J.C. Owens - The Emperor's Wolf

The echoes of a war four years' past still resounds in the minds of those who endured it. Jaden longs to search for his sister, though he is bound in the fetters of slavery. When he is given to the very man who conquered his country, he is caught up in his own hatred, yet fascinated by the mystery of his new master, the Emperor of Tranaden, who all say is demonic, without mercy. Trapped in the snare of his master’s beauty, Jaden begins to realize that there is much more beneath the surface...
Dersai is Emperor to his fingertips, he is used to command and being obeyed. He will sacrifice anything to see his country safe. Beneath, he is well read, highly intelligent and far sighted in how he views others. Yet, Dersai has an inner demon, a demon that kept his kingdom free and safe from conquerors; only in his dreams can he imagine one strong enough to love him. Now his slave may be the only one who can set him free.

Comment: This book was in the ebook pile for a long time..ebook pile, well, more like ebook forgotten files.I can't even remember when I got it....oh well.

I've picked it up this month a bit randomly but I'm glad to have done so. It's not the best story out there, no..but it was entertaining.

This is the story of Jaden and Dersai, a slave and an emperor in a fantasy world.

Jaden has been a slave for a long time but when his mistress travels to the most powerful kingdom she must ask permission to enter and the emperor himself says yes or no to those requests. When he sees Jaden he immediately recognizes him and offers Jaden's mistress passage in exchange for Jaden and other slave's ownership. She accepts and Jaden now belongs to the emperor.

Jaden realizes Dersai is the emperor who conquered his country and feels angry over that but he can't put aside his attraction to Dersai..while their relationship evolves, things start to change between them.

I liked this book but I think it was too short. I enjoy fantasy m/m because usually they allow for many interesting rules and descriptions of how a totally new society works. In this case, I think everything was too short...I firmly believe the author had in here a huge field to develop the storyline more deeply, specially the themes of slavery, of the relationship slave-master, the working of the emperor's household, I don't know, so many things that with more details and development could make space for a bigger but better story too.

This means the story felt too short and too fast for me. It got the job done but it lacked some...polishing in my opinion.

The romance was fun to watch, I like when two characters can't stand each other at first and even if Dersai wanted Jaden, Jaden wasn't in the same state of mind except in the sexual moments and it was interesting to see him changing his mind after seeing how Dersai would make things to make Jaden feel better or to prove he wouldn't hurt or humiliate him. This isn't  a BSDM story though, I simply mean the usual ways of treatment of a slave and a master.

In the end there's an expected misunderstanding that obviously gets sorted out after and they have a great HEA. I was surprised to see how sweetly it all ended after a not so easy subject - slavery - and this is why I don't think it was better than what I thought, because things seemed rather colloquial while I think it wasn't that easy to deal with and the author could have written something where the could have explored better this theme.

Still, a good enough read, entertaining and it allowed a good way to spend the time.