Alpha Night

Alpha Night (Pay-Changeling Trinity #4)- Nalini Singh
Berkley/Penguin Group
Release Date: June 9, 2020

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Alpha wolf Selenka Durev’s devotion to her pack is equaled only by her anger at anyone who would harm those under her care. That currently includes the empaths who’ve flowed into her city for a symposium that is a security nightmare, a powder keg just waiting for a match.
 
Ethan Night is an Arrow who isn’t an Arrow. Numb and disengaged from the world, he’s loyal only to himself. Assigned as part of the security force at a world-first symposium, he carries a dark agenda tied to the power-hungry and murderous Consortium. Then violence erupts and Ethan finds himself crashing into the heart and soul of an alpha wolf.
 
Mating at first sight is a myth, a fairytale. Yet Selenka’s wolf is resolute: Ethan Night, broken Arrow and a man capable of obsessive devotion, is the mate it has chosen. Even if the mating bond is full of static and not quite as it should be. Because Selenka’s new mate has a terrible secret, his mind surging with a power that is a creature of madness and death…

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Mating at first sight is a myth.  The kind of story for soap opera dramas and not real life.  Yet the minute Alpha Selenka Durev meets Arrow Ethan Night, her wolf knows they belong together- and grabs him.  Ethan has lived his adult life in a fog, not a part of anything- including his squad.  He believes between his tortured childhood under Ming LeBon and his current power fluctuations, he's damaged at best and one short step from being a murderous lunatic at worst.  So it comes as something of a shock to him when a powerful alpha wolf says he's hers and he instinctively agrees.  With the hard part out of the way they just have to work to help prevent the disintegration of the PsyNet, stop those actively trying to destroy it, figure out why theirs isn't a normal mating bond, and find a cure for what seems to be a fatal psychic illness destroying Ethan's brain from the inside out. 

Selenka is an awesome alpha- all teeth, claws, and heart- and Singh does an excellent job highlighting both of those roles in Selenka's day-to-day life.  She's also perfect for Ethan, able to teach him to play while also teaching him that it's possible to be both a killer and a protector instead of a monster.  Ethan is one of those gorgeous, deadly, and damaged creatures you just want to cuddle until everything is ok again.  Childhood trauma doesn't come close to describing the hell he grew up in, but he still grew up with his sanity intact- if perhaps hidden behind a few shields to let him cope.  But we meet Ethan while he's still willing to experiment and reach beyond those shields, still willing to try and feel things and not beyond saving.  

Selenka and Ethan have a chemistry that's unbelievably hot- and a rather shocking introduction to the world of emotions for poor Ethan!  They work perfectly together on every level.  Singh continues to give readers perfectly paired and complex couples that leave you saying "thank you!" after you meet them.  Singh (Wolf Rain) also continues in her amazingly intricate world building- it grows, develops. and makes the reader feel like they are immersed in the world on every single page.

As with all of the Psy-Changeling series, Alpha Night could be read as a stand alone book.  Many characters from previous books make appearances that will delight long-time readers (personally I'm a big fan of Kaleb and Nikita) but won't confuse newbies.  Several of the threats currently facing the PsyNet however, new readers won't get as much out of (and may get a little confused) if they haven't read at least the earlier Trinity books before.  But new readers should love Alpha Night enough that they'll immediately need to go read the other books anyway (and then re-read this one!), so it should work out. Alpha Night doesn't end as a cliff-hanger (thank you Nalini for rarely doing that to us) but readers will still be on the edge of their seats to discover what happens next in a world that seems just as read as our own.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review