In the fourth installment of Rachel Hawthorne’s Dark Guardians series, we meet Hayden, an empathetic werewolf who can hear others feelings. A mysterious beast arrives in Wolford, the Shifters’ beloved safe haven, and kills a fellow Dark Guardian. He also promises to return on Hayden’s first full moon to take her as well. So Hayden runs away. But as her full moon approaches she must decide to accept this dark, handsome guy who has volunteered to be her mate or risk dying by going through the transformation alone. While dealing with the threat to her life and her strange, prying ability.

Rachel Hawthorne did another fantastic job of showing us the love and danger in the Dark Guardian’s world. Though each of her novels are similar, they are also surprisingly unique. Hayden provided us with new look on the werewolf community just as the other main characters did in previous books. I enjoyed the suspense that kept building throughout the book. And Hawthorne’s characters, both main and minor, have such glowing, refreshing personalities. The best part about her novel is the romance. She combines the perfect balance of conflict and fluffiness to give us a dynamic, interesting story.

This novel, like the others, leaves a lot to be desired in the conflict aspect. When the fighting scenes come around they are a bit uneventful and seem to be over very quickly. Hawthorne also makes decisions for her characters that I find unrealistic, in spite of the paranormal aspect.