Phantom Warriors: Sabertooth (Book 2) by Jordan Summers

**This blog contains adult language and discussion of....ahem....adult activities.**

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!!  This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself.  Do NOT continue to read unless you want to have the story completely and utterly spoiled.

Book Description: Katy Manfred is tired of being sent on wild goose chases by her boss.  Her latest job is the worst one yet.  He wants her to go to the La Brea Tar Pits to trap a saber-tooth tiger.  Talk about an impossible task!  They haven't existed for over eleven thousand years.  The hunter is about to become the hunted.  Kegar knew he shouldn't have snuck off the Phantom Warrior ship without permission but he was eager to begin his search for a mate.  The last thing he expected was to be shot in the flank by a beautiful blonde bent on making a science project out of him.  Naked and back in human form, Kegar awakes to find the woman of his dreams bending over him.  What's a feline in heat to do?  Why pounce of course.  It'll take all Kegar's sensual skills to bring out the hidden wildcat in Katy and convince her that she's his perfect mate, but this big cat is more than up to the task.


That's a mess.  I won't even go into the story inaccuracy because you'll figure out that on your own but MALE CATS DO NOT GO INTO HEAT!!!!!  For fuck sakes, Summers, it would have just taken a quick Google search to figure that out.

TRIGGER WARNING: This book also contains dubious consent.  It's even worse this time because as the pheromones are affecting her, she's desperately trying to keep saying no to him.  In the end, she's overcome and Summers says she's a willing participant over and over in an effort to convince us but I'm not buying it.

This book was published in 2006 and it's the sequel to the one I posted in June.  Basically the men in these books are aliens who have come to Earth to seek mates because women on their planet are rare. They belong to a race called the Phantom Warriors and it's made of four shifter types: Blood Clan (vampire vipers), Wing Clan (pteradactyl birds), Claw Clan (sabertooths) and Tooth Clan (wolves/bears). Bacchus and Carrie were our protagonists for the first book. If you want to refresh your memory about their story, follow the damn link because I'm not going to type it all out again.

Chapter one starts with a news report about a saber-tooth tiger being spotted recently at the La Brea Tar Pits. For those of you who don't know about the tar pits, here's a link for that too.  Don't tell me I never gave you anything. Our protagonist Katy immediately thinks it's some kind of prank. That's reasonable. Saber-tooth tigers have been extinct for a hot minute after all. We learn a couple of things about Katy. 1) she has strawberry blonde hair and 2) she's all alone in the world. This seems to be a common theme. Carrie was also mostly alone in the world. I guess that's how Summers makes it palatable that these men are stealing them away from their planets.

Anyway, Katy works for some company named Bio-Tech. Summers doesn't bother to tell us what it is or what she does other than she “cleans up other people's messes” in regards to wild animals. Her boss Roger calls her and she already knows what he's about to do. She and Roger used to date but it didn't work out and now he's trying to force her to quit by sending her on ridiculous assignments. She knows he's going to send her to the tar pits to look for the extinct tiger. Sure enough, he does. She grabs a pistol as well as a dart gun and a snare and heads out. She's assuming that the saber-tooth is actually a lion that some idiot has been keeping as a pet. It happens.

We get a very, very brief biology lesson about how saber-tooth tigers are actually more closely related to lions despite their name, so most of the scientific community now refers to them as saber-tooth cats.  I have no idea whether that's actually true or not but I'm going to go by the creatures preferred genus and call him a cat from now on.

When Katy gets to the location, there's a crowd gathered. She asks if anyone knows where the cat went. A little boy approaches her and tells her that he knows where the “kitty” is but no one believes him. The kitty talked to him and told him to keep it a secret but he punks immediately and takes Katy right to the bushes where the cat is hiding. Katy thanks him and sends him on his way.

Katy grabs her dart gun and crouches down to peer into the bushes. A pair of green eyes stares back and she realizes this animal is an honest-to-God saber-tooth. She's a little stunned. The cat doesn't seem particularly concerned about her. He yawns, displaying his 7-inch serrated teeth. Katy is fascinated. He seems to be studying her and there's an air of intelligence about him that confuses her. She takes a good look at him and estimates him to be about 1000 pounds of sheer muscle and she's rather impressed by the size of his.....ahem.....saber. It's a weird moment, people.  I think Summers has a bit of kink to her.

Katy radios for backup and then aims a dart at his flank. She hears the words “Don't do it!” in her head so loud that she spins around to see who said it. No one's there. She aims again and hears “please don't” quieter this time. She remembers what the kid said about the “kitty” talking to him and she asks the cat if he's talking to her. He doesn't answer and she feels like an idiot. She fires the dart into the cat and hears a bellow of pain and rage in her head even though the cat makes no external sound. She starts to worry about schizophrenia.

Katy's backup arrives and they get the cat into a cage and into the back of her truck. She's supposed to take it right to Bio-Tech. The normal procedure is to examine the animal and collect any reward that's being offered. If no one claims the animal, it's used in genetic research. Katy is uneasy about what might happen to such a rare creature. She knows the company won't bother to find out where he belongs – they're just going to experiment on him. 

Katy decides she's going to take him home instead. She wants credit for this scientific discovery and knows Roger won't give it to her. This seems like a pretty stupid plan. Her backup knows she has the thing and the first place they'll look is at her house. But I guess she's just planning to take a bunch of pictures of him to make sure everyone knows she discovered him first and then she's going to go ahead and turn him over for experimentation. So she's not really doing this out of the goodness of her heart but for some kind of gain. Nice.

Katy parks the truck in her garage and then locks her bag of weapons in the house. I'm sure that won't be important or anything. She removes the tarp covering the cage and almost faints in shock. The cat is gone and a naked man with a tranq dart sticking out of his shapely ass has taken its place. She can't figure out what happened. She takes a minute to appreciate the size of his....ahem....todger....and tells us her own kitty starts tingling in response. ((I'll take things I didn't need to know for 1000, Alex.)) Then she gets back to the matter at hand. How did she end up with a dude instead of a cat?

Her first thought is that someone switched the cages and stole the cat but she dismisses that pretty quickly. There wouldn't have been time or opportunity. Next she decides that maybe they were all given some kind of hallucinogen that made them think they captured a cat when it was really a guy all along. This alarms her for many reasons, none of which involve the fact that she darted an innocent man. She thinks he's in on it and therefore isn't sorry she knocked his ass out.

She opens the cage, eyeing his amazing ass the entire time. She needs to yank the dart out so she has some kind of hope of waking him up and finding out what the big plan is and why someone did this to her. As soon as she pulls the dart out, he wakes up which......is not how science works, Summer. Whatevs. He disarms her.........

Wait.

Wait a damn minute.

I'm not going to stand for these shenanigans, Summer. I'm not. SHE LOCKED HER FUCKING WEAPONS UP IN HER HOUSE AS SOON AS SHE GOT HOME. SHE HAS NO FUCKING PISTOL FOR HIM TO TAKE.

Deep breaths.

We're going to make it.

He takes her non-existent pistol from her and pins her down in the bed of the truck with his naked body. She likes it a lot but puts up a show of protesting. He tells her to shut up, in her mind again and not out loud. She freaks out and tries to get out from under him which just makes him......ahem......stand at attention if you know what I mean. The throb comes back and she panics because she shouldn't be getting turned on in this situation. He tells her to stop struggling (note: he's not talking out loud at any point in this – it's all telepathic) and she responds with “fuck you” which makes him grin. He asks if that's an invitation and she tells him it was not but she doesn't sound so sure.

He reaches down to touch her hair, commenting about how unusual the color is. He pets it a little and she soaks up the attention from this perfect stranger who is naked and pinning her down.

He sniffs her and tells her that he likes her smell and she thanks him. She asks if he's going to let her up and he tells her no.

We switch to Kegar's head now. He likes this female. She is strong and not afraid to fight him. That's prized among his people. He tells us he left the ship without permission and he knows they are trying to track him down. As soon as they find him, they'll make him leave so he doesn't have much time to find a mate. Katy tells him she doesn't like being pinned down by him but she says it in a 'fuck me' voice and he knows she's lying to him.

Then we get this.

Prepare yourselves.

It's awful.

It's three of the worst sentences I've ever read in my life.

“I can smell your feminine heat. It beats at me. Right now your entrance creams in anticipation of my hard shaft.”

#gag

Suddenly we're back in Katy's head but it doesn't feel intentional. It feels like Summers just forgot that we were in Kegar's head instead. Katy is massively turned on and feels a deep connection to this STRANGER. She asks him what he did with the cat and he tells her he'll show her eventually.

Kegar gets up and throws Katy over his shoulder like a caveman. She doesn't even protest. She runs her hands all over his back and admires his ass and the graceful way he walks as he goes inside her house.......

FUCK YOU, SUMMERS! THAT HOUSE IS FUCKING LOCKED AND YOU KNOW IT! YOU TOLD US SHE LOCKED IT!

Deep breaths.

We're going to be fine.

He stops inside and asks her where her “sleep paddock” is. She has no idea what he's talking about but he just puts his nose to the air and sniffs. She's stunned when he goes directly to her bedroom. He tells her he followed her “ripe scent” (#gag) and she's offended that he thinks she stinks. He tells her she smells delicious. Very, very gently he puts her down on her bed and she immediately rolls off to confront him. They stalk each other around a little and she's disturbed by how much she wants to boink this perfect stranger. Kegar tells us it's the pheromones and here we are again. I was really hoping it wouldn't happen this time but again, Summers basically has Kegar “roofie” Katy with his magical pheromones to the point where she can't resist him.

This will be my last book of the series, y'all. I can't get behind this.

The pheromones start affecting Katy pretty strongly. Her body wants him but her brain is resistant. She isn't going to let him get to her. She demands to know who he is and what he did with the cat. He tells her he took nothing. He gives her his name but doesn't tell her what he is. She's literally ripping her clothes off at this point because of his stupid manipulation. I'll stop here because I don't approve of this at all but you know what happens.

Just a note.....he has “fleshy nodes” on his....ahem....rooster (if you know what I mean)....that feel like “a thousand tiny fingers” and Katy apparently likes it very much.  I'm just imagining what that would feel like if she ever....ahem....obeys Obama if you know what I mean.  Can't be good, folks.  Can't be good.

Afterwards, Kegar tells her he's an alien on the quest for a mate because women are going extinct on his planet. She doesn't believe him and assumes he's jacking her around. Even though he is still communicating with her telepathically AND he had weird doodads on his dingle. They argue and then have sex again. Like lions. #Summershasaweirdkink

Roger calls after they get done with that and demands to know where the cat is. He says she's fired and he's coming over in 30 minutes and she better turn it over or something ominous is going to happen to her. I don't know what that is but I'm sure it's super ominous. Katy begs Kegar to tell him where he put the saber-tooth because she's about to lose her job. Actually she already lost her job but Summers NEVER FUCKING REMEMBERS WHAT SHE JUST WROTE THREE SECONDS AGO. Kegar isn't concerned with her job. She won't need it on his planet.

Kegar tells her the cat was an illusion. She insists she didn't shoot an illusion and he nods and says “you shot me”. She still doesn't fucking get it because she's hella dumb.

Roger comes in and starts being a huge prick to Katy. He tells her she “reeks of sex” and then makes some rather disparaging remarks about her prowess in bed. Suddenly the saber-tooth leaps out of nowhere and tackles him to the ground. Roger screams for Katy to kill it but she notices that the saber-tooth has green eyes just like Kegar.

The penny FINALLY drops.

Kegar offers her his heart if she'll come with him to that planet he's from that I can never remember the name of. She tells him that she can't leave LA. For all intents and purposes it looks like she's talking to absolutely no one because Roger can't hear Kegar's part of the conversation. He thinks Katy has lost her mind. He's not wrong. She just met Kegar half an hour ago, she's had dubious consensual sex with him twice and now she's considering leaving Earth with him. That sounds pretty bonkers to me.

Kegar tells her that she will be worshipped among his people for being a fierce fighter and huntress and that they can use her skills as a tracker. He tells her they can take all her belongings with them but none of the stuff in the house is hers. It all belongs to her dead parents. She knows there's nothing left on Earth for her. Roger will have her arrested for theft or worse if she stays.

She tells Kegar to let Roger up. He does so reluctantly. Roger tells her that he'll have her arrested and Kegar destroyed. He goes to the front door and screams for the guards he brought with him to shoot Kegar. Suddenly Kegar goes invisible and shit starts to go down. The guards are dispatched pretty quickly and Roger ends up cowering behind a chair. Kegar passes through Katy while invisible just like Bacchus did to Carrie in the last book and I guess merged his code or whatever.

He also speaks out loud for the very first time and I admit I was shocked.  I thought he couldn't speak and that's why he only communicated telepathically for the entire damn book.  Apparently he just prefers to speak in Katy's mind for some reason.  

Also.....I just thought of this.  That boy at the tar pits heard him and Katy hears him but it seems like no one else can??????  What's up with that, Summers?  I don't think you know either to be fair.

Katy agrees to go to Zaron (I remembered!!!) with Kegar and he transports them to the ship. She takes nothing with her but the photographs of her parents. We get a brief epilogue at the end. Katy and Kegar are tracking a rogue Phantom Warrior in saber-tooth form. Katy's cat has strawberry blonde fur which I imagine is very pretty. They seem happy together. For now.

There's more of these. I think Talon is next. All we know about him so far is that he's the dude Bacchus hosed out of the Pleasurer appointment in the first book. Judging by his name, I'm guessing he's a member of the Wing Clan though. I'm not reading it. This pheromone thing gives me the creeps.