Heart of Darkness - Felicity Heaton

Wow is all I can say about Heart of Darkness! It was an intense, romantic and sweet story that had me entranced from the very beginning. I loved how Aleksandr and Elise were both strong characters and needed each other, but needed to understand each other before they could truly be together.

Elise Cerny is a Vampire, a guard, and a truly determined heroine. Raised by her father, who was a Commander in the Cerny guard of Prague, believing that one day she would take her father's place as the Commander. She joined the ranks before she hit maturity at 17, much to her fathers chagrin about her doing so, but in this she is paired and trained by Andrej, an older vampire hunter who is like an older brother to her, highly skilled and was ranked as a Lieutenant by the time she joined ranks. She uses a blade and her speed in her hunt to protect her people from those who would harm humanity.

Enter our hero, Aleksandr Nemov, a former vampire prince who forsakes and gave up his title to hunt the hunters who are out to kill his kind. He is out on a hunt for a very dangerous hunter who leads him to Prague. His family believed in pacifism and not hunting humans just for the kill and the blood. In a chance encounter he end up fighting Elise after he is caught in a kill. He is enamored by her in several ways. One because as a female guard she is rare, two because of her power and lastly because of her speed. This costs him his concentration and she pins him. He request to see her master and is lead back to her castle. Here he meets the head of her family and comes to stay for the duration of the story. He determinedly requests that Elise be assigned to him and to be shown around by her. She is somewhat aghast as this is outside her normal duties.

One night when out with Aleksandr she feels a hunter approach, as her duty she protects him, but takes a hit from a poisoned bolt. She is not protected against the poison and it quickly engulfs her blood. As she is wavering into unconsciousness he leaps into action and kills the hunter that hurt her. He is so enraged by the fact she was hurt the darkness engulfs him and he massacres the body and goes as far as licking the hunters blood of her fingers. She fades into black and comes to find she was tended to by him. She was falling for him as he had already for her.

As the story continues he attempts to try to win her over, treating her as prey, hunting her, but each time he gets close, it pushes her away. He tries to get involved with her, but she ends up slapping him and states quite clearly that he is not going to possess her like he had so many other women. In attempt to do better and win her over he calls in the cavalry, his brother, Vasiliy. Things get even more out of control after Vasilily actually shows up in he Cerny castle and Alexandr's jealousy over Andrej is only fueled because of his connection to her, which he sees and Andrej can sense.

Things really get to Elise when Aleksandr and Andrej get into trouble and she intervenes. After that things are fairly tense and Aleksandr is getting to see that he must watch himself if he truly wants to win her over. Events change between them and they come to terms and understanding of each other. Alexandr also realizes he inadvertently dragged her family into danger from the hunter. When the hunter makes it known he is in town Aleksandr will go to great lengths to protect Elise and her family.

You will have to read to find out how things work out. It was definitely worth drawing things out to this point.

I give this a 5 of 5 for her well developed characters, the location, and a tense plot-line.