Set in the wilds of Africa, this is a story about a lion shifter and his mate, another big cat. Zee may be a price, and he may be expected to continue the royal line by producing offspring, but he is gay. And when he unexpectedly finds hi also very male mate, he is ecstatic and devastated at the same time. Unsurprisingly the "traditionalists" in the tribe have a problem with the prospect of a gay king, and organize a confrontation in which Zee has to fight to the death.

If you like shifter stories with all the standard elements, if you enjoy exotic settings, and if you're looking for a read with lots of hot man-on-man action, the you will probably like this short novella. ( )

I'm... not entirely sure what to rate this, because my enjoyment of it was all over the place. I ended up rating it by my feelings at the end of the story, and by then I wasn't too into it anymore.

So, the first half or so of the book was good. The sex was hot, the characters I liked, the idea behind how they came to be what they are was weird, but interesting, and it was a nice bit of fluff on the rest. The relationship didn't seem to have much going besides sex, but I could overlook that. I could even overlook the random usage of another language (I don't mind a few words or a phrase now and again; I understand, you want to be realistic about it, but honestly when: a. the rest of the book they speak English and b. you're going to provide a translation of what they say anyway, then you really don't need to put entire pieces of dialog in the original language your character is from, you can just say "he said in (whatever language of your choosing)" - this is a personal pet peeve though.)
Anyway, I should have stopped reading when they became mates.

After that, I felt the story just got worse and worse. It could have been good, but it wasn't. And then, it almost completely lost me on "walla". No. Just no. That's not how you spell it, and if you spelled that wrong, I have no trust that you spelled any of the other foreign words right. Don't get me wrong, anyone can have typos. But "walla" is not a typo.

And then the little bit at the end with the fight off, and the real lions coming, and just bleh, no. So not cool.
So, ready for a 4 stars at the start, dwindled to a 3, and left it at 2 to be kind, because I enjoyed the first half, but disliked the last half.
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