A review by books_and_cha
Captive Mate by Eliot Grayson

2.0

I picked up Captive Mate as soon as I was done with The Alpha's Warlock. Remember how I said I wanted more of whatever The Alpha's Warlock was doing? Yeah, well Captive Mate was a whole other ball game.

The difference lay primarily in the main characters. Both Nate and Arik have been through a lot, but they've reacted to it in different ways. Arik isn't above manipulating or hurting others (physically and emotionally) to keep himself safe. Moreover, when Nate entered the Armitage pack, he was Ian's mate - even if he wasn't completely trusted, he had a place in the pack. Arik isn't that privileged - he's a prisoner who cast a love spell on the pack leader. His life is valued only in conjunction with Matthew's, which leads to a lot of hostile interactions with Matthew, Nate, and Ian on one side, and Arik alone on the other. For most of this book, we're inside the head of a villain, and it takes time for him to stop being a villain.

Throughout this entire book, I understood where Arik was coming from, but I couldn't empathize with him. His past, everything that he's been through, justifies his distrust and even, to a certain extent, some of his manipulations. That being said, because he saw all the characters I cared about in the previous book as his enemy in this one, that made it hard for me to connect emotionally.

Spoiler

For instance, when Arik emotionally attacks Nate about what Nate's father did to him, calling him helpless and weak for being able to stop the abuse, that crossed a line that I wasn't ready to forgive. Also, it just sounded hypocritical from a rape survivor. What if Nate had said that Arik was weak for not being able to stop Parker? Or his other rapists? Plus, instead of treating it like the emotional abuse that it was, Arik never apologizes. Rather it's Nate who later says he's trying to forgive Arik and apologizes for suppressing Arik's magic, even though Arik literally treats everyone around him as either a weapon or something he can dispose of when he first enters the pack.

The romance was okay. I didn't really care much for either character. I liked the sweet turn their romance took once most of the conflict was resolved, but I expected more emotional development beforehand. I expected Matthew to break down Arik's walls and he did, but not the way I expected.

Spoiler

There's also a really problematic moment when Matthew is interrogating Arik and he threatens rape. Never mind that he doesn't carry it out, never mind that Arik was a hostile prisoner, you don't rape people. Matthew's justification is that he'll do anything for his pack, but is that a justification? Is there any justification for rape? No. Basically, Grayson needs to be more sensitive to the issue of sexual assault. This moment just makes any further trust in Arik and Matthew's relationship bogus.

All that being said, I did think Grayson did a good job of creating a layered character like Arik. I didn't like Arik, but he felt better developed than Nate and Ian had in the first book. The plot was not as exciting as in the first book, but it wasn't slow or draggy either.

To sum up, this book was not as fun as the first: too much angst, problematic (read spoilers), and left me feeling unsatisfied.