Dark Desire by Christine Feehan is the second book in the “Dark” series about the Carpathians and brings back many familiar faces from Dark Prince and a few new ones too.

The story begins some years after Dark Prince took place and we return to the Carpathian Mountains where Jacques, Mikhail’s younger brother, is about to begin seven years of torture and torment.

Gone is the amusing and arrogant young man and instead we find a hard, bitter and revenge driven man on the brink of madness.

Trapped in a world of pain and darkness, Jacques has been buried alive for seven years.  Cut off from the healing soils and trapped in a remote location he cannot even use his power of telepathy to call out for the help of his people.

Across the ocean in America Shea O’Halloran has always known she was different.  Her mother had told her she suffered from a blood disorder inherited from the father Shea had never met.  For Shea this meant that she needed regular transfusions of blood all her life and as a doctor she had spent her career searching for a cure.

The only things that Shea knew about her father Rand she knew from her mother’s diary.  Her mother believed Rand to be dead and for all of Shea’s life her mother had cut herself off from the world.  When Shea reached the age of 18 her mother had committed suicide, unable to live any longer without the man she had become obsessed with.  Shea’s determination never to become as obsessed with a man as her mother had been is one that matches her determination to find a cure for her illness.

Then one day Shea finds herself brought down to the ground in pain.  The pain eventually eases but from that day on she is haunted by dreams of a man in pain and agony.  But believing it only a dream she does nothing about it until she finds herself face to face with him in a deserted cabin in the Carpathian Mountains.

Fleeing to the Carpathian Mountains Shea is on the run from men who have openly admitted to being responsible for the vampire murders in the area that took place several years before.  Hoping that the mountains will hold the answers she is looking for she travels nearer to Jacques until she is close enough that he can use the last of his powers to pull her to him.

Jacques has waited a long time for Shea to come to him.  His memory has gone completely and in the madness that has overrun him he believes her to be one of the people responsible for his torture.  It is only after he has attacked her that he realises not only his error but that she is his lifemate.

Somehow he must make amends for the damage he has done, but with his memory fragmented and his mind shattered he is only too aware that he is more beast than man.

As a doctor Shea tries her best to help him.  Hiding in the mountains she is found by Jacques old friend Byron who recognises Jacques blood running in her veins.  Having believed his friend dead he calls Mikhail, Gregori (the Dark One), and Raven to tell them his suspicions.  It does not take long for them to track down Jacques and Shea.  Unfortunately Jacques cannot remember any of them and his belief that one of his own kind betrayed him makes him wary of them all.

Ready to attack them at the first opportunity they realise that only Shea stands between him and complete madness.  Only she can stop him from turning vampire completely and prevent them from having to make the choice of ordering his destruction.

At first I could not bear to imagine the fun-loving Carpathian Jacques being tortured for so long and so badly that he was unable to remember anything other than the pain.  How could Christine do this to the easygoing young man whom Raven had toppled from his chair?

But by the end of the novel I was convinced that the tortured hero was even more engaging than he had appeared in the first novel of the series.

The second journey into the Carpathian world is as engaging as the first and the introduction of Shea gives a whole new perspective to the world of the Carpathians.

There is also the continuing plot line of the mystery of why the Carpathians are dying out which keeps the reader guessing throughout…and no it is not answered in this novel either.

The Carpathian world becomes more intricate and intriguing the more the reader enters it.  Just like Dark Prince this book leaves you wanting more.
 

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Also by Christine Feehan - The Dark Series and Wild Rain

For listings of Christine's other series (of which their are several) please visit Christine Feehan's Website.