Tanner's Scheme by Lora Leigh

Back when Scheme Tallant's father first helped create the Breeds, humans with animal traits, he viewed them as nothing more than soulless animals, because they were made by humans, and not by God. Now, his opinion hasn't changed, but because the breeds achieved their dream of freedom to live as other humans do, he's joined up with racist and racial purity groups and their leaders to wipe out the breeds as a failed experiment.

Scheme has been her father's right hand ever since her mother passed away. But the truth is that her mother was murdered by her father when he found out that she was helping the breeds to escape. In truth, she hates her father and works to undo the evil that he plans against the breeds, by pretending to be his loyal and faithful right hand. What better way to remain close to him and learn his plans? In this, she is working for the Breed Council, specifically Jonas, the Breed's spymaster. But Jonas knows that her father also has spies in the Breed Council's camp, and so Scheme's part in the struggle of the breeds to remain free must remain unknown, for now.

But when her father finds out that she has betrayed him, he feels no sense of love for her any longer, and sends out her one-time lover, an assassin working for her father, the General, to kill her. His last vestige of love for her bids the assassin to kill her quickly and painlessly.

Scheme's life is saved by Tanner Reynolds, one of the only two Bengal breeds to survive the labs they were bred in. Tanner thinks of Scheme as evil, considering everything she has done for her father. But when he realizes that it is her father who wants her dead, he's determined to plumb this mystery himself, and he kidnaps Scheme to keep her safe and find the truth about everything she's done for her father.

He's always thought of her as strong and in control. But when she reveals the truth of her life under her father's control- beaten and locked in a lightless coffin when she made a mistake, and once even allowed to die of suffocation, only to be revived as further punishment, he begins to realize he doesn't know her at all, and perhaps she's not the monster he believes her to be. Alone together, he initiates a physical relationship with her that brings them closer together.

If only she would truly trust him. But how can she, when she knows her father has spies close to the Breed Council? She can't trust Tanner, no matter how many times he brings her to orgasm. But with her father's own loyal coyote breeds out after her to kill her, can she survive long enough to bring her information to Jonas, the one man she trusts?

I've read the two other books in the Breed Universe, "Megan's Mark" and "Harmony's Way", and this one felt much hotter to me than the other two, although Lora Leigh is very well known for the intensity of her writing. Even better than the sex in this one, though, was the storyline, which was strong and just as intense as the sexual heat between Tanner and Scheme.

Everything in this book was well-done, from the plotting to the sex, to the backstory on the Breeds. I am hoping at some point that Lora Leigh will set a book during the time of the Breed's escape from the labs and how they revealed themselves to the world and started to become accepted. They aren't completely accepted now because many humans still don't think of them as human, but as something else.

In short, an excellent book that's more erotica than romance, and despite the heated sex scenes, tells a story that wouldn't be out of place in a fantasy or science fiction book. It's classed as paranormal, but is more of a science fiction, since the idea of creating human/animal hybrids, or humans with animal genes sounds awfully science fictiony to me.