It’s been a while since Lee and Lili gave us a new Drakeon book, but here we are with Draekon Warlord. We’re with Fifth of the Crimson Force and his story, along with Naomi, one of the human women he saved.
So, Naomi was tortured by the Zorhan scientists. She has some serious PTSD issues. Fifth, Danek, saved her. He killed the scientists and sat with Naomi while she was healing. He’s been there for her. Naomi has been very glad of that. But at 61 days after being rescued, she’s still stuck where she’s at. She leaves her apartment to go to therapy, to go running, and that’s it. On the day that she decides that 61 days has been too long, she leaves her apartment, and as she’s walking down the hall, she hears Danek being asked to do a mission. She walks into his apartment, and somehow ends up as part of the mission. It’s not easy though, especially as there is an alert one night before they have to leave and the sirens and the scientist coming to make sure that she evacuates trigger a massive PTSD event. She worries that she’s a liability, especially since Danek seems to think that she’s too weak and a liability and that she’s going to cause the mission to fail.
Meanwhile, we have Danek. He knows that Naomi is his mate, and it’s not that he thinks she’s too weak. It’s that she’s his mate and he doesn’t want to put her in danger. He does worry about how well she can cope, but that’s because he saw where she was when he rescued her, and that kind of got stuck in his head. Because he’s so protective, it’s easy for him to do that, so when he gets tricked into taking her on his mission, he does actually tell her that he thinks that she can’t do it. Which of course, Naomi doesn’t take very well.
The resilience that Naomi shows is amazing. It isn’t easy to handle trauma of any sort, and her was on the more severe end, and the fact that she was able to come through as well as she did just shows how strong she is. (Note, I am not saying anyone who has issues coming through with their trauma or deals with it differently is weak, because that is so far from the truth.) I think that she will probably always have to deal with certain triggers, because that’s the way that PTSD and healing from trauma works. I like the fact that she knows that she can handle it and that she will be ready for her life. I really respect that. I was so happy to see her happiness, humor, and her sassiness come out.
Danek has a huge streak of guilt, and I understand why he does. I think that adds some to his overprotectiveness when it comes to Naomi. And of course, seeing her the way that she was when he rescued her doesn’t help. He’s always going to go to the fear place for her. I think that things she did in this one will help him handle it better.
OK, that’s all for this one. No spoilers today. Go check it out!
In Between the Pages 