The Cursed King
Inferno Rising #4
Abigail Owen
Publisher: Entangled
Publication date: Oct. 25, 2021
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Rating:
Airk Azdajah, the rightful King of the White Clan of dragon shifters, spent half a millennium being tortured by the false High King Pytheios. The only reason he’s alive is a the man who kills Airk will be consumed in his own fire. So Airk was kept alive—barely—and unable to shift in his prison cage, driving the creature half of him into madness. Airk escaped, but he’ll never be truly free. Because what good is a king who can never let his feral dragon loose, never fly, and never lead his people?
Angelika Amon is the last unmated phoenix. The problem? She has no powers. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Angelika hates being dormant, especially now that her three sisters are blissfully mated to powerful dragon shifter kings and are very much part of the fight to take down the rotting king Pytheios. What good is a completely powerless phoenix in a battle to save the dragon kingdom?
Desperate to find some way to help, she offers herself to Airk as a mate—just for political leverage. Now a dormant phoenix is mated to a dragon who can’t shift. But the balance of power is about to change when Pytheios decides to claim Angelika for himself…
My thoughts…
Have you ever read a romance where you DIDN’T root for the MMC?
That was me with this book. Airk was held in a dungeon and tortured for over 500 years. I get that he thinks he’s super dangerous and no good for Angelica. However, I could not stand his back and forth with her. His whole “I won’t mate you, but screw any male that thinks they are good enough for you” attitude, and his wishy-washy with doing the deed with her, only to run off on her was beyond frustrating. I was so over him that I REALLY wanted her to mate with the berserker we meet in this story. He’s a little bit dangerous, but also mature and a leader of the wolf shifters. He would have made a great alliance, but nooooo Angelica had to keep pining away, giving chances to, and going to bed with Airk only for him to run off and claim he would never mate her. Gah! I honestly was so over him and his insecurities. Angelica deserved so much better.
It didn’t help that it took me until the halfway point to actually start to get into this story. Mainly because of Airk’s character. I just found him to be insufferable, and was tired of dealing with their feelings for each other. I wanted to get into the nitty gritty of the story. I mean, this rando overthrew the dragon high king over 500 years ago, killed everyone in charge, imprisoned one of their kids, and has caused nothing but destruction and chaos since that day. This was the finale to the series, this was the big moment for everyone. I wanted the story to focus more on the rebellion and the good guys trying to rally together to take out the bad guy, not “will he, or won’t he” on the whole mating thing.
I really enjoyed the previous books in this series. I thought the dynamics and the overall story arc was great. However, this one missed the mark for me, which is sad since it’s the final book in the series.
Previous reviews from Inferno Rising
The Rogue King
The Blood King
The Warrior King
