Consumed (Dark Protectors, #4)

by Rebecca Zanetti

[Melanie]

3.5 stars

My review and an extended sample of the audiobook are posted at Hotlistens.com.

In this fourth installment of the Dark Protectors series, we switch from the vampires to the shifters. Jordan and Katie have been a part of the story since book one, but now they finally get their own story. Consumed also takes place ten years into the future from the previous story. The Realm is in the middle of their war with the Kurjans and their virus which is turning vampire mates back to humans, keeping female shifters from shifting and worst most of all turning male shifters into mindless werewovles (not just humans who shift into wolves, but something much, much worse. They call wolf shifters just that, not werewolves).

Katie and Jordan have known each other since Katie was a small child of about 5. He rescued her from a horrible situation and took her in and raised her as part of his pack. As she grew he was never able to see her as anything more than the child he rescued.

Katie has had a crush on Jordan since forever. He was her savior. She knew they were meant to be together, if he could just see that she isn’t a little girl any more. When she is infected with the virus and is better able to track the werewolves, she sets off with a team to get away from her childhood crush and spends ten years tracking and killing the beasts. That is until she learns that Jordan is infected himself and he has only until the next full moon before he becomes one of the beasts that she will be hunting.

With Jordan’s infection, that puts a ton of pressure on the royal vampire family, the Kayrs from the first three books, to find a cure and fast. They only have days before they lose their good friend and ally in Jordan. We even learn that one of the Kayrs brother has done more than we ever thought to help Jordan in his past and he rose to become the Pride leader in a way that wasn’t all that pretty.

There is also a second storyline with Janie, who has also done some growing in the past ten years. She is now a teenager and all that comes with that. She has a little brother who is protective. She is trying her hand at dating and neither her brother, her father or uncles are happy about it. Then there are the boys from her dreams, literally, Zane and Kalin.

There are some other pieces that are still not resolved yet. The wolf, Maggie, and, Bane Council wolf Terrent who wants to take her from the Kayrs brothers. Jase is still missing with the demons. I enjoyed seeing some of the couples from previous books along.

This book was full of action. I once again enjoyed the overall story arc over the romance, but then that is a normal thing for me. I did enjoy learning more about Katie and Jordan’s past and seeing them come together. But I mostly enjoyed seeing the overall progression of the war and the development of the world and the characters as a whole.

Narration
Karen White did a great job with the narration of this book. While there was nothing in this book that stood out, like in the previous book with a ton of the Irish brogue, I can’t downplay how much I enjoy listening to her narration of this series. I will mention that I did notice a difference in Janie’s voice. She did take into account the 10 year difference in the girl’s voice. She still had a sweetness to it, but not that of a toddler, but that of teenager that has that really sweet girly voice. I thought it fit the description that was given to the ultra petite Janie.

**I like to thank the publisher for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.