Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi

*Beware of Spoilers*

Devil to Pay is another short story in Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress series.  It originally appeared in the anthology, Four Dukes and a Devil.  Cat and Bones are in the story briefly, but they are not the main focus.  There is quite a bit of Bones’s Grandsire, Mencheres, though as the story is about a vampire he sired, Elise.

Blake is hunting death.  He’s been possessed by a demon for months and fears for the people the demon  will kill using his body, and he feels unbearable guilt for the people he’s already killed.  He will do anything to end it and knows that his death is the only way.

But when Elise comes across his battered and foul smelling body, she refuses to let him die.  She takes him to her sire, Mencheres, to see if he can save him, but is devastated to learn that he can’t.  Now they are traveling to the Salt Flats in Utah to render Blake’s death in a place that the demon will not be able to find a new host and will be forced to die as well.  But with the growing attraction between Blake and Elise, will she be able to send Blake to his death?

This short story was pretty bland to me and it just didn’t have the exciting and humorous feel of a Jeaniene Frost story.  To say I was disappointed would be a huge understatement.  And, it doesn’t seem to add anything to the Night Huntress series.

The characters were boring and one-dimensional.  I wanted to like Blake and Elise, but I just couldn’t connect with them.

Also, I found the storyline to be pretty predictable.  You knew that they wouldn’t end up killing Blake in a permanent way, and you also knew that they wouldn’t bring him back as a human.  The happily ever after was written all over this tale and there was nothing that really surprised me.