Black Dagger Brotherhood Cheat Sheet (Part 9)

In anticipation of the release of Lover Mine by J. R. Ward, Decadence has updated the Black Dagger Brotherhood cheat sheets. The cheat sheets sum up what we know so far about the world of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Lover Mine is out in hardback (US) and will be released in paperback (UK, Australia) tomorrow. For all BDB-related posts on Book Thingo, click here.

Black Dagger Brotherhood: Tohrment, son of Hharm

Tohr is different from the other vampires in that there was no hint of a tortured past. He was promised to Wellesandra and was fortunate enough to have bonded with her. Sheer luck that the one female he would want above all others happened to be the one he was honour-bound to mate.

Tohr showed his love by doing small, practical things to show he was thinking of his shellan, such as making sure her truck had snow chains. He was very respectful of her—when she told him off over the phone about his untidiness, he apologised in front of JM and didn’t play the macho dickhead when he hung up. He was together, level-headed, could be tough, but ultimately fair, and was the logical choice to take over as head of the Brotherhood when Wrath ascended to the throne.

But misfortune came to him twice. First, he lost his best friend, Darius, in a lesser car bomb. But then a young pretrans going by the human name John Matthew was brought to the Brotherhood, and Tohr and Wellsie took him in and they liked having him as a son. He was really happy to learn that the boy was Darius’s son.

Tohr was often on edge since Wellsie fell pregnant as there was a risk that she might die during the pregnancy or childbirth. But what happened was even worse than that.

It was just a normal day. Wellsie cancelled the vampires’ order for apples to be used in a solstice festival because the lessers found out about them and the vampires were vulnerable. She and her cousin Sarelle went to visit a spiritual leader, Madalina (who was also Bella’s mother), to discuss options. But Mr O, who was there to find Bella, didn’t miss the opportunity to kill the two females.

Tohr felt a sudden chest pain and told himself it was indigestion, but he knew something was wrong and tried to call Wellsie. When the Brotherhood arrived to formally tell him she had been murdered, he lost it. His power created a whirlwind inside the room and eventually he just seemed to implode.

For eight months no one knew where he was, although Wrath was convinced he could still feel his brother in his veins.

Tohr lived in the mountains, somewhere in the same region as Rehvenge’s great camp. He’d meant to send himself to the symphath colony up north and ended up in the Adirondacks by mistake, frustrated that there were no lessers. He fed on deer blood and waited for death because suicides don’t go to the Fade and he would never get to be with Wellsie again.

Eventually he was found by the angel Lassiter and returned to his Brothers, but he felt out of sync without Wellsie and even had trouble connecting with his son, John Matthew. But he stopped JM from walking away and they cried together over their loss.

Vishous was making daggers for Tohr because even though he didn’t know it yet, he will start fighting again.

Four months later, Tohr was still waiting to die. He dreamed of being with Wellsie every day, and every night he was stunned into waking with all trace of her gone. He ate in front of JM but would throw up when he left. He still showered even though there was no apparent reason behind it because it didn’t advance him to his goal of going to the Fade to be with Wellsie forever.

One night Lassiter told him that that night was different and reminded him of when Wrath had been hit by a car while chasing lessers in 1958. Tohr found him and took him to Havers. Although Marissa fed him, Wrath was in a coma for around 24 hours, during which time all the Brothers phoned for updates and the hospital staff prayed for the recovery of the king who refused to be king. Then when Wrath woke up, he didn’t acknowledge Tohr in any way for saving his life, even though Tohr hadn’t expected to be thanked. It made him realise that he was treating his brothers and JM the same way.

He decided to go back to the beginning and took Lassiter with him to the Tomb, where the first Brother’s skull is kept and the Brothers’ names are inscribed on the wall. Lassiter tried to tell him that he wouldn’t find any answers there because he’s asking the wrong questions. Lassiter dropped the bomb that Wellsie died exactly one year ago and he can’t leave Tohr because Wellsie sent him to look after Tohr.

Hearing someone else say Wellsie’s name woke him up and when Wrath found him, Tohr said that he was ready to rejoin the Brotherhood and Wrath took him back.

The Chosen Selena (who is the only Chosen aside from Cormia who will stay on this side when Rehvenge makes his monthly visit to the Adirondacks) was sent to feed him. With her traditional Chosen robes, blue eyes and black hair, she is nothing like Wellsie. Despite not wanting the intimacy with another female, once she offered her wrist, he fed hard and almost killed her in his need.

Afterwards, he was hungry for food and on the way to the kitchen he thought about Darius, looked in on Wrath and saw his old office chair next to Wrath’s, who updated him on his adoptive son. He began to realise how his decline had hurt JM.

He dressed and armed for the Princeps Council meeting, but Wrath told him he wasn’t yet strong enough to go. He waited until V turned his head before shooting the cigarette out of his mouth, proving he was still an asset.

A month later he was part of the rescue team sent in to save Rehvenge, so he must have regained most of his health.

Lassiter

Lassiter is a fallen angel who seems to be on probation with the Powers That Be because of a plague that decimated a third of the human population in central Europe around 300 years ago, and Tohr is his last chance. So, like it or not, he must move in with the Brotherhood.

From the BDB boards, we know that he has a not-very-happy history with V and wants to get mated, but his jesses and female are missing. He took a bullet for Wrath and needed the sun to heal. Unfortunately the sun also prevented V from (grudgingly) going to save him.

He has black and blond hair and a shitload of metal, which most likely includes a Prince Albert piercing (NSFW).

Murhder

We don’t know very much about Murhder, except that he was the most recently booted member of the Brotherhood, is still alive somewhere, and that V saved his father as a young (but his grandmother was killed by the lesser) in Italy. Oh, and the very cryptic clue from Ward’s message board: Surfboard. Qhuinn was planning to escape justice over Lash’s murder by joining a faction of vampires out west (largely made up of vampire outlaws), so maybe Murhder is with them and is based near the coast? Maybe there’s a night time surfing culture.

Murhder fell for Xhex, around 25 years ago, without knowing what she was, and when he rescued her from the symphaths trying to experiment on her at the colony, the betrayal of finding out she, too, was a symphath drove him mad.

He went in without backup, which wasn’t unusual for him. I don’t know if this was the last straw for him in the Brotherhood or if his mental state when he came back made him an unsuitable warrior.

Last time Xhex saw him, he had long dark hair, deep-set eyes and scruff on his jaw. He spoke with an Old Country accent, which suggests he’s older than the younger Brothers like Rhage, Phury and Z, unless he left the Old Country later than the others.

The Coffins

Marissa saw them in Lover Revealed while getting the tour from Fritz. I have no idea of their significance and neither does Ward, and when the question was asked in a chat, Vishous blatantly evaded answering. All we know is that they will mean something at some point because Ward saw them and knew she had to include them in the book.

No’One

She made a very brief appearance in Lover Unbound as the limping female Cormia wanted to avoid. Her hands were covered, her leg drags behind her, and unlike the other Chosen who wear white, No’One’s robes are black. The only other things I know about this character is that she has her own locked forum on the message board and her little blurb begins with ‘Kyrie Eleison’, which I believe means ‘Lord have mercy’, and she is described as ‘silent’ and ‘forgotten’. Ward can often see events several books in the future, so I have no idea when this female will appear again, only that she will at some point.

Story of Son

This is a short story, published in the Dead After Dark anthology, about a half-breed vampire trapped by his elderly mother and an insane doggen (species of servant to the vampires).

Michael has been imprisoned in the basement since he was twelve years old, and every year his mother, Miss Leeds, lures a suitably biddable young woman to the house for him to feed from over three days.

Claire Stroughton is the lawyer who drafts and redrafts Miss Leeds’s will. Her rich client requests a visit right before the Fourth of July weekend, and when she arrives, Claire is drugged and locked in the basement with Miss Leeds’s son, who doesn’t actually have a name but used to be called ‘Son’. He is shy and reserved, having been treated like a monster for most of his 68 years, but a gentleman.

Instead of meekly accepting the situation, Claire engages her fellow captive and becomes attracted to him—a feeling that he returns. She names him Michael for the archangel’s beauty and tells him that she will find a way to release him.

Michael doesn’t dare to even hope that it could be possible and refuses to risk Claire’s safety, so he obediently erases her memory of her time with him and lets her leave at the end of the three days he is given for feeding.

Claire discovers that she is pregnant and returns to the Leeds estate only to find Miss Leeds is dead. She frees Michael and takes him to her friend and ex, Mick Rhodes, for help. The doggen Fletch fights Michael and is killed.

Claire redrafts Miss Leeds’s, will one last time, leaving everything to Michael.

At the end of the story, they have an eight-year old daughter named Gabriella and a six-year old son named Luke, with another child on the way, tentatively named Michael.

Michael has never met others of his kind, but his story definitely falls into the BDB universe and it’s been suggested that we may see more of him.

This post was originally published on May 4, 2009. Updates are shown in blue font.