The Hunt: The Complete Edition*
A Bad Angel and a Good Demon?
This box set has all four books of The Hunt series, Prey, Predator, Stalker, and Killer. In this series, Meldon has created a complex world of angels and demons, and Heaven and Hell. Severus is an incubus who is working as an escort near a hell-gate. His world shifts dramatically when college student, Moira, becomes a client. Unlike other patrons, he is unable to take in her life force energy, which he needs to survive, yet his inner demon desperately wants to connect physically with her. Moira walks out before the end of their session, frightened of the change she saw in his eyes. Unable to shake her from his mind after the encounter, he stalks her until she confronts him. He senses that she is not wholly human, but he doesn’t know what exactly she is until they talk about her past and her parentage. Then it is clear; she is an angel-human hybrid, something that is not supposed to exist. The warrior angels are on earth to protect the humans from the darkness, no matter what form it may come in, whether demons, vampires, or witches. But they aren’t supposed to mate with humans.
Though her angel father may want to destroy his mistake, Moira wants to find out more about him. She and Severus form a team of sorts. Though he fights becoming more involved with her life, he feels connected to her and more alive than he’s ever been. He also feels a strong need to protect her. After the first book, his need to protect only grows and becomes more complex as they face dangers in multiple realms.
What will happen with Moira and her father? From what evils–and in what realms–must Severus protect her? Will Moira become strong in the presence of dangers she never knew existed–or will her naivety get her into trouble? Will Severus and Moira fall for each other, or is an incubus only capable of lust?
I found this a surprisingly compelling read. The author has created a complex world about which she only gives us the relevant information as we need it. Reading about Severus’s existence before Moira scratches the surface of what it is like to live as an incubus in this story’s world. When Moira and Severus team up, we learn more about the world as Moira does. More and more gets revealed with each book.
The writing style is smooth, making the book very easy to get into. Severus was a fascinating character right from the start, and he becomes more interesting as he gets more and more involved with Moira. Moira is harder to get to know. When she relates the changes she has been going through, the reader realizes there is more to her than meets the eye; but as she doesn’t know herself early on, neither can we yet fully understand her. She sometimes did things in the later books that weren’t in her best interest, and I didn’t feel she came into her own until the journey to hell. By that point, though, both characters had such strength and purpose that the books were page-turners.
