The Fire King

Dirk & Steele - Book 9

Author: Marjorie M. Liu

Karr died 3,000 years ago. He's been trapped in a nebulous underworld of dreams, memories and nightmares. So when he awakens in his tomb to find it full of shifters, enemy to his people, and humans pointing strange weapons at him, he is disoriented and angry. He is attacked and fights back, but he is paralyzed by their strange weapons, rendered unconscious and placed in restraints that would kill him if he shifted. Karr is a chimera. Chimera are the offspring of two shifters who are of different natures. Karr's mother was a dragon and his father a lion. Chimera inherit the shapes of both parents and are therefore considered unstable. It's like they are pulled in three different directions and some lose their minds becoming violent and a danger to all. Chimera are also stronger and faster than shifters. When a prophecy came down that the chimera would destroy the shifters, those who already saw them as abominations used it as justification to attack the chimera. This set off a bloody war that lasted for centuries. Karr has no knowledge of how much time has passed and when the shifters send in a human woman who can speak his language, he's sure they're trying to get some sort of information from him. He can trust no one.

Soria has a psychic gift for languages, which is what originally led her to work with Dirk & Steele. After a recent traumatic event that left her missing most of her right arm and feeling abandoned by Roland, her boss and the man she loved, she's decided to strike out on her own and is looking forward to a job as a UN interpreter. When Roland calls her because Dirk & Steele really needs her, she's not happy to oblige, but she does it anyway. From the start she's concerned that Roland isn't using the agency's people for this job and he seems to be withholding information from her. Roland has hired mercenaries and is working with a group of shifters led by a dangerous woman. She's angry when she sees what condition the guy she's supposed to communicate with is in, but she's wary of him because she knows he's dangerous. When a band of mercenaries attacks the facility holding Karr, Soria has to make a choice, set him free or let him be taken, maybe killed. They escape together and even though Karr knows he can't trust her, she's the only one in the world he can communicate with. She's willing to help him because he was alone, in danger, and unaccustomed to the world.

With Roland acting strangely, Soria's friends at Dirk & Steele being kept in the dark, a shifter "ally" who keeps switching sides, a powerful shifter with an old grudge who'd like to kill all chimera and an enemy neither of them could possibly expect after them both and no one to back them but a couple of scary mercenaries, they're running out of time to solve the mystery of why Karr is alive after thousands of years and whether any other chimera exist in this world where most shifters don't even know chimera ever existed and don't think a crossbred shifter could even survive.

I loved Soria. I loved her strength and her will to survive. She was forced to make a horrific choice to survive once, one that I don't think most people could make, and she's had to deal with the consequences, both physical and psychological. She stuck by Karr even when he refused to trust her and sometimes purposely hurt her feelings because she had a good heart and it was the right thing to do. Karr was quick to recognize her good qualities, even though at first he was afraid it was part of some plan to get information from him and recapture him. He came to trust her, even though he didn't want to. It was Soria's strength that made Karr determined to survive as well. Karr helped Soria accept herself and her missing arm. Helped her feel that she was still a whole and beautiful woman. She really needed that in her life. The hero and the heroine were very good for each other. Koni had a very small part in this book, but I really liked it. Hell, he saved the day when you get down to it. I can't wait for him to get his own book.