A review by siesssie
The Emperor by RuNyx

5.0

“You’re the beat to my heart, Amara.”

“She was the beat to his heart and he was the beat to hers, both of them pulsing together.”

Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Wow, wow.
Did I just read the most beautiful love story of the year? Uh, I think I did, yeah.

I can't put into words how much I loved reading this book. From the prose to the feel of the story, to the characters, to their love and pain and resilience. I am in awe.
I read the first half of this book in one sitting, and it felt like I had only been reading for less than an hour. Being inside both Amara’s and Dante’s heads was as easy as breathing. If I could, I would have devoured it all in one go.

I’ve read a few “through the years” love stories, but never one I connected to and felt incredibly well done like this one. Just thinking about how we were shown this beautiful love, year after year, brings a tear to my eye.
Again, it was so well done. I genuinely felt the growth of these characters and saw how they chose life to define them. I also think the time jump was perfectly introduced — how the weeks, then the months, then the years were set up — and at the right time. We were suddenly but not jarringly transported right where [b:The Reaper|53027547] left off.

”It’s not what you’re given that makes you who are. It’s what you do with it.”

The emotional intelligence RuNyx imbues her characters with needs to be studied and immediately adopted into more books, especially for male main characters. Tristan and Dante are so much more because of how secure they are with their emotions, not seeing them as a weakness but embracing them fully. Thanks to this, they’re even more believable and intimidating when their dark side comes into play. They don’t feel like they’re pretending to be this stereotypical masculine version of how a strong, morally gray man is, they simply are.

”She is strong like water is strong–it doesn’t appear that way because it’s adaptable, but it can seep into the smallest of cracks and break open the largest of rocks over time.”

Amara, Amara, Amara. How I wish you were a real person, only so I could give you the biggest, tightest bear hug.
I loved you from the moment I met you in [b:The Predator|52871061], but I had no idea how much more I would love you.
Your grace, your patience, your kindness were so well written, it was as if I was experiencing you in real life.

”Focus. Breathe. Live. Survive. Scream.
Breathe. Live. Survive. Scream.
Live. Survive. Scream.
Survive. Scream.
Scream.”

Admiration is truly not a strong enough word to describe what I felt towards you. Witnessing the horrendous torture you went through broke my heart, but your strength and courage healed me. Your heart healed me. Your soul healed me.

“I fight for you every fucking day, Amara.”

“One day, I’m going to put my ring on that finger, Amara. One day, I’m going to put my babies inside you. Just wait for me, baby. Please wait for me.”

Much like Amara, I instantly loved Dante, but I was not ready to fall so hard for this man. I really don’t have words to describe how down bad I am for him. The way he was there for Amara, every single fucking day after her attack. Where only his presence was enough. For him to be so mature and a rock of stability for Amara to lean on. To respect and love her for exactly what she was, never seeing her as less, only as more.

My heart bleeds for his trauma concerning Roni. I can’t even fathom going through that—to kill your first lover so she wouldn’t suffer even more at the hands of monsters. How pivotal of a moment that was in his life and how he vowed to destroy his father and his reign of terror.

“You’re not going to walk through life, Amara,” he uttered roughly, each word a vow that cemented itself in her heart. “You’ll dance through it. And I’ll fucking remove anyone who tries to break your rhythm. I promise you.”

“Give me your dreams and your nightmares, your pleasure and your pain, your fantasies and your fears. Give me everything. Be my queen outside, and my filthy girl inside.”

“You’re my magnum opus, Amara,” he told her, pressing his forehead against hers, a move that always brought the turmoil in him to a standstill. “And I am your humble servant.”

Istfg if I don’t meet someone like Dante, I refuse to settle for less.

I loved how RuNyx handled their breakup. How we didn’t fall into the cliché of miscommunication. That Amara told him about his father’s blackmail and how he played him like a fucking fiddle. Their separation, while short, was painful but needed for the setup of how they would love each other secretly for years. They stayed together from afar. I can’t imagine going through that on top of their traumas. But I loved thinking back to [b:The Predator|52871061] and now knowing they were together the whole time. Ugh, I’m so whipped for them it’s not even funny.

The ending was so weird to read because it truly felt like I was accompanying them on their day-to-day. I forgot it had to end.

I thought Leo was the mastermind behind it all, seeing how he was present during the conversation Amara overheard and how she never, not once brought it up, making me feel RuNyx was trying to downplay it so he could come out of the woods like the big bad wolf, silently working behind everyone’s back… only for it to be Nerea, who I had my doubts on but when she asked Amara if she was pregnant, it made me think she was actually one of the good guys, infiltrated in The Syndicate and working with Alpha or The Shadowman behind the scene. I hate her so incredibly deeply for everything she made Amara experience, but I also pity her for what she had to go through and how she chose to be because of it, instead of in spite of it.

I wasn’t expecting Alpha’s — god, I hate his name, I’m trying really hard to just see it through a phonetic lenses instead of associating it with anything else — connection to Dante. I was wondering how the next characters of the Dark Verse were going to be introduced and how they could root themselves to the narrative but mainly to the other characters. Now, I can’t wait to see how everything else unfolds.

Lastly, I loved Xander’s introduction. He’s so perfect from the breadcrumbs we got. I love how well he fits in with Morana and Tristan. How loved and cherished he already is. How it felt like he was a switch that was easily turned on for both of them. He’s their son and that’s that. I can’t wait to see more of them in the final book.

We also didn’t get much of Damien, and I wish we had gotten more because I’m greedy, but Dante doing everything he could for him, accepting him exactly as he was, was so beautiful to read. How he respected his wishes to stay away from their world, even if not having him around pained him.

PS: I really enjoyed Amara’s friendship with Vin, but I was so disappointed not to experience it again in their adult years. When Dante expressed how he lacked someone to be there for him just like Amara had Vin and Tristan had Morana to keep him steady, I kept thinking how Morana would be the little sister he never had. He just had to wait for her.

┏━━━━ ⋆ ⋅ ⟡ ⋅ ⋆ ━━━━┓

DARK VERSE SERIES

1. [b:The Predator|52871061] — 3.5 ★
2. [b:The Reaper|53027547] — 4 ★
3. The Emperor — 5 ★
4. [b:The Finisher|53473067] — 3.5 ★
5. [b:The Annihilator|54683187] — 5 ★
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

If anyone reached the end of this word vomit, thank you for reading.