Killing Moon

Author: Rebecca York
Published: June 3, 2003 (Berkley)
Category: Paranormal Romantic Suspense
Series: Moon Series #1
Rating: 7/10

This definitely wasn't a fluffy and most wonderfully HEA paranormal romance. It was a little gritty.

Ross Marshall, a private investigator, is a werewolf. Not really the kind that changes during the full moon. He's able to change into a wolf when he speaks an incantation, and goes through this painful, organ-twisting, bone-crushing change. Apparently, one of his male ancestors asked the gods for this power, and it was passed down to all male descendents. All female babies are dead at birth, and half the boys die in adolescence when they have to go through the change for the first time. Fully mature males cannot live in the same home together because each werewolf feels that he is alpha, which is why Ross hasn't seen his brother and father for the longest time. Around the age of thirty, the men will feel the urge to take a mate for life. Because of the offspring-mortality rate, Ross has been avoiding women and decided to have some genetic testing done to see if there's some way to prevent his werewolf genes from passing down to the next generation.

In the course of an investigation of a sick and twisted sexual predator (tortures and kills his victims, buries them in his backyard), he is shot in wolf form, and Dr. Megan Sheridan, who works at the genetics lab Ross hired, came to his house to take a blood sample, only to find that she'd be treating a gunshot wound, and instantly attracted to the big naked wounded man.

While Ross also feels the attraction, he's afraid of getting too close to her because he knows that this woman is his mate, but doesn't want her to have the life his mother did, bound to his jerk of a father. In addition to keeping his distance for that reason, he's afraid he will become prey to the murderer he's supposed to be tracking, and endanger Megan in the process.

York wrote this lovely pushed away - pulled together dance between Megan and Ross. There are problems at Megan's labs, and she was almost raped one night, but saved when Ross saw what happened and turned wolf (she didn't know it was him), and he gives in to his need to protect his mate. When she learned the truth of his "genetic problem," she turned away from him and almost broke his heart. But Ross later saves her life, and they

This relationship was definitely a lot of alpha male protecting his female. While you might say this is really macho and so sexist, Megan has her own ways of protecting Ross and their future children. She did save his life when he was wounded, and she'll figure out how to keep their babies alive, whether male or female, with her expertise.

Was the love because of the bond? Megan says no, but wouldn't the mating drive cloud her judgment and make her rationalize in any way possible? But maybe I should look at their bond like that of an arranged marriage in a historical romance. If they really didn't have a choice about the mating bond, they did have a choice to love each other.

I'm definitely reading the rest of her series, which (yay!) has several titles already published. I've already ordered the next book, Edge of the Moon.