pot out to her and Cait took it, stared at it and drew in a deep breath to steady herself as he turned his back to her. There were more bruises on his back, long deep ones that looked as if the demon had thrown him into something unbreakable. In amidst the bruises were slashes, easily recognisable as claw marks. They were scabbed over and healing, but they must have been deep when they had happened.
She looked down at the creamy salve, wondering what magic was in the concoction, because nothing made by human hands could heal such terrible wounds in such a short space of time.
How many times had he relied on this same potion to heal his wounds for him? How many times had he been beaten this badly, or worse, by his enemies?
How badly injured would he end up when he took care of Marius for her?
She gripped the pot and stared at it, her stomach turning to lead and dragging her insides down to her feet. She shook her head. She couldn’t ask Owen to handle the male for her. Owen was strong, but the hellcat was stronger. She knew from first-hand experience just how strong that male was.
What had she been thinking?
“Cait?” The sound of her name rolling off Owen’s tongue in his deep steady voice soothed her.
Owen wasn’t facing Marius alone. She would be there with him and she had to have faith in him, as she had back in the bar, before her attraction to him had begun to place doubts in her head and fear in her heart.
“Sorry,” she muttered again and stuck her fingers into the pot.
The salve was cold, strangely so, and the smell changed from aniseed when it was on her fingers to a sweet sugary smell when she rubbed it into the first bruise on his back, a deep one that covered half of his left shoulder-blade.
“I don’t always end up looking like a Friesian cow.” There was a warm note in Owen’s voice that suggested he was making a joke but she didn’t get it.
She smoothed more of the salve into the bruise, keeping her strokes light so she didn’t hurt him. “A cow?”
“A Friesian cow.” He looked back over his shoulder at her, his green eyes bright with his stunning smile. The light in them faded as he frowned. “You have no clue what I’m talking about, do you?”
She shook her head.
He sighed and turned away from her again. “It’s a black and white cow… like a white cow with black splotches on it… you do know what a cow is?”
Cait chuckled. “Of course. I’ve seen cows. I didn’t realise they had special names. You’re referencing this cow in relation to your black marks against your paler skin.”
He heaved another sigh. “When you say it like that, it doesn’t sound funny.”
Cait dipped her fingers back into the pot, scooped a small quantity of the creamy gunk up, and applied it to a series of smaller bruises and cuts that dotted his right shoulder.
“I didn’t mean to make it not funny… I’m not sure this is really something you should laugh about either.” Her work slowed as she again thought about how a demon had done this much damage to him.
The male hellcat had hurt her and he was stronger than a measly demon. What would he do to Owen?
“If you keep doubting me… we’re going to fall out.” Those words leaving Owen’s lips in a cold dead voice sent a chill through her.
How did he know whenever she was doubting him? Did he have abilities that were beyond human? Could he sense things as fae and demons could? She had the feeling it had been more than what she had said that had alerted him to her thoughts about him losing to the male.
Owen looked back over his shoulder at her again, his green eyes as dark as they had been when he had eyed Marius. Another shiver went through her when they met hers, holding her immobile.
“I can handle your male.” The certainty in those five words and in his eyes gave her some relief, but riled her at the same time.
“He isn’t my male.” She looked away from him. “I don’t have a male.”
“Don’t have and don’t want?”
Cait let his words hang in the air between them as she dealt with another of his bruises, focusing on it to avoid his questioning gaze.
Her movements slowed as he continued to stare at her, her fingers drifting across his skin and awareness of how close they were to each other rising inside her. Heat rose with it, bringing her desire and need back to inferno level, until each tiny stroke of her fingers over his flesh had arcs of electric tingles rushing over her skin.
Her breathing quickened, the air too thick and heavy, making her head spin as she struggled to focus on her task and not how good he felt beneath her questing fingers.
She swept those fingers over the bruise on his left side, feeling his heat radiating from him and through her.
“Cait.” His deep voice scraped low, a husky whisper that sent a thrill coursing through her and brought all of her focus upwards as he slowly turned to face her.
She lifted her eyes to his, her fingers resting against his side, desire pulsing through her.
Passion that flared white-hot as she waited to see what he would do.
He wanted her. She knew that. She had felt it back at the club and she felt it clearer now, a deep primal awareness that he desired her. Fiercely needed her.
She wanted him too.
Something about him was irresistible.
It had drawn her to him from the moment she had set eyes on him and she had been burning for him ever since, on fire with a need to feel his arms around her and his lips claiming hers.
His green eyes darkened, narrowing hungrily on hers.
Cait breathed harder, anticipation swirling through her and stealing the air from her lungs as she willed him to surrender to his need, to give in to the passion beating in his veins and drumming in his heart because she felt it too. It consumed her. Controlled her.
And she couldn’t deny it any longer.
The pot fell from her fingers and smashed on the wooden floor.
Books in the Eternal Mates paranormal romance series:
- Book 1: Kissed by a Dark Prince Read my review here
- Book 2: Claimed by a Demon King Read my review here
- Book 3: Tempted by a Rogue Prince Read my review here
- Book 4: Hunted by a Jaguar Read my review here
- Book 5: Craved by an Alpha Read my review here
- Book 6: Bitten by a Hellcat
- Book 7: Taken by a Dragon – Coming March 10th 2015
Author Bio |
 If you love your angels a little dark and wicked, the best-selling Her Angel series is for you. If you like strong, powerful, and dark vampires then try the Vampires Realm series or any of her stand-alone vampire romance books. If you’re looking for vampire romances that are sinful, passionate and erotic then try the best-selling Vampire Erotic Theatre series. Or if you prefer huge detailed worlds filled with hot-blooded alpha males in every species, from elves to demons to dragons to shifters and angels, then take a look at the new Eternal Mates series. If you want to know more about Felicity, or want to get in touch, you can find her at the following places: |
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