Up until now in submissive wolves have only been mentioned in passing in this world. In this installment, we are given more information on submissive wolves and I like that it is explained that they are not necessarily weaker than more dominant wolves, it’s just a difference of roles in the pack. Something else I really appreciated is that we got glimpses of Anna’s trauma and it is a very realistic depiction of how trauma isn’t something a person just “gets over”. It’s a process and takes time and Anna is shown going through the motions. There was not a lot of time to develop Charles and Anna’s relationship in the first book, but this book makes up for it. Charles further displays that he is a respectful romantic partner and is very conscientious about making Anna feel as comfortable as possible in their relationship.



**MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD**



This is clearly shown when Charles chooses to lay Anna on top of him while they are in bed so that she doesn’t panic in the middle of the night if he wakes up on top of her. Clearly this is something he could only know happens if Anna has panicked in the past when he did that, so kudos to Charles for opting to not trigger his romantic partner. I know that’s probably like bare minimum decent partner behavior, but I’m sure Anna still appreciates how observant and caring is about her needs, so I think it deserves to be observed. It’s also a testament to her survival of sexual abuse and the psychological repercussions that show up within her intimate relationship with Charles. 

We also get to see how his and Anna’s relationship with their wolves are very different. Charles seems to have more open communication with his wolf, and it feels more like he is having an internal conversation with him. On the other hand, Ana’s wolf seems to take over as more of a separate personality when she is feeling more impulsive or emotional. That would explain why Anna’s wolf seems to be more prominent in their sex life. Charles is aware of this and does a pretty good job of making sure that anything they do together Anna is aware of and consents to as well. Anna and Charles have excellent communication when it comes to placing boundaries as shown by their conversation about Anna and her wolf being separate entities and whether Anna’s sexual attraction towards Charles is genuinely because of her or just a symptom of her Anna’s wolf meeting her needs and wants. The idea of Anna not being as attracted to him as her wolf is something that hurts Charles to think about, but I really appreciated that he was open about not wanting the same sort of relationship his father, Bran, has with his wife Leah. It was clear from Cry Wolf that Bran and Leah are in more of a partnership of convenience than anything else. Charles makes known through his internal narration that he wants his feelings to be fully reciprocated by Anna and he is constantly afraid that they may not be due to the mating nature of their relationship. Overall I think this sequel gave Anna and Charles's relationship a lot 
more depth and gave more perspective as to how Anna’s sex life and interpersonal relationship 
with her new husband is affected by her past abuse. 

As far as the ultimate mystery the plot revolves around, I was both very interested in the 
outcome and quite disheartened. I loved Arthur and Sunny as characters which made their deaths 
so much more unfortunate. I know that it was a running joke that Arthur thought he was the 
reincarnation of King Arthur, but I didn’t predict he was quite that nuts. I mean, he planned the murder of his wife who he really did care about. It’s amazing to think that most of his actions were based on the illusion that Anna was the reincarnation of Guinevere and that he was meant to be with her. He was definitely off his rocker; I just didn’t expect it to be that bad. Again, in a sense it was disappointing to me that Arthur was the killer because I liked Sunny and him so much. Sunny had no idea what an asshole she was married to. A coward too considering he had to hire other people to outsmart and kill his enemies for him because he couldn’t do it himself. It still made for an interesting story and Arthur will be a character that will stick in my memory.  Just as an honorable mention, I really liked getting to meet Tag. He seems like a fun character and I hope we get to see more of his friendship with Anna. We didn’t see quite that much of him here, but he was so charming that we didn’t really have to have more time with him for him to be likeable. I’m looking forward to seeing him in future books.