Thirteen Years Later (Danilov Quintet #2) by Jasper Kent

From Goodreads

Aleksandr made a silent promise to the Lord. God would deliver him - would deliver Russia - and he would make Russia into the country that the Almighty wanted it to be. He would be delivered from the destruction that wasteth at noonday, and from the pestilence that walketh in darkness - the terror by night... 

1825, and Russia has been at peace for a decade. Bonaparte is long dead and the threat of invasion is no more. For Colonel Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov, life is calm. The French have been defeated, as have the twelve monstrous creatures he once fought alongside - and then against - all those years before. His duty is still to his tsar, Aleksandr the First, but today the enemy is merely human.

But Aleksandr knows he can never be at peace. He is well aware of the uprising fomenting within his own army, but his true fear is of something far more terrible - something that threatens to bring damnation down upon him, his family and his country. Aleksandr cannot forget a promise: a promise sealed in blood ... and broken a hundred years before.

Now the victim of the Romanovs' betrayal has returned to demand what is his. The knowledge chills Aleksandr's very soul. And for Aleksei, it seems the vile pestilence that once threatened all he held dear has returned, thirteen years later...

My thoughts 

I read the first in this series several years ago and have to admit that at the time it didn't really rock my boat. When I saw this in my local Library, I picked it up and thought to myself why not give it a go, I am so glad that I did as I enjoyed it and have given it an 8/10.

Loosely based on real people and real events, Kent has woven an alternative story around the disappearance of one of the Tsars ~ Aleksandr the First.

As Aleksei is once more faced with a foe of old, he is still allied to the Tsar and his main job is to protect the Tsar. As his allegance is put to the test in more ways than one, he puts his life on the line time after time after he is faced with legendary creatures of the night.

A great second instalment to the series looking forward to seeing were we are taken with the third in the series.