Claimed

 Not so much a romance as a mystery, as it turns out. Not a BAD mystery, to be fair, since I didn't see the twist coming, even though there were plenty of hints leading up to it. Part of it might be that my expectations going into this weren't quite the same? Was expecting more romance, I guess. And I know lots of readers were unhappy with the cliffhanger, but I thought it wasn't so bad. I've read worse cliffhangers; at least this one isn't very jarring.

Anyway, this is really more a worldbuilding book than a romance. It's necessary, given that it's setting the groundwork for the existence of an entirely new race within the larger Black Dagger Brotherhood setting, but the romance could've done with some more tweaking.