Hostage To Pleasure - Nalini Singh

Separated from her son and forced to create a neural implant that will mean the effective enslavement of her psychically gifted race, Ashaya Aleine is the perfect Psy--cool, calm, emotionless...at least on the surface. Inside, she's fighting a desperate battle to save her son and escape the vicious cold of the PsyNet. Yet when escape comes, it leads not to safety, but to the lethal danger of a sniper's embrace.

DarkRiver sniper Dorian Christensen lost his sister to a Psy killer. Though he lacks the changeling ability to shift into animal form, his leopard lives within. And that leopard's rage at the brutal loss is a
clawing darkness that hungers for vengeance. Falling for a Psy has never been on
Dorian's agenda. But charged with protecting Ashaya and her son, he discovers
that passion has a way of changing the rules...

I really became a fan of the Psy-Changeling series, I can’t wait to get my hands on every new one I find (I’m still one book behind) and if I don’t find them in the right order I don’t let that stop me. I started this one without having read Caressed by Ice, the book where M-Psy Ashaya Aleine is introduced, that didn’t bother me though and I really enjoyed this story.

I thought Dorian was quite an interesting character from the beginning as he is the only one in his pack that cannot shape shift. I was a bit worried when I saw he was going to be paired up with yet another Psy heroine because although I did like books 1 and 2 of this series very much I think book 2 brought less to this universe as it had the same type of characters and situation. I’m happy to say though that when I closed this book I was quite convinced that Singh had managed to introduce some really original details and I really can’t wait to read more about the Psy-Changeling world.

When Dorian first meets Ashaya, in the previous book, she releases two children that were being tortured by the Psys, now she has issued a request that her son be saved from the Psys and its Dorian that rescues the boy. There’s rebellion growing among the Psy and Ashaya is decided to abandon the lab where she works because she doesn’t agree with research she is being made to do. She decides to defect and has some inside help for that.

It’s Dorian who picks her up after she defects and while he has no love for Psys after his sister was killed by one he can’t ignore the strong attraction between them. The attraction is mutual but Ashaya is determined to keep Silence even if she wants to tell the world about the Council’s plans to make Silence permanent. They both have personal problems to deal with and the usual Psy/Changeling relationship problems. Dorian is finally healed in this book and Ashaya can finally acknowledge her relationship with her son and her sister. One new very interesting character is introduced here, Amara, she was definitely someone different and since she is still around at the end of the book I have great hope that Singh is planning something for her.

Grade: 4.5/5