RAVAGED by Elisabeth Naughton: Excerpt & Review

Ravaged by Elisabeth Naughton
Series: Eternal Guardians, #7.5, #7.5, 1001 Dark Nights
Published by Evil Eye Concepts Incorporated
Publication Date: June 9th, 2015
Genres: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 135
Source: Author
Format: eARC
Goodreads
Buy Online: Amazon ♥ B&N ♥ Kobo

Disclaimer: I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book. All opinions stated are solely mine.

Ari–Once an Eternal Guardian, now he’s nothing but a rogue mercenary with one singular focus: revenge. His guardian brothers all think he’s dead, but he is very much alive in the human realm, chipping away at Zeus’s Sirens every chance he can, reveling in his brutality and anonymity. Until, that is, he abducts the wrong female and his identity is finally exposed. It will take more than the Eternal Guardians, more even than the gods to rein Ari in after everything he’s done. It may just take the courage of one woman willing to stand up to a warrior who’s become a savage.

 

Daphne blinked several times and tried to make sense of her surroundings. She definitely wasn’t on Olympus.

Slowly, she pushed up on her arm, wincing at the sting in her side. A soft bed lay below her. An eerie gray light shone through the window across the room. Sitting back in the pillows, she glanced around the bedroom with its dark furnishings and high-beamed ceiling and tried to figure out where the heck she was.

Her memories were a foggy mess. She remembered talking with Athena and Zeus. Remembered being in the woods with Sappheire. Remembered those daemons showing up. Remembered running and being struck in the side. Remembered…

Her eyes grew wide as her mind flashed back to the warrior she’d seen battling those daemons. To his mismatched eyes. His wild look. And the way he’d focused on her as if she were his next victim.

Throwing back the covers, she pulled up the long shirt she was wearing and checked her side. Four thin, red lines crossed her skin from her hip to just beneath her breast.

Confusion tugged her brows together. She brushed her fingers over the sealed wounds that should have killed her and tried to remember what had happened but couldn’t. Tried to figure out how long she’d been out of it but drew a complete blank.

Her gaze drifted to the bed beneath her, the floor, then finally to the window. Cringing at the pain in her side, she pushed to her feet, then moved toward the window. Her breath caught as she pulled back the curtain and gazed out at the snowy forest and acres of mountains that disappeared in a dark gray sky.

No other houses. No other signs of life. Just miles and miles of wilderness and snow as far as the eye could see.

Her heart pounded as she let go of the curtain, swallowed hard, and turned to look around the room again. The walls were made of logs. Dark, scuffed hardwood floors ran beneath her bare feet. The sleigh bed she’d been sleeping in was old but more than comforting.

Think, Daphne.

Her hands shook as she pressed them to her cheeks. The crazed Argonaut had obviously brought her here, wherever here was. He must have sensed she was a nymph. Zeus had said he had a weakness for nymphs, and that meant she was over her first hurdle—finding him and not getting killed. She wasn’t sure how he’d healed her, but just the fact he’d bothered meant she was halfway to her goal. And that meant all she had to do next was make nice and…and seduce the psycho so she could complete the second half of her mission.

 

Ari is a former Guardian who faked his own death to protect his loved ones from his madness and now spends his days battling otherworldly creatures, with a deadly reputation that precedes him.

Daphne is a Siren-in-training who has been tasked with one assignment, an assignment that, if completed would give her entry into the Order of Sirens. The assignment is to seduce and kill the famed Argonaut, Aristokles who is responsible for the deaths of many Sirens.

However, when Daphne meets Ari, she can’t reconcile the man before her with the dangerous and deadly Argonaut she has heard about. Ari takes his duty to protect very seriously and the fact that he comes to her aid when’s she hurt and actually heals her when he could have left her to die is proof of his dedication to his duty. Daphne does not trust the story she was told by the gods any longer and decides to look further into it which leads her to discover that Ari is a pawn in a game between the gods that causes the murderous rages and blackouts. Ari is rough, savage and fierce but he also rocks her world and she finds herself falling in love with the man.

Ari gave up everything to protect his loved ones and Daphne tempts him to reach for all those things again: love, friendship and family but he cares too much for her to subject her to his blackouts and possibly hurt her.

For a novella, RAVAGED packs quite a punch. Suspenseful and action-packed, RAVAGED is a story of two very different people who have one thing in common: a desire for acceptance and the bonds of love and family that come with that acceptance. In spite of the Olympian gods playing fast and loose with their fates through manipulation, lies, deceit and even death, Daphne and Ari find what they seek in each other and the friends and family that come to their aid.

Ms. Naughton highlights what Greek mythology is famous for: romance, passion, deceit, betrayal and death. And as always, the gods are not done with their games.

 

 

 

 

 

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