Tangle of Need

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Synopsis

Adria Morgan is a wolf Changeling and senior soldier with the SnowDancer pack. As such, she's a dominant female, who happened to mate a submissive male. When their relationship deteriorated and nothing more could be done to save it, she turned her back on that painful chapter in her life and returned to the den, looking for solace. What she found is SnowDancer lieutenant Riaz who stirs her sexual desires but pushes all her buttons in the wrong way. She's walled off her heart from any kind of romance, but after one of their fights turns into a moment of passion, Adria decides that perhaps granting no-strings skin privileges wouldn't be such a bad thing. The deeper they get to know each other, though, the more she has trouble seeing a future without him. But Adria fears that lone-wolf Riaz might one day leave her and she also knows that his real mate is still out there, leaving her uncertain if she can open up her heart again.

While serving the pack as head of international relations in Europe, Riaz Delgado met a human woman who his wolf recognized as his mate, but she was already happily married to someone else. Brokenhearted and unsure of how to deal with the situation, he returned to the den, needing the comfort and closeness of the pack to help him heal. Even though Changelings can't go without skin-to-skin contact for long periods of time and Riaz has been celibate for far too long, he can't help feeling like his attraction to the beautiful but infuriating Adria is a betrayal of the mate he can't have. Because of this, he turns down her offer of skin privileges at first, but gradually softens toward the idea. Once they've given in to their attraction, Riaz has a hard time even thinking of giving up Adria. However, with Adria fearful of whether they can have a real relationship without a mate bond, he'll have to pull out all the stops to persuade her it could work. And when Riaz's mate shows up out of the blue heartbroken over her husband's declaration that he wants a divorce, it could put Riaz and Adria's tentative but growing connection in jeopardy.

Review

Tangle of Need is the eleventh full-length novel in Nalini Singh's Psy-Changeling series. SnowDancer lieutenant Riaz is a lone wolf who found his mate, only to discover that she was happily married to another. Wounded and hurting, he returned to the den to lick his wounds and has been there ever since. Adria is a dominant female who was mated to a submissive male, but their relationship took a heartbreaking turn, leading to a break-up. She, too, has returned to the den as a senior soldier, needing the solace of her pack. The two completely rub each other the wrong way, but there's an undeniable sexual attraction between them. After the two dominants butt heads for a while, they decide that they don't have to deal with their respective pain alone and agree to allow intimate skin privileges to comfort each other with no strings attached. The more Riaz and Adria share with one another and the more time they spend together, though, the harder it becomes for them to imagine life without the other, but just as they're about to make a tentative commitment, Riaz's mate unexpectedly turns up and appears to no longer be with her husband. Not wanting a repeat of her previous relationship, Adria pushes Riaz away so that he can pursue the other woman, but Riaz isn't having it. He'll pull out all the stops to woo his stubborn female and soothe her fears if it's the last thing he does.

We first met Adria, who is Indigo's aunt, in Indigo's book, Play of Passion, where we learned that she was a dominant female mated to a submissive male, something that rarely ever happens in pack life. As a result, she and her mate had been having a lot of difficulties in their relationship, and since then, have parted ways. Adria returned to the den as a senior soldier, but hurting from the break-up, she's walled herself off and has an icy demeanor. When she meets Riaz, they're like oil and water. They can barely stand each other despite being very sexually attracted. After fighting it for a while, Adria reluctantly invites Riaz to share skin privileges, which he turns down cold, leaving her even angrier. However, after sharing a few more moments together, he finally warms up enough to agree, and thus begins their steamy, no-strings affair. The longer it goes on, though, the more attached Adria becomes to her man, but she knows he's a lone wolf who may get wanderlust and leave her at some point. Also knowing that he's already found his mate, but can't have her, Adria fears getting her heart broken again if he suddenly regrets making a commitment to her. After Riaz's mate does show up, Adria tries to push him away in spite of being in love with him, thinking that she can't stand in the way of a mating bond. However, Riaz isn't ready to give up the obstinate female who challenges him and loves him with her whole heart. Adria is very prickly in the beginning, and although I understood how badly she'd been hurt, it made it a little difficult to relate to her. Slowly, over time, Riaz softens her up until I started to like her more, but I was perhaps just a touch frustrated that she didn't fight for him harder and still tried to push him away late in the story. She's very stubborn and takes a lot of convincing to allow Riaz fully into her heart.

As a SnowDancer lieutenant, Riaz is in change of international affairs for the pack, and as a lone wolf, he spent a lot of time by himself, representing their European interests. While overseas, he met a human woman who his wolf immediately recognized as his mate, but when he found out she was already happily married, he was heartbroken. Needing the comfort of his pack, he returned to the den in an earlier book and has been hanging out there since. When he meets Adria, she gets under his skin, but both man and wolf are angry about the attraction, which feels like a betrayal of his true mate. Although Changelings can't live for extended periods of time without skin-to-skin contact, Riaz nevertheless turns Adria down when she reluctantly offers him skin privileges. However, he later changes his mind, hoping to get her out of his system, but Adria's fiery nature and the way she challenges him only serve to deepen the attraction. Slowly she begins to soften toward him, making him even more reluctant to give her up. When his mate unexpectedly shows up, upset about her impending divorce, Riaz finds that even though it appears she'll soon be free, it's still only Adria he wants. But his stubborn female is fearful of being with someone who might break her heart again, leaving Riaz needing to pull out all the stops to persuade her otherwise. Riaz starts out just as prickly as Adria, so their early interactions were very rough and not my cup of tea, but I like how he slowly starts to soften as well. By the end, I was loving how they were interacting, and the way he sweetly courted Adria, trying to convince her that they could still be together in spite of all the things that seemed to be stacked against them, was very romantic.

Riaz and Adria's romance is a slow-burn, maybe not so much in the sexual sense, but in the sense that it takes them a while to figure out whether they can be together. In fact, this doesn't fully happen until the final pages of the book. Riaz must decide if he can get past the feeling of cheating on his mate to be with Adria, and then whether it's advisable for a male whose wolf has already identified his perfect mate to reject her to be with someone else even if it was basically out of necessity. Adria must also decide if she's willing to take a chance on a male who does have a mate out there even if that woman is with someone else. I did like them and understood where each of them was coming from, but this meant that virtually all of the conflict in their relationship was of an internal nature, which isn't always quite as compelling reading as it is if there's outside conflict as well.

This is one of those unusual Psy-Changeling books where the main romance only takes up a fraction of the story, leaving tons of page-time for other characters. Hawke and Sienna (Kiss of Snow) are still dealing with the aftermath of the big battle with Pure Psy, in which Sienna unleashed her X-fire. Sienna continues to feel some guilt over the destruction she caused, while learning her new role within the pack as the alpha's mate. Meanwhile Hawke deals with a lot of political maneuvering, along with his pack's health. Mercy and Riley (Branded by Fire) get a few scenes from their POV as they make a welcome discovery and later are even more surprised by it. Psy Arrows Aden (Shards of Hope) and Vasic (Shield of Winter) continue their work in a more independent way, which leads to some allyship with the Changelings who are trying to protect anchors in the PsyNet, while Vasic carries out a significant assassination. Kaleb is another important POV character as he works to shore up the PsyNet and continue his plotting and planning for the future. He's also searching for someone, and the way the book ends make me very excited to read his book, Heart of Obsidian, which is the next in the series. There are also plenty of other characters who didn't really get POV scenes but who play strong roles in the story, such as Indigo (Play of Passion), Lucas and Sascha (Slave to Sensation), and Judd (Caressed by Ice), as well as many others who show up in various capacitates, rounding out an extensive cast.

I felt like this was a transition book of sorts that takes us through the aftermath of the big battle with Pure Psy at the end of Kiss of Snow and into the what-comes-next phase. There's a ton of new world-building going on in this book that I'm sure will come into play in future books of the series. The PsyNet continues to deteriorate, putting all Psy, except those in their private networks, at risk, even though Kaleb appears to be working to shore it up. Since Pure Psy was unable to defeat the Changelings, they've now turned to an internal civil war between themselves and their desire to maintain Silence at all costs and the Psy who take a more nuanced view of it all. It doesn't help that Pure Psy is now going after the anchors in the PsyNet, further destabilizing it. We also learn more about the BlackSea Changelings and the Human Alliance, both of whom want to make pacts with the SnowDancer wolves, and by extension, the DarkRiver leopards. Ming LeBon makes plans to either capture or assassinate Sienna. The Arrows are still working behind the scenes to affect change as well, and that includes Judd, who gets an ominous, cryptic message from the Ghost near the end. Sascha, Lara, Tamsyn, Ashaya, and Amara continue their attempts to wake human scientist Alice Eldridge who may hold the key to several things. There's a great deal of tactical and political maneuvering happening that's interesting and that leaves a lot of room for additional storytelling within the series. However, there's very little action to speak of aside from a few minor skirmishes. All of this made Tangle of Need a good story, and one that needed to be told for the world-building aspects, but one that moves at a rather languid pace, especially for a longer book that clocks in at 400+ pages. Therefore, it's not going to become one of my absolute favorites in the series, but overall I did enjoy Riaz and Adria's romance and the book in general for the things that it adds to the Psy-Changeling world.

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Nalini Singh

Themes

Tortured Heroes
Tortured Heroines