Woof, this one was Dark with a capital D (which rhymes with P which stands for P*dophilia!) This was definitely more of what I was thinking of in terms of the Lords of Chaos and their role as villains, but Raphael’s trauma— and it ABOUNDED— really ate the whole story. I loved Iris and how justifiably annoyed she was in the beginning at his avoidance and indecisiveness, but then it just felt like he was running and she was hounding. She felt like both a victim in her glutton for punishment role and the attacker in her insistence on seducing him. And it was hard to feel like the sex scenes were sexy when they kept happening after revelations about his traumatic past and the Lords of Chaos. I’m glad there is at least one more novella to read, cause yeah, I’d hate to leave Maiden Lane here, and also only Hugh shows from any of the previous books, we don’t even get to see Alf, so that was a shame.