Prince of Faith by Belinda McBride

 Held captive in a whorehouse, Markus Dayspring wakes every morning with a thirst for revenge, and collapses every night with a prayer for strength. He lives on in spite of deadly addictions and a crippling, shameful secret. When he’s rescued by a man from his past, his reawakened love threatens to crush his damaged soul.

Caius also has a secret, one that could ultimately kill him. But his vow to rescue Markus is stronger than guilt, fear and even his loyalty to King Helios. Too many have died because of Caius and rescuing the missing prince might allow him to sleep without nightmares.

Old habits are hard to break and new pain threatens their growing love. Yet one gleaming ray of hope continues to guide them to safety, even in the face of an unexpected violation of trust. With the stakes growing higher by the hour, Markus and Caius must learn to have faith before they can heal and face the future together.

I need to start off this review by stating that I’m an idiot. I’m not sure what made me think it was a good idea to start on Book 3 of a series, but it was a big mistake. Don’t do it – especially for this one. That being said – I can’t wait to go back and read the first two books!

Apparently (remember, I had to figure a lot of this out as I went along and fill in the blanks with the rest), Markus is the cousin of a king who had been sold into sex slavery. He’s been searching for years on various brothel planets with the king’s general to locate him. Right when it seems he’s about to achieve victory – he is betrayed by both the general and the king. For people who’ve read the earlier books, they know that General Griffin and Helios are lovers and that everyone believes Markus to be a dirty, rotten, betraying scoundrel. Not the case – poor guy’s been framed.

Jump forward a couple years. Once it becomes clear that Markus isn’t the betrayer he’d seemed, King Helios sends Caius to rescue his cousin who’s also been sold into sex slavery. Caius and Markus have an epic back story (which I need to read!), and  both have changed enormously from the time they first knew one another and fell in love – something they both denied, so never acted upon. When Caius finds Markus, he discovers a man who’s been beaten and almost broken, abused in horrific ways, and addicted to various drugs – including a horrible aphrodisiac that keeps him in a constant state of blue balls. But Caius has demons of his own.

This is an angsty tale of two men fighting seemingly insurmountable odds to be together. What I loved about both of them is that even though they approach things differently and come from different worlds, they are strong and they are fighters. They’re determined to protect those who they love, even at the cost of themselves. Their chemistry was strong and unmistakable, and I was completely invested in their love story. There’s more of an emphasis on story than sex (despite the subject matter), but it works perfectly and when these two do get together – phew – they are hot.

McBride is an amazing storyteller, her writing flows well and the story wasn’t predictable. The secondary characters worked for me, although I wasn’t as invested in Tess as I think the author wanted – I have a feeling she’ll get her own story as she seemed to be gender fluid. I’d still be interested in that because I love a good gender flex story, plus I think if I knew her better, I’d care more.

Overall, stop what you’re doing right now, buy this series and get to reading. Those damn presents can go wrap themselves. I give this 4 and a half lizard claws.

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