Well first off, this book begins a new series that is a spin-off of the Immortals After Dark series and takes place in the IAD world. Truthfully, there were quite a few references to characters in that series and it took place parallel to 'Lothaire' so that I would strongly recommend that the IAD series be read first. 
 This is the story of one of Lothaire's Dacian family members, Trehan Daciano, and of the half-demon/half-Sorceri Bettina who is the Royal Princess of a demon realm. Trehan is an assassin who lives to do his duty to his people. His duty takes him into the Death Demon realm tracking a demon who broke the biggest Daciano law which involves protecting the secret of his people's existence and how to find them by never letting anyone who enters their realm leave. 
 At the same time, Bettina is up against being a prize along with her kingdom to the winner of a 'to the death winner take all' tournament. It came about because she was attacked in the human realm by Vrekeners and syphoned of her magic and left near death. Her godparents have decided that she is too vulnerable alone so seek a strong protector for her mate. Bettina agrees with this in exchange for her godparents to exact revenge on her attackers and get her magic back. However, now that the event is upon her, she is terrified to be stuck with one of the horrifying candidates who have come to win the prize of the kingdom. She has hope that her friend Cas will save her by mating her before the event, but he makes it clear that he only wants friendship with her and has troubles of his own. 
 When Bettina drunkenly mistakes Trehan for Cas, it starts a whole new chain of events. Cas is the target of Trehan and Bettina is Trehan's 'Bride'. And things get real interesting when both Cas and Trey enter the tourny. 
 Overall, I enjoyed the book, but there is one part that I wasn't entirely sold on- Bettina. Now don't get me wrong, I liked Betttina. I just struggled with her being Trehan's Bride at times. She's so young and acts her age and he's so ancient. The storyline is good and they both had some stuff to work through and in many ways they clicked. The playfully dangerous tone and IAD worldbuilding were the usual wonderful stuff. I loved bumping into Nix and Lothaire along with Sabine and a MacReive twin. I am definitely looking forward to getting the story of the next Daciano.