Winter Born by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Born of the Night by Amanda Ashley (to come later)

Make it Last Forever by L A Banks (to come later)

Red Moon Rising by Lori Handeland (to come later)

Winter Born by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Pandora is an Arcadian were-panther on the run.  Kidnapped from the future by a pack of Katagaria were-panthers she has not yet come into her powers and is unable to return to her own time.

But she has hope that the mysterious Acheron will be able to help her and so she has travelled to the Dragon*Con where she has been told she will be able to track him down.  There are just a few flaws to her plan.  First of all she has no idea what he looks like.  Secondly, as soon as she arrives she scents four Katagaria were-panthers in the building.  Thirdly - she is in heat and will be unable to control herself if she comes too close to them.

Dante Pontis and his three brothers have arrived at the convention on the invitation of Acheron who has an agenda of his own, as always. 

Dante has no intention of getting mixed up with a female were-panther who, if she is anything like the ones he has known, will only stick around long enough to mate and then leave him to bring up the cubs.  He wants a woman who will not only stay around but will be less likely to tear his throat out in passion as happened to one of his siblings.

Besides he has enough on his hands keeping an eye on his twin brother Leonardo (Leo) and Michaelangelo (Mike) - named for the painters and not "those damned turtles". 

But when his brother Romeo (the only one of the four who has a mate and is therefore immune to Pandora) spreads her scent around the building to trick his brothers into avoiding her it backfires and Dante finds himself unable to keep away from the woman.  And things only get worse when they find that they are mated and the pack Pandora is on the run from catches her up.

Like other short stories this one is a good introduction into some of the ways of the Arcadian and Katagaria packs.  It helps to highlight the differences between the two and gives a little insight into the world of the weres. 

This one also has some great scenes with Ash in them.  We get to see that even though he is the leader of the Dark Hunters and the one they turn to for help, perhaps he is not entirely happy about the situation and at the Dragon*Con he (and Simi) take a well deserved holiday from the trials of the Dark Hunters.  One can only wonder what would happen if the Daimons decided to stage a major attack during the convention...

My only complaint is that some of the characters were not as well fleshed out as I like.  But that of course is a problem in many anthologies.  I hope to see more of the younger Pontis brothers who certainly appear to be extremely interesting.  All in all a good read for an anthology but for the Hunter series I do prefer the longer stories.
 

RATING : 
(if you need an explanation of the hearts ratings see my homepage)

Also by Sherrilyn Kenyon: Link to the Complete Dark-Hunter series List. (at least to date)

Links to  Online Stores

Visit Sherrilyn Kenyon's fantastic Website
 
 

http://louisabrown.net