Loki’s Enemy Mate

Blake R Wolfe
Completed 11/18/2025, Reviewed 11/23/2025
3 stars

Second book in the Mated to the Viking Alpha series.  Another spicy M/M romantasy featuring the second werewolf brother Loki.  This book began more seriously than Thor’s Unexpected Mate and ends with an intense cliffhanger.  The overarching plot is more complex than I expected.  I have to give the author props for coming up with tragic family dynamics that make this short novel better than simple erotica.  The prose is straight forward and the enemies to lovers trope is well done.  

At the end of the last book, Loki left the family to get revenge on Tyr by himself against Thor and Baldr’s wishes.  He can’t handle that Thor has mated with a descendent of werewolf hunters.  He goes to confront Tyr who is out with his son Heimdall.  Tyr commands Heimdall to kill Loki.  During the fight, the ground opens up below them, leaving them trapped in a cave.  Tyr just walks away.  When they recover, they begrudgingly cooperate to escape.  In the process, an attraction between them grows, realizing they are fated to be mates.  Once consummated, they realize they have to compromise over what to do with Tyr.  Loki wants him dead, but Heimdall doesn’t, being his son.  And we know Tyr isn’t going to accept their relationship.  So they must come up with a plan to punish Tyr without killing him so that they can bring the two families together.

I was impressed by how well the author got Loki to go from angry, bitter, and grieving to realizing how he let his emotions put a wall between himself and his family.  The softening process takes most of the search for an exit from the cave.  It’s slow, steady, and more believable than I expected.   Heimdall, on the other hand, is quite the sensitive soul.  He cries easily and allows himself to feel his emotions.  Despite blindly believing in Tyr, he also undergoes a transformation.  He comes to recognize his father is not a good person, and is in fact, a brutal, narcissistic murderer.  But cognitive dissonance remains, which is what softens Loki’s drive for vengeance.  

Most of the action takes place in the cave.  It’s quite claustrophobic for the characters and the reader, as they try to avoid gaping holes in the floor while looking for an exit, all with a single cell phone’s flashlight feature.  This book is just over 200 pages, but it takes its time with changing belief systems and plotting ways to stay together as mates, despite what their families may say.  I give it three stars out of five.  It’s intense and sensitive and occasionally fun.  I’m looking forward to the next book wrapping everything together.