#50 Iron and Magic by Ilona Andrews

I was interested to see how a book from Hugh’s POV would go. Hugh has been a bad guy working as warlord to Kate Daniels’s dad. Now he has been tossed aside and stripped of everything he was given and worked for. Surprisingly the one thing he has is the loyalty of his men that are slowly being done away with by Roland. When Hugh is found drunk in the gutter by some of his men they get him back on the path of being a leader to them even if it is no longer in Roland’s service. With no funds and little food they take on a job of protecting a group of magic users that one of Roland’s vampires wants moved off some land. Elara is in a tight spot, she has very scary magic but doesn’t use it that often because of what it costs. Her people have been on the move for a while, but they have a place now and are trying to make a home. Of course it doesn’t last and she needs guards to protect everyone. Hugh and Elara come to an understanding to help both of their goals. One way to make sure it works is they wed. This is a political union only to make sure that people realize Hugh will protect the castle. And almost as soon as they are there they are set to work.

The story is good and finding out more about Hugh humanizes him in this story. I really though he was a total bastard in the Kate Daniels books. But this is written that you don’t have to have read the books to figure out what is going on and the nice thing is you also don’t need to read this to read the final Kate Daniels book. They complement one another but there is not a secret key in either book that you have to have to unlock any secrets.