Defended by the Alien Gladiator: Warrior Mates of Zivon, Book 4 by Presley Hall

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

He’s the most fearsome gladiator on this alien planet. And I’m meant to be his prize.

I shouldn’t even be here. Somehow, I’ve gone from living an ordinary life back on Earth to being offered up as a reward to the victor of an alien death match on a planet called Teneca. And when the massive warrior with two-toned eyes strides out into the arena, cold fear fills me. Sure, he might be more gorgeous than any man I’ve ever seen, but he’s also a brutal fighter, and there’s a coldness to his expression that makes me think he stopped feeling emotions a long time ago.

I’m terrified of what he’ll do to me if he wins me…until the strangest thing happens—he tries to rescue me instead. But when our escape attempt fails, can this savage alien gladiator truly keep me safe? Can he protect me from our captors? And more importantly, can he protect me from himself?

Defended by the Alien Gladiator

Good story and series!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 🖤💙❤️💚🩵
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌍
Character development: 🙂🙁😋😘
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration

The heroine: Scarlett – while she lived on earth, she was a vegetarian who worked at an animal shelter. Since being abducted by aliens and sold as a slave, she was brought to a city filled with sex and violence and is now owned by an alien named Basta. Now she is the one that is kept in a cage. She is in just a slip and her cage is surrounded by other cages filled with large men. She is in a gladiator arena and doesn’t know what is in store for her.

The Hero: Akos – he once had a happy life, until the Kruul attacked his home planet. For the past five years he has been a slave in the gladiator arena. He is tall and strong, one of Basta’s best fighters who is feared by many, including the guards. His life consists of sleeping and fighting. When he sleeps, he often dreams of being at war with the Kruul and of all the people he lost. He was captured by accident after he was separated from his people and had to land on an unknown planet where he was drugged and chained. Basta hates Akos, but the crowds love him, and he makes a lot of money for Basta.

The Story: Scarlett is taken from her cage, given a bath, shaved from the neck down and dressed in a gauzy gown and she fears for what is in store for her. Especially after she hears she is to be a prize for the winning gladiator in the fights that day. Basta brings her to the arena and announces that she will be the prize for the winner of the next fight. He also announces that the fight will be to the death. When Akos wins the battle, he refuses to kill his opponent and when Basta drags Scarlett to the arena floor and announces the opponent, named Hive has won since Akos didn’t follow the rules.

I always hate it when the main characters are slaves or imprisoned by others and are hurt, tortured, or made to do things they don’t want to do. So, I was hoping from when I found out that Scarlett and Akos can’t escape captivity, that Akos’s brother Nyx and some other Zivonians would find him and break them out. In the previous book, Nyx was out in the galaxy looking for Akos, so it wasn’t completely out of nowhere. I won’t tell you what happened but it was a pretty good story. There was more than a few steamy scenes and I liked the characters quite a bit.

This audiobook was told in multiple points of view and narrated in dual narration by C.J. Grey and Stefanie Kay. Both of these are great narrators. C.J. Grey has a deep, gravelly voice which works well for alien romance. Stefanie Kay has a clear, feminine voice and sounds the right age for the heroine. They do a good job and I am happy to listen to more books by these narrators.

Blog|Goodreads|Facebook|Instagram|Twitter|BookBub

View all my reviews