Kidnapping with benefits.

Karis is the arrogant young prodigy of the Radiant Order, and his talents have found him plenty of admirers but far fewer friends. There’s one thing he has to hide, though: the voice in his head that tells him to do very un-paladin-like things. Sometimes it’s helpful. Sometimes it gets him into trouble.

This time, trouble’s name is Ronan.

Ronan does the dirty work. Anything for the trickster god he serves, no matter how tired he’s getting. He’s so used to deception, he wouldn’t recognize real love if it bit him. When he’s captured by the Radiant Order, he doesn’t think twice before kidnapping a cute little squire to cover his escape.

His new hostage is a lot more complicated than he expected.

Between escape attempts and counterspells, Karis keeps getting under Ronan’s skin, and Ronan keeps getting inside Karis’s head. And the longer they stay together, Karis starts thinking less about escaping, and more about how Ronan might taste.

But the conspiracy they’re tangled in is more dangerous than either of them know.

How was it?

The second entry in this magical gay fantasy series is a bit more fun and light-hearted, mostly due to Karis, the new Radiance Order recruit with tracking magic we met in The Necromancer’s Light.

The story has a nice structure and I liked how they expanded the world building and revealed aspects of the larger story that were unknown in the first book. The main characters, Karis and Ronan – yes, that one – are both interesting and have a lot more going for them on first impression. However, it is a bit jarring how little to no consideration is given to Ronan’s past with Arthur. I didn’t mind that too much, because often the aggressors don’t dwell over what they did to their victims as much as their victims do. So I didn’t need Ronan to be redeemed, per se, just more of an acknowledgment of the things he did, and not in a joking/flirtatious way.

I guess the Radiance series falls under the Hurt/Comfort trope, but there is a level of betrayal that I’m not sure love can overcome, maybe because I have yet to feel the kind of love that would make me easily forgive the kind of betrayal on display here, but there are limits. It’s even worse when you consider the character’s past.

Still, I enjoyed this entry a little more than the first one, which was probably too dark for my taste.

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