Private Demon by Lynn Viehl

Book two in the Darkyn series focuses on Thierry Durand, a Darkyn that was tortured by the Brethren, betrayed by his wife/mate, and (you guessed it) horribly disfigured. Alex operates on him and restores him to like new condition, including rebuilding his legs and feet. Understandably Thierry has suffered a psychotic break from reality and manages to break out of Michael's fortress/mansion outside New Orleans, heading for Chicago to find the perps who almost killed one of Alex's other patients. He ends up completely obsessed with Jema Shaw, sickly curator for her family's museum who ends up being Thierry's dinner one evening after work. In an alley no less! Jema lives with her mother and their physician in a big ass mansion next door to Valentin Jaus, another one of these poor Darkyn bastards and who will get one of his own books later down the line. Jaus has been in love with Jema for years but has never made a move because she has a very brittle form of diabetes and fears that he will hurt her. Snooze you lose, man :) As is usually the case, there is evil afoot and someone wants to off Jema. Big surprise.

Alex and Michael's subplot continues to grow in this book as well. Actually, that subplot is the real reason this series moves along and is the best part about it. It certainly is the reason I keep reading them. The romances are strange, almost Christine Feehan strange (I do not understand her Carpathian novels - why not just write about cavemen dragging their women around by their hair?). So far I've read books 1-6 in the Darkyn series and Shadowlight, book one in the Kyndred series, and with the exception of Evermore, book five, I don't think I've enjoyed reading about any of the romances in any of the books. Someone on amazon reviewed this book and claimed that Viehl can write dark fantasy very well but she stinks at the romances. I agree. Writing love stories in which the men have no intrinsic respect for their women and control them however they wish to suit their purposes and in which the women fall for these losers even after they're treated horribly is asinine to me. Not that I want her to stop. No ma'am. I want to see what happens with the Kyndred, the women who were experimented on by the Brethren and are now compatible with the Darkyn.

Next up: Dark Need