Black Dagger Brotherhood Cheat Sheet (Part 9)

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 now.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Twitter: #rehv | (Update) Lover Avenged reviews: By Kat, By Wandergurl, By Decadence

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 8 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 somewhere dangerous and ended up in the Adirondacks by mistake, frustrated that there were no lessers. He feeds on deer blood and waits for death because suicides don’t go to the Fade and he would never get to be with Wellsie again.

Eventually he is found by the angel Lassiter and returned to his Brothers, but he feels out of sync without Wellsie and even has trouble connecting with his son, John Matthew. But he stopps JM from walking away and they cry together over their loss.

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

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 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 needs 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).

Muhrder

We don’t know very much about Muhrder, except that he was the most recently booted from 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 Muhrder is with them and is based near the coast? Maybe there’s a night time surfing culture.

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 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 had been imprisoned in the basement since he was 12 years old and every year his mother Miss Leeds would lure a suitably biddable young woman to the house for him to feed from over 3 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 3 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’, will one last time, leaving everything to Michael.

At the end of the story, they have an 8-year old daughter named Gabriella and a 6-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.