The Black Dagger Brotherhood_An Insider's Guide

by J. R. Ward

  The car ride down through the Adirondacks to Caldwell was lovely. The Northway is one of my favorite highways, cutting as it does through the mountains I spent my summers in while growing up. With the leaves just past their autumnal peak, the jagged ridges on either side of the two lanes I drove were still awash in red and gold and green, the colors glowing like jewels as the sun set.

  While I went along in my rental car, I thought how different the Brothers were compared to three autumns ago when their stories all started. I mean . . . so many losses and gains. So many ups and downs. I remembered that first meeting in Dark Lover, when they were in Darius’s living room right after his death . . . and then pictured them coming out of the woods to reclaim Phury as their own at the end of Lover Enshrined. Lot of changes, both good and bad.

  I meet Fritz in the parking lot of a Marriott in Albany. He’s there with the Mercedes, and after locking up my rented Ford Escape, I get into the S550’s backseat and the butler drives south for at least an hour. He’s very chatty, and I love the sound of his voice: slightly accented, like Marissa’s, and with the chirpy cadence of a Mozart concerto.

  I know we’re getting close when he puts up the divider and we talk through the car’s voice-activated speaker system.

  When we eventually pull up in front of the mansion, night is starting to fall, and I’m glad for the courtyard’s lighting so I can see everything as he puts down the divider. He parks between Beth’s Audi and Z’s iron gray 911 Carrera 4S. On the other side of the Porsche there’s a black Hummer I don’t recognize with no chrome on it whatsoever—even the hubs are black. Without Fritz telling me, I know it has to be Qhuinn’s. It is a total spank ride, and no doubt useful for the fighting, but man, what a damn shame the thing leaves a carbon footprint like a T. rex.

  Fritz confirms my unspoken conclusion about who owns it, and as I pass by, I see that the SUV has a dent in its brand-new hood . . . a dent the size of a body. A quick sniff and I smell something sweet as baby powder. This reminds me that the “boys” are now soldiers, and I get a little nostalgic for no good reason.

  Fritz lets me into the mansion, takes my coat, and reports on everyone’s whereabouts—or at least where they were when he left to pick me up: Mary is over at the Pit with V and Marissa, working on a database for Safe Place. Butch, Qhuinn, and Blay are at the pistol range in the training center. John is in Tohr’s room sitting with the Brother. Rhage is upstairs, lying flat on his back next to a twelve-pack of Alka-Seltzer.

  Ah, the beast.

  The butler asks who I want to see first, and I ask whether he thinks Rhage would be up for talking. Fritz nods and informs me that Hollywood’s been looking forward to the distraction—so we head upstairs.

  When I get to Rhage’s door, Fritz leaves and I do my own knocking.

  I open the door and the bedroom is so dark, the stretch of light that slices in from the hall is consumed by a hungry blackness. Before I step forward, though, candles flare on the bureau and a table next to the bed.

  Man, Rhage doesn’t look good. He is indeed flat on his back, and there’s a lot of Alka-Seltzer next to him. He’s naked, but there’s a sheet pulled up to his waist, and as I look at him I’m reminded that he’s the biggest of the Brothers in terms of heft. He’s positively huge, even on a bed that seems big as an Olympic pool. But he is not well. His lids are down over his Bahama blue eyes, his mouth is slightly open, his belly distended as if he’s swallowed a weather balloon.

  I’m relieved to do something to help him, and I head over to where four boxes of the stuff are lined up next to a pitcher of water and a glass. I fill the glass, crack open three foil packets, and drop the chalky disks in.

  When I turn to him, he lifts his head and I put the glass to his lips. As he drinks slowly, I feel guilty about noticing how gorgeous he is. He truly is the most beautiful male anything I’ve ever seen . . . you almost want to touch his face to make sure it’s real and not some artist’s rendering of the absolute standard of masculine splendor. He has Mount Everest cheekbones and a jaw that’s straight as an I beam and lips that are full and soft. His hair is blond with curls that go this way and that way on the pillow, and he smells amazing.

  As I take the empty glass away from his mouth, Rhage opens his eyes. And I am reminded that his brilliant teal stare is even more of a knockout than his bone structure.

  In the silence that follows, I think about what the shellans go through every night that these males of theirs go out to fight. It’s sad to realize that there is a fair turnabout. Without their mates, the Brothers are the living dead—and that has got to be equally terrifying to these strong warriors. To some degree, Rhage doesn’t have to worry about losing Mary, but it must be hard to live among guys who aren’t as fortunate as yourself.

  Before I can ask some kind of fluffy nonsense thing, like whether he and V’s practical-joke war is continuing, there’s a knock on the door. Before it opens, Rhage lets out a purring sound, so I’m not surprised as Mary walks in. As always, Mary’s dressed simply in a pair of khakis and a polo shirt, but her arrival brings Rhage to life as if she were Miss America in a sparkling gown. She also flips some kind of switch inside of him. He really looks at her, focusing on her sharply. And he’s a flirt with everyone, but with her he’s serious, underscoring for me that she is the special exception and the rest of us are the rule.

  Oh, and his bonding scent positively roars. Did I mention that he smells great?

  Mary and I say hello, and I’m reminded that three’s a crowd when Rhage pulls himself up off the mattress and holds his arms out to her. As he envelops her with his great big arms and stays put, I make some pleasantries with Mary and turn to leave.

  Rhage says my name softly, and I look over my shoulder. As he stares out over her head, he shoots me a small, sad smile. Like the reason he’s holding on to her so hard is because he’s won the lottery with his mate and doesn’t understand why he got to be the lucky one. I nod once . . . and leave them to themselves.

  Lover Eternal

  The People:

  Rhage

  Mary Madonna Luce

  John Matthew, aka Tehrror (Darius reincarnated)

  Zsadist

  Phury

  Bella

  Wrath and Beth

  The Scribe Virgin

  Mr. X, Fore-lesser

  Mr. O(rmond)

  Mr. E, who gets hung up in the tree

  Caith, vampire female who has oral interlude with Vishous at One Eye

  Dr. Susan Della Croce, Mary’s oncologist

  Rhonda Knute, the Suicide Prevention Hotline’s executive director

  Nan, Stuart, Lola, and Bill, workers at the hotline

  Amber, the waitress at T.G.I. Friday’s

  Places of Interest (all in Caldwell, NY, unless otherwise specified):

  Suicide Prevention Offices on Tenth Street

  One Eye, bar on the far side of Caldwell off Route 22

  T.G.I. Friday’s in Lucas Square

  Mary’s house, which is a converted barn on the edge of Bella’s property

  Bella’s farmhouse, located on a private road off Route 22

  Tohr and Wellsie’s home

  John’s apartment

  Brotherhood’s training center, under Darius’s (now Beth’s) mansion,

  undisclosed location

  Mr. X’s cabin, on the edge of Caldwell

  Lessening Society persuasion center—east from Big Notch Mountain, thirty-minute drive from downtown

  Summary:

  Rhage, the Brotherhood’s most dangerous member, falls in love with a dying human—who is the only one who can tame his beast and his heart.

  Craft comments:

  Perfect men (males) are just not all that interesting to me. You know the ones I’m talking about, the BMOC types? The gorgeous guys with the pearly-pearlies and the big laughs and the overload of sexual confidence (like they’re packing a rocket launcher in the cup of their boxer-brief Calvins)? Well, those numbers have always lef
t me cold.

  While I was writing Dark Lover, Rhage struck me as one of these beautiful males I wouldn’t give you a plug nickel for. He was full of bravado and so self-assured and all over the place with the ladies that I wasn’t really feeling him as a hero. After all, what kind of journey could someone like that have for his story? Fabulous guy meets girl. Fabulous guy gets girl. Um . . . fabulous guy keeps girl, and keeps keeping girl and then she hangs on even longer because, hello, he’s the Perfect Man, and she likes having sex with the lights on.

  I’d be done at, like, the second chapter. Largely due to disgust. I mean, what’s the happily-ever-after for them? She installs mirrors over their marital bed and he . . . well, hell, he’s already happy because he’s perfect.

  The truth was, I was disappointed that Rhage was book two in the series.

  I found out he was up after Wrath about three-quarters of the way through the writing of Dark Lover. It became clear to me during that scene down in Darius’s underground rooms, the one where Beth gets Rhage those Alka-Seltzers and soothes him as he tries to recover from the beast having come out again. It was while I was writing those pages that I started getting visions for Hollywood’s book: I saw Rhage and the beast and how hard it was for him to live with his curse. Saw that to him all the sex he had was hollow, simply a way to keep himself level. Saw him fall for Mary and sacrifice for her.

  He was not perfect. He suffered. He struggled.

  By the time I was through outlining his story, Rhage not only interested me, I loved him. He was so much more appealing for the fact that he and his life weren’t a playboy’s paradise.

  Which brings me to rule number six: Conflict is king.

  One of the things I think works in Lover Eternal is its conflicts. Mary and Rhage must overcome a hell of a lot to be together: They’ve got to confront her disease; deal with the fact that she’s human and he’s not; come to terms with his beast and what he must do to control it; and get through her transition into the world of the Brotherhood. Each time they made it through one of these road-blocks, they became stronger.

  Take, for example, the reccurrence of Mary’s leukemia. At the end of the book, when it’s clear she doesn’t have a lot of time left, Rhage goes to the Scribe Virgin and begs her to save the woman he loves. The Scribe Virgin considers the request and presents him with a heartbreaking solution. She tells him that she will take Mary out of the continuum of her fate, thus rescuing her from death. But in return, to preserve the universal balance, Rhage must keep the curse of his beast for the rest of his life and never see Mary again. Further, Mary will not remember him or the love they’d shared:

  His voice trembled. “You are taking my life from me.”

  “That is the point,” she said in an impossibly gentle tone. “It is yin and yang, warrior. Your life, metaphorically, for hers, in fact. Balance must be kept, sacrifices must be made if gifts are given. If I am to save the human for you, there must be a profound pledge on your part. Yin and yang.”

  —LOVER ETERNAL, p. 428

  That’s some serious internal conflict. He has the power to save Mary’s life, but only at great cost to himself.

  Conflict is the microscope of a book. When it’s trained on a character, you see what’s underneath the narratives of physical description. You see whether someone is strong or weak, principled or apathetic, heroic or villainous.

  In the Scribe Virgin/Rhage exchange over Mary’s disease, Rhage’s conflict is both external, because it’s being forced upon him by a third party—namely the Scribe Virgin, in the form of her proposal—and internal, because he must confront how badly he wants to get rid of the beast and how much he loves Mary. He proves he’s a hero because he sacrifices his own happiness for his love’s benefit— and on a broader level, it’s the culmination of his journey from the self-centered male he once was to the connected, compassionate guy he is now.

  See why I ended up loving him?

  Conflict is absolutely critical in every story. And I think of the ins and outs of getting through it as the chessboard across which the people in the book must move: What they do and where they go to reach resolution are just as significant as what first put them between their rock-and-a-hard-place.

  Rule number seven: Credible surprise is queen to conflict’s king.

  Credible surprise is the ultimate play on the chessboard for an author. Plenty of things are surprising, but without prior context to give them weight, they’re not credible. To really make a resolution sing, you need both halves—a really strong conflict and an unpredictable, but believable outcome.

  Take, for example, Lover Eternal’s end result. When Rhage accepts the Scribe Virgin’s bargain to save Mary’s life, he and his shellan are done. Permanently. And yet his love comes back to him (thanks to some rock-star driving from Fritz—who knew the doggen had had a Jeff Gordon injection?) both cured of her disease and with all her memories of him and what they’ve shared intact. Great! Fabulous! Except that’s not possible according to the agreement Rhage made with the Scribe Virgin.

  Hello, credible surprise. It turns out that the sacrifice for Mary’s salvation has already been made. When the Scribe Virgin goes to Mary to rescue her from her fate, she discovers that the woman has been rendered infertile as a result of her treatments for leukemia. In the Scribe Virgin’s mind, this is enough of a loss to balance the gift of ever-life. As she states:

  . . . The joy of my creation sustains me always, and I take great sorrow that you will never hold flesh of your flesh in your arms, that you will not see your own eyes staring at you from the face of another, that you will never mix the essential nature of yourself with the male you love. What you have lost is enough of a sacrifice. . . .

  —LOVER ETERNAL, p. 438

  Who could have guessed that Mary’s infertility was the key to the ending that kept the heroine and the hero together? I didn’t . . . but then, surprise! And here’s why it’s credible. Mary’s infertility had been mentioned before (see pps. 218 and 328), and the Scribe Virgin has always been about balance. Her gifts cannot be made without cost (think of Darius’s token of faculty at the end of Dark Lover, for instance), so the reader understands that there must always be a payment, because there was precedent for that.

  As I said, the resolution surprised me—and was a source of great relief. When I was outlining the book, I got to the scene with Rhage and the Scribe Virgin, when all appeared to be lost, and I wanted to bang my head into my monitor. I mean, I was writing paranormal ROMANCE. And the only way separation works at the end of a ROMANCE is if it involves ditching a nasty mother-in-law. I was in an absolute panic, as I couldn’t see how the two of them were going to get an HEA together.

  Except they did, thanks to the credible surprise.

  Strong conflict and resolutions that are satisfying and not obvious are the name of the game. The problem is, at least for me, I’m never sure until I’m finished getting the scenes in my head outlined whether both halves are going to present themselves. To be honest, I have no clue where my ideas come from, and I feel as if I complete each story by the skin of my teeth. The endings are always a Hail Mary for me, because I never know for certain whether the magic is going to happen. I feel lucky and grateful when it does, but do not take for granted that such boons will come again.

  A couple of other things about Rhage’s book. After I got through with his outline and started writing him, I felt like something was wrong. The tone struck me as different from Wrath’s story. The vibe was just . . . well, more Rhage, less Wrath.

  To me, this was a little alarming. I guess I thought all the books would feel the same as I wrote them, but they haven’t, and along the way I’ve learned that a series shouldn’t be about identical. Similar context, sure. Same cast of folks, absolutely. But each story is going to have its own rhythm and pace and zeitgeist. Wrath’s had a real sharp edge on it, with quick, nimble pacing and pared-down dialogue. Rhage’s struck me as softer and more romantic, funnier, too, with more sex in
it. Z’s book was dark all around. Butch’s tone was closer to Wrath’s, with its edge, and there was a lot of the world in it. V’s vibe was sleek and uncluttered and a little dangerous. Phury’s was romantic and evocative and warm.