Fair Game (Alpha and Omega, #3)

by Patricia Briggs

[EBookObsessed]

The werewolves are now out to the humans. With the world watching anything that might show the danger of werewolves, any transgressions which might have been dealt with a rolled up newspaper, now require a death sentence. Killing wolves who break the rules is up the Charles, as his father’s enforcer, but killing wolves who normally would have been given a warning is wearing on Charles and his relationship with Anna is suffering for it.
About a year has past since Charles and Anna first mated. The wolves have come out to the public and this has created new problems between them. The Marrock can no longer show mercy to wolves who need more time to control themselves or who’s small transgressions would have been dealt with within the pack. The pressure of being forced to kill wolves who should be getting a second chance are now haunting Charles–literally. He is being haunted by the spirits of the men his is forced to kill. A group of those wolves included men who were sent out to kill a pedophile and went too far — making a snack of the man. Humans were looking at the wolves for that heinous act forcing Bran to send Charles out when their own Alpha refused to put them down.

It takes all of Anna’s will to stand up to Bran to make him see that his need to keep the wolves in line is torturing Charles. Charles sees himself as nothing more than a killer and hates himself for tainting Anna with his evilness. To protect Anna, he has all be shut down the mating bond between them so that his wrongs cannot touch her as well.

The FBI are investigating several deaths involving werewolves and at the urging of Anna and Adam Hauptman, the Marrock sends Charles and Anna to help in the investigation.

Once Charles and Anna start looking over the files of the victims, Charles realizes that the last few decades the victims are Fae and more recently some werewolves. The FBI are looking for a human, but to take down some very powerful Fae and wolves, there has to be something more. Pictures of the victims disclose markings which would have been made by a witch. Death spells are very powerful and someone has been working with a witch to harness the pain of their victims, but for what purpose?

When the most recent kidnapping is the half-human daughter of a very powerful Fae, he will join Charles, Anna and the FBI in seeking out these killers. Even with the help of the Fae and the Boston pack, they might be too late to stop these killers who have been hunting the top predators for decades.

THOUGHTS:
I do love Patricia Briggs’s characters and although there is not much cross-over with her Mercy Thompson series, they are occurring consecutively. Beginning in Mercy Thompson’s Frost Burned, the Fae have secluded themselves on their Reservations declaring themselves separate from the United States. I didn’t understand what I has missed about that, but it appears that I missed this book which will explain what happens between the Fae and the humans.

My favorite scene from this book involves Anna and Bran. I loved that Anna has grown so confident in her year with Charles and so protective of him, that she stands up to Bran and even though he is very angry since he can’t force Anna (an Omega) to back down, she won’t until he all but begs her to walk away before she sends him into a rage where he might hurt her. This is not the same woman who was abused in Chicago and was afraid if anyone looked at her twice. She is not completely healed, but she has come a long way. Charles’s self-torture will do some damage to their relationship and cause Anna to flip flop between fighting against Charles and a revisit of her own self-doubts that maybe he doesn’t want her anymore.

We also meet some new characters, who we will see again in Dead Heat, but I will save that review until closer to the release date.

Like the Mercy Thompson series, I did a binge reading on this series and am very sad to have caught up, including the next release Dead Heat. With only one release per year, it will be some time before the next book is out. *sob*