Rating: 4 Stars

Publisher: Paulina Ian-Kane

Genre: Gay Erotic Romance

Tags: Contemporary, First Time, Foster Brothers, Kink, Opposites Attract, Romance, S&M, Series, Violence

Length: 368 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

Blurb –

Sariel Bear-Stone

I can’t remember a time without feeling his presence nearby. All of my memories are entwined with his. Precious, bittersweet moments spent with him.

Him.
Uriel Mahoe.
My foster brother.
My protector.
My first and never-ending crush.

Unrequited love is misery in disguise, especially when the recipient can’t ever feel the same, not when he’s a sociopath.

Still, I thought I knew everything about him. Until…I didn’t.

For that reason and for the first time in my life, I’ve distanced myself from him, tried to move on, which turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated.

First, all my dates crushed and burned. Then a rat infestation and a dangerous stalker forced me into his overprotective, controlling arms once again.
But I’m not the naive, innocent person he believes me to be.
There’s something I need. Something dark that I crave. Desperately. Something he doesn’t seem able to give me.

Or is he?

All of my other brothers have found their significant others. Now it’s my turn.
But is Uri meant to be mine, or are we destined to die side by side before we find out?

Uriel Mahoe

My Sari.
My Baby Blue.
Mine.

WARNING-This is not a sci-fi angel story, unless you see eager vigilantes with a dark, merciless side as angels. This is an action-packed, dark-themed, foster-brothers-to-lovers romance with an HEA.
It features a clueless, sweet, sexy medical researcher and an obsessed, overprotective, touch-him-and-die, callous sociopath.
Masochism and sadism is present in a sexual and non context. Accidental drug use, a side character suffering chronic illness, violence, gore, remorseless torture (only of very bad people), dark humor, a band of foster brothers ready to help.
Morality’s grey area is quite stretched in this story. Please check the more detailed triggers at the beginning of the book before reading.

This is book five in the Angels of Wrath Series. Each book follows a different couple and can be read as a standalone but would be more enjoyable if read in order.

Review –

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Like the other books in the series, this is very violent. Take note of all trigger warnings if you’re interested in reading this book.

I started trying to read Happy Krampus Xmas & The Meet Not Cute (#4.5), but Lori seriously drove me crazy before I could get too far. I’ll go back to it at some point, likely after I read the last book, Eight (Angels of Wrath, #6). It wasn’t necessary to read it before this one because the two stories are about Lori and two other characters, none of the brothers directly. I doubt it has anything to do with the ongoing story that started in Raphael and Michael’s story. Seven+Four read just fine with me skipping it for the time being.

Both Sari and Uri were introduced in the first book, One. They are two of seven brothers who were kidnapped and experimented on over twenty years before. I say seven, but another couple have come to light. The seven were rescued as children by Megan, a psychiatrist, and Linda, an ex-CIA agent, and raised together. The others were unknown until now.

Sari, who was subject Four in the above-mentioned experiments, is a sweet and innocent scientist with a genius IQ. Uri, Seven, is a sociopathic killer. He’s anything but innocent. Sari has been in love with Uri since they were kids. Uri has been obsessed with Sari for the same amount of time. This obsession is anything but normal, to the point where I got more than a little angry as I read the book. He’s always around Sari, or if he’s not, he knows his exact location. Sari, tired of his feelings not being reciprocated, decides to, with the help from Lori from Five, put himself out there, maybe date a little. This means pulling away from Uri, something that Uri doesn’t take well at all, to put it mildly.

When I say Uri is obsessed, I mean that he’s always there. This includes controlling Sari’s life in ways Sari doesn’t even know until long into the book. I would have been so angry had I discovered what Uri did to keep him away from other guys. Double standard much? It was perfectly fine for Uri to get his kicks from whoever, but Sari? Oh, no. He wasn’t allowed to even get near another man because, according to Uri, “You’re mine.” I’m usually all about the mine thing, but not in this case. Uri basically held Sari prisoner while he did whatever the hell he wanted to. He’s a sociopath. I get it. That still didn’t make me like it. For most of the book I was thinking that Sari was a doormat. He wasn’t, though. He tried to pull away. Uri simply wouldn’t let him.

Uri is a sadist. Not surprising. He’s a ruthless killer, so it came as absolute zero shock to know he gets off on inflicting pain.

Sari is a masochist. Very surprising. He would love to get off on receiving pain, but nobody knows that. Outwardly, he’s so sweet, so innocent, that Lori calls him Angel. It’s not like he can tell Uri. If he even hints at anything sexual, Uri gets angry thinking that Sari is thinking about other guys.

Again, major double standard.

Sari has a stalker who is somehow getting around him and his brothers and finding a way to send him creepy packages. Sari is monitored everywhere he goes. More so than normal anyway.

There’s also the matter of Phoenix, an elusive killer who has been in the background causing trouble for the entire series. Phoenix is responsible for teenagers being murdered, bad drugs killing people, and other things I can’t get into without typing a spoiler.

The entire book was Uri being a controlling and obsessive ass while Sari was taking it because he simply had no choice. Uri didn’t give him one. Thankfully, Sari was able to get out with his brothers’ significant others a few times, one of which actually pushed Sari to make a move on Uri. This never would’ve happened had there not been cocaine involved, and no, the cocaine thing wasn’t intentional. A quick blowjob, Sari being forced to move in with Uri, and another sexual encounter yet not, and Sari finally, FINALLY sees what kind of person Uri truly is. I mean, he knew, but this opens his eyes a lot wider.

After finishing this, I skimmed over reviews of the book on Goodreads. One said simply, “I hope Uri dies.” I tried not to laugh, but I have to agree that there were a lot of times as I was reading it that I was kind of hoping the same thing. 🙂 I really felt bad for Sari because his entire life, from the time he was kidnapped and experimented on, to his now age of 25, he never had any control. First, the scientists, and after, Uri. There’s never been even a moment in all those years that he didn’t have someone dictating almost every single aspect of his life.

Only when something seriously bad almost happens with Sari does Uri get his selfish head out of his ass. He won’t have sex with Sari because he sees him as fragile. Sari, on the other hand, wants the pain that goes with a S&M relationship. Only after the above-mentioned bad incident do the two finally discover that they want the same things.

Unlike books #1, #2, and #3, there was a bit of a buildup before the two main characters actually hooked up. I won’t compare the book to #4 in any other way, but like that one, it wasn’t sex, sex, and even more sex. Don’t get me wrong, once Uri and Sari do it, it happens a lot, and it’s quite intense, but it’s not the entire story during the first half or so of the book.

Phoenix actually makes an appearance in this one. I already know who Phoenix is, though not a whole lot of details. I also know who Eight is, but I’m iffy about his love interest being sweet Sully, Ollie’s brother. In my head, he’s still a sweet and clumsy 18-year-old high school student, though I think he’s 19 or 20 in his own book.

As grumpy as I’ve been about Uri, I did enjoy this. I even liked him and Sari together, but only because something changed when Sari had finally had enough. I got to see a part of Uri that changed my opinion somewhat. He was still a sociopathic ass, but I no longer hated him.

“You’re in so much trouble, serial killer,” Lori feels the need to say. “Torture is Uri’s love language. Gutting you like a pig and using your intestines as floss translate to professing his adoration to Sari.”

This is one of those books where everything could have been fixed long before had Uri and Sari simply communicated. Unfortunately, Uri’s way of communicating was strong-arming Sari and privately and publicly controlling him. At one point, before something bad almost happened to Sari, I was so close to doing a DNF because of something Uri did. I’m glad I didn’t because that’s what opened the door that finally brought them together.

I loved seeing the other brothers and their men. The triplets weren’t in this much, but I know they’ll all be having their own books in a spin-off series at some point. There’s still a thing with Meg, one of their mothers, that needs to be resolved. No doubt it will be in the final book.

In all the books, at least one main character gives the other one a pet name. Some have been a bit out there *cough* piglet, but some have been kind of sweet. Uri may be a jerk most of the time, but his pet name for Sari is Baby Blue. There’s meaning behind it, so maybe Uri wasn’t quite as unfeeling as I believed. He may be incapable of love, but his secret way of honoring Sari was downright sweet. Shocked the heck out of me, honestly.

Uri and I share a destructive nature – although I pretended otherwise until a few weeks back. But this is what true love is. Not just finding someone, but finding that someone who has the same level of darkness as you.

Overall, I liked this well enough. I didn’t love it as much as I did Five, but I didn’t dislike it as much as I did Three either. I guess some readers might consider it a little taboo because Uri and Sari are foster brothers who grew up together. I never saw it that way as it was obvious that neither man ever thought of the other as a brother.

4 Stars.