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Burn Bright (Alpha and Omega Book 5) Kindle Edition
In her bestselling Alpha and Omega series, Patricia Briggs "spins tales of werewolves, coyote shifters, and magic and, my, does she do it well" (USA Today Online). Now mated werewolves Charles Cornick and Anna Latham face a threat like no other--one that lurks too close to home...
They are the wild and the broken. The werewolves too damaged to live safely among their own kind. For their own good, they have been exiled to the outskirts of Aspen Creek, Montana. Close enough to the Marrok's pack to have its support; far enough away to not cause any harm.
With their Alpha out of the country, Charles and Anna are on call when an SOS comes in from the fae mate of one such wildling. Heading into the mountainous wilderness, they interrupt the abduction of the wolf--but can't stop blood from being shed. Now Charles and Anna must use their skills--his as enforcer, hers as peacemaker--to track down the attackers, reopening a painful chapter in the past that springs from the darkest magic of the witchborn...
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherAce
- Publication dateMarch 6, 2018
- File size2043 KB
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- It was obviously the most difficult job and, to his surprise, she tackled it with enthusiasm.Highlighted by 554 Kindle readers
- Her power made Brother Wolf rest, leaving the human part of him completely in charge. Sometimes it was wonderful. Sometimes, like when he was in the middle of a fight, it was very inconvenient.Highlighted by 524 Kindle readers
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Anna is such a great heroine...There’s enough action to keep me on the edge of my seat and enough humor to give readers a break.”—USATODAY.com
“An amazing character-driven addition to an already excellent UF series.”—Fresh Fiction
“Grade: A. A definite recommend.”—Dear Author
“Gripping and intense, Dead Heat is everything an urban fantasy novel should be — it doesn’t get better than this!”—RT Book Reviews
“Briggs offers the complete package, a book with interesting world building, lovely characters, and stakes that could not be higher. Dead Heat is a great addition to the series.”—All Things Urban Fantasy
Praise for the Alpha and Omega Novels
“A terrific saga.”—Midwest Book Review
“Briggs has created such a detailed and well thought out world that I am helpless to resist.”—Fiction Vixen
“[Briggs] spins tales of werewolves, coyote shifters and magic and, my, does she do it well…If you like action, violence, romance and, of course, werewolves, then I urge you to pick up this series.”—USATODAY.com
“Interesting, fast-paced urban fantasy…[An] imaginative writer who always leaves fans anxiously waiting for the next tale.”—Monsters and Critics
“Patricia Briggs is amazing…Her Alpha and Omega novels are fantastic.”—Fresh Fiction
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1
This was bad. This was so very bad.
He ran full tilt, ghosting through the trees. The branches and brambles reached out and extracted their price in blood and flesh for running at such speed through their territory. He could feel the ground absorb his blood and his sweat-feel it stir at the taste. Dangerous. Feeding the earth with his blood when he was so upset was not wise.
He almost slowed his feet.
No one was chasing him.
No one had even known he was there. They'd seen the trees who'd obeyed his will, but they had not seen him. The trees . . . he might have to answer to her for the trees.
She'd told him to run, and he had paused to call the trees. That was not how their bargain was supposed to work. But he couldn't just let them take her, not when it was within his power to stop it.
Think. Think. Think. The words were his, but he heard them in her voice. She'd worked so hard to give him rules. The first rule was think.
It was funny that everyone believed that she was the danger, that she was the crazy one. Very funny-and his lips stretched in a grin only the forest could see. It wasn't amusement that caused his feral smile. He wasn't sure exactly what the emotion was, though it was fueled by an anger, a rage so deep that the earth, aroused by his blood, rose eagerly to do his bidding. The earth, out of all the elements, was the hardest to wake but the most eager for violence.
He could just go back. Go back and teach them what they got for touching someone he loved . . .
No.
Her voice again, ringing in his ears with power. She was his dominant, though he was so much older, so much stronger. As such, she wielded power over him-a power that he'd given her out of love, out of despair, out of desolation. And their bargain, their mating bond (her word, then his) had worked for a very long time.
Anyone who cared to look around would know how well her hold on him had worked-there were still trees on this mountain, and he could hear the birds' startled flight as he ran past them. If that bargain had failed, there would be no birds, no trees. Nothing. His was an old power and hungry.
But their mating had given him balance, given him safety. His beautiful werewolf mate had brought love to his sterile existence. When that hadn't been enough, she had brought order to his chaos as well.
Order . . . that word . . . No, orders was the word that sifted through his roiling thoughts. She had given him orders for this situation.
He vaulted over a deadfall with the grace of a stag.
Call the Marrok, she had told him. And also, Right the hell now. That was the correct task. Call the Marrok for help. But the reason for his speed-his right the hell now-was because if he allowed himself to slow, he would turn around and . . .
The mountainside groaned beneath his feet. A soft shift that only someone like him-or like his true love-would feel.
His fleet footsteps . . . which had slowed . . . resumed their former speed. She was alive, his love, his mate, his keeper. She was alive, and so he had to call the Marrok and not raise the mountains or call the waters.
Not today.
Today, he had to call the Marrok and tell him . . . and his mate's voice rang in his head as if she were running by his side.
I know who the traitor is . . .
Charles tipped his fatherÕs computer monitor so that it was at a better angle and wiggled the keyboard until it felt right.
He'd told Bran that he could run the pack just fine from his own home while Bran was gone, just as he had the last dozen times that the Marrok had to be away. But this time had looked as though it might last awhile, and his da had been adamant that it was important to keep the rhythms of the pack the same.
It wasn't that he didn't understand his da's reasoning-some of the hoarier wolves under his da's control weren't exactly flexible when it came to change-but understanding didn't make it any easier for Charles to function in his da's office, his da's personal territory.
Charles couldn't work in the office without making it his own-and wasn't that just going to set the fox among the hens when his da got back and had to reverse the process. But Bran would understand, as one dominant male understands another.
Charles had to admit, if only to himself, that he'd moved the mahogany bookcases to the other side of the room and reorganized the titles alphabetically by author, instead of by subject matter, just to mess with Bran. Anna, he thought, was still the only person on the planet who honestly believed he had a sense of humor, so he was pretty sure he could make his da believe the rearrangement was a necessity.
Charles hadn't moved the bookcase until Bran called him this morning, not quite a month after he'd left the pack in Charles's keeping, to let him know that his initial business was concluded-and Bran had decided he would take another week to travel.
Charles couldn't remember the last time Bran had taken a vacation from his duties. Charles hadn't realized that his da was capable of taking a vacation from his duties. But if the rearrangement of Charles's life was no longer essential, just required, then he felt free to make some changes to make his life easier. And so he'd rearranged his da's office to suit himself.
Even in the redecorated room, it took Charles longer than normal to lose himself in his work, his wolf restless in his father's place of power. Eventually, the hunting game that was international finance grew interesting enough that Brother Wolf let himself be distracted.
It was a complicated dance, to play with money at this level. The battle pleased Brother Wolf, the more so because they were good at it. Brother Wolf had a tendency toward vanity.
Eventually, drawn in by the subtle hunt for clues in the electronic data on his screen, he sank into what his mate called "finance space," chasing an elusive bit of rumor, stocks rising for no apparent reason, a new company seeking financing but there was something they weren't saying. He couldn't tell if what this company was hiding was good news or bad. He was running down the background of an engineer who'd been hired at what looked to be an abnormally high salary for his title when he was pulled out by the sound of the door hitting the wall.
He looked up, Brother Wolf foremost at this interruption to his hunt. It didn't help his temper that it was his da's mate who'd barged into (what was now) his territory without permission.
"You have to do something about your wife," Leah announced. She didn't react to his involuntary growl at her tone. When she spoke of Anna, she would do better to talk softly.
He didn't like Leah. There were a lot of people in the world he didn't like-most of them, even. But Leah had made it very easy not to like her.
When his da had brought her back with him, Charles had been a wild thing, lonely and lost. His da had taken his much-older brother, Samuel, and been gone for months off and on. Half-mad with grief at the death of Charles's mother, Bran probably hadn't been the best person to raise a child when he was home.
Charles's uncles and his grandfather had done their best, but Brother Wolf had not always been as willing to ape being human as he was now. A werewolf child born instead of made, Charles had been (as far as he knew) unique; no one, certainly not his mother's people, had any experience dealing with what he was.
A good part of the time Bran had been gone, Charles had roamed the forest on four feet, easily eluding the human adults tasked with raising him. Wild and undisciplined as he'd been, Charles had no trouble admitting that his ten-year-old self had not been a stepson that most women would have welcomed.
Still, he had been very hungry for attention, and Leah's presence meant his da was around a lot more. If Leah had made even a little effort, his younger self would have been devoted to her. But Leah, for all her other personality flaws, was deeply honest. Most werewolves were honest by habit-what good is a lie if people could tell that you are lying? But Leah was honest to the core.
It was probably one of the things that allowed Bran's wolf to mate with her. Charles could see how it would be an attractive feature-but when someone was mean and small inside, it might be better to keep quiet and hide it, honest or not, rather than display it for the world to see. The result was a mutual animosity kept within (mostly) the bounds of politeness.
Charles honored her as his da's wife and his Alpha's mate. Her usual politeness to him was brittle and rooted in her fear of Brother Wolf. But, since she was a dominant wolf, the fear she felt sometimes made her snappish and stupid.
Brother Wolf recovered his temper faster than Charles. He told Charles that Leah was agitated and a little intimidated, and that had made her rude. Brother Wolf didn't like Leah, either, but he respected her more than Charles did.
Other than the growl, he did not respond immediately to her request (he refused to think of them as orders, or he might have to take an action about them that did not involve anything she would appreciate). Instead, he raised a hand to ask her for silence.
When she gave it to him, he spent a moment leaving himself clear notes about the suspicious engineer that he could follow up on later, as well as highlighting a few other trails he'd been investigating. He concluded the other changes he wanted to make, then backed out of his dealings as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Leah waited in growing, but silent, indignation.
Finished packing up his business, he looked up from the screen, crossed his arms over his chest, and asked, in what he felt was a reasonable tone, "What is it that you wish me to do with my wife?"
Apparently, his response wasn't what Leah had been looking for because her mouth got even tighter, and she growled, "She seems to think that she's in charge around here. Just because you have been placed in charge temporarily doesn't allow her the right to give orders to me."
Which seemed out of character for his wife.
Oh, the disregard for pack hierarchy, traditional or otherwise, was typical of his mate. Anna would not, Charles thought with affection, know tradition if it bit her on the ear. His Anna had carved out her own, fluid place in the pack hierarchy-mostly by ignoring all the traditions completely. It did not, however, make her rude.
Nothing good had ever come from sticking his nose in business that had nothing to do with him.
"Anna is Omega. She doesn't have to obey the Marrok," he told her. "I don't know why you think she would obey me."
Leah opened her mouth. Closed it. She gave him an exasperated growl, then stalked off.
For a conversation with his stepmother, he thought on the whole it had gone rather well. That it had been short was the best part of it.
One of the reasons he had resisted moving into Bran's home while the Marrok was gone was because he knew Leah would be in, harassing him all the time. He paused to consider that because, until this very moment, she hadn't done that. This was the first time she'd interrupted him at work. He wondered, as he began playing with the numbers on the screen in front of him, what it was that his da had said to Leah that had kept her out of his hair this effectively.
Before he was seriously buried in business again, Bran's phone rang.
"This is Charles," he said absently-as long as it wasn't Leah, he could work while he talked.
There was a long pause, though he could hear someone breathing raggedly. It was unusual enough that Charles stopped reading the article on the up-and-coming tech company and devoted all his attention to the phone.
"This is Charles," he said again. "Can I help you?"
"Okay," a man's voice said finally. "Okay. Bran's son. I remember. Is Bran there? I need to talk to the Marrok."
"Bran is gone," Charles told him. "I'm in charge while he is out of town. How can I help you?"
"Bran is gone," repeated the man's voice. It was unfamiliar, but the accent was Celtic. "Charles." He paused. "I need . . . we need you to come up here. There's been an incident." And then he hung up without leaving his name or where exactly "up here" was. When Charles tried calling him back, no one picked up the phone. Charles wrote down the number and strode out, looking for his stepmother.
He hadn't recognized the voice, and if one of the pack members had been in trouble, he'd have felt it. There was another group of wolves who lived in Aspen Creek, Montana, though they were not part of the Marrok's pack: the wolves Bran deemed too damaged or too dangerous to function as part of a pack-even the Aspen Creek Pack, which was full of damaged and dangerous wolves.
Those wolves, mostly, belonged to the Marrok alone. Not a separate pack, really, but bound to the Marrok's will and magic by blood and flesh. "Wildlings," Bran called them. Some of the pack called them things less flattering, and possibly more accurate, though no one called them the Walking Dead in front of Charles's father.
The wildlings lived in the mountains, separate from everyone, their homes and territory protected by the pack because it was in everyone's best interest for no one to intrude in what peace they could find.
Bran had given him the usual list of names and a map with locations marked. Most of them Charles had met, though there were two wolves he knew only by reputation. The wildlings were, as a whole, both dangerous and fragile. Bran did not lightly allow anyone else to interact with them.
Product details
- ASIN : B075C9TMR1
- Publisher : Ace (March 6, 2018)
- Publication date : March 6, 2018
- Language : English
- File size : 2043 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 316 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #76,717 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,160 in Urban Fantasy (Kindle Store)
- #1,249 in Romantic Fantasy (Kindle Store)
- #2,660 in Paranormal Werewolves & Shifters Romance
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Patricia Briggs is the author of the New York Times bestselling Mercy Thompson urban fantasy series. She lives in Washington state with her husband, children, and a small herd of horses.
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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Burn Bright did not disappoint. It is filled with all of the character development and twists and turns for which Briggs is famous. The plot kept me guessing, which was wonderful because I often find myself trying to anticipate what will happen! Something is hunting Bran's wildlings in his territory. Bran is absent, leaving Charles in charge. When a powerful wildling ends up dead, with her mate delivering a cryptic warning, Charles and Anna must find out what's happening before others end up dead as well. Is it all connected? You won't know until the very end.
[*Spoilers - Do not read beyond if you don't want spoilers. Also, if you are not familiar with the series, you might not understand my review.*]
I love what the story revealed about the all powerful Bran and his complicated relationship with Mercy. Mercy made complete sense to me... Bran is not used to having people stand up to him, so when he finds someone who does... even if it is the sneaky way Mercy goes about proving her point. I mean, what man doesn't like a challenge or a life filled with surprise?? It was probably frustrating as hell, but when she grew up, or maybe when he sent her away... he probably found out that life wasn't as interesting. And, no, I don't think it's creepy. I didn't get the sense that it started out that way.... But whatever your belief, looks help, but it's the spirit/personality that makes people attractive... and I can see that they would have complimented each other.
The character development continued with Bran and Leah too. Before this book, I didn't realize how attached Bran's wolf was to Leah.... Leah, with whom I've never felt a connection because of her selfishness and spitefulness, seemed a bit more human and had great character qualities of honesty, loyalty and heart breakingly, unrequited love. I think it takes a talent to make someone empathize with a character that has been otherwise cast as petty, mean and dangerous.... But I resonated with Leah in the end.
My only complaint is that the book is over and now I have to wait for another release from Briggs. Quality problems, I know. I tend not to like to re-read books, but Briggs' Mercy Thompson and Alpha Omega series get revisited for me. Well done. Can't wait for the next one!
I love the Patricia Briggs books, and I may love the Charles and Anna series even more than the Mercy series. It's close. In this latest book, we learn the wildings have always been there lurking in the background in Aspen Creek, Montana. It's an exciting concept, and Briggs ties it in to ancient creatures of good and evil. Is such a creature out to invade the wildings, to turn or to perhaps take something from them? It is a really good story and I will not give that away.
This installment also redefines the charactor of Leah, who has previously been painted as a dumb, mean single word that rhymes with witch. She is also hot and sexy as hell. Bran mated with her because he did not want to love someone again as he had loved his wife, Charles's mother. The native American wise woman died giving birth to Charles. Leah is a hateful stepmother, jealous of every member of Bran's family because he loves them but not her.
Or does he not? Maybe he started out not loving her but living with someone for years, perhaps especially if that person is good in bed, may change your feelings. He is loyal to her as his mate and he would fight to protect her to a point, which may become an issue in the course of this book's events. Readers are invited to see Leah in a different light Sure, we thought from previous books that she would have killed Mercy if she could have gotten her hands on her. Second warning, here spoiler directly ahead:
Did Bran have sexual feelings for Mercy that made Leah jealous? Since Bran was Mercy's de facto father from the time her
mother dropped her off as a coyote pup, the thought of his having, ah, those kinds of feelings for her once she was 16 (which is about the age she was when she left) "feels" not good. Maybe you have to be a thousands-years-old werewolf to understand this. Maybe the rules are different for Bran, and for that matter, Samuel, who is Bran's son but close to him in total age. They were both changed from humans by Bran's mother when Samuel was a teen or a young man.
We have known almost from the beginning in the series that Samuel at one point had his eye on Mercy because he hoped her coyote changeling nature would make it possible for her to bear children. Werewolf women kill the embryos inside them when they change, and they have to change each moon in order to stay sane. Human women also cannot bear a werewolf—or, at least we have not seen it happen yet. Werewolves are made by being attacked by other weres and nearly killed. Those who do not die become werewolves. Only one werewolf so far in this series has been born rather than made, and that is Charles, Bran's second son. His werewolf mother held off her own change in order for the baby to survive nine months, but weakened by staying in her human form so long, she died.
Is Bran's love for Mercy something other than fatherly because she might be able to bear his children and not die in the process? As a coyote, her shifts to her human self are quicker and easier than the wolves. In the course of their long lives, werewolves sometimes change partners. Mercy is currently being married to Adam, who is very hot and who she loves madly, but this does not mean she would always be unavailable to Bran. Does Leah hate Mercy out of jealousy and fear that someday Mercy and Bran will hook up? Does it make any difference that Mercy has been aging naturally and now looks older than her adopted father Bran, who is perennially in his mid-to-late twenties? Mercy looks like she is in her thirties.
Knowing this does not make me forget what Leah did to both Mercy and Anna in earlier books. But I can see the story is written with the intent of creating a shift toward greater sympathy for Leah.
What made me fall in love with the cry wolf series is the dynamic and chemistry between Anna and Charles. I’ll admit that I was kind of hoping for more in that department with Burn Bright, especially after the last book with them discussing children. However, I’m not disappointed either. Having learned way back that romance is not Briggs main pursuit with her stories, I’m okay with the relationship and romance genre taking a backseat even if I’m addicted to it. It actually makes me more excited when the romantic scenes do happen and I did not have to worry of it lacking in Burn bright at all. There were Anna and Charles moments that absolutely turned me into pudding.
Off course, Anna and Charles aren’t the only reason for why I love this series and this book. The whole pack dynamic and werewolf world is intriguing to say the least and I just adore Briggs imagination and writing style. She knows how to build the suspense and drama as well as keeping it light and funny in a perfect balance. I find myself fascinated of how complex and multicultural it all is, both cry wolf and the Mercy Thompson series, with all-ranging characters and personalities as well as settings. Authors like Briggs are a rare kind, sadly.
As much as I enjoy this series, it’s just so heartbreaking that I now have to wait two years for the next book in the series. Although, as the saying goes, good things happen for those who wait.
Top reviews from other countries
KIND OF SPOILERS
That said... why Bran mever does anything?
Why is Anna always kills the bad guy?
I want Bran to do something, i hate Leah and need happy with a good woman for him and the pack not leah, I know, not my place, not my books but if Bran does nothing... why wasting time with him, just to fill pages? That's rude, the books are short-ish to begin with and we have wasted space? Not sating he is waste, just tha he is just not being treated fairly.
I'll keep reading but not with the high prices I'm seeing, I'll wait till prices get more sensitive. i have to prioritize and 300-ish pages for 12-15dlls is expensive for me.
C. C
One of my favourite authors, who has created a complex story line with adventure, suspense, romance and life lessons. Like the battle each person faces to be a better person and not give in to evil, and the need for those who have been abused to be treated carefully, given physical space and that the process to heal is a long one but attainable. Was only disappointed by the alluding to the fact that the Marrock loved Mercy as more than just a father figure, seemingly when she was younger. That rocked my view of several of the characters. I will anxiously await the next book and read it too in one sitting.
And it is all about the characters. I loved both Charles and Anna, so very different and yet so suited. I also enjoyed reading about the jockeying for position and the pinsharp awareness of their ranking within the pack and how that balances with the human side of their character. I’ve read one or three werewolf stories in my time, each with its on take on how the blend of wolf and human works, and this was a dynamic I particularly enjoyed.
I also liked the fact that despite it is a world where lives are invariably lost – they matter. Near the beginning one of the deaths really winded me – I had expected that it was going to be alright and this particular character, whom I’d really liked, would prevail. It was a shock when it didn’t.
Another of Briggs’ skills is her ability to write broken, desperate characters with compassion and empathy. Some of the oldest fae and werewolves are overwhelmed by the weight of years and bloody experiences they have endured and are too dangerous to live in the socially supercharged atmosphere of the Pack. Briggs doesn’t just tell us how dangerous and unpredictable they are – her demonstrations of their lethal oddness had me reading waaay later into the night than I should have done.
As for the climax and solution – the risk is when I’m so thoroughly invested in a story so early on, I’ll find that the ending doesn’t quite live up to my expectations. This wasn’t an issue here – there was another surprising twist near the end that certainly changed everything once again. And then again, when another twist superseded that one… The conclusion tied up most of the plot points, leaving a major one dangling in the breeze, ready for the seventh book in the series. I’ll definitely be reading that one – and before that – I’ll also be backtracking and reading more about these charismatic, engaging characters in the meantime.
Highly recommended for fans of quality urban fantasy.
10/10