Review: Enraptured – Elisabeth Naughton

Enraptured by Elisabeth Naughton
Series:  Eternal Guardians #4
Release Date:  April 3, 2012
Publisher:   Sourcebooks
Page Count:  416
Source:  Provided by Author
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Orpheus may have joined the elite protectors known as Eternal Guardians, but they’ve never trusted whose side he’s really on. And the half-daemon couldn’t care less. Orpheus has only one goal: rescue his brother from the Underworld. He’s not expecting a woman to get in the way, especially not one sent by Zeus to seduce, entrap, and then ultimately destroy him. A woman who will dredge up a past he doesn’t remember, a love that once condemned him, and a dark and deadly secret as old as the Eternal Guardians themselves. 

Orpheus, now bearing the mark of the Eternal Guardian since the “death” of his brother, lives with a secret he is trying to hide from the rest of the guards…his daemon half.  But if he is going to go into Tartarus to save Gryphon’s soul, he’s going to need that evil part of him.  It’s that dark half that leads him to Maelea, the outcast daughter of Persephone and Zeus, at an outdoor metal concert.  He believes her to be the key to getting into Tartarus and getting the Orb of Kronos to release his brother’s trapped soul (the orb, when joined with the four elements of life can release the Titans from their prison in Tartarus…which is a bad thing).  But while at that concert, Orpheus also discovers Skyla.

Skyla, part of Zeus’ elite Siren execution team, is sent on a mission by Athena and Zeus to find Orpheus and get the Orb from him once he finds he.  But once Skyla meets Orpheus, she knows there is more to what is going on than what she was told.  Skyla agrees to follow Orpheus on his quest, saying she is going to protect Maelea, but she knows it’s because of who Orpheus is that she’s going to help him.  Despite what Zeus and Athena have said about Orpheus, Skyla can sense the good in him and once she knows what he is attempting to do with the Orb is not about himself but saving is brother, it proves to her that he truly is a warrior and a protector.

Orpheus is one of those men that likes to walk around with an IDGAF attitude when the truth is, they do.  In the previous Eternal Guardian books, he would help his brother, the other guardians and the princess…but at a price.  But in Enraptured, we find out there is so much more to Orpheus.  Despite what he might think about himself (thanks to his father) or what he portrays to everyone else, Orpheus is a great warrior and deserves to be a guardian.  He proves that over and over in this book.  The lengths he goes to in order to save the only family member to ever love him says it all.

Enraptured is my favorite of the Eternal Guardians series, although I think Orpheus will be bumped by his  little brother’s story this fall.