Leopard's Scar

Edgy and dramatic: powerful characters

LEOPARD’S SCAR is the fourteenth instalment in Christine Feehan’s contemporary, adult LEOPARD erotic, paranormal romance series. This is fixer/Leopard shifter Gedeon Volkov, and Meiling Chang’s story line. LEOPARD’S SCAR can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous story lines is revealed where necessary but for back story and cohesion, I recommend reading the series in order.

WARNING: Due to the nature of the story line premise there may be triggers for more sensitive readers.

Told from dual third person perspectives (Meiling and Gedeon) LEOPARD’S SCAR follows the building but contemptuous relationship between leopard shifters Gedeon Volkov, and Meiling Chang. Meiling was too late to rescue her ‘cousin’ from a human trafficking ring but the appearance of a Leopard male shifter meant Meiling had only a matter of time to make her escape. A series of explosions destroying the compound and all survivors left Gedeon Volkov temporarily blinded and unable to walk, and Meiling found herself nursing the shifter back to health. Desperate for Meiling’s help, Gedeon offers Meiling a job, a partnership ‘fixing’ that which cannot be fixed but a partnership in business terms only. Gedeon suspects Meiling is a Leopard shifter who has yet to reach the Han Vol Dan (female leopard’s first heat), and in this, Meiling’s continual denial of herself threatens the relationship between our leading couple. Gedeon’s leopard is dangerous, dark and in constant need of sexual gratification but he refuses to cross the line with the woman with whom he will fall in love instead opting for a series of meaningless women, inciting jealousy in our story line heroine. As Meiling and Gedeon work together on a number of search and rescue assignments, Meiling struggles to keep her leopard under control knowing Gedeon is their mate but a man who has issues with a monogamous relationship. What ensues is the slow building relationship between Meiling and Gedeon, and the potential fall-out as the past continues to hunt for our story line heroine.

Both Meiling and Gedeon lost their families to murder at the hands of an assassin leaving our couple the only surviving members of their Leopard clans. Meiling and Gedeon are descended from a long line of powerful shifters, and in this, Meiling has been targeted by the people at the top. Gedeon has been biding his time, exacting revenge against the Leopards who destroyed his family and his Lair but never expected the betrayal to come from someone he knew.

The relationship between Meiling and Gedeon is a slow building relationship predicated upon revenge and betrayal, desperation and need. Meiling suspects Gedeon is her mate but Gedeon refuses to place Meiling in danger knowing his Leopard is demanding and deadly. Refusing to accept Meiling as their mate, Gedeon continues to push away the woman with whom hr will fall in love. The $ex scenes are erotic, provocative and intense.

There is a large ensemble cast of powerful and familiar secondary and supporting characters including but not exclusive to the Amurov Leopard Crime Family Evangeline and Fyodor Amurov (Leopard’s Blood #8), Timur and Ashe Amurov (Leopard’s Run #10), Elijah Lospostos, Jake Bannaconni, and Drake Donovan. The requisite evil has many faces.

LEOPARD’S SCAR is a story of betrayal and vengeance, power and control, greed and hunger, violence and death, acceptance and love. The premise is edgy and dramatic; the romance struggles in the face of perceived betrayal; the characters are numerous, powerful and determined.

Now to address a new ‘revelation’- a species of Leopard with the ability to create and control dragon fire, a group known as the Dragon Throne Justice. I am not sure where the author is going with this new plot twist but it is beginning to sound too much like the Carpathian series.