Risk It All (Megan Derr)
3.5 stars
Risk It All is a novella set in the "Dance With the Devil" universe. At first, the tag "polyamory" made me a bit reluctant -- I admit I'm a vanilla in terms of sex partners, I prefer only two person involved. But, I was intrigued with the beautiful dragons, plus this was only around 24,000 words. So I gave it a plunge :). Considering I have a bad memory for details, I have to dig a little deeper to remember the players. While it can be read as stand-alone, I still prefer to get clues about the characters in previous book.
Kipling is Peyton's partner who murdered their Alpha and his Candidates as told by Peyton in Ruffskin ("Kipling was his name. We killed the Alpha and the Candidates. All of them. Then we ran. Kipling went one way; I went another."). While Tori is a little bit difficult for me to remember. Apparently, Torvald "Tori" one of Cross brothers mentioned in Sword of the King; I have not read that one.
I really liked this -- polyamory and all. Kipling broke my heart -- his loneliness, his pain, just made me want to hug him bad. Tori is an Owner of two dragons and he is basically an Alpha as well. They just fit -- Tori wants to take care of Kipling and Kipling, in his wolf nature, really wants to belong -- and in some sense, to serve and submit. I didn't really mind the polyamory scenes; they were between Kipling, Tori, and the dragons. Again, it fit with their nature and the way they are taking care of each other. Besides, the dragons are cute (*lol*).
I didn't really like the quick turnabout of their relationship, though. I guess I always want a relationship to happen more than several days. That's just how I like it.