Karn'al: Jed's Revenge

After seeing them kill his childhood love, Pagans capture Jed, a Karn’alian Cyborg on his latest mission. He is beaten and strapped down and left in a prisoner’s cell. With his com-plant disabled and his body weakened he is completely helpless. Then to add insult to injury, a young woman slips inside the room. Though hesitant and unsure, she proceeds to physically arouse him, unwilling though he may be, and takes advantage of his bound state and inability to resist her. His shock at finding that she was a virgin does nothing to assuage his outrage and humiliation. Jed swears vengeance upon her.

Years later he captures Kate McAllister and claims revenge with “an eye for an eye.” However, when the deed is done he finds that once just is not enough.

Jed certainly gets his revenge and though he is initially cold and domineering, it was wonderful to see him slowly softening towards the heroine. One can almost see the cracks forming in his defenses as he puts the heroine through turmoil and then finds he cannot stand to see her unhappy. He is no coward to his emotions, but must grapple with his affection for someone he has considered to be the enemy for so long.

There is little that Kate can do to fight Jed in her situation but readers will admire her spirit and insistence to be looked upon with some respect. She sports regret and feelings of guilt over what she had no choice but to do in order to save herself in that incident six years ago. This complication and her physical attraction to her captor make her feelings horribly conflicted.

The journey that both hero and heroine take to come to terms with their feelings for each other is moving. Dakara, the planet to which Jed takes Kate, has a society that embraces the sensuous and the erotic. It is a highly charged setting for their relationship to evolve from captor and prisoner to something wonderful. Ms. Havlir has written a scorcher of a romance that readers will likely finish in one sitting. Heat and heart make this revenge sweet indeed

August 2006