Exodus (Valen's Pack #2) by Bailey Bradford

 Survival of the fittest? Not when chaos rules.
Rivvie does his best as beta, but he’s lonely and secretly nursing a broken heart. He fell for Matthew instantly, to no avail. Matt was too busy screwing every female in sight. He didn’t give one whit about Rivvie. Well, he told Rivvie he wasn’t interested. Rivvie just didn’t think he meant it.

Matt’s whole life has changed. He was the good son, the village hero, and the village stud. Now he’s just a man in a pack full of exceptional men. He’s a human—smaller, weaker and slower than the shifter males he lives with. External chaos has nothing on the internal crap he deals with every day.

When Rivvie and Matt are paired together for a task, sparks fly. It’s just possible that there’s more to sex—and more to Rivvie—than Matt ever suspected.

While Rivvie is dancing around an attraction to a certain human male, his brother, Valen is trying to lead his pack and take care of his own mate, Aaron. Just when he thinks he’s got everything under control, that very control is yanked from him by a powerful series of natural disasters, and soon Valen’s leading his pack on an exodus he’d never expected.

Reader Advisory: This book contains scenes of BDSM, spanking, CBT and biting.

Exodus is the second book in Ms. Bradford’s Valen’s Pack series and I strongly recommend that you read Run With the Moon first so that you will fully understand what is occurring within the pack dynamics. In an attempt to help smooth the integration of the shifters and the humans, Valen decides to pair a human and a shifter to work together on the various tasks within their community so that they can get to know one another and form the bonds vital to a successful community. When Valen assigns his brother Rivvie to work with Aaron’s brother Matt, I was stoked. First off, that assignment meant that Exodus was indeed Rivvie’s book, which I wanted immediately upon finishing the first book. Second, it also meant that Matt was going to have to come to terms with the attraction he felt for Rivvie – something we learn rather quickly that he dealt with poorly after their initial meeting. And finally, IT’S RIVVIE’S STORY!!!

In case you can’t tell, I was kind of partial to Rivvie. As Rivvie and Matt “suck it up” and work together at their Alpha’s request, the reader has the opportunity to get to know Matt. With each bit of information I learned about Matt, I found that I liked him more and more and any lingering dislikes or hard feelings I had for him were pretty much obliterated when learning of his infertility and the feelings of insecurity he developed because of it. The upside to being the reader of Exodus is that I could appreciate the humor in the consistency of Rivvie and Matt’s miscommunications. Because they had been at odds for so long and because both were nursing some rather raw feelings, they both had a tendency to say the wrong thing and/or misinterpret what the other was saying. This added to the realism of their relationship and made their ultimate coming together that much sweeter … and hotter. Man. Wolf. Teeth. Need I say more?

What added to my overall enjoyment of Exodus is that while we get to see the romance between Rivvie and Matt take shape, we also get to see what Valen has to deal with as the pack Alpha. Ms. Bradford holds true to the series title – Valen’s Pack – and includes some rather tough situations for Valen and the pack to overcome. Not only are they challenged with the growing pains of an integrated pack, they also have to deal with attacks from outside of their pack from both humans and Mother Nature when the title of the book comes into play. While Valen was forced to make some hard choices, Rivvie was given the opportunity to show his true worth as his brother’s Beta and did so admirably. I loved the unexpected twist that Ms. Bradford included as a result of the human and shifter integration and am looking forward to see how that continues to play out in the next book in the series.

This is book two in the Valen’s pack series and should be read in order.

Even though this is Matthew and Rivvie story it’s also a continuation of Aaron and Valen as well. At the end of book one, we found Valen as Alpha of his old pack and Aaron mated to him. Aaron’s old village now lives with Val’s and they are all finding the new co-habitation interesting.  Once again Ms. Bradford has brought a storyline that has been played repeatedly and added a whole new chorus.  And I for one thoroughly enjoyed it! The way the characters deal with situation they are in, interact with each other makes you feel part of the family. The way Rivvie has grown up from book one to book two because of his new role as beta. Just the different levels of shifter coulter, living in this environment, I mean really, how often you find a shifter book talking about wolf semen, really?! I can’t wait for book three!

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