Dark Guardian (Dark, #8)
Christine Feehan
They were masters of the darkness, searching through eternity for a mistress of the light.... He ran with the wolves...materialized from the mists...hijacked the very heavens to his whims. He was the dark guardian of his people. So how, after centuries of a bleak, soulless existence had he, Lucian Daratrazanoff, suddenly come to crave petite, curvy, colorful lady cop Jaxon Montgomery, who foolishly made it her life's work to protect others from harm? Fiercely daring, Jaxx would sacrifice anything to shield others-- particularly since a deadly menace dogged her every footstep, threatening all who got close to her. And strangely seductive, piercingly erotic Lucian was no exception. Lucian was powerfully, perilously mesmerizing--oddly gentle yet clearly a born predator. He had vowed to possess her, to guard her for all time. Yet with his every thirsty kiss, was he drawing Jaxon more deeply into danger . . . and his dark, mysterious desires?
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0Listened to the audio of this book while at work. I remember reading probably 15-20 of these books while in college--they were some of the first romance books I'd ever read, let alone paranormal romance. I recall being engrossed and feeling pretty in tune with the female leads: the guys were overbearing and old-world but ultimately they loved them.
At some point in the last 5ish years, I read somewhere how anti-feminiest/rape-y this series is, and at the time of reading that I thought "what? No!". But I decided to listen to a few and see how my memory holds up.
And yeah, they are a bit rape-y. I can't believe I didn't see it when I was reading them. There is a least one or two instances of the guys taking control of the girl's mind/body, and that's obviously not cool. There are also love scenes where the guy "builds the feelings of desire" in the girl's mind--how is that not forcing them to be super horny and not rape-y? The women never seem to mind this building of sexual tension, but do mention things along the lines of "how do I know you're not planting thoughts in my head?" and the guys ARE planting thoughts! How is that consensual? Lucien is like "lifemates can't lie to each other" and Jaxx is like "what were those guys doing here?" and he LIES to her.
The women of this series are mostly "contemporary" women who don't want to be ordered around and who resent the protective nature of the men. Yet they are submissive and in love by the end, and the men are dominant and overbearing, often exerting mental or physical force to get the women to comply. I'm sad that these books were some of the first that I was exposed to.
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