Review: I liked it
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 22, 2012
This novella in the Offspring series serves as a companion piece to The Darkness Within.  It features the same band of characters and picks up shortly after that story left off.Shea has recently moved out of the house she shared with a makeshift family of other Offspring, nicknamed D'Rats.  She was starting to have feelings for Greer (one of the men there) but she couldn't deal with the mutual attraction because of a sexual assault in her past.  Now, Darius, another one of the D'Rats, is seeking her out in her new home. He wants a relationship with her, and is oblivious to the fact that she is not interested.It turns out one of the men who raped Shea has been killed and her connection to him makes her a person of interest in the case. It also alerts her father and the others of his kind to her existence.  The otherworldly beings are trying to kill off their Offspring and now she is in danger.In the meantime, Greer wants to protect Shea, both from Darius's unwanted advances and from the threat to her life.  He also wants to help her heal from her rape.  The story follows their tentative relationship as both Darius and Shea's father cause trouble.I liked the story. Greer is sexy and patient and quite wonderful with Shea.  Darius makes a suitable creepy villain. And I liked that Shea's dad wasn't all bad.  The love story was tender and the sex was pretty good.  I thought Shea's acceptance of physical love was a little abrupt, but otherwise I enjoyed the romance.I also like how simplified the concepts of Darkness and Offspring are presented here. Sometimes, the world-building is a little confusing in this series. But in this story, I thought it worked well.I hope we see the D'Rats again in the future.Rating: B