Tome Thursday: Breed for the Beast

 

Hello everyone!

 

Hear me out.

 

Before you roll your eyes, scoff, and close the window down because of just what the title of this book is, let me try and sell it to you first.

 

I promise, it's actually a hell of a lot better than what it sounds.

 

It does, of course, also have them sexy, smutty scenes, and there's a list of kinks and warnings right at the beginning of it, HOWEVER.

 

Like I mentioned previously, but going through these Irish mafia books, the plot keeps thickening and actually gaining momentum more than the characters having sex does.

 

I'd never have believed it if I didn't read it for myself, and the only reason I actually kept reading was because there keeps being more plot padding added to the stories.

 

This one's got the best of all so far, actually.

 

So why don't you stick along for the ride with Breed for the Beast?

 

Links to previous related posts can be found at the bottom of the page, as per usual.

 

The saga of the Irish mob continues, though this time we start with our leading lady, Helen, who makes sure to deliver high quality meat to ... the Greek mafia.

 

Yup, we're going there folks.

 

We got introduced to them and their tensions with the Irish mafia in the previous book, now the problems come home to roost.

 

See, Helen's married to this asshole, Silas, who's been whining about one scheme or another he wants to push through her shop, but she's always told him no because she runs a clean business - even the whole meat thing? It's actual meat that goes to restaurants, not something else.

 

She also wants to eventually have a family with the guy she's been with since school, and how does he thank her for it?

 

Drugs her, and sells her as a sex slave to the human trafficking market, to get rich or something.

 

Completely out of her wits with fright, Helen begs with her eyes during her own auction (she can't speak), because she sees a person in the audience that she REALLY doesn't want to belong to in any way, shape or form.

 

The Greek mobster who quite literally did unspeakable things to his woman and put her in the ground. Aptly, his name is Thanatos.

 

Catching the eye of a big, burly guy in the back, she does the pleading, and he buys her, which is where the story only just gets going.

 

His name's Lugh, he's a violent enforcer for the Irish mafia, and he wants her to have his babies while he's at it, because, being a bastard himself, he REALLY wants to have a family.

 

The baby thing is a bit much, I'll admit, but the topic kind of gets dropped like a hot potato pretty fast once Helen's at his place, with a nutritionist working on getting her healthy, a housekeeper that doesn't seem to like her, and some sort of shadow hanging over the entire manor.

 

It's all very Jane Eyre in a sense, but don't worry, there are no women locked up in attics.

 

Just a little girl. That everyone pretends doesn't exist.

 

Helen nearly gets kidnapped by Thanatos at one point, though thankfully Lugh's there to save the day, and they figure out it has to be the nutritionist that's giving the game up.

 

As she grows closer to Lugh, too, she learns a couple VERY important points:

 

- he only has one functional eye because Thanatos went for the other one, and he may never be able to see again through that

 

- he and Thanatos have a very storied history

 

- the woman Thanatos killed? She was Lugh's ex

 

- he's hiding her daughter and her mother (the housekeeper, obviously) in his house and has been trying to bring Thanatos down for a while, but Helen kinda derailed his plans at the auction house.

 

This is all discovered over a slow meandering drawing-together between the two of them, and Lugh also learns how the hell Helen ended up at the auction to begin with, and what's what with Silas, because, well, he has him delivered to her like a package.

 

Turns out, Silas and Thanatos have been working behind the back of the Greek mafia boss, who just so happens to be Thanatos' father. He was supposed to deliver Thanatos to the special prison the mafia families keep where they stuff anyone they want out of the way, but nope, he lied through his teeth about it, and then got scammed by Thanatos and Silas with the auction houses.

 

Helen now has revenge on her mind and wants not only Thanatos dead, but the slave auction thing stopped.

 

So she and Lugh hatch up a plan, and all I can say is the confrontation with Thanatos is explosively thrilling.

 

Thankfully, after a lot of twists and turns, the bastard finally ends up underground, where he belongs, and the auction house?

 

Someone gets there before Helen and Lugh do. No clue as to who, but supposedly another book will explain this.

 

In the meantime, they decide their bargain - Lugh saved Helen's life, so she owes him a baby - is moot point since they love each other, and we learn in the epilogue that, not only did they clean up the mess Thanatos and Silas left behind, but Thanatos' daughter? Is actually Lugh's. And Helen gives birth to twin girls, and is pregnant with twin boys by the time the book ends.

 

I've fallen down a rabbit hole with these Mafia stories, but out of all three I've read this is one I'd want as a physical copy.

Not only is it a modern dark Beauty and the Beast retelling, but it has SO many layers and keeps adding to the broader mafia universe.

Lugh and Helen are something else, too. Certainly more plot and less smut, which is different, but a good different. All three books so far have been great!

 

Like I keep saying, you just gotta push through to get to the plot bits, and that's when you get rewarded.

 

It's a great ride, I'll give you that.

 

Definitely recommend the most out of all three mafia books I've read so far!

 

xx

*image not mine

 

Dance for Daddy - Dinner with Daddy