Tor was chosen for me as my October 2013 ‘Dusty Bookshelf Challenge’ over at the Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Fanatics group. The story is told in third person through the eyes of both Tor and Sky.

Tor is the story of a slave werewolf and his slave boy mate, Sky. Tor is a fighting werewolf in the Werewolf Fight League. When a wolf fights he defends his mate in the cage against a challenger that can claim the slave mate if the defender loses. This part is spoilerish but is important to the rest of the story. Tor’s mate, Jin, is claimed then killed in the ring by Cosack, an insane werewolf challenger. I found this scene to be heartbreaking. So if you are bothered by scenes such as this, then you can skip the first chapter and still be able to understand the story if you do. Tor loses his desire to live after what happens to Jin, but Marrack, Tor’s owner insists he fight again and purchases a beautiful, virgin slave boy named Sky, for Tor to mate with.

Sky has been raised in a brothel and taught numerous ways to seduce and pleasure a partner. But because of his beauty at night he’s been kept separate, away from the other boys and isn’t allowed to lose his virginity. Because of Sky’s enforced isolation, he never feels a part of the group of boys he lives with. He longs for companionship and someone to love and care for him. I think that Sky’s isolation leads him to believe he is undesired and unlovable. The only thing Sky believes about himself is that he is beautiful. So when Sky meets and eventually mates with Tor, he tries very hard to get Tor to return to the ring, for reasons of his own. But Sky also continually compares himself to Jin because Tor loved Jin so much and he wants Tor to love him also. Sky feels unworthy as the mate of a werewolf. It turns out that Sky is quite smart, a bit of a brat and headstrong. These in the end turn out to be great assets in helping unravel what happened to Tor and Jin the last time they fought together.

I really enjoyed Sky and Tor as a couple and I think they are one of my new favorite pairings. Tor is the Alpha male to Sky’s submissive. The sex scenes sometime contain mild BDSM like bondage and tease and denial. There were also a couple scenes of bestiality where Tor is in werewolf form as he pleasures Sky. I also enjoyed the secondary characters that were friends of Tor’s, Ashland, another werewolf and Stolz, Ashland’s owner/trainer.

I like the way the mate bond was handled by the author, it was different from the other werewolf shifter stories I’ve read. In most shifter stories the shifter can smell their potential mate when they meet them or if the potential mate has been in the area. In Tor that’s not the case. Werewolves are given a slave boy/girl as a potential mate. The werewolves mate with the slave boy/girl and from that point on a bond is created between the two. If one slave boy/girl dies the werewolf can take another slave as his mate, or if the werewolf loses in the fight ring the winning wolf can claim the mate and is now the new mate of the loser’s slave. It’s a refreshing take on the mating behavior of werewolf shifters.

Speaking of wolf form, I wondered why, if Tor is blonde in his human form, he turns into a black wolf when he’s shifted. I wish the author had given an explanation for that. In fact there are a lot of things that go unexplained in this book. One of things that bothered me was the way the werewolves found mates. Clearly if they mate with a slave boy/girl, that person becomes their mate. But I’m sure the werewolves had sex before they ever had their first mate. I can’t imagine them being virgins. So why didn’t the werewolves bond with the others they had sex with? Was it because the werewolves only had sex with other werewolves and werewolves don’t bond with others of their kind, only with human mates? For example here is what Ashland says at one point in the story after Sky gives Tor a blowjob in the cage after practice:

”You could always try your hand in the cage, like you were saying,” Tor said. “You could win one.”
Ashland shook his head. “No, that’s all just talk. I’m not meant for the cages. Stoltz only lets me spar, and that works for me. Guess, I’m just used to getting it whenever and wherever I can.”

So if Ashland gets sex whenever and wherever he wants and having sex is the way to claim a mate, how come Ashland didn’t claim the first human/were he had sex with? There has got to be something that keeps a were from bonding with every human/were they have sex with. What is it that makes one specific human/were their mate if it’s done by choice, rather than a fated-pairing like in the majority of shifter stories? This area, I think, really needs to fleshed out and clarified in the story since its way too vague.

The author switched povs with chapter changes or with paragraph separators. But there were way too many spots where it’s obvious that the author switched povs in the middle of a scene or had the readers jumping around from pov to pov and it’s rather annoying. For instance this scene which started out in Tor’s pov but switched back and forth with Sky’s to finally end up in Sky’s pov after a few pages:

Tor knew it was a mistake. Everything inside him fought against it, but he didn’t know any other way.
“Well, if we’re going to do this, I’m going to have to f*** you,” Tor said.
Sky swallowed and nodded as he gazed up at Tor, hoping he didn’t see the fear in Sky’s eyes. In response, Sky’s hole tightened, and he flattened against the wall. Despite his fear, his cock stiffened.

This section is set up as looking through Tor’s eyes. Which is great, until we get to the point of Sky’s hole tightening. Now, how does Tor know this? Especially if Sky’s back is to the wall. I can understand backing up against the wall as an indication of fear and that could still be from Tor’s pov as he watches Sky, but the other part Tor wouldn’t know about. It’s something that Sky felt, which means we’re now feeling from Sky’s pov. There is another scene soon after where it rapidly switches over to Sky’s pov again and then back to Tor’s. This sort of whiplash pulls me out of the story enough so that I notice it and then mention it in a review. It’s that obvious.

A lot of questions go unanswered in this book. Questions I would like to see answered in future books:
1. How did the wolf shifters become slaves?
2. Did shifters exist on the planet alongside of humans, or was it a shifter planet that was invaded by humans and shifters taken as slaves?
3. How did the Fight League start?
4. Are there any female wolf shifters?
5. Why aren’t male wolf shifters mated to other wolf shifters? They appear to be mated to humans only.
6. If all the shifters have to do is f**k a human for them to become mates, then how come the shifters never became mates with the humans they f**ked before they acquired a mate?
7. Did shifters only have sex with other wolf shifters so they wouldn’t bond as mates until they either won a fight or were given a mate?
8. What happened to wolves that lost fights and their mates? Did they die of broken hearts? Were they sold for slave labor?

Tor is more of a romance story between Tor and Sky rather than an in depth look into the Werewolf Fight League. I like romantic stories so this worked for me. But on the other hand, I think this story would have been much more interesting if the author had given more background into pretty much everything I listed above. There were just way too many plot holes for me. The main thing that bothered me though, was the frequent head jumping as the pov switched from Tor to Sky and back again without any real rhyme or reason. The story would have flowed much better if the author had been careful about the pov changes and had them occur at specific times rather than at random. The changes are what annoyed me the most so that I can only give Tor 3 stars. However, I would probably read the continuation of the series, just because the characters were enjoyable.

… (más)

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Penumbra1 | 2 reseñas más. | Oct 11, 2022 |

C'est La Vie

I have to say this. I Loved this book. I liked the two before this one. But this one struck a cord somewhere. I'm young but I hope that when I'm an elderly lady I'll still have a love life. Even if my environment thinks it's silly. This book gave me the hope that it can happen.

Denunciada

Jonesy_now | Sep 24, 2021 |