From New York Times bestselling author Kresley Cole comes this scorching tale of a demon outcast poisoned with vampire blood and the vulnerable young witch he vows to protect—even from himself.
A dangerous demon she can't resist...
Malkom Slaine: tormented by his sordid past and racked by vampiric hungers, he's pushed to the brink by the green-eyed beauty under his guard.
A maddening witch he aches to claim...
Carrow Graie: hiding her own sorrows, she lives only for the next party or prank. Until she meets a tortured warrior worth saving.
Trapped together in a savage prison...
In order for Malkom and Carrow to survive, he must unleash both the demon and vampire inside him. When Malkom becomes the nightmare his own people feared, will he lose the woman he craves body and soul?
My Review:
At first glance, I was a bit peeved with Demon from the Dark, Kresley Cole’s (KC) tenth installment in the Immortal After Dark Series. In the previous book, we left off with several supernatural creatures getting hauled off by a human fanatical organization, The Order, intent on destroying creatures from the Lore.
I thought for sure the next book would feature Regin the Radiant – whom we’ve been told fell in love with a Berserker who died, yet reincarnated as different men and fell in love with her all over again, but instead we get Carrow’s story – a witch friend of Mari the Awaited.
Just when I was about to start ranting and raving, we are introduced to Malkom, a half vampire, half demon who was taken prisoner when he was very young by a sadistic male master who abused him. His story reminded me so much of J. R. Ward’s Zsadist, that I immediately fell in love with him!
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back at Human Fanatic Headquarters aka The Order, every Lore creature and their mother are locked in cages. Regin, Sabine’s sister, Lanthe, Uilleam MacRieve (a sexy Lykae), and can you believe it- even Lothaire are all being studied, tortured, and dissected to see what makes them tick. The ultimate prize for the human’s collection is Malkom, but the humans haven’t been able to capture him.
So they send Carrow off to seduce him and bring him in, threatening her by holding hostage one of her loved ones. Carrow has no choice but to do as she is told and agrees to go into another dimension to bring in the elusive Malkom.
Living on his own for many years, Malkom is half crazed and hardly speaks to anyone anymore. His attitude is always kill first, ask questions later, but when he sees Carrow, his undead heart begins to beat and an unquenchable hunger and attraction draws him to her.
Malkom starts to come out of his shell and begins to re-learn how to interact with people as he makes it his goal to make Carrow his mate. First thing on the agenda is a bath, and Carrow is floored to see that underneath all the grime and dirt Malkom wore like another skin, lies a sexy gorgeous hunk she can’t seem to keep her hands off.
But their time together must soon come to an end and Carrow contemplates what her captors want her to do. Can she turn Malkom over to them to save her loved ones, or will her newfound feelings for Malkom change her mind?
Demon from the Dark is easily one of my faves in the series and is on definite re-read status. Just love poor broken Malkom hard!
Lothaire also makes an impression (when doesn’t he? 
) in Demon from the Dark. In the previous book, he stole a ring from El Dorada and awakened her. Now she’s dead set on getting her ring back and will stop at nothing to accomplish this. I promise you’ll be on the edge of your seat!
Demon from the Dark also gives us an insight to the Accession – an event that occurs every 500 years in which all creatures of the Lore basically kill each other off in a sort of checks and balances thing. With so many creatures under one roof and everyone being a mortal enemy or ally of the other, it seems unavoidable.
And on a final note, Demon from the Dark – to me – is reminiscent to Gena Showalter’s Lord of the Underworld series, The Darkest Whisper where the LOTU’s human enemies, The Hunters, kept supernatural creatures in cages and were experimenting on them to see what made them tick in order to defeat them (plus all sorts of other freaky experiments). Of course all of the Hunter’s plans were shot to hell, and death was dealt in spades when the creatures broke out of their cages. Hmm…I wonder if this will happen in KC’s series? 
Carrow craned her head up. And up ... She lost her breath.
The being's body was nearly seven feet tall and splashed with blood. Large horns curved back from above his ears. His lips were parted, exposing upper and lower fangs.
Another demon.
And, gods, this one was big. His broad chest and brawny arms were covered in a mesh chainmail shirt, his muscles rippling with strength under the metal. He was clad in leather pants, and they too were spattered in crimson. His long hair was tangled around those horns and hung over his dirty face. A sparse beard covered his cheeks.
Surely, this couldn't be ... him. Her target. Nothing about his appearance indicated vampirism. Please don't let it be him.
When their eyes met, she gasped. His irises were a light blue, as described in the dossier. Severely disturbed? Violently territorial? Affirmative.
The blue flickered, turning blacker by the second, usually a sign of lust or rage in a demon. Neither boded well for her.
Just as she studied his appearance, his gaze raked over her body, over her hiked-up skirt and bared thighs. At once, his horns straightened and flared back, signaling his attraction to her.
When he raised his face, his eyes narrowed, as if with recognition. He clenched his hands into meaty fists, then opened them, splaying his claw-tipped fingers. Again and again he made fists, then released them, like he missed something he'd long held on to.
His shaft was hardening--impossible to miss that. When he sucked in ragged breaths, grasping at his chest, a ridiculous suspicion arose, but she tamped it down.
This demon looked to be on the razor's edge of lust. For all Carrow knew, he'dbeen out in this wasteland for centuries without a woman, as hard up as Asmodel. And if she didn't figure out a way around it, this one was about to be on top of her, his hulking body heaving over her.
"I-I'm asking you not to hurt me," she said, studying his expression. His harsh face evinced nothing, no comprehension of her words. So no English. Trothan native? Check. His only reaction was an ever-growing erection.
Just as she'd begun to suspect he was beyond any communication, he slammed a fist over his chest, then pointed at her, rasping something that sounded like "Ara." His voice was rough, as if it'd been dragged over gravel.
When he stalked closer, she spied a tattoo, a large one that looked like black flames licking up his side--his right side.
Hekate help her, this was Carrow's target, Malkom Slaine. And the Order had been woefully mistaken. There'd be no coaxing him anywhere.
Change of plans. She wasn't going to lead him to the portal. She was going to lug his unconscious body there. After repeatedly stabbing him. But for her plan to work, she needed him to charge her, to fall upon her. Mentally steeling herself, she motioned for him, crooking a finger.
His eyes briefly widened, but he didn't speed up his approach.
Damn it, Slaine! Charge me!
~~~~~~
Malkom had never been so astounded in his everlasting life.
On his way down the mountain, he'd caught this female's exquisite scent and had recognized what she was to him--the woman he'd never expected for himself.
With his horns flaring and his loins stirring to mate her, he'd leapt down from on high, then torn through the bone forest. But as he'd closed in on her, he'd also scented the demons surrounding her. While he'd slaughtered them, his heart had begun to beat, his lungs drawing breath, for the first time in centuries.
She was her. His. Fate had given him a foreign female with hair like night and emerald-green eyes. Her skin was flawless, as pale as a vampire's, though she had no fangs. She was some kind of immortal, but he didn't know what.
And her scent. She smelled as he'd always imagined a woman should. Not like those hardened, hollow-eyed demonesses who'd reeked of the males that'd used them.
Now the reasons Malkom had never had a female no longer affected him. This woman was perfect, her scent was tantalizing to him, and she was his. What use had he for a female? The question no longer mattered. I claim what's mine.
She was beckoning him, clearly recognizing him as her male. She seeks what I have to give her.
Yet now he was battle-maddened, barely clinging to the last of his control. Demonic thoughts of slaking his lust on this fine creature warred with the vampiric urge to drink her down. He could almost feel his fangs planted into the creamy flesh of her bared thigh.
She moistened her lips and subtly eased her legs open, giving him a glimpse of the dark pink silk betwixt her legs.
Thought fled. He roared and leapt for her.
Rating: 5 Kisses
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