Pack Refuge

The Splintered Bond, Book 2

De: Merri Bright

Narrado por: Allie Piper, Ryan Stone

I was promised a refuge.

My new pack was supposed to be a haven, a place where the unranked are treated fairly. But when I arrive at Northern still wearing a tag that declares my low status, I find myself in a worse situation than before. Hunted, but not knowing where to hide or how to escape. Ignored by the pack who vowed to protect me. Rejected by a wolf who might have been my fated mate.

My only refuge is in the arms of the quiet, massive shifter from the Mountain pack, though the other Alpha Heirs keep snagging my attention as I train for my ranking fight. When that day finally arrives and everything goes wrong, I'll discover just how dangerous the Northern pack can be.

There's no refuge for the rejected.

Pack Refuge is the second book in The Splintered Bond series featuring a fierce, strong Southern shifter who will not have to choose one mate... if she chooses any at all. You need to listen to Pack Reject first to follow Flor's adventures. For mature listeners.

©2024 Merri Bright (P)2025 Podium Audio

Amazing - I love it!!!

Oh wow! What an audiobook! Amazing job by Podium Audio - listening to this fabulous book brings out all the emotions! I absolutely love the depth brought to this story through the audiobook! This entire series is fantastic, and I cannot wait for the rest of the books in audio! I love it!!!

Amazing story and narrators

I love this story, and yhe narrators do a great job of bringing the characters to life. Flor and her guys, her struggles at Northern. I love how she brings about change and cannot wait to see how her "unique " situation stirs up the shifter world. ready for book 4

This book doesn’t have a harem

In fact, you’ll start to wonder if Flor is brain damaged or spelled. Because one minute she’ll experience something that clearly shows the guys are hers, and the next moment she completely denies them or throws them under the bus. It was frustrating and horrible. So, while the complex plots and nuanced emotions still make the story quite good, romantically it definitely does not live up to the promise of book 1. First and foremost, I'm here for the romance.

I call book 2s ‘series stretchers’ and you'll find that here. It's slower, overfilled with pack politics, and it uses omission to delay. Book 3 will likely be better.




SPOILERS ***

The heroine lost major points with me for screwing with her ‘harem’. And showing a sociopathic lack of empathy for them. At the start Flor has managed to get away from the brutal cruel Southern pack, and arrived at Northern with 3 of her (would be) mates in tow - leaving her 4th at Southern to die of separation sickness (her 5th is still very much a phantom). But she soon finds that shifters are the same all over. Not as horribly immoral as before, but she does experience mean girl cruelty, and some hunting. Honestly, that made complete sense to me. Flor was still deeply entrenched in that hunted victim mindset. So of course she had another reckoning with different assholes.

What I couldn’t abide was Flor's insistence that the men weren’t her mates. I was so frustrated that the harem didn’t come together more quickly. This girl’s only imperative HER ENTIRE LIFE has been to stay alive. She doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings including her mates, not yet. Still the 4 of them have (Brand, Finnick, Glen) been glued to each other since they met. Having her constantly deny the mate bond (and later ONLY MATE BRAND, and only because of life and death circumstances) was infuriating for me. It wasn't romantic or decent of her in the least. 

Also, unpopular opinion regarding Marguerite (Glen's mom, Northern pack's Head Enforcer, Flor's pseudo-mother-in-law) and her manipulative behaviour. I think it was understandable. Yes, Flor desperately needed a friend and a motherly figure, but Marguerite had a massive number of existential problems to deal with: running an entire pack of thousands, a dying mate (who would take her with him when he went), seeing to her two sons and their future well-being (one as Alpha), and rooting out rank rot at Northern. That powerful woman did not have the bandwidth (or natural inclination) to nanny Flor. Nor should she have had to. God only knows why Flor was butthurt when Marguerite couldn’t pretend to be loving and impartial, the woman desperately NEEDED a powerful woman to mate with her son.

I’m just not certain how this author is going to redeem Flor for me. Her indifference to her mates revolts me. Of course all she’s ever known is spectacular indifference and cruelty herself, but not from those 3. If this were real life, a person that traumatized would likely never want or find a relationship they could trust, but this is not real life it’s a romance. It’s a story with a defined arc, and a set amount of pages. And all of Flor’s denials of her men are starting to have a very feminist, yass queen undertone which also revolts me. Pro tip: don’t write M/F (or worse MMMMM/F) romance if you hate men.

Finally, some technical crimes: first, bogging down action scenes like Flor’s, kidnapping with a bunch of internal monologues full of character histories and experiences. Second, TELLING us way too much about Flor’s fighting prowess in this book. We haven’t actually SEEN any of it since book 1. I expect a lot of on page combat when the heroine is a warrior. By the end of this book Flor's self righteousness is off the charts. She's just preaching her ass off endlessly. And she's basically in a committed relationship with Brand and together they judge the merits of the other men 🤮.