Black Dagger Brotherhood Cheat Sheet (Part 2)

To celebrate the release of Lover Avenged by J. R. Ward, Decadence has put together an awesome round-up of what we know so far about the world of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. (Warning: The cheat sheets contain spoilers to previous books in the series.) Lover Avenged is out on April 28.

Part 1 | Twitter: #rehv | (Update) Lover Avenged reviews: By Kat, By Wandergurl, By Decadence

Black Dagger Brotherhood: Rhage, son of Tohrture

In the years immediately following his transition, Rhage was extremely cocky and went wherever his mood took him. He got drunk, did drugs, fought a lot, and had a nasty habit of sleeping with other males’ shellans. He became interested in a female who didn’t want him until he joined the Brotherhood, so he showed off his weapons and his gun went off in her hand, killing a barn owl. The Scribe Virgin considered this a special offence as she loves birds and the barn owl is her own symbol, so to teach Rhage responsibility for his actions, she sentenced him to 200 years with the beast. If he let his mood get out of control, the beast would break out of his body, leaving a trail of devastation in its wake and Rhage with a hell of a stomach ache.

Rhage learned to control the beast by regulating his moods with regular fighting and sex wherever he could get it. His Hollywood-perfect looks ensured he had no problems getting it and his exploits became legend, but inside he hated what he had to do and frequently worried that the beast would eat his brothers. To deal, he tries to keep things light and goofy, but this keeps his brothers from recognising that he can be serious and is a male of worth.

While recovering one day from the beast’s visit, Rhage hears a lovely female voice and feels compelled to listen to it speak. He tracks down the human woman, Mary Luce, who was brought to the compound to interpret John Matthew’s sign language, and sets up a date. He discovers that the lovely voice belongs to an unremarkable looking woman with warrior eyes and wants to get to know this woman of quality who is so different from the one-nighters who just looked at his body or his Rolex.

His attachment to Mary brings out his responsible, selfless side. He decides to give up all the other females he has sex with and feeds from and arranges to feed from one of the Chosen in Mary’s presence. This, along with the sacrifice he made in taking punishment from the Brotherhood to keep her at the mansion, eventually wears down Mary’s determination to be strong and let Rhage go. (Mary had watched her mother die from cancer and later battled the disease herself. When Rhage learns that she has died and come back, his respect for her grows even more. He finally manages to convince her that he genuinely wants her, regardless of her quiet looks. However, much to his frustration, she continues to hold him at arm’s length emotionally because her cancer has returned and doesn’t want to have someone watch her die the way she watched her mother a few years earlier.)

Mary finds lessers at her vampire neighbour Bella’s house. Rhage dematerialises as soon as the sun goes down and having Mary so close to the line of fire brings the beast out. The beast saves the day and Mary strokes it and thanks it for protecting her and distracts it from eating the Brothers. When she asks to have Rhage back, the beast recedes because it wants to please her as much as Rhage does. Being on the same page allows Rhage and the beast to live together more harmoniously.

Mary’s doctor tells her to put her affairs in order. To save her, Rhage makes the ultimate sacrifice to the Scribe Virgin: he would keep the beast indefinitely and give Mary up—only he would remember her. But Mary appears at the mansion and the Scribe Virgin explains that since Mary is unable to have children, she won’t force Mary to give up Rhage as well. Mary is allowed to live without ageing as long as she chooses, although the Scribe Virgin suspects that will only be as long as Rhage lives.

Rhage and Mary are looking at alternative methods of having kids, but Rhage refuses to do anything that requires him to actually inseminate another female.

Reproduction and the Needing

The vampire population has a high infant mortality rate, and females face a high risk of death during pregnancy and delivery. Furthermore, females are only fertile every 10 years.

The needing is a female’s fertile time. It happens 5 years after her transition and then every 10 years after that. Her body becomes wracked with painful cravings that can only be relieved by full, penetrative sex with ejaculation (her orgasm alone just won’t cut it). The needing can also cause fights to break out among nearby males as they are programmed to respond to a female in her need.

For up to 2 days, the female needs constant sex and feeding. As Wrath points out in Dark Lover, the needing can wear a male down to complete exhaustion, but damn if any male has ever complained. How selfless of them.

For some reason, conception only works via the traditional method; IVF just isn’t successful.

But even after all that, conception still isn’t a certainty. But if it does happen, the pregnancy lasts for 18 months and delivery can be problematic for both the mother and young due to high incidences of blood loss, pre-eclampsia and stillbirth.