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The Warlord Wants Forever

Kresley Cole

Published 2006         Novella - 152 pages

Summary (from the book jacket)

Nikolai Wroth, a ruthless vampire warlord, searches for his Bride – the one woman who can render him truly alive. When his fevered chase leads to Myst the Coveted, a Valkyrie seductress who craves only freedom, a battle of domination and desire begins.

Will the power of her seductive wiles overcome his strength? Or will she surrender and experience the deliciously agonising lust that Nikolai has endured waiting for his one and only Bride?

The Review

The Warlord Wants Forever is Kresley Cole’s first foray into the romantic fantasy world of her Immortals After Dark series. At just over 150 pages the story is a weighty novella and is part of the Playing Easy To Get erotic romance anthology.

While The Warlord Wants Forever is technically the first story in the Immortals After Dark series it wasn’t necessary to read the books in strict order, so I actually found myself reading this novella after I had finished the first 6 full length novels in this series. As an established fan of Kresley Cole’s paranormal romances I found The Warlord Wants Forever to be yet another great romance read. While the story introduces the concept of the Valkyrie and the vampire Bride it doesn’t get weighted down in fantasy world building but somehow manages to impart the important information while delivering sexy romance at a fast-pace.

The storyline starts with Myst’s first meeting with Nikolai. She is locked in the dungeon of the castle that he has liberated from Ivo, leader of the people killing, blood drinking vampires. Nikolai is a general in the Forbearer vampire army (called Forbearers because they don’t drink blood from the vein or kill people.) He needs information which is something Myst has plenty of, but she isn’t inclined to talk. One thing leads to another and before long Nikolai finds that Myst is his vampire Bride, the one woman in the whole world who can stir desire in his dead body and make his heart beat again.

Before their relationship can be consummated Myst is rescued by her Valkyrie sisters, leaving Nikolai in an agony of lust that only his Bride can relieve. Myst promptly disappears and Nikolai vows to track her down and… well, I think you can guess the rest. The resulting chase and capture of Myst the Coveted is everything that Kresley Cole’s fans could desire. There is heart-wrenching, hot romance as Nikolai takes his revenge on Myst - although he is as much a prisoner of desire as she is – giving the story a strong erotic edge. There is also snappy dialogue and plenty of fantasy action to keep the story racing forward – really, what more could a paranormal romance fan want?

While this review is only concerned with The Warlord Wants Forever (the only vampire tale in the Playing Easy To Get anthology) it is worth mentioning what other stories you get in the collection. “Turn Up The Heat” by Sherrilyn Kenyon is a story about an average woman who wins a trip of a life to Sex Camp but gets caught up with an ex-Mafia hit man instead. This is from her B.A.D series, rather then Dark Hunter, and so it isn’t a paranormal romance. The other novella is “Hunter’s Oath” by Jaid Black, this is a story about a woman who gets kidnapped in Alaska and taken to a secret underground world where she is auctioned off as a Viking bride… clearly a fantasy romance but alas, no vampires. Both stories are less lengthy novellas at around 90 pages in length each. To my way of thinking these stories are more like bonus material because Kresley Cole’s tale pretty much sells the anthology by itself - at least it did for me...

The only downside with The Warlord Wants Forever is the cover price of the anthology. $14 is a lot to pay is you only want to read one of the novellas, although I think the story is just about worth the price. Certainly series fans won’t want to miss this and readers who haven’t yet discovered Kresley Cole’s fantastic Immortals After Dark series could do worse than start here.

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