I was enthralled for the entirety of the last book; I dove into this one as soon as I could download it from NetGalley to my Kindle. 
 Unfortunately, within the first few pages it bit me hard. Cat's been keeping HUGE secrets for her whole life, it's not something that's changed despite her love for Griffin. I knew that he had to find out - it's one of the things that I was hoping for instead of more sex at the end of the last book - but the way that it all went down didn't work so well for me. Griffin finds out from someone else, and is FURIOUS. And all I could think while he was questioning Cat, and not really wanting to hear her answers, is that he was throwing a temper-tantrum. It seemed completely out of character for not only he-himself, but for his feelings for Cat. And it made me wonder, as it made Cat wonder, how powerful and all-encompassing those feelings were. Was their love really so fragile? He knew she was keeping secrets, and had to have guessed (as his men did, I might add) that it was big, but he flies apart when he learns it. 
 I needed this to be resolved soon. I'm not a fan on tension in a relationship - not of this sort. It reeked a little too much of a Big Misunderstanding. Thankfully, it was resolved soon, but I still feel that Griffin's response is way beyond the bounds of what I've come to expect from his character. As this all happens in the first couple of chapters, I don't really feel that I'm spoiling anything. 
 Then, my other big complaint for this book, the next 15% seems to be nothing but sex, thinking about sex, or more sex. I already said in my last review how much I'm really over the sex-for-sex-sake and I began to worry that the story was going to get lost in their bed. After that we spent up until around the 30% mark for the story to really get moving again. 
 But then IT DID. Thank the Gods. I was so worried that this was going to be one of those series that has an awesome, fun, interesting first book only to fall flat in the next. While the first 1/3 of the book does feel like a transitory-filler, the rest of the book picks up the pace, the stakes, and pushes these characters into new and terrifying directions. There's a lot of new things learned, some eye-popping moments, and plenty of mythology to wrap my head around. The action and adventure part of the story doesn't let up for the majority of the rest of the book, and I was turning pages just as fast as I could read them. I finished this book in a matter of hours - after starting it immediately upon awakening this morning. 
 I did spend some time comparing this book to one of my favorite series - it wasn't intentional, and it wasn't always in a positive light, but it was hard for it to not happen. When the Games came up, in an arena of sand, to fight to the death....well, I couldn't help but bring to mind Magic Strikes and Kate Daniels. And from there it's hard not to compare the main couple to my favorite Alpha couple: Kate and Curran. I will say that there isn't a couple I'd rank higher than Kate and Curran, so it's no real disparaging remark to say that Cat and Griffin don't either. They have a ways to go, but they're still young in their powers, still young in their relationship. I look forward to seeing how they grow going forward. 
 I'm fully invested in this story, these characters, and this world. I like how the mythology is so effortlessly woven in, and how the stakes continue to ratchet up. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the Gods involvement at this point - which is getting to be more and more direct - but I do like that it doesn't make everything a done-deal. Cat and Griffin and Company still have to face their destiny, face the future, and go into it. They have to make the choices, decisions, and take the risks. And even if the Gods, some or all, are occasionally there to help them along, it doesn't mean they can even begin to count on it. 
 With the biggest battle yet to come, I'm not sure how I'm going to handle the wait until the third, and final, book comes out. Heart on Fire is easily going to be one of my currently most anticipated books. 
 Review also available at The Book Eaters