The Black Dagger Brotherhood: An Insider's Guide

His Royal Highness Wrath, Son of Wrath

Age: 343

Joined Brotherhood: Long story on that one…

Height: 6′9″

Weight: 273 lbs.

Hair color: Black, straight, down to small of back

Eye color: Pale green

Identifying physical marks: Tattoos on both forearms detailing royal lineage; Brotherhood scar on left pectoral; name ELIZABETH carved in skin across upper back and shoulders in Old English letters.

Note: Eyesight is weak—eyes hypersensitive to light, likely due to his purebred lineage. Wears sunglasses at all times.

Weapon of choice: Hira shuriken (martial arts throwing stars)

Description:

Mated to: Elizabeth Anne Randall

Last movie watched: Meatballs (Rhage’s fault)

List book read: Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown (for Nalla)

Favorite TV show: NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams

Last TV show watched: The Office (also a fave)

Last game played: Monopoly

Greatest fear: Death

Greatest love: Beth

Favorite quote: Rule by the heart and the fist.

Boxers or briefs: Boxers, black

Watch: Braille

Car: Beth drives me in her Audi, or Fritz takes me out

What time is it while you’re filling this out: 2 p.m.

Where are you? In my study

What are you wearing? Black leathers, black Hanes T-shirt, shitkickers

What’s in your closet? More of the same, in addition to one black Brooks Brothers suit, and whites for audiences with the Scribe Virgin

What was the last thing you ate? Lamb sandwich made by Beth

Describe your last dream? None of your business

Coke or Pepsi? Coke

Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe? Beth Randall

Kirk or Picard? Kirk

Football or baseball? Rugby

Sexiest part of a female? My shellan’s throat

What do you like most about Beth? Everything. Yeah, that covers it

First words spoken to her were: “I thought we’d try this again.”

Her response was: “Who are you?”

Last gift given to her: Canary diamond earrings from Craff to match the ring I gave her

Most romantic thing you’ve ever done for her: You’d have to ask her

Most romantic thing she’s ever done for you: The way she woke me up about an hour ago

Anything you’d change about her? Just that I would have met her a couple of centuries before I did

Best friend (excluding shellan): Lots him ’bout three years ago. ’Nuff said.

Last time you cried: None of your biz

Last time you laughed: ’Bout twenty minutes ago, because I got to watch Nalla discover her toes

Here’s the thing about the king. He’ll allow himself to be interviewed, but it’s on his terms. Which is Wrath in a nutshell. He’s all about his terms, but then I guess when you’re the last purebred vampire on the earth and king of your race and…well, when you’re as big as he is and have a stare that can cut through glass like a diamond, the world is a place you dictate, not dodge around in.

Did I mention that I’m wearing waders at the moment, and I’m thigh-high in an icy Adirondack stream?

Yeah, the king’s taken up fly-fishing.

On this frosty November night, Wrath and I are standing in the midst of rolling, sluggish water that is cold. I have long underwear on, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t, as he’s not the type to be bothered by a chill. He did, however, make a concession to a set of gigantic waders, which Fritz custom-tailored for a pair of legs that are each about the size of my upper body. I’m to the side of the king; I figured if I were in front or behind I’d be in hook range, and considering I had to pester him for weeks for this audience, I don’t want to risk a trip to an ER for some kind of tackle-ectomy.

On a side note, Wrath looks worn-down. Mind you, he still outranks 99.9 percent of any of the males I’ve ever seen on the Holy Shit Hot Scale, but then, honestly, can you get sexier than a guy with hip-length black hair, a widow’s peak, and wraparound sunglasses? Not to mention the tats on his forearms and those green eyes and his…

Listen, I have never measured his backside. Ever. Not once. Or the tremendous width of his shoulders. Or his six-pack.

Oh, don’t look at me like that.

Anyway, where were we? Right, the stream. Fly-fishing.

The king and I are about a half mile from Rehvenge’s safe house in the Adirondack Mountains near Black Snake State Park. Wrath is standing about fifteen feet from me, whisking his right arm back and forth in a gentle rhythm, pulling a gossamer-thin fishing line through the stream, then letting it be taken, through the stream, then letting it be taken. The water sounds like wind chimes as it chatters past smooth brown and gray rocks, and the pine trees on either side of the banks whistle as the wind tickles through their branches. The air is cool and crisp, making me think that I’m glad I have a Macintosh apple in the backpack we brought with us—fall just goes with those tart, juicy little buggers.

Oh, and one last salient point. Wrath has a forty strapped under each arm and throwing stars in his pockets. I can see the forties. He told me about the stars.

J.R.: Can I he honest with you?

Wrath: You’d better be. ’Cause I’d smell it it’ you weren’t.

J R.: True enough. Ah…I’m surprised you have the patience tor this. The fishing, that is.

Wrath: (shrugging) It’s not a matter of patience. It’s calming. And no, I’m not taking up yoga. That’s Rhage’s deal.

J.R.: He’s still doing that?

Wrath: Yeah, he’s still namaste-ing his ass into a million different contortions. Swear that fucker’s retractable.

J.R.: Speaking of Rhage and Mary, is it true what I heard?

Wrath: The adoption thing? Yeah. When Nalla came, they both kind of sat up and were like, We want one of those.

J. R.: How long will it take? And white are they going for the young?

Wrath: You’ll hear about it when it’s done. But it’s going to be a while.

J.R.: Well, I’m happy for them. (There’s a stretch of no talking, during which Wrath reels in his line, then casts it out into another pan of the stream.) Do you want—

Wrath: No I’m still not pushing the children thing. After what Bella went through…(Shakes head.) Nope. And before you ask, Beth’s okay with that. I think she’ll want one in the future, though. Just hope it’s later rather than sooner. Although, honestly. she hasn’t even gone through her first needing, so it’s not a huge issue.

J.R.: Suppose you’d like me to change the subject?

Wrath: Up to you. You can ask anything, doesn’t mean I’ll answer. (Shoots a look over his shoulder and smiles at me.) But you know how I do—

J.R.: (laughing) Yeah. I’m familiar with the way things go. So let me ask you about the whole Chosen thing and Phury. What do you think about the changes he made?

Wrath: Man…he impressed the shit out of me. He really did. And not just about what he did with the Scribe Virgin. For a while there, I was sure we were going to lose him.

J.R.: (thinking about Phury and the heroin) You nearly did.

Wrath: Yeah. (There’s another stretch of silence, which I spend watching his arm go back and forth, back and forth. The line makes a lovely sound through the cool forest air, as if it is breathing.) Yeah. Anyhow, that’s why we’re here, at Rehv’s house. I come up with Beth every two weeks or so and meet with Phury and the Directrix and check in how things are going with the Chosen. Christ, can you imagine what the transition’s like for those females? Going from total lockdown to being able to explore a world you’ve only read about?

J.R.: I can’t, no.

Wrath: Phury’s fantastic with them It’s like overnight they’ve all become his daughters. And they love him. He is the perfect Primale, and Cormia’s now their den mother. As she’s had more time to assimilate, she’s doing a lot of transitioning diem herself. I’m really glad it’s gone down like it has.

J.R.: Talking about patent stuff, what’s life like at the mansion now that Nalla’s around?

Wrath: (laughing) Okay, for real? That kid’s a star. She’s got us all wrapped around her little finger. The other day I was working at my desk, and Bella was on walkabout with the young—she does this because lately Nalla only sleeps when she’s moving? Anyway, Bella brought her into my study and the two of them were pacing. Nalla’s head was on Bella’s shoulder and she was out like a light—by the way, the kid’s got eyelashes longer than your arm. So. Bella? She finally sinks down on the couch to take a breather, and two seconds later. I kid you not, Nalla’s eyes flip open and she starts fussing.

J.R.: Poor thing!

Wrath: Bella, right?

J.R.: Yup!

Wrath: (laughing) So I got to hold Nalla. Bella let me hold her. (This is said with no small amount of pride.) I walked the young around. I didn’t drop her.

J.R.: (hiding smile) Of course you didn’t.

Wrath: She went back to sleep. (Shoots crave stare over his shoulder.) You know, young only sleep if they trust you to keep them safe.

J.R.: (softly) Anyone would be safe with you.

Wrath: (looks away quickly) So, yeah, kid’s a gem. Z’s a little uneasy around her still, I think because he’s afraid he’s going to break her—not because he doesn’t love her. Rhage handles her like a sack of potatoes, hauling her any way he pleases, which Nalla loves. Phury’s a natural. So’s Butch.

J.R.: What about Vishous?

Wrath: Meh. I think Nalla makes him nervous. He made her a dagger, though. (laughs) Fucking hard-ass. What kind of crack bastard makes a dagger for an infant?

J.R.: Bet it’s lovely, though.

Wrath: Shit, yeah. He put all these…(The king pauses and flicks at the line as if he thinks he’s got something hooked.) He put all these diamonds on the hilt. Spent three days working on it. Says it’s for when she starts dating.

J.R.: (laughing) I’ll bet.

Wrath: Might go to waste. Zsadist says she’s never dating. Ever.

J.R.: Uh-oh.

Wrath: Yeah. Z’s little girl? You want to be the male coming to call on her? Shiiiiiiit.

J.R.: I’d pass.

Wrath: I know I would. Like my balls right where they are, thank you very much.

J.R.: (after another stretch of quiet) Can I ask about Tohr?

Wrath: Figured you would.

J.R.: (waits for him to say something) So I’m asking about him.

Wrath: (annoyed) Look, what do you want me to say? He went into the woods to die. Lassiter brought him back to people who remind him every day of his dead shellan. He needs to feed, and of course he’s refusing, and I don’t blame him for that at all. He’s weak and angry and he just wants to be dead. That’s how he’s doing.

J.R.: (knowing not to push any more) Is it weird having Lassiter around?

Wrath: (laughs tightly) That angel is a thing all right. I don’t mind him all that much, and I think he knows it. He took a bullet for me once.

J.R.: I’d heard. Do you feel like you owe him?

Wrath: Yeah.

J.R.: He and V don’t get along.

Wrath: No, they don’t. (laughs) That’s going to be fun to watch. It’s like two pit bulls in a cage whenever they’re in the same room. And before you ask, no. I don’t know all the ins and outs, and I’m not asking.

J.R.: Talking about ins and outs…about the glymera—

Wrath: Shit, why do you want to ruin a perfectly nice evening.

J.R.: Well. I was going to ask you how you felt about Rehvenge being appointed leahdyre of the Princeps Council.

Wrath: (roars with laughter) Okay, you’re so forgiven. Man, what a trip that is. Who the fuck would have thought that’ll happen? A symphath. Leading that group of insular, prejudicial bastards. And they have no idea he is one. Plus, come on, Rehv’s on my side in this growing civil unrest they’re trying to stir up after all the raids by the Lessening Society. They’ve just appointed someone who thinks the aristocrats are as nuts and as destructive as I do.

J.R.: But do you trust Rehv?

Wrath: As much as I trust anyone who’s not my brother or Beth.

J.R.: So the fact that he’s half symphath—

Wrath: Hold up. He’s a symphath. Whether his blood s half-and-half is irrelevant. You got any of that shit in you, you’re a symphath. That’s why that colony up north of here was created. They are dangerous.

J.R.: So that’s why I’m asking if you trust him. I thought they were all sociopaths.

Wrath: They are, and so is he. Here’s the thing, though…with symphath, the one thing you can take to the fucking bank is then self-interest. Rehv loves his sister. Bella’s married to a Brother. Therefore, Rehv will do nothing to hurt them or me. That math holds in all situations.

J.R.: Do you think the glymera poses a threat to you as king?

Wrath: Look, straight up? I don’t like them and never have, but shit knows I don’t want them dead. Right now they’re fragmented, out of Caldwell, and they’re scrambling. The longer that goes on, the better for me, because it gives me time to gather the reins as best I can and try to give people a vision to get through this. As long as I have a base of support among the larger group of civilians, I’m fine. And let’s face it, the glymera isn’t about inclusion, so it’s not as if your average vampire feels an allegiance to them.

J.R.: What is your vision for the future?

Wrath: Change. Phury’s absolutely right, we need to adapt if we’re going to survive, and the old rules are killing us. I’ve already outlawed slavery. I’m changing the rules about soldiers and the Brotherhood. The Chosen have been set free. And there are a hundred other things I need to recast, rethink, redo.

J.R.: About the Brotherhood. So that means Blay and Qhuinn could be Brothers?

Wrath: Assuming they get enough experience under their belts and can rise to the level. The threshold for being a Brother is going to be set very high in terms of skills. Blood’s not going to get you in anymore, how you fight will. And I’m freeing up other restrictions. You know, Qhuinn is Johns private guard, and in the past that would have disqualified him, but not anymore.

J.R.: I’m surprised that you let him and Blay into the house. Glad, actually.

Wrath: (after a moment) Well…Darius built that place, and he loved having people around. Those two boys are tight, and shit knows, Qhuinn did right by John. S’all good. Thing is, the training program is on hiatus for God only knows how long. The glymera took what sons were left with them when they went, and besides, we’ve had our hands full dealing with the war. I need soldiers, and Blay and Qhuinn are good fighters. Excellent, really. So we’re going to want them.

(Long silence.)

J.R.: Are you happy? I mean, I know things are hard right now, but are you happier than you were a couple of years ago?

The line suddenly goes taut, and Wrath focuses on bringing in what turns out to be a freshwater trout. The fish is gleaming and slippery in the king’s big hands, and he almost loses it while trying to get the hook out of its gaping mouth.

J.R.: He’s beautiful.

Wrath: Yeah, full of fight, too. (He leans down and puts the fish to the water, holding it carefully.) You ask me if I’m happy? Well…after this, we’re going back to a warm house and my shellan’s waiting for me there. We’re going to eat, assuming Layla hasn’t burned down the kitchen, and then I’m going to get into bed with Beth. I’m going to mate with her for an hour, maybe longer, then I’m going to fall asleep with her on my chest. (He releases the trout and watches it tear off through the sluggish current.) You ready to go?

J.R.: Yeah. And I appreciate your doing this.

Wrath: Not a problem. Except you think you’re going to drive down to Caldwell now to do the others?

J.R.: That’s the plan.

Wrath: (shaking head) No, you’re staying here tonight. Tomorrow you’ll leave late afternoon. It’s a long drive, and the Northway’s got deer.

J.R.: (because you do not argue with the king) All right. That’s what I’ll do.

Wrath: Good.

At this point the two of us wade over to the bank. Wrath gets out of the stream first and offers me his hand. I take it and he pulls me up. He picks up the backpack, opens it, and holds it out to me.

Wrath: You want your apple?

J.R.: Oh. I’d love it.

I reach in and take the thing. Its red-and-green skin is shiny in the moonlight, and when I bite into it, it cracks like hardwood. The juice drips down onto my palm as the two of us go through the woods together, our waders flapping against our legs.

J.R.: (as we come out of the forest and sec the glowing lights of Rehv’s rustic safe house) Wrath?

Wrath: Hm?

J.R.: Thank you.

Wrath: Its your apple.

J.R.: I’m not talking about the apple.

Wrath: (after a moment) I know. I know, cholla.

He gives me a short, tight hug that lasts for two footfalls, and then the pair of us separate, but keep walking side by side toward the warm, welcoming home.

Wrath, heir to the throne of the vampires

Beth Randall, newspaper reporter

Darius, son of Marklon, son of Horusman

Tohrment, son of Hharm

Wellasandra, blooded daughter of Relix, mated of the Black Dagger warrior Tohrment

Rhage, son of Tohrture

Zsadist, son of Ahgony

Phury, son of Ahgony

The Scribe Virgin

Marissa, blooded daughter of Wallen

Havers, blooded son of Wallen

Fritz (Perlmutter), butler extraordinaire

Mr. X(avier), Fore-lesser

Billy Riddle, son of Senator William Riddle

Cherry Pie, a.k.a. Mary Mulcahy

Butch O’Neal, detective in the Caldwell Police Department, Homicide Division

José de la Cruz, detective in CPD’s Homicide Division

Dick, Beth’s editor at the Caldwell Courier Journal

Doug, the attending at the hospital

Unnamed blond male, Billy Riddle’s partner in the attempted rape of Beth

Loser (unnamed youth whom Mr. X takes out with Billy)

Abby, bartender at McGrider’s Bar

Boo, the black cat

Screamer’s on Trade Street

Offices of the Caldwell Courier Journal (CCJ) on Trade Street

Beth’s apartment—1B, 1188 Redd Avenue

Caldwell Police Department on Trade (six blocks from Caldwell Courier Journal)

Darius’s House—816 Wallace Avenue

Caldwell Martial Arts Academy (across from Dunkin’ Donuts)

Mr. X’s farm, off Route 22

Havers’s clinic—undisclosed location

McGrider’s Bar on Trade Street

ZeroSum (corner of Trade and Tenth streets)

In this, the first book of the series, Wrath, unascended king of the vampires and the last purebred vampire on earth, reluctantly assumes responsibility for seeing a half-breed female through her transition. Beth Randall is unaware of her vampire heritage and fights both her own truth and her attraction to the dark stranger who comes after her.

Opening line: Darius looked around the club, taking in the teeming, half-naked bodies on the dance floor.

Last line: “Please, if you would,” the butler said, “no throwing the linens. Peaches, anyone?”

Published: September 2005

Page length: 393

Word count: 118,833

First draft written: September-November 2004

Dark Lover remains the book of which I’m most proud. In my opinion, the pacing is as good as I’ll ever get it, and it was the place where I found my voice. Of course, writing the damn thing scared the ever-loving pants off me because it was a huge stretch for me as an author. Huge. I’d never tried multiple POVs and plots before or done a series or given world building a shot. I had no clue what I was doing when it came to…well, just about everything in the story: Even though DL was the fifth book I’d written for publication, it was such a departure from the ones that came before it, I might as well have been starting from scratch again.

And I hadn’t been an expert before then by any stretch of the imagination.

My first four books were single-title contemporary romances. Published under the Jessica Bird name, they were very much a product of years of reading and loving Harlequin Presents and Silhouette Special Editions. Well, that and the fact that I was born a writer. It’s just part of my makeup, something I have to do if I’m going to be happy—and sane. But that’s another saga.

I loved writing the Jessica Bird books, but my contract wasn’t renewed…which meant I didn’t have a publisher anymore. I knew I had to change directions if I were going to still have a job, and I tried my hand in a couple of different subgenres. I pulled together a romantic-suspense proposal, but the material just wasn’t strong enough. I thought about doing women’s fiction and chick lit—except they weren’t what I read, probably because the subject matter wasn’t my bag. I also considered staying with contemporary romance and trying to find another publisher, although I knew the chance of someone else picking me up was unlikely.

It was in my darkest moment, when I had nothing particularly fresh and interesting in my brain save for an abiding realization that if I didn’t reinvent myself I was toast…that Wrath showed up. Although I had always been a horror fan, it had never dawned on me to try my hand at paranormal romance. All of a sudden, though, I had over two thousand pounds of male vampire stuck in my head, and the Brothers wanted out like they were locked in a house that was on fire.

Okay. Right. Horror meets romance meets erotica meets fantasy meets hip hop. Throw in some leather and some Miami Ink shit, stir with a baseball bat and a tire iron, sprinkle on some baby powder, and serve over a hot bed of Holy-Mary-mother-of-God this-has-to-work-or-I’m-going-to-be-a-lawyer-for-the-rest-of-my-natural-life.

No problem.

Damn it, I remember thinking, why don’t I drink? Or at least eat chocolate?

Which brings me to my first rule for writers: PR is mission critical for survival, and I’m not talking about public relations.

Persist and Reinvent. If you’re not selling, or if you’re not getting a good response to your material from agents or publishers, try something else, whether it’s a new voice or subgenre or even genre. Keep at it. Keep trying. Look for new avenues that interest you. Find a different path.

It was the only thing that saved me.

That didn’t mean P&R was fun. As I sat down to tackle Wrath’s proposal and sample chapters, I was at once singularly inspired and totally stalled. All I had was a tangle of visions in my head, a burning panic that no one would get the series, much less buy it, and the near conviction that I couldn’t possibly pull off something as complicated and interconnected as the Brotherhood’s world.

Nothing like trying to fly a plane when you can barely handle a bicycle.

Facing a whole lot of blank screen on my computer, I knew I had to tamp down my anxiety, and considering the fact that putting my skull in a vise wasn’t a viable solution, I made an agreement with myself: I would write the story that was in my head exactly as I saw it, and I would do it for me and me alone. I wouldn’t allow any you-can’t-do-thats or that’s-against-the-rules or better-play-it-safes to get in the way. Whatever I saw in my mind’s eye was going on the page.

My rule number two? Write. Out. Loud.

Take your vision and execute it to the fullest extent of your capabilities. It is always easier to pull back than to push forward in revisions, and I think that the bolder you are in your first draft, the more likely you are to be honest with what’s in your head.

So, yeah, that was the plan, and I felt pretty good about my resolution. Except right out of the box, I had a problem.

How was I going to work the plan?

With all that I was being shown, and the number of POVs and subplots, I was at a loss when it came to drafting the story. After doing the panic-and-pace thing for a little while, I ended up falling back on my legal training. In law school, you study by creating these voluminous outlines of the material presented in class. By the time you’re done putting everything in order, you’ve actually learned the material—so it’s the process, not necessarily the outcome, that is the big benefit.

Outlining extensively was, and continues to be, the single most important tool I use in my process.

Before the Brothers, I started with nothing more than a high-level summary of my story, the sole goal of which was to give my editor a clue as to where I was headed. Most of my thinking was done while I was drafting—which was totally inefficient and a little dangerous. For example, I’d take the hero and heroine into emotional places that didn’t work, or get their motivations and conflicts muddled, or lose track of the book’s momentum…or sometimes all of these at once. Sure, I’d figure my way out eventually, but I’d end up scrapping tons of pages and be too much of a burden on my editor during the revision process. Further, because of all the struggling, the choices I made were not the best ones because I was brain-dead from all the confusion and lack of clarity.

My all-important third rule is a corollary to number two and the overriding theme to everything I do as an author:

Own your own shit (or work, if we’re going to be a little more classy).

And it ain’t called shit ’cause it don’t stink.

Do not rely on your editor or your agent or your critique partner to identify and solve your plot, character, pace, context, pagination, or any one of the thousands of problems you have to work through when you write a book. Educate yourself on craft by critiquing the books you read, both the good ones and the bad ones. Ask yourself, What works? What doesn’t? Study the standard texts on writing, like Story by Robert McKee and Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass and The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler. Talk to other writers about their books and how they wrote them.

Then, when you look at your own work, approach it like you’re a drill sergeant facing off at a bunch of unruly, lazy slobs. For me, being nice to my tender little inner artist and soaking in the mother’s milk of praise is a surefire way to get soggy and fatheaded. Discipline and a clear assessment of my strengths and weaknesses as a writer are the only things that work for me. Ego is not my friend and never has been.

Back to Dark Lover and the outlining. The images in my head were so clear and demanding that it took me only two weeks to draft the outline and the rules of the world (as well as the first sixty-nine pages of the book). Of course, I barely slept or took any breaks at all. I was totally caught up in this undeniable momentum and didn’t have any interest in slowing it down.

I still don’t.

And when I was finished getting everything I saw out of my head…the outline was forty-four pages long. I was stunned. Previously? I topped out at ten pages.

My big concern was that when my agent took the proposal to market, the editors wouldn’t read the entire thing. When you’ve been published previously, generally you sell projects on spec with three sample chapters and an outline—but I felt like I was turning in…well, the whole book. Of course, that was also the good thing. I really knew where I was going and what each and every character arc was going to be. I’d done all my thinking and reordering along the way—and learned that changing around a paragraph or two in an outline is a hell of a lot easier than wiping out whole chapters and putting new ones in during drafting.

Fortunately, the proposal for the series was bought (by the most spectacular editor I’ve ever worked with), and I knew I was going to get a shot to write at least three books. Man, I was excited, but I was also terrified, because I wasn’t sure whether I could carry it off. Of course, I told myself my gorgeous, heavyweight outline was my savior. Figured that as long as I had that, I was all set. Ready to pound away on the keyboard.

Riiiiiiiiight.

The execution turned out to be far trickier than I could have imagined, for a variety of reasons.

For me, one of the big challenges of Dark Lover was learning how to handle multiple plotlines and multiple POVs (points of view). The way I see it, there are three major plotlines in the book: Wrath and Beth’s; Mr. X and Billy Riddle’s; and Butch’s. In each of them, different aspects of the world are introduced, giving the reader an insight into the vampire race, its secret war with the Lessening Society, and its under-the-radar existence with humans. Which is a lot. And to complicate things even further, these plots were presented to the reader in the voices of no fewer than eight people.

Lot to handle. Lot to keep up with.

Lot to advance from chapter to chapter.

Rule number four for me as a writer? Plotlines are like sharks: They either keep moving or they die.

With so much going on, pacing was going to be critical: To be successful, I had to make sure that everything kept progressing, and here was my new reality as a writer—while I was trying to make sure I showed Wrath and Beth inching closer both emotionally and physically, I had to keep tabs on Butch and José de la Cruz’s homicide investigation, which simultaneously brought Butch into the Brotherhood picture and kept the reader up on Mr. X’s nasty deeds. Meanwhile, the other Brothers had to be introduced, I had to give an overview of the war, and then there was rolling out the welcome mat to the Scribe Virgin and the nontemporal world.

And I had to do all this without losing cohesion between the scenes, and keeping the emotions realistic and vivid without sinking into melodrama.

As a further example, Butch was going to be in the Brotherhood, and his road in was through Beth’s connection with Wrath. Butch was also going to end up with Marissa. Fine. Dandy. Rock on. The thing was, though, how did I interweave his scenes with the ones of Beth and Wrath’s romance along with all the stuff with Mr. X and the Lessening Society…without having the book come out choppy and incomprehensible?

Also, the plots had to “peak,” in an emotional sense, in the right sequence. Beth and Wrath had to have the most dynamic ending—and going by the pictures in my head they certainly did. But Butch’s situation and that of Mr. X and Billy Riddle had to be resolved…but only in a way that didn’t drain the drama from Beth and Wrath.

Brain. Cramp.

The cure? Rule number five, which is a corollary to rule three (Own Your Own Work): Sweat. Equity.

After I finished the first draft, I went through that book over and over and over and over again. And then I’d take a week off and come at it one more time. I spent hours and hours repositioning the breaks and the chapters and trimming things and sharpening the dialogue and making sure that I showed, not told.

And even when I read through the galleys, which is the last stage of production, I still wanted to change things. The book has its strengths and weaknesses, just like they all do, but I learned a ton writing Dark Lover. And I needed those lessons for what was coming in the series like you read about.

Enough on craft, let’s talk about the King and Beth…

Wrath was the first of the Brothers to turn up in my head, and he was the one who showed me the world of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. The thing I like best about him is summed up in the beginning of Dark Lover:

I love that combination—a blueblood who’s also a fighter—and I believe Wrath is the perfect leader for the vampires: strong, brutal when necessary, possessing both logic and passion. He just needed to wake up to the fact that he could lead.

And Beth was the one who helped him get there.

Beth was and is Wrath’s perfect match. She’s strong-minded, warm, and willing to stand up to him. Their dynamic is shown to perfection in what is one of my favorite scenes between them. The two of them are talking about his take on what happened when his parents were slaughtered in front of him. He condemns himself for not saving them, but he was a physically weak pretrans, so realistically there was nothing he could do. Beth loses it and hammers him for being too hard on himself—which is something he needed to hear, even if he clearly wasn’t receptive to what she was saying. The thing I love is that she wasn’t dissuaded from speaking her mind even with him looming over her. And Wrath, even though he doesn’t agree with her, becomes still more attracted to her. When she’s finished being frustrated with him, there’s an awkward stretch:

The thing is, Wrath is all about strength, and the fact that Beth can stick up for herself and what she believes puts them on equal footing. The gift of his respect is as significant as the gift of his love, and she’s worthy of both.

Another of my favorite scenes in the book is when Beth comes up from Wrath’s underground bedroom at Darius’s, fresh from her transition. She’s wondering how he’ll be with her in front of his Brothers and is prepared to play it cool as she comes into the dining room where the warriors are. Turns out Wrath’s just fine with PDA (public displays of affection), and he embraces her in front of a stunned Brotherhood, who had never seen him with a female before. After he explains her significance in the Old Language, he leaves to get her the two things she’s craving, chocolate and bacon, and the Brothers greet her in a special way:

The Brothers are greeting their new queen here, although Beth is unaware of the role she’ll play in the future, so she actually had two transitions that night: the first her becoming a vampire, and the second this welcome into Wrath and the Brotherhood’s private world as his leelan, his “dearest one.”

One of the most erotic scenes in the book? Aside from the first time they hook up, I think it’s when they’re having their date at Darius’s. The evening starts off rough (thanks to, among other things, Wrath getting into an argument with Tohr, whereupon Tohr feeds him the classic line, “Nice. Fucking. Suit”). However, the couple’s private time ends with…well, Wrath talking about how much he loves peaches. The mood goes from dark and tense to sensual with this:

Most touching scene? For me, it has to be the one at Havers’s clinic at the end. Wrath is still pretty wiped after having been shot in the stomach, and he’s just come out of a coma. Beth is trying to communicate with him because he’s agitated and upset, but he’s having trouble talking. She’s asked him if he needs her to get the doctor or food or drink or blood, and none of that is what he’s looking for:

I think that pretty much says it all about them. So I’ll leave it at that.

Dark Lover was the launching pad for all the Brothers, not just for Wrath and Beth. I was very clear, even way back then, where the original seven in the Brotherhood were headed and who else was going to join the ranks. And as with all the books, the plotlines of things that wouldn’t see the light for years were started. This wasn’t because I was brilliant—but a case of scenes landing in my head that would come into play much later.

As I said, Wrath’s story is the book I’m proudest of—it was a totally fresh start that was, for the first time, truly authentic to what’s in my head. It would shock me if I ever do something like it again and pull it off to the extent I did. Wrath was a complete about-face of subject matter, tone, and voice coupled with an incredible stretch for me in terms of craft—written at a time when I was basically out of a job.

I’m really grateful Wrath came in for a landing and brought the Brothers along with him. His book is dedicated to him—with good reason.

Rhage, Son of Tohrture

Age: 165

Joined Brotherhood: 1898

Height: 6′8″

Weight: 280 lbs.

Hair color: Blond

Eye color: Neon blue-green

Identifying physical marks: Multicolored tattoo of clawed dragon coveting entire back; Brotherhood scar on left pectoral; name MARY MADONNA carved in skin across upper back and shoulders in Old English letters.

Note: Possesses inner dragon that comes out when he is stressed due to punishment issued by Scribe Virgin (which he has retained in order to save Mary). He is now able to exert some control over his alter ego, which has been tamed by his shellan.

Weapon of choice: His beast (martial arts throwing stars)

Description:

Mated to: Mary Madonna Luce

Last movie watched: La Vie en Rose (Mary’s fault—she maintained it was necessity to balance out my Bill Murray festival.)

List book read: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (to Nalla)

Favorite TV show: Flavor of Love, Rock of Line, or pretty much anything on the Food Channel—P.S. I want New York to come hack and do another season

Last TV show watched: Talk Soup

Last game played: You don’t want to know

Greatest fear: Loss of Mary

Greatest love: Mary

Favorite quote: Mangia bene!

Boxers or briefs: Anything that Mary likes taking off me!

Watch: Gold Rolex Presidential

Car: Deep Purple GTO

What time is it while you’re filling this out: 6 p.m.

Where are you? In my bed, naked.

What are you wearing? See above.

What’s in your closet? Black stuff, lighting leathers, whites to see the Scribe Virgin. And one lone Hawaiian shirt Mary is trying to get me to wear. Okay, its not a Hawaiian shirt, but it’s, like, blue, and honestly, color makes me scratch when it comes to clothes. She is, however, willing to bribe me to get me to wear it—which is always fun!

What was the last thing you ate? Buttermilk pancakes (5) with butter and maple syrup; pot of coffee; six sausages; two servings of hash browns; a box of strawberries; a cinnamon bagel with cream cheese; pink grapefruit halved (ate both halves); and three cherry Danishes. And I’m feeling a bit peckish.

Describe your last dream? Let’s just say I rolled over and acted it out about a half hour ago .

Coke or Pepsi? Coke

Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe? Marilyn Monroe, I guess. But it’s totally moot, and not because they’ve both passed. Mary’s it for me.

Kirk or Picard? Kirk. He was the lothario of space, man, and props for that!

Football or baseball? Football, because it’s a contact sport!

Sexiest part of a female? Depend on my mood…I guess I’m an omnivore. Which means I like to nibble—on anything and everything.

What do you like most about Mary? The sound of her voice. The way she can roll over beside me in bed and talk to me in the darkness of the day and I know that I’m safe.

First words spoken to her were: “Who are you?”

Her response was: “My name.. - my name is Mary. I’m here with a friend.”

Last gift given to her: I brought a single white rose to her last night. She was thrilled. See, she’s not a big, showy kind of female, my Mary Madonna. Like…okay, I bought her an engagement ring before our mating ceremony, because she’s a human and that’s how they do. It’s a diamond, ’cause, you know, only the best for my Mary. The thing’s seven carats. D. Flawless. Fritz got it for me in Manhattan from the Diamond District. When I gave it to her, Mary was very polite and grateful, but it’s in the drawer. What’s on her finger? A single gold band. V made one for both of us, because, like I said, Mary’s human and she wanted us to have wedding bands to wear after our mating ceremony. Funny. I didn’t understand the whole wedding ring thing until I got one. I mean, for us, for male vampires, we carve skin to show that we’re mated. But the great thing about a ring is that folks can see it even when you’re fully clothed. I keep mine on always—unless I’m out fighting.

Most romantic thing you’ve ever done for her: She seemed to really like the rose. I tell you, the way she smiled at me made me feel like I was ten feet tall.

Most romantic thing she’s ever done for you: The way she thanked me for the rose.

Anything you’d change about her? Nothing except for her taste in movies! GOD. I mean, honestly, that female will watch anything with foreign subtitles. And I try to get into the kind of ones she likes. I do…but it’s a snuggle. I understand what she means, though. After watching something she likes, I have to clear my palate with a little dose of Bruce Willis or maybe an encore screening of Superbad.

Best friend (excluding shellan): Butch/V

Last time you cried: This afternoon. I thought La Vie en Rose would never end.

Last time you laughed: While I was eating. Butch was the one who made the pancakes, and you should have seen Fritz’s expression when he saw what kind of shape the kitchen was in afterward. Butch is tight behind the stove, although not as good as V, but, man, my boy don’t know the meaning of clean-as-you-go. The place wasn’t just messy, it was like…defiled or some shit. We helped take care of the mess, me, V and Butch—along with a bunch of doggen, who, after Fritz got over his shock. had a great time tidying up. Doggen love to clean like I love to cat.

The afternoon following my interview with Wrath in that stream, I left Rehvenge’s safe house around five. I was glad I’d spent the night. Wrath and Beth and Phury and Cormia, along with the Chosen, were a great group to hang out with, and after hours of chatting I’d slept like a rock—proving that as usual the king was right: My other interviews with the Brothers were going to be better because I wasn’t half-dead from travel.

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.

Rhage: (muffled) Yeah?

J.R.: Its me.

Rhage: Oh, thank God. Come in.

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.

Rhage: Can’t have you tripping over things.

J.R.: Thank you…

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.

J.R.: So die beast came out, huh.

Rhage: Yeah…last night right before dawn. (He groans as he tries to turn over.)

J.R.: Are you sure you want to Jo this right now?

Rhage: Yup. I’m dying for distraction, and I can’t watch TV. Hey, could you get me some more Alka-Seltzer? Mary hit me with six before she left about half an hour ago. but they don’t seem to last long.

J.R.: Absolutely.

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.

J.R.: (watching the plop-plop, fizz-fizz go to work) Maybe you should take something stronger?

Rhage: Doc Jane tried me out on some Prilosec. Didn’t help as much.

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.

Rhage: (laughs quietly) You are blushing.

J.R.: No, I’m not.

Rhage:(singing along to the tune of na-na-na-na-na-naaaaa) You are blushing. You are blushing.

J.R.: How is it possible I want to strike you while you’re down?

Rhage: (grins) Aw, you say the sweetest things.

J.R.: (laughing because you just have to, he’s that endearing) Wait, I thought your vision was off afterward?

Rhage: It is, but your cheeks are THAT red. But really, enough about you, lets talk about me. (bats his mile-long lashes) Come on, what do you want to know? What burning questions do I get to answer?

J.R.: (laughing again) You’re the only Brother who likes to get interviewed.

Rhage: Glad to know I’ve managed to distinguish myself from that ratty bunch of fools.

J.R.: What happened? (sits down on edge of bed)

Rhage: I followed the lead on another lesser “persuasion” house, and let’s just say I found what I was looking for and then some,

J.R.: (swallowing) Were there a lot of them!

Rhage: Meh. Enough. There was some lead exchanged, and one of the bullets landed somewhere I didn’t appreciate.

J.R.: Where were you hit?

Rhage: (sweeps sheet off his legs, revealing a bandage around his thigh) Me and the beast get along much better now, and he doesn’t like me getting plugged. (laughs) But Qhuinn, John Matthew, and Blay came as backup—like they did for me and Z last week. Man…(laughs) that threesome was a little surprised at my alter ego.

J.R.: What did the boys think of the beast?

Rhage: When I came back as me, I woke up with them standing around my head, looking like they’d been victims of a hit-and-run. They were white as boxer shorts and about as solid. (laughs) Guess the beast took care of the squadron of slayers who’d been called in as reinforcements, (rubs tummy) Must have been quite a number of them.

J.R.: So you still have to recover afterward. (Rhage shoots me a well-DUH expression and rubs his stomach again.) Okay, silly question. Is it easier now for you? Dealing with the beast, that is?

Rhage: Well…yes and no. I don’t fight it anymore when it comes out, and that seems to decrease the owie time afterward. But I still have to go through this to some extent—especially if there’s been, how do we say. a snack. The good thing is, I don’t worry so much about the damn thing turning my brothers or the boys into a Happy Meal. It’s weird…ever since Mary’s come along, the beast is tuning in to people. I don’t know it that makes any sense. It’s like, when he bonded with her, it made him capable of seeing folks as friend or foe instead of everyone being food, you know?

J.R.: That’s a relief.

Rhage: Man. I used to spend all my time worrying about that shit. So yeah, it’s better on a lot of fronts. I mean, for real? I’d still be way out of it at this point, you know, doing the recovery thing hard-core. Now? I’ll be up and around in another three hours or so. Still will have the indigestion, but those god-awful body aches don’t last nearly as long. (shakes his head) Have to say, though, even if it were still anally tough to deal with…wouldn’t matter to me.

J.R.: No?

Rhage: Got me my Mary. So even if the beast split me apart to get out, as long as I could put myself back together enough to be with her, it’s fine for me.

J.R.: That’s beautiful.

Rhage: So is she.

J.R.: Speaking of couple stuff…I’ve heard that you and she…

Rhage: Have baby on the brain? (laughs) Yeah, we do. Go fig. Tiling is, it’s not clear to me how to work it. There may he an opportunity, but we’ll see. We’re still just talking about it.

J.R.: (not wanting to press) Well, I think you two would be great parents.

Rhage: You know, I do too. There are some issues that we need to work out. Between you and me…Mary is…

J.R.: What?

Rhage: (shaking head) No, it’s private. Anyway, if it happens, it would be great, and if not, I’m not missing anything because I have her. I mean, shit, look at Tohr.

J.R.: He’s re-ally not doing well, is he.

Rhage: No, he’s not. And to be honest, its fucking with all of our heads. Thing is, you can’t help but put yourself in his position, because he’s your brother and you’re feeling where he’s at and you don’t want him hurting so bad. And you can’t help but think about yourself. Me without Mary…(Eyes close, mouth narrows.) Yeah, what else were you going to ask me.

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.

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

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

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.

Opening line: Ah, hell, V, you’re killing me.

Last line: And reveled in all the love.

Published: March 2006

Page length: 441

Word count: 125,574

First draft written: December 2004-August 2005

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 left 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:

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:

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.

Which brings me to rule eight: Listen to your Rice Krispies.

I don’t know where my ideas come from. The pictures in my head have always been there, and they are in charge. I didn’t want Rhage as book number two, but he was. I wanted Rhage’s tone to be just like Wrath’s. It wasn’t. I didn’t know how Rhage and Mary were going to end up with each other for centuries considering he was a vampire and she was not. They did. (And P.S., I wanted Lover Eternal’s writing process to be easier, because I’d just spent nine months getting the world straight. It was just as tough, only in a different way. More on that later.)

All went well and goes well, though, because I let what’s in my head be the driver. Even when I get lost, I trust the stories…largely because I don’t have a choice. What I’m shown is always infinitely better than what I try to deliberately construct.

Here’s a minor example of how I listened to my Rice Krispies when it came to Rhage’s book. As I started to write Lover Eternal, Vishous, keeper of visions of the future, popped up and told Rhage that he ended up with a virgin. When I saw this, I was like, Er…that’s going to be kind of tough, given that Mary’s been with someone before she met Hollywood. Still, I was like, Okay, V said it, so it’s going on the page. And then, throughout the book, V kept hinting about Mary’s name having a special significance. I had no idea what the hell he was going on about, but I kept seeing him in my head, always with the name. I figured, Well…just throw it in, and when it goes nowhere, I’ll trim it out.

It wasn’t until I got to the end of the book when it all became clear. Mary and Rhage were holding each other after being reunited in his bedroom:

I remember typing that and laughing out loud. Vishous is never wrong! Now, though, let me give you an example of when being true to what was in my head wasn’t so easy.

In the course of doing Rhage’s outline, which was fifty-eight pages long, I saw a scene that ran counter to one of the big unspoken rules of romantic convention. In the vast majority of romance novels, the hero is never with another woman after he meets and gets physically involved with the heroine. It makes sense. After all, who in their right mind could fall in love with someone who goes around bed-hopping?

Except Rhage went out and was with another woman after he and Mary had been together. The two of them had yet to make love, but the attraction was there and the bonding was in place—at least on Rhage’s part. The issue was his beast. In order to keep his curse under some measure of control, he was forced to burn off his excess energy with fighting and sex, using both as release valves. The night the “adultery” happened, he was in a tough crack. Being around Mary juiced him up because of his attraction for her, and he’d tried and failed to find a fight, so he was reaching a critical, dangerous level. He hated what he did and hated himself for his curse—and it was obvious that what happened was mandated by circumstance, never something he would have chosen. What went down was definitively not a case of a loose-moraled player just out for tail.

The scene where Rhage comes back to their room was heart-wrenching to write. I can still picture him after he’d had his shower, sitting on the edge of the bed. He had a towel around his waist and his head was hanging down and he was utterly defeated, trapped by the realities of his curse and his love for Mary. The situation was tough all around, and it did create a stunningly difficult conflict between the two of them. Together they were able to get past it, but I knew this particular part of the story was not something all readers were going to be comfortable with. And I could understand why. Accordingly, when I wrote the book, I was very careful with how I handled the whole thing.

When I started working on the Brotherhood series, I didn’t set out to be a firebrand or a convention breaker, and that is still not my goal. However I did, as I said, vow to keep true to what I see, and that remains my operating principle. The difficulty for me always is, How do I show what’s in my head without offending the genre I respect so much? It’s always a balance, and it’s the thing my editor and I spend the most time on in the revision process. Sometimes, with Rhage, I think I do a good job of walking the line. Other times…I wish I could have done better. But more on this later.

Speaking about revision…a word on Butch. Originally the story of the cop and Marissa was supposed to be in Lover Eternal. The two were going to fall in love, and he was going to be made a Brother after his transition was jump-started—and that was that. As I started drafting Rhage, I was excited to write about Butch and Marissa because I thought they had great chemistry, and there were a lot of good scenes with the two of them in my head.

Two hundred pages into the manuscript, though, I realized I had a problem. Butch and Marissa were competing for airspace against Rhage and Mary to such a degree that I was basically writing two separate books.

The cop was no subplot.

The idea of taking those scenes out terrified me, though, because I was afraid that a lot of the depth of the world would be compromised. I was also worried that I would lose the scenes forever and they were great—at that point, I wasn’t sure how many of the Brotherhood books I was going to get to do, and I totally wanted to put Marissa and Butch on the page. Finally, I just really, really, really liked what I had written. I mean, I really liked it. Removing those pages seemed like I was giving the material a demotion.

But the book wasn’t working. No matter how much I hemmed and hawed and tried to make excuses, it just wasn’t coming together right.

Let’s hear it for rule number three: Own your own work.

If you know something isn’t working, no matter how much you like it, get rid of the stuff. Don’t wait for your editor to tell you what you know in your heart is true—and make those hard choices because it’s the right thing to do for the book you’re currently working on.

I’m not saying it’s easy.

Even though I knew Rhage’s story was in danger of losing focus, I just couldn’t bring myself to make the cuts, and the I-don’t-want-tos went on for weeks. What finally tipped the scales was that the nagging conviction I was fucking the book up refused to go away—and in fact just got louder and more persistent. When I finally grew a set and decided to man up, I put my work gloves on and did some heavy lifting. I cut the hell out of that manuscript, just sliced it to pieces, and in the process scared the crap out of myself because, as always, I was under a serious deadline: I knew if I robbed the book of its texture, I wouldn’t be able to fix things and still get Rhage in on time (which would lead to all sorts of scheduling complications for my publisher).

The thing was, though, after I put Rhage’s material back together again, I read it through and knew I’d taken the correct action. The focus was where it needed to be, and the book worked better.

The point is, listen to your internal editor like you listen to your Rice Krispies. Just because you think something is brilliant, don’t let it compromise the story you’re writing. I try to keep that in mind always, because there are so many moving parts to the Brotherhood books—I’m always in jeopardy of spiraling away from the main story or stories. And balance of plotlines remains tough.

Let’s see, my favorite scene in Lover Eternal? Hard to say, but if I had to pick…I’d go with the one with the moon—that second one, after Mary has broken up with Rhage, left the Brotherhood’s mansion, and moved in with Bella. It happens right after Rhage goes to see Mary at the farmhouse and they have the official we’re-done conversation. Rhage leaves her in the bedroom upstairs and goes out the front door. He’s utterly ruined, completely at a loss. Up in the night sky there’s a big moon, and as he looks at it, he’s clearly thinking about what Mary did when they were in the park on their second date:

I think it’s a great scene because it’s so poignant to see him echoing what she did during a happier time. And then when she comes out of the house and grabs on to him, it marks a turning point for her. She’s reaching out to Rhage, finally including someone in her life and her illness.

The most erotic scene? Er…the bed scene. You know the one…with the chains? I’ll just put this passage in to remind you. This is right before it all goes down, and Rhage is over in the Pit looking for something to keep himself on the bed:

And this reminds me of one of my favorite lines from the book. It happens fairly early on, when V and Butch have taken cover in the Escalade while Rhage’s beast goes postal on some lessers in a field:

One of the other scenes I love is when it becomes clear that the beast is a danger to everyone but Mary. The final showdown with the slayers has played out at her place, and the beast has done its thing with the lessers. After the carnage, it approaches her:

Mary has captured both Rhage’s and the beast’s hearts, and the two of them are utterly devoted to her. And as she says, she loves the beast—’cuz he’s cute in a Godzilla sort of way.

In the scenes that I’ve seen of Rhage and Mary and the beast since the end of Lover Eternal, it’s been great to find that Rhage and his alter ego have become more integrated. The beast is never going to be an escort for a debutante ball (his table manners haven’t improved much at all), but he’s not as uncontrollable as he was. Rhage is happier and calmer. Mary is fulfilled and living her life. S’all good.

Which brings me to a final thought. After each of the Brothers’ books, they and their shellans continue to live their lives and keep changing and evolving as people do over the course of time. I wish I could show more of where they are and what new challenges they are facing and how their relationships have deepened. The Slices of Life (SOLs) that I post from time to time on the message board give me the opportunity to put out these new scenes, and to me, it’s comforting to see everyone continue on and keep living. Just as we all do.

So that’s Rhage…and now thoughts on my favorite Brother, Z.

Zsadist, Son of Ahgony

Age: 230

Joined Brotherhood: 1932

Height: 6′6″

Weight: 270 to 280 lbs.

Hair color: Multicolored, skull-trimmed

Eye color: Yellow when at rest/black when angry

Identifying physical marks: Slave bands tattooed in black around neck and wrists; scar running down face from forehead to mouth that distorts the upper lip; extensive scarring on back; nipples pierced (by self); gauge in left ear lobe; Brotherhood scar on left pectoral; names BELLA and NALLA carved in skin across upper back and shoulders in Old Language.

Note: Is now literate following years of not knowing how to read. Has an identical twin, Phury.

Weapon of choice: Twin SIG forties. Used to be hands.

Description:

Mated to: Bella

Last movie watched: Meatballs (thanks, Rhage)

List book read: Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss, to my baby girl

Favorite TV show: Don’t really have one

Last TV show watched: The Simpsons—which I do like

Last game played: Monopoly with Wrath

Greatest fear: Monopoly with Wrath

Greatest love: Bella

Boxers or briefs: [left blank]

Watch: Timex—I’m into function

Car: Porsche 911 Carrera 4S, dark gray—like I said, I’m function

What time is it while you’re filling this out: Midnight (I’m off tonight)

Where are you? Office in training center

What are you wearing? [left blank]

What’s in your closet? [left blank]

What was the last thing you ate? Granny Smith apple

Describe your last dream? [left blank]

Coke or Pepsi? Coke

Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe? Oh, please. That’s ridiculous.

Kirk or Picard? Who?

Football or baseball? Sports bore me.

Sexiest part of a female? No one’s business but Bella’s.

First words spoken to your shellan: “Don’t know what you’re doing here, other than fucking up my workout.”

Her response was: “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Last gift given to her: Part of me wants to front and be like it was an object or something. But I think the last and best gift I ever gave to her was manning up and starting to be a true father to Nalla.

Most attractive thing about her is: Everything. Every inch of her skin, every strand of her hair, every hope and dream in her eyes, and all the love in her beautiful heart.

Last time you laughed: When Bella tickled me about ten minutes ago.

Last time you cried: No one’s business but Bella’s.

After I leave Rhage’s room, I stand for a moment in the hall and listen to the sounds of the mansion. Down below, I hear T-Pain rolling out of the billiards room, and pool balls knocking into each other. On the other side of the foyer, in the dining room, doggen are clearing the dishes after First Meal, their voices soft and supercheerful—which I take to mean there is a lot of china and silverware to clean up. Behind me, through the closed doors of Wrath’s study, the king and Beth are discussing—

Zsadist: Hey.

J.R.: (wheels around) Hi—

Z: Didn’t mean to spook you.

Zsadist makes a hell of an impression in person. He’s really big now, so very different than he was before he met Bella. If I were to put my hand on his chest? It might cover one of his pecs, but it would be a stretch. Along with his body, his face has filled out, and that scar, though very noticeable, as always, doesn’t seem as stark because his cheeks aren’t cut so sharply. Tonight he’s wearing low-slung jeans (Sevens, I believe) and a black TEAM PUNISHMENT shirt. He has shitkickers on his feet and holstered SIGs under each arm.

J.R.: Didn’t mean to jump like I did.

Z: You want to interview me?

J.R.: If it’s okay with you.

Z: (shrugs) Meh. I don’t have any real problem with it. As long as I can choose what to answer.

J.R.: Of course you can. (Looks over balcony.) We could do it in the lib—

Z: Let’s go.

When a male like Z says, Let’s go, you follow for two reasons: One, he’s not going to hurt you, and two, he’s not going to let anything hurt you. So there’s no reason not to go. Also no reason to ask about the whole where thing. Sure, he’s not going to hurt you, but do you really want to bug him? Nope.

We go down the grand staircase at a brisk pace, and when we hit the foyer, we cross over the depiction of the apple tree, heading in the direction of the vestibule. The doggen in the dining room look up, and though they are dressed in formal black-and-white butlers’ uniforms, their smiles are as easy and relaxed as a summer day. Z and I wave back at them as we pass.

Z holds both of the vestibule’s doors open for me.

Outside in the courtyard, I take a deep breath. Fall air in upstate New York is like ice-cold sparkling water. It gets into your sinuses and down to your lungs with a sizzle. I love it.

Z: (Taking out car key from his pocket.) Thought we’d take a drive.

J.R.: What a fabulous idea. (Follows him over to iron gray Porsche 911 Carrera 4S.) This car is…

Z: My only possession, really. (Opens my door and waits as I slide into the passenger seat.)

As he comes around to the driver’s side and gets in, I have a serious case of the joneses. Porsches are luxury sports cars, but their roots are in racing, and you can tell. There’s no over-the-top gadgetry cluttering things up on the dash. No flabby seating. No fussy styling. It’s all about high-level function and power.

This truly is the perfect car for him.

Z starts the engine, and the calibrated vibration that comes from the back is a loud-and-clear about the number of horses in the trunk. As he K-turns on the pebbles, working neatly around the fountain which has been drained for the winter, he works the clutch and the gearshift seamlessly.

We head out past the compound’s gates, and the trip down whatever mountain we’re on is a blur to me because of the mhis. After we get level there are turns and straightaways, and when the landscape comes into focus again for me, we’re at one of the countless intersections on Route 22. Z hangs a left and floors it. The Porsche is psyched by the demand and digs into the pavement like its tires have metal spikes and its engine is powered by jet fuel. As we blast forward, my stomach pools in the cradle of my hips and I grip the door handle, but not from fear that we’ll crash—even though Z doesn’t have the headlights on and the dashboard isn’t lit. No, in the moonless night, there is nothing but the Porsche and the smooth road, and I feel like I’m flying. My grip is an attempt to ground myself against the weightlessness.

Except then I realize, I don’t want to be tied down. I release my hand.

J.R.: This reminds me of Rhage and Mary.

Z: (without raking his eyes oft the road) How so?

J.R.: He took her for a ride in his GTO one night when they were falling in love.

Z: He did?

J.R.: Yeah.

Z: Romantic bastard, isn’t he.

We drive along the road, or it could have been the galaxy, and though I can’t see the turns and hills, I know he can. The metaphor for life is unavoidable: Each of us in the seat of our destiny, driven along a road we cannot see, by someone who can.

J.R.: You’re taking us somewhere.

Z: (laughs softly) Oh, really.

J.R.: You aren’t the type to just drive.

Z: Maybe I’ve turned over a new leaf.

J.R.: No. It’s your nature, and not something that needs fixing.

Z: (looking over at me) And where do you think I’m going?

J.R.: Doesn’t matter to me. I know you’ll get us there and back safely and that it’ll be worth the trip.

Z: Let’s hope it is.

We drive in silence, and I’m not surprised. You don’t interview Z. You sit and open up a space and maybe he fills it, maybe he doesn’t.

The next biggish city from Caldwell is a good thirty minutes from the bridges downtown but only about twelve minutes from the Brotherhood’s compound. As we roll into its fringes, Z turns on the headlights to be legal. We pass by an Exxon gas station and a Stewart’s ice-cream shop and a McDonald’s and a host of nonchains like The Choppe Shoppe hair salon and Browning’s Printing and Graphics and Luigi’s Pizzeria. The parking lots are lit like something out of an Edward Hopper painting, pools of light congealing around parked cars and ice machines and Dumpsters. I’m struck by how many wires are suspended from telephone pole to telephone pole and the way the traffic lights dangle above the intersections. It’s the neuropathways of the city’s brain, I think to myself.

The silence is not awkward. We end up at Target.

Z pulls into the parking lot and heads to a secluded space away from the six parked cars clustered around the bank of doors in the front. As we approach the spot he picks, the massive light over us goes dark—probably because he willed it off.

We get out, and while we walk to the toffee-colored building with its red bull’s-eye, Z gets closer to me than he ever has. He’s about two feet behind me on my right, and it feels, because of his size, like he’s on top of me. He’s doing his guard thing, and I take it as a gesture of kindness, not aggression. Going along, our footsteps over the cold pavement are like two different voices. Mine are Shirley Temple. His are James Earl Jones.

Inside the store, the security guard doesn’t like us. The rent-a-cop straightens up from the partition demarcating the food section and puts his hand on his pepper spray. Z ignores him. Or at least, I assume Z does. The Brother is still walking behind me, so I can’t see his face.

J.R.: Which section?

Z: Over to the left. Wait, I want a cart.

After he gets one, we head for…the baby department. When we get to the displays of onesies and tiny socks, Z steps ahead of me. He handles the clothes on the racks in the most gentle way, as if they are already on Nalla’s sturdy little body. He fills the cart. He doesn’t ask me what I think of what he’s buying, but that’s no disrespect to me. He knows what he wants. He buys little shirts and ruffled diaper pants in all kinds of colors. Tiny shoes. A pair of mittens that look like they belong on a doll. Then we go to the toy section. Blocks. Books. Soft stuffed animals.

Z: Automotive next, then music and DVDs. Also books.

He’s in charge of the cart. I follow. He buys Armor All and a bunch of chamois cloths. Then the new Flo-Rida CD. An Ina Garten cookbook. When we pass by the food section, he gets a bag of Tootsie Pops. We pause at the menswear section, and he chooses two Miami Ink baseball caps. In the stationery department he picks up some lovely thick white paper and a set of colored pencils. He takes a deep red knitted scarf from ladies’ accessories, and then pauses by a display of silver chains that have charms dangling off of them. He picks one out that has a small quartz heart hanging from the chain and is careful as he lays it out on top of his neat pile of onesies.

I thought he was being careful with the way he touched the baby clothes because of what they were, but in fact, he treats all the merchandise with the same respect. He looks like a straight-up killer, and his expression is as dark as the black in his eyes, but his hands are never rough. If he picks something up off a shelf or a rack or a display and doesn’t want it, he returns it where it was. And if he finds a sweater that’s just been crammed back into a stack or a book that’s been mis-shelved by another customer or a shirt that’s cockeyed on a hanger, he rights it.

Z has a kind soul. At heart, he’s just like Phury.

We go to check out, and the twenty-year-old guy who’s manning the cash register looks up at Z like the Brother is a god. As I watch all of the items being scanned, I realize the purpose of the trip is not just to get the things, but to send a message. These items are his interview. He’s telling me how much he loves Nalla and Bella and his Brothers. How grateful he is.

J.R.: (softly) The red scarf’s for Beth, right?

Z: (shrugs and takes out a black wallet) Yeah.

Ah…because a present for Beth is a present for Wrath. And I bet the Armor All is for the three boys to massage Qhuinn’s Hummer with. But there’s nothing for…

Z: There’s nothing to get him. There’s nothing he wants, and a gift would make him feel worse.

Tohr. God, Tohr…

After Z pays with a black AmEx, we walk past the security guard, who looks at the red-and-white bags like he has X-ray vision and there could be guns in them—even though the store doesn’t sell click-click-bang-bangs.

Outside, I help Z put his purchases in the minuscule backseat of the Porsche. They overflow, and I end up sitting with some at my feet and on my lap.

We’re silent the whole ride home, until we get to the mhis that surrounds the compound. As the landscape blurs again, I look over at Z.

J.R.: Thank you for taking me.

There’s a pause, one that lasts so long, I figure there’s going to be no response. But then he downshifts as we come up to the mansion’s gates.

Z: (glancing over and nodding once) Thank you for coming along.

Zsadist

Bella

Phury

John Matthew

Rehvenge

Mr. O

Mr. X

Mr. U(stead)

Wellsie

Tohr

Sarelle, Wellsie’s cousin

Lash, son of Ibex

Qhuinn, son of Lohstrong

Blaylock, son of Rocke

Catronia (Z’s Mistress when he was a blood slave)

The Brotherhood mansion—undisclosed location

Bella’s farmhouse—private road off Route 22

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

Tohr and Wellsie’s home

Rehvenge’s family home

ZeroSum (corner of Trade and Tenth streets)

Zsadist, a former blood slave and the most feared member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, finds love as he rescues a beautiful aristocratic female from the obsessive hold of a violent lesser.

Opening line: “Goddamn it, Zsadist! Don’t jump—”

Last line: “Bella…And Nalla.”

Published: September 2006

Page length: 434

Word count: 136,807

First draft written: November 2005-March 2006

I think with Z, I’ll start with something from Dark Lover. This is from the beginning of the book, when Wrath has called the Brotherhood together following Darius’s assassination by the Fore-lesser, Mr. X. Zsadist makes his arrival, so to speak, thusly:

When I first saw Zsadist walk into that house like that, I assumed he was an antagonist. Had to be. His vibe was too legitimately fuck-off for him to be a hero. And then the impression he made got even worse with this scene of Beth waking up to find him with her:

Yeah, okay, so not a hero. The thing was, though, the voices in my head were shouting that he was getting his own book and he was going to end up with an HEA.

Oh, great. Fantastic. And not the last time in the course of writing this series when I’ve been like, You have GOT to be kidding me—I can’t pull that off.

By the end of Dark Lover, however, I was seduced…and totally driven to write Z’s story. The turning points for me were two scenes in that book. One is of Beth meeting up with Zsadist in the pantry as they get the food ready for her mating ceremony (p. 318). In this exchange, Z reveals that he has no intention of hurting Beth and that he doesn’t like to be touched. The other scene is just after the ceremony. The vows have been spoken and the carving done and the Brotherhood is serenading the couple:

By the end of DL, I needed to write Z so badly that for the only time yet, I dictated book order against what I saw in my head. Z was supposed to be the last in the series, the end cap of the ten books (which included Wrath, Rhage, Butch, V, Phury, Rehvenge, Payne, John Matthew, and Tohrment). But the thing was, when I sold the Brotherhood series, the first contract was for three books. At the time the deal was made, paranormals were hot, but people were already beginning to speculate when the market would hit its crest and begin to fall off in terms of popularity. I wasn’t sure I’d get to write all of them.

Call me an optimist, huh.

It was with that mindset that I approached the future, and as I finished Dark Lover and started to outline Lover Eternal, I knew if I didn’t put Zsadist on the page I would never get past it. So I bumped him forward.

Writing him was gut-wrenching, and there were times when I had to stand up and walk away from my computer. But he came out as I saw him in my head, and I love him more than any hero I’ve ever written. He was tricky, though. Z was an honest-to-God sociopath. The difficulty was presenting him in a way that was at once true to his pathology and yet sympathetic enough for readers to see what I saw in him and understand why Bella fell for him.

There were two keys. One was his reaction to Bella’s abduction, and the other was his past as a blood slave and its sexual repercussions. Gaining sympathy for Z with readers was a classic show-not-tell situation. The book opens with Z on a single-minded mission to get Bella back. Very heroic, and the altruism is justified in spite of its being contrary to his nature because it’s obvious that he sees her situation through the lens of his own captivity and abuse: He couldn’t help himself, but he sure as hell can help her. And after he gets her out, he treats her with great gentleness. Bella becomes the catalyst to his expressing something warm and protective, and his interactions with her balance out his more sadistic and masochistic scenes.

And then there is the sexual side of things. By showing Z under the Mistress’s ownership through a series of flashbacks, the reader can see for themselves that he was made into the monster he became, not born like that. Z’s sexual issues with Bella, which were introduced in Lover Eternal, are evidence that the traumas he suffered are not only with him to the present day, but they own and define him as a male. At least until Bella comes into his life.

There was real potential for Z not coming across as heroic, and I was really nervous when my editor read him for the first time, because I wasn’t sure whether I’d pulled it off. She loved him, though, and so did the readers. So do I, although I have to say that I haven’t reread him since I reviewed his galleys—and he’s the only book of mine that I haven’t cracked open when he came back to me bound.

I think it’s going to be a lot longer before I read him. And I might never.

A word on the editorial/publishing process. Lots of people, prepublished authors and readers alike, ask me how exactly the different stages of production work and how long each takes. For me, the whole thing is about nine months.

Once I finish my outline, which takes at least a month, I send it to my editor, who reads it. After we touch base, I get down to work, taking what is in the outline and fleshing it out with description, dialogue, and narration. I tend to write half of the book, then go back and read and edit my way through that block of material. This reread is critical for me. In the Brotherhood books there’s so much going on that I don’t want to risk losing track of all the plot arcs and character development. When I get to the halfway point again, I finish the book all the way through. This whole first drafting process usually takes about four months of seven-day-a-week writing.

Typically I take a week off and let the manuscript sit while I work on other things. This break is really important so that when I go back I have fresh eyes—and if I don’t get the downtime, I really don’t think the draft finishes as well as it should. When I return to the book, it usually takes me another six weeks to do the heavy lifting associated with getting scene order correct and chapter breaks at the right point and the proper intensity of emotion. Then it’s another couple weeks to smooth, smooth, smooth.

At this point I’m blurry eyed and dizzy, because the closer to the end I get, the longer my days are—usually the two weeks before I turn anything in, I’m working fourteen to sixteen hours a day. When it comes to whatever Thursday night is the deadline for mailing (it’s always Thursday so the manuscripts drop on Friday), I print the whole book out, get into my car in a zombie state and a pair of wilted sweats, and drive across town to Kinko’s, where I FedEx the thing overnight to my editor.

Usually the manuscript boxes weigh about eight pounds and cost a hundred dollars to send off.

After my editor reads the material, she and I go over what we think comes through well and what could be even stronger. We also touch base on whatever might go a little far for the market either sexually or in terms of violence. What I love most about my editor is that she lets me be true to what I see and doesn’t dictate. It’s a collaboration focused on making sure that what’s in my head gets onto the page with the best impact possible—and any changes or additions are my choice and my choice alone.

After that editorial meeting, I go back and rework the manuscript, tightening it, getting the words more precise, amplifying where necessary. By this time the chapters are set, the scene order is solid, the peaks and valleys in emotion and action are really humming along, so it’s pretty much just tweaking. That and line editing. I am incredibly anal about words and dialogue and flow, and I go over every single word in the manuscripts over and over again. Nothing ever feels good enough.

For this phase of the process I typically take six weeks, and the manuscript will grow in page length with each succeeding pass I make. A first draft for me is about five hundred pages, double-spaced Times New Roman twelve point. (I can’t write in Courier for some reason, although a lot of authors do—that font screws with my voice.) By the time I finish the revised draft, the manuscript is usually around the six-hundred-page mark.

When I’m finished with the revisions, it’s another trip to Kinko’s on a Thursday evening, pulling a Night of the Living Dead in sweats again. Usually my editor and I do only one revision cycle, not because I’m a miracle worker or a genius, but because I’m really critical about my own work and beat the hell out of the material before she gets to see it.

Next up are copyedits. After my editor reads the book through again and approves it for publication, the manuscript goes to a copy editor, who checks it for dropped words, grammatical issues, trademark spellings, continuity glitches between scenes, and time line stuff. She also puts in the typesetting notations—which are like a Morse code of dots and dashes made in red pencil.

I should probably confess that I don’t think I’m a joy to copyedit. In my books I use a lot of vernacular. Personally, I think so-called “common language” is more interesting and apropos than “proper English”; it’s passionate and powerful in ways that “wherefore art thou ass and thy elbow” just isn’t. I’m very grateful to the copy editor we tend to use because she doesn’t try to beat me over the head with The Chicago Manual of Style (the reference bible for grammatical propriety).

When the copy edits come back, I go through the manuscript, answer any queries on the margins, stet or accept any word additions or subtractions (stet is the word you use to reject what the copy editor has done), and address any issues that my editor and I have come up with on the revisions. Usually my manuscripts are pretty clean, but I still manage to find things that bug me. When I read my writing, it’s like running my hand down a cloth that should be seamless. Things that aren’t smooth irritate the ever living hell out of me, and I have to work and rework the words until I don’t feel rough spots anymore.

After I send the copyedited manuscript back, the next step is galleys. Galleys are an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven printout of exactly what will be in the bound book—think of opening a book up to any page split, and the galleys are the left and right sides reproduced. I go through the whole thing in this form, and I always want to fuss over and change too much. I’m truly never satisfied.

So that’s my process, and I’ve got to say it was complicated by Zsadist, because some of the scenes in him I didn’t want to write, much less edit. Even for this compendium, when I’ve pored through all the other books picking out passages for the dossiers…I can’t do that with Z.

Which is kind of weird, because out of all the males and men I’ve ever written about, he’s my favorite. Bar none. But there’s a lot in his story that’s really upsetting.

What scenes got to me? They’re still in my head so vividly I don’t need to open Lover Awakened to remember them. One of the hardest for me to write was the sequence where Z is led down into what was going to be his cell for the next hundred years by the private guard he used to serve ale to when he was a kitchen boy. He’s just been raped by the Mistress for the first time and is so innocent and hurt and terrified. None of the males will look at him or touch him or take pity on him. They think of him as unclean even though he is a victim. As he walks along, crying, with the remnants of what the Mistress had used on him still on his body, my heart absolutely broke.

It’s just awful.

Another scene that absolutely killed me was when Bella finds Z on the floor of his shower, scrubbing at himself, trying to get clean enough for her to feed from him. He’s rubbing his skin raw, but no matter how much soap and friction he uses, he still feels absolutely filthy.

Then there was the scene where Z forced her to hurt him so that he could finish sexually.

But there are also sections I don’t want to read over again that aren’t about Z.

I knew going into the book that Wellsie’s death was going to be hard on readers. It was hard on me. I cried when I wrote the scene where Tohr is down in the training center’s office with John Matthew and is calling home, hoping that Well-sie will pick up, praying that she’s okay. Just as he dials their number once again, the Brotherhood shows up at the office’s door. Wellsie’s voice comes out of the speakerphone as the call flips into voice mail and Tohr is told she’s been killed.

I’ve had some readers and other authors say that I was courageous for killing a main character off. I’ve had others be really disappointed at my creative choice. Although I totally respect both perspectives, the thing is, to me it wasn’t courage or a choice at all. It was just what happened. I knew all along that Wellsie would be killed; the only thing that surprised me was that it happened as early as it did in terms of the series. I thought it would be farther along in the books, but the thing is, the scenes I see don’t always come chronologically, so I don’t always know the when.

As a side note, I will say that those who had problems with her death had less trouble when I explained that it wasn’t a melodramatic calculation on my part and that it basically crippled me. I think if you work with characters whom readers feel a close connection with, and bad things happen, as long as you show that you are far from indifferent, that in fact you are heartbroken and worried and sad, then readers are less likely to feel capriciously manipulated.

Some other thoughts on Z…

Bella should have gotten more airtime.

In the Brotherhood books, my heroines don’t always get enough attention or page space, and I know why. One of my weaknesses as a writer, and it comes out in the series, is that I get so far into the heads and the lives of my heroes that the female leads are in danger of being eclipsed.

See, the good thing about the Brothers is that I see them with such clarity.

The bad thing about the Brothers is that I see them with such clarity.

Choosing what to put in and where to filter is hard for me, and not only in terms of the Brothers’ lives. The series as a whole is always progressing in my head: changes in the war are happening; Wrath is at greater and greater odds with the glymera; challenges are coming into the previous Brothers’ relationships and being surmounted. Nothing is static in the world, and I don’t always know what to put to the side.

Back to Bella as a case in point. I wish I’d spent more time showing how her experience being held at the hands of Mr. O affected her emotionally and psychologically. There was some mention of the aftermath, but there could have been more. Sure, she gets the (dubious) satisfaction of killing her captor at the end, but I think I might have shown more of her processing her abduction in front of the readers so they knew where she was and how she was coming along.

As for the romance? Bella was perfect for Zsadist—pretty much the only female I could picture getting through to him (and he’s really the only male strong enough for her to respect—I mean, hello, Rehvenge is her brother!).

They’re just a great pair…I’m reminded of the very first time they meet in Lover Eternal. Z’s punching that bag down in the gym, and Bella stumbles upon his workout. She’s instantly attracted to him as she watches him from behind, and even after he turns around and she sees his scarred face and gets a load of his nasty attitude, she’s still drawn to him (p. 70).

The beginnings of their mutual connection came through toward the end of that book. At the party Rhage throws for his Mary at the Brotherhood’s mansion, Bella reaches up and touches Phury’s hair out of curiosity. Z is watching from the shadows and comes over to her:

Later in the evening, Bella ends up following Z to his bedroom. The visit doesn’t end as she hopes, with them together in bed. Instead she learns something about this hard-core warrior she’s so attracted to. This is from after he nearly takes her, when he stops and rolls off her onto the tiled floor:

As I said before, Bella’s abduction was part of the reason they ended up together, because it opened Z emotionally to her in a way that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. But I think Bella still would have gotten to him, because she’s a great combination of strength and compassion. She’s a realist, though, and does pull out of the relationship toward the end of their book, when Z pushes her away. Their parting, along with other forces in his life, are what prompt Z to make some important changes.

I have to say that, to me, the way Lover Awakened ended with its epilogue was so great. Z’s back working out in the gym where Bella first saw him, but as she comes in and brings little Nalla to her daddy, you get a sense of how far they’ve come. I swear, when Z turns back and winks at the trainee while he has Nalla in his arms?

*sigh*

But here’s the thing: As I’ve said, the reality for me in this series is that these people’s lives don’t stop just because their book is finished. And that is what the novella in this compendium was all about. It’s logical that Z would have trouble bonding with his daughter, and I really value the opportunity of getting to show that part of his development as a male and a hellren and a father.

And speaking of family…Phury. You can’t talk about Z without mentioning Phury. Phury has fascinated me ever since that scene in Lover Eternal when he comes back from having beaten Z at Z’s request. Phury’s hollow eyes as he emerges from the training center’s tunnel were what stuck with me, and I was dying to see where he ended up and how he fell in love. And then, in Lover Awakened, he goes even farther for his twin. I think the scene when Phury scars his own face really gets to the core of the trouble he’s in, both psychologically and emotionally. All his life he has been consumed by his twin’s abduction and slavery, and his rescue of Z doesn’t save either one of them from their suffering. When Phury shaves his head and puts a dagger to his own face in order to take his twin’s place at the hands of the lesser who abducted Bella, he becomes the physical embodiment of Zsadist.

More on Phury later, but he was almost too heroic, overbalancing Z’s anti-hero with a personality that was self-sacrificing to a detrimental degree.

One last thing…Rehvenge…oh, Rehv. Getting a chance to show him off was one of the great joys of this book. He was and is just so flat-out hot and such total and complete bad news that I was jonesing to write his book even back then.

And Rehv was significant for another reason.

He was, in Lover Awakened, the first time I’d ever tried to deliberately obscure a character’s identity. The Reverend, club owner and drug dealer, and Rehvenge, aristocratic, overbearing brother of Bella, were the same person, but I didn’t want the reader to know it until the end, when Z and Bella go to her mother’s house. The way I managed the sleight of hand was that I showed Rehv mostly through other people’s points of view, and if there was anything in his POV, I was careful there were no revelations on his part that left the reader making the connection. It was, as Butch would say, wicked tricky. I literally went through every single word in the Rehv sections to make sure that there were no tip-offs and that the presentations made him believable in both roles.

Okay, I guess I’ve gone on long enough about Zsadist and his book. Butch is, as always, wanting some attention, and then there’re still Vishous and Phury to go through.

I think I’ll close with the fact that I’m still in love with Z and always will be.

And that just about says it all.

Dhestroyer, Descended of Wrath, Son of Wrath

Age: 38

Joined Brotherhood: 2007

Height: 6′7″

Weight: 260 lbs.

Hair color: Brown

Eye color: Hazel

Identifying physical marks: Black tattoo at base of spine in the form of grouped lines; Brotherhood scar on left pectoral; name MARISSA caned in skin across upper back and shoulders in Old English letters; pinkie on right hand is slightly deformed following transition; scar on abdomen.

Note: Is the fulfillment of die Lessening Society’s Destroyer Prophecy. Following his abduction by the Society, and the Omega’s tampering with him, he is able to consume lessers by inhalation—which, contrary to stabbing, circumvents the slayers’ return to their master and thereby threatens the Omega’s very existence.

Weapon of choice: Dry, scintillating wit. (When pressed, he indicated it was a forty-millimeter Glock.)

Description:

Mated to: Marissa, blooded daughter of Wallen

Last movie watched: Scrooged with Rill Murray, excellent Christmas flick.

List book read: Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, to Nalla.

Favorite TV show: Old episodes of Columbo or anything on ESPN

Last TV show watched: “Murder by the Book” from Columbo’s first season—the episode was directed by Steven Spielberg. Fantastic shit right there. I know the lines, I’ve watched it so many times.

Last game played: Foosball with V

Greatest fear: Not being who Marissa believes me to be.

Greatest love: Marissa.

Favorite quote: “Bad deeds, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder.”

Boxers or briefs: Emporio Armani boxer briefs.

Watch: I have a lot of them—forty-nine at last count. I’m all about Haute Horlogerie. Right now I’m wearing Corum’s Golden Tourbillon Panoramique.

Car: Escalade, black. Started as V’s, now it’s both of ours.

What time is it while you’re filling this out: 2 a.m.

Where are you? In the Pit on one of the leather sofas. SportsCenter is on. So is Ludacris. V is looking over my shoulder. He doesn’t seem to believe me when I tell the cribbing bastard that my answers won’t help him pass his test—Ow.

What are you wearing? Diesel jeans, white button-down by Vuitton, black Bruneilo Cucinelli cashmere sweater, and Acqua di Parma cologne. Oh, and Gucci loafers. The belt is Martin Dingman.

What’s in your closet? That would be closets. I have a clothes addiction—more fun than the Scotch thing I had going on, and I look better—but, slut, it’s expensive. I have formal stuff from Tom Ford, Gucci, Vuitton, Hermes, Zegna, Marc Jacobs, Prada, Isaia, Canali—all the regulars. Casual and sport shit’s from a variety of designers like Pal Zileri, Etro, Diesel, Nike, Ralph Lauren. Affliction—I’m not a snob. For knits it’s Lochcarron of Scotland. Phury and I compare notes a lot—and compete. Fritz helps us get things. The doggen’ll head down to Manhattan and pick up a moving van’s worth of threads in our sizes—stuff we order or things he thinks we’ll like. He does our tailoring. For hand-sewn shirts and suits and slacks we have relationships with a couple of shops and have given them models to work off of. Look, if having nice clothes makes me a metrosexual? Fine, I’ll take the hit—but I still have my chipped front tooth, and every night I go out and kick ass. So there you go.

What was the last thing you ate? Buttermilk pancakes with butter and maple syrup and a cup of coffee. With Rhage. He always makes me feel like a light-weight around food, but then, the brother could eat a pack of wolves under the table—and go back for seconds.

Describe your last dream? It involved a long, dark tunnel and a train going into it. Over and over again. Do the math.

Coke or Pepsi? Lagavulin. What? That’s liquid in a bottle, what do you want from me? Fine—Coke.

Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe? I vastly prefer class to flash. Audrey all the way. P.S. Marissa is even more elegant than AH, and that is saying something.

Kirk or Picard? Kirk. Abso.

Football or baseball? Member of the Red Sox Nation. ’Nuff said.

Sexiest part of a female? Would be indiscreet to spell it out. But use your damn brain.

What do you like most about Marissa? I love her skin and her hair and the way she crosses her legs at the knee and folds her hands together. I love her accent and her pale blue eyes and die way she’s the most proper lady you’ve ever seen but still makes me—Er, anyway. She has perfect style and exquisite taste and she wakes up smelling good. More than that…she’s always loved me for who I am, never wanted me to be different. Which makes her an angel.

First words spoken to her were: “No…don’t go back there…I’m not going to hurt you.”

Her response was: “How do I know that?”

Last gift given to her: A desk chair. Two days ago. The one she had before squeaked when you turned in it and didn’t have any lumbar support. So I took her to Office Depot and had her try out a bunch and bought her the one she liked best.

Most romantic thing you’ve ever done for her: Dunno. I don’t think I’m good at the romantic shit. Jesus…I have no idea.

Most romantic thing she’s ever done for you: Waking me up every day with a smile. I’ve got expensive tastes, but one small smile from her is priceless.

Anything you’d change about her? Sometimes I wish she didn’t work so hard. Not in terms of hours, more like the pressure she puts on herself to save every single person who comes to Safe Place. It reminds me of when I was in Homicide. Not all outcomes are what you hope. I do my best to be there for her and talk things through with her. She asks me a lot of questions about the murder cases I worked on and how I dealt with the families. What she does now and what I did then—there’s a lot of parallels. It brings us closer.

Best friend (excluding shellan): Vishous, then Rhage. And Phury, too.

Last time you cried: I don’t cry. Ever.

Last time you laughed: Little while ago, when V changed Nalla’s diaper. I’m going to get hit tor that, but shit it was—Ow.

After Zsadist and I get home from Target, I help carry the bags into the mansion. We are just finishing the fetch-and-carry routine when Butch comes out of the door under the stairs. He’s dressed in a black Izod sweater with a white shirt underneath and a pair of superbly cut black trousers. His shoes are Tod’s. Black with no socks. He’s got a duffel bag on his shoulder and a monster grin on his face.

Butch: My turn!

Z: (bending over a bag and taking out one of the Miami Ink hats) For you.

Butch: Okay, that’s hot. (Takes it and puts it on.) Thanks, man.

Z: Got one for your boy. too.

Butch: Which is actually another gift to me, because we won’t have to fight over this one. (Turning to me.) You ready?

J.R.: Absolutely. Where are—

Butch: Out the back. (Sweeps arm toward library.) This way.

I smile a good-bye to Z and he returns my expression, his ruined lip twitching up briefly and his eyes flashing yellow. I think for a moment how lucky Bella and Nalla are; then I follow Butch out of the foyer and into one of my favorite rooms in the house. The library is walled with books, the only breaks coming for the windows and the bank of doors and the fireplace. Oil paintings of landscapes are hung over the tomes here and there, giving an English-manor-house feel to the space.

Butch: (over his shoulder) Betcha can’t guess where we’re going.

J.R.: It’s not just die library.

Butch: (goes to one of the French doors and opens it) Right you are. And out you go!

J.R.: What’s in the duffel?

Butch: (shooting me his trademark smile, the one that totally eclipses his busted nose and the chip in his front tooth, the one that turns him into the most attractive man on the planet) It’s not a potato launcher.

J.R.: Why does that not reassure me? (stepping out and stopping short)

Butch: (with pride) I’d like you to meet Edna.

J.R.: I…didn’t know you could do that to a golf cart.

Edna is your standard-issue links transport—except she’s had a makeover right out of the Robb Report. She’s got a Cadillac hood ornament and a grille modeled after the Escalade’s. Painted black, her rims are twenty-fours, her bumpers are chromed, her seating leather, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to discover that she’s turbo-charged. Hell, if you could nitro an electric engine, I’d be looking for the injector button on the console.

Butch: Isn’t she spank? (puts duffel in the back and gets behind the chrome wheel) I was going for an updated Elvis vibe.

J.R.: Mission accomplished. (Gets in beside him. Am surprised when my butt tingles.) Seat warmers, too?

Butch: Shit, yeah. Wait’ll you hear the sound system.

Kanye West blares out over the gardens and we take off across the rolling lawn, passing by flower beds that are battened down for the coming winter. As we go, I grab onto the lip of the top and start to laugh. Rolling bat-out-of-hell in a golf cart guarantees a trigger of your inner six-year-old, and I can’t help but get a case of the tickle-giggles as we bounce along. The fact that we are being accompanied by Kanye singing about the good life is just about perfect.

Butch: (yelling over the righteous bass) You know what’s great about using this thing at night?!

J.R.: (yelling back) What?

Butch: (points to teeth) No bugs!

Deer scamper out of the way at a dead run, their tails flipping up with white undersides flashing. Like Z, Butch doesn’t have the headlights on, but given how loud Kanye is, I don’t think there’s any chance of catching one of those lovely animals frozen in our path.

Eventually, Butch slows Edna down right in front of the forest edge. Kanye quiets and the night’s silence rushes forward as if it’s a good host and we’ve just arrived at its party. Butch grabs the duffel and together we walk about twenty feet, heading in the direction of the mansion, which is in the far distance.

Butch puts the duffel on the ground, unzips it, and wades around inside. What comes out is a series of thin metal sections, which he begins to fit together.

J.R.: Can I help you? (Even though I don’t have any idea what he’s doing.)

Butch: Two secs.

When he’s finished, he’s built an odd kind of platform. The base is a foot off the ground, and it supports a metal rod that’s about two feet high.

Butch: (going hack to duffel) The critical thing is trajectory. (Returns to platform and measures with leveler. Makes adjustment.) We’ll start small. (Again goes over to duffel and this time takes out…)

J.R.: Oh, my God, that is fantastic!

Butch: (beaming) I made it myself. (brings rocket over to me)

The model rocket is about two feet in length from pointed tip to flared bottom, and it has three sections. White, with a Red Sox logo painted on the side, its top is fluorescent, no doubt to track its path and increase the chances of recovering it in the dark.

J.R.: I didn’t know you were into this.

Butch: I used to make models when i was a kid. Airplanes and cars, too. The thing is, some people like to read, but I’m slightly dyslexic, so that was never relaxing—too much work to get the letters to come out right. But models? It’s a way to get my brain to shut off when I’m awake. (Shoots me a sly grin.) Plus I get to do something with my hands, and you know how much I feel that. (Takes rocket over to launching pad and slides it down vertical shaft. Makes more adjustments.) Can you bring me the ignition wires? They’re the two bundles tied with twists?

J.R.: (goes to bag) Holy…crap. You have, like, three more in here.

Butch: I’ve been keeping busy. And here, take the flashlight, you’ll probably need it. I told V to shut off the motion-sensitive security lights in this section of the acreage.

J.R.: (catches penlight he throws over and finds wire bundles) You want this box with the switch, too?

Butch: Yes, but leave it there. We’re going to want to be a distance away when we fire them off.

J.R.: (brings over wires and, as he reaches up to take them, I notice his bent pinkie on his right hand) May I ask you something?

Butch: Hell, yeah. That’s the point of interviews, ain’t it?

J.R.: Do you miss any part of your old life?

Butch: (hesitates briefly in unrolling the wires) My knee-jerk answer is no. I mean, that’s the first thing that comes to mind, (resumes unrolling, then takes rocket off of launcher and attaches wires at bottom) And the core truth is that I’m happier where I am now. But that doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could do some of the things I used to. Red Sox game on a Saturday afternoon? With the sun on your face and a cold beer against your palm? That was pretty cool.

J.R.: What about your family?

Butch: (voice gets tight) I don’t know. I suppose I miss the next generation…like, I wouldn’t mind finding out what Joyce’s kids look like and where they end up. The others’ as well. I wish I could go hack to see my mom every once in a while—but I don’t want to add to her dementia, and I think my visit didn’t help, (slides rocket hack onto base) I do go to Janie’s grave still.

J.R.: Really?

Butch: Yup.

J.R.: (I give him some space to speak. He doesn’t.) Were you surprised you ended up here? With the Brothers, I mean.

Butch: Let’s get some distance between us and flyboy, shall we? (As we walk back toward the duffel, he strings the wires across the short grass.) Was I surprised? Yes and no. I was surprised at a lot of shit in my life before I ever met the Brothers. The fact that I ended up a vampire? Fighting the undead? In a way, how’s that any more shocking than the fact that I managed to live through all the self-destructive crap I did to myself before I met any of them.

J.R.: I can understand that. (Pauses.) What about—

Butch: By the oh-god-how-do-I-ask-this-question in your voice, I’m assuming you mean the Omega and his little implant surgery?

J.R.: Well, yes.

Butch: (repositioning Miami Ink hat) This is going to come out wrong…but in some ways, to me, it’s like I have cancer they can’t operate on. I can still feel what he put in me. I know exactly where it is in my body, and it’s wrong, it’s bad. (Puts hand on stomach.) I want it out, but I know if it’s removed, assuming that’s even possible. I can’t do what I do. So…I deal.

J.R.: Has the aftermath gotten any easier? After you inhale a—

Butch: (shaking head) No.

J.R.: So…aside from that…(shifting the subject, because clearly he’s uncomfortable) what’s been the thing that’s surprised you most since coming into their lives?

Butch: (kneeling down next to ignition box) You ask such serious damn questions, woman. (Looks up at me and smiles.) Thought this was going to be more fun.

J.R.: I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make you—

Butch: It’s okay. How about we shoot off a rocket or two and then get back to the inquisition stuff. I’ll let you push the butttttttttton…

I’m pretty sure at this point he’s waggling his eyebrows at me, but I can’t see under the brim of the Miami Ink hat. I smile anyway because…well, some things you can’t help but do.

Butch: Come on, you know you wanna.

J.R.: (kneeling down) What do I do?

Butch: The way this works is this…(Holds up blue box.) Inside here are four double-A batteries. I turn the ignition key and this light (points to glowing yellow spot) tells us we’re ready. We pull out the key (pulls it out), and when you hit this (points to red button), the wires take the charge to the rocket’s igniter, and we’re talking a whole lot of zoom-zoom-zoom. Which is why we have over sixteen feet of cord between us and it. You ready? Okay. Let’s count this shit down. Three…

J.R.: (when he doesn’t go further) What? Is there something wrong?

Butch: You’re supposed to say two.

J.R.: Oh, sorry! Two.

Butch: No, we have to start over. Three…

J.R.: Two…

Butch: One…Fire in the hole!

I press the butttttttttton, and a moment later there’s a spark and a flash and a whizzing fizzle that’s like a hundred Alka-Seltzers in a glass. The rocket shoots up to the autumn sky, an arcing trail of light and smoke streaming behind the glowing point at its tip. The angle is perfect, taking it precisely toward the center of the mansion. Its descent is just as smooth, and about three hundred feet from the ground the parachute unfurls. We watch the rocket as it slowly eases down, wagging from side to side like a lazy dog’s tail. In the lights from the library I see that it lands in a rose bed.

Butch: (quietly) V.

J.R.: I’m sorry?

Butch: You ask what’s surprised me most, and it’s him. (Takes another rocket out of the duffel. Tins one is much larger and has the Lagavulin label repro’d on the side.) Now, this bad boy’s got some extra payload in him. He’ll go almost twice as high as the first, which is why I brought these. (takes out binocs) My eyesight and night vision are so much better than when I was a human, but I’m nowhere near where the Brothers are, so I need these. I like to watch the parachutes come out.

J.R.: (desperate to ask him to explain about V, but respecting his distance) How long does it take you to build them?

Butch: ’Bout a week. Phury paints the exteriors. (Goes over to launching platform and sets up rocket. When he returns, he nods at the ignition box.) Ladies should do die honors, don’t you think?

We count it down, and this time we’re coordinated. As we rise to our feet and watch the rocket shoot to the heavens, I can feel that he’s about to say something.

Butch: I am in love with Marissa. But without V I’d be dead, and not just because of the whole healing thing.

J.R.: (glancing over) And that’s what surprises you most?

Butch: (trains binocs on rocket) Here’s the thing, that relationship with V? It doesn’t fit into any neat buckets, and it doesn’t have to…although sometimes I wish it did. I feel like it would be smaller and less important if it was just best friends or brothers or some shit. It’s hard enough to be wicked vulnerable to one person, like your wife. But to have this other guy out there in the world, banging and crashing into lessers…See, I worry about losing them both, and I hate that. V’ll go out on his own sometimes and I can’t be with him, and I check my phone constantly until he gets home safe. There have been nights when Jane and I have sat side by side on my sofa in the Pit and just stared straight ahead. (Pauses.) It’s a pain in the ass, to tell the truth. But I need them both to be happy.

Butch goes back, gets another rocket, and explains to me the ins and outs of its construction. This one is about the same size as the Lag and is painted black with silver bands. We go about shooting it off, and he’s funny and charming and irreverent, and you’d be hard-pressed to imagine that just minutes before he’d shared something so deeply personal. I assume the serious conversating is done for the night, yet when we launch number three, he returns to the subject of Vishous—as if the rocket’s flaring rise and parachuted fall creates a special zone for talk.

Butch: It’s not a creepy incest thing, by the way.

J R.: (eyes bulge) Excuse me?

Butch: V and I being tight. I mean, we were tight like that way before the Omega…you know, did that shit to me. Sure, Vishous is the Scribe Virgin’s son and I’m…what I am thanks to Her brother, but there’s nothing sleazy about it.

J.R.: I never thought that.

Butch: Good. And P.S., I like Doc Jane a lot. She’s a real ass-kicker, that one. Man…(laughs in a bark), she’ll hand him his head on a plate if she has to. Damn fun to watch—although he behaves himself most of the time around her, which is disappointing.

J.R.: And Marissa? How’s she dealing with another roommate?

Butch: She and Jane get along like a house afire, and Jane’s been a real help. She does the checkups at Safe Place now. It’s much better to have a woman physician doing the exams. The nurses Havers sent over were nice enough…but it’s easier with Jane, and she has more medical training.

J.R.: Have Marissa and Havers had much contact?

Butch: No reason to. He’s just another physician. (looks over at me) Family is what you make it, not who you were raised with. (turns back to duffel)

Butch sets up our last rocket, and this is my favorite of all of them. It’s the biggest and has David Ortiz’s Sox uniform and the words Big Papi painted on the side. We do our countdown and I press the button…and there’s the whiz and fizzle as what Butch built goes barreling up to the sky. As I watch the glow at the tip rise, I see that this one is going really high. At its apex, it becomes the only star in the cloudy night sky.

Butch: (softly) Pretty, isn’t it.

J.R.: Lovely.

Butch: You know why I build them?

J.R.: Why?

Butch: I like to watch them fly.

We stand side by side as the parachute comes out and the rocket drifts back to earth and into the rose garden. As it floats down, swinging gently from side to side, the glow at its tip tells us its location relative to the house…and abruptly I know without asking the reason why he likes to aim them toward the mansion. With all the security lights, he could easily find them anywhere on the grounds. But Butch likes home…and he wants to send these models he spends hours working on back to where he loves and needs to be. After having been without a family or a place in the world for so long, now he has his parachute, his slow, easy ride after a blistering meteoric rise…and it’s the people in that mansion.

Butch: (grinning at me) Damn, wish we had another, don’t you?

J.R.: (wanting to hug him) Absolutely, Butch. I absolutely do.

Butch O’Neal

Marissa

Vishous

The Scribe Virgin

The Omega

Mr. X

Van Dean

Wrath and Beth

Zsadist

Rehvenge

John Matthew

Blaylock

Qhuinn

Xhex

Lash

Ibex, Lash’s father and the glymera’s Leahdyre

Havers

José de la Cruz

Mother and child

Joyce (O’Neal) and Mike Rafferty

Odell O’Neal

The Brotherhood mansion, undisclosed location

The Tomb, on the mansion property

Havers’s clinic, undisclosed location

Brotherhood training center, on the mansion property

ZeroSum (corner of Trade and Tenth streets)

The Commodore, luxury high rise

Blaylock’s bedroom

Ibex/Lash’s home

Safe Place, undisclosed location

Butch O’Neal finds his true destiny as a vampire and a Brother while falling in love with Marissa, a beautiful aristocrat.

Opening line: “What if I told you I had a fantasy?”

Last line: The very staff of life.

Published: March 2007

Page length: 455

Word count: 144,321

First draft written: March 2006-September 2006

Butch O’Neal had me from the moment I first saw him in Dark Lover, when he’s investigating Darius’s bomb scene. This description of him is from Beth’s point of view, and what I liked so much about him was how he tackled his gum:

Butch’s aggression was palpable, and in my opinion that’s hot. And my attraction to him only deepened when he arrested Billy Riddle, the young guy who attacked Beth on her way home from work. Here, Billy, who maintained Beth “wanted it,” is facedown on the floor in his hospital room, and Butch is reading the kid his Miranda rights while cuffing him:

Butch O’Neal was absolutely my kind of guy—a hard-ass renegade who, although he didn’t always follow the rules, had his own code of honor.

Plus he’s a Red Sox fan, too, so there you go.

The heroes in the Brotherhood books are not perfect, not by a long shot: For example, Wrath almost kills Butch in Dark Lover, and Rhage had a sex addiction, and Zsadist was a misogynistic sociopath before he met Bella, and Phury’s got a drug problem. The thing is, however, they have heroic qualities in addition to these faults, and that’s what makes them attractive.

I write alpha males. Always have. The Brothers, though, are ALPHA males, if that makes sense. Maybe part of it is me getting in touch with rule two (Write Out Loud) such that everything in the BDB books is pushed as far as it can go, including the heroes and their actions. But most of it is golden rule eight (Listen to Your Rice Krispies). The Brothers in my head are just over-the-top, hyperaggressive, and, in my opinion, utterly compelling.

Butch fits right in with the other heroes in the series: He’s got a god-awful past that has shaped who he is, as well as a complex interweave of faults and virtues. With respect to his early years, some of the details of it come out in the scene when he finally tells Marissa a little about his background (LR, pp. 322–326.) It’s been clear all along that he’s driven to self-destruction by his sister’s abduction and murder and that he’s a cop with a razor edge because of what he sees as his culpability in that crime. As he tells Marissa about his drug use and the violence in his life and the fact that he’s always felt alienated from everyone around him, it brings into focus how critical the Brothers and their world are to him as a person—the mansion is the only place he’s ever felt comfortable in, and he doesn’t want to be on the fringes of the Brotherhood’s world as an outsider. (When you think of John and Beth, Butch is very similar to them in this regard. All three have always sensed that there is something that separates them from the humans around them, but they are unaware of the why of it all.)

From a character standpoint, I was aware that for Butch the need to belong and be true to an inner self he could only guess at were key aspects of his makeup. And from a story perspective, I knew two things about him: He was going to end up with Marissa and his and V’s destinies were inextricably intertwined. In my mind, Marissa was the perfect heroine for him, refined, ladylike, incredibly beautiful—someone he can put on a pedestal and revere and worship. As for him and V…well, more on that later.

As I mentioned before, Butch and Marissa’s love story was originally going to be a major subplot in Lover Eternal, but they demanded so much attention that I cut out their scenes and put them aside. When I got to the end of drafting Lover Awakened, my editor and I touched base about what book was next. I wanted to do Butch, but she felt it was better to stick with the Brothers that were vampires, and I agreed—which meant the next in line was Vishous (because at that point Tohr was gone, John Matthew hadn’t been through his transition, and Phury couldn’t have his book come after Bella had given birth).

Trouble was, when I started to outline V, I realized something that I had known since Dark Lover: There was no way you could do Vishous’s book before Butch’s. V’s relationship with the cop, and the emotions he felt for the human, were what opened him up emotionally so that he could fall in love. Additionally, in order for him to be vulnerable to someone else, he needed to come to terms with his feelings for Butch and I couldn’t see all that happening in one book for a couple of reasons. First, I try to show as much as I can (as opposed to telling)—so V’s book would have been full of scenes between him and Butch, especially in the beginning—which would be dangerous, because that kind of plotting runs the risk of being seriously misbalanced (i.e., a ton of scenes of Butch/V, V/Butch, Vishous and Butch…then suddenly switching to scenes of female/V, Vishous/ female, Vishous and female). Further, with Butch unattached romantically, Vishous wouldn’t be able to let him go sufficiently to find love with someone else—to really get V bonded with his heroine, Butch needed to be happy and committed with Marissa.

I tried to do V, though. Gave it my best shot.

The outline didn’t work.

After a couple of weeks of banging my head, I followed rule eight (Rice Krispies) and called up my editor in classic Houston-we-have-a-problem style. When I explained to her what the issues were, she understood and agreed. Which is only one of the billion reasons I worship her: She gets how it is with me and the Brothers.

So Butch was up next. And, boy, talk about your corkscrews.

When I started to outline him, I had no clue about the Destroyer Prophecy or the transformative role the cop was going to play in the war with the Lessening Society. I thought that the thrust of the book was going to be about the ancestor regression and Butch having the change jump-started on him.

Ah…no.

After I took the scenes I had already written concerning him and Marissa falling in love, and sketched out the other things I saw in my head, it was clear something was missing. The book just wasn’t as big as I sensed it was.

I stewed about it. Worried. Stewed some more…and then I got the image of the Omega cutting off his finger and putting it into Butch’s abdomen.

Actually, I got both the image and the sound of the carrot crack when the Omega did the knife action on himself.

Ew.

Once I tuned in to that, all these scenes came hammering down on my head. As I followed the story, it was fascinating to see how the original scenes of the book morphed. For instance, I’d known that Butch was going to get abducted by the lessers, and had seen him and Marissa reuniting in the clinic, but suddenly he was under quarantine and the consequences were much, much more dire. So there weren’t huge shifts in content, per se, but more in implication and scope within the world.

The big theme for the book is transformation, and with respect to Butch, I love the parallel tracks of his story. Both good and evil transform him—first when the Omega has at him, and then when the change is brought on him and his vampire nature comes out. It’s as if the Lessening Society and the Brotherhood are both fighting for control of his destiny and his soul, and it’s not immediately clear who wins. For a while after Butch leaves quarantine, neither he nor the Brothers are sure whether or not he’s been turned into a lesser or what exactly he’s doing when he inhales a slayer.

The thing I like most about where Butch ends up in terms of the world is that he’s a significant player in the war, arguably turning the tables on the Omega because he puts the evil directly at risk. The Brothers have been picking off lessers for centuries, but Butch is actually degrading the Omega’s finite being each time he takes care of business. I think this is a great ending for the cop. It gives him a place where, although he’s not purely of the Brotherhood bloodlines, he’s an equal participant in the fight to protect the species.

And Butch isn’t the only one who changes. Marissa, too, is transformed from a cloistered female of the glymera into someone who has her own life.

I think, of all the females, Marissa’s probably the one who resonates with me most personally, because I, too, am from a conservative, establishment background and have had to break a few molds and expectations to be who I really am. Her scene in the beginning of Lover Revealed (the one that starts on page seven), with her having a panic attack in the bathroom during that party at her brother’s, shows clearly the toll of her having lived her life in the glymera. She’s sublimated so much of herself and borne burdens for which she didn’t volunteer for so long, that she’s nearing her breaking point.

I get asked a lot whether there are parts of me in the books and whether I take people I know and put them in. Both are a no. I’m very private, and I strictly separate my personal life from my writing life, and additionally, I would hate to think any of my friends or family would feel used. That being said, there are definitely things that happen in the books that I’ve had personal experience with. For example, as someone who’s had panic attacks, Marissa’s interlude in that bathroom really resonated with me. I didn’t put the scene in because I was revealing something of myself, but I did empathize with my heroine in the way you would when you talk to someone else who’s been through what you have.

For Marissa, the real turning point for her as an individual comes when she burns all of her dresses in the backyard. I thought this was a great way to symbolically mark her break with tradition:

I had such a clear image of that fire, with her running around those burning dresses, screaming—it was such a temporal representation of the internal shift she was going through, a wiping clean of the past in preparation for her moving forward.

And man, does she get her act together. One of my favorite scenes in the whole series is when Marissa slaps down her brother and the whole Princeps Council during its vote on mandatory sehclusion for unmated females of the aristocracy (which starts on p. 419). Rising to her feet, she asserts her status as head of her bloodline, because she is older than Havers, and votes no, putting an end to the discussion and the restriction. It was a total reversal for her from where she was in that bathroom, no longer under the glymera’s control, but asserting control over them.

I also like where she ended up. She’s perfectly suited for running Safe Place and is making a real contribution to the race that way. Plus it’s nice that after years of strife, she and Wrath get to work together—because it gives him a chance to prove to her over and over again that he truly does respect her.

On a side note, when it comes to the females in the series, it’s significant that at the end of Lover Revealed, the shellans all come together in Marissa’s office, and Beth gives out the little statues of the owls. It shows a side of the shellans that I hadn’t been able to work into a book yet—namely that they are, like the Brothers, bonded to one another in a special way.

Back to Butch. At the end of the book, when he’s being inducted into the Brotherhood, it’s clear that he isn’t complete, even with the new role he has in the world:

Without Marissa he is less than zero, and that is true for all the Brothers. Once they bond they are completed, and severing that relationship leads to a breakdown that is irreparable (I’m thinking of Tohr now). Fortunately for Butch, Marissa and he work everything out and are reunited at the end.

Speaking of unions…let’s talk about sex. Butch made me blush. A lot.

Maybe it was because, of all the Brothers, he tended to talk the most when he was making love. Or maybe it was the way he handled Marissa and her virginity. Or maybe it was just that, quite frankly, I think he’s monster hot. Whatever the reason, of all the series so far, I think his book is the hottest of the bunch.

So it makes sense I’d cover the whole sex thing when discussing him.

I get asked in interviews every now and again how I feel about writing “hot” books, and whether I do it to meet the market demands for more and more erotic content. Certainly, over the past five years or so, romance novels have been getting more and more sexual, and the erotic market has grown substantially. Back when I started writing the Brothers, a lot of the now-popular e-pubs were starting to gain momentum, and soon thereafter a number of New York houses developed hotter lines as well. The marketplace was in transition—which was lucky for me.

From the get-go, I knew the Brothers were going to be more sexually explicit than my previous contemporary romances. And I was aware that the series was going to take readers in directions that my other books hadn’t (i.e., Rhage’s sex addiction, Z’s sexual dysfunctions, V’s predilections). That being said, I didn’t specifically target the erotic market. The Brothers are just very sexual, and the scenes I see of them with their females are hot. In keeping with rule eight (yes, it’s the Rice Krispies again), I write what I see in my head. Do I sometimes think, OMG, I can’t believe I just typed that? Yes! But the thing is, the sex scenes always advance an emotional imperative, and that’s why, however graphic they become, I don’t feel they are gratuitous.

Take, for example, Rhage being chained down to his bed…or when Z services Bella in her needing…or Butch and Marissa in the back of the Escalade when she finally feeds from him. All of these scenes are highly erotic, but the dynamic within the relationships changes afterward, either for the worse or the better. I think maybe that’s one difference between romance and strict erotica. With romance, sex affects the emotional bonds of the characters and propels those connections forward. With strict erotica, the sexual act or sexual exploration itself is the focus.

Do I think the market will stay as hot as it is? It wouldn’t surprise me if it did. Predicting is a dangerous sport, but there seems to be a sustained appetite for books with heat in them. I’m quite certain that subgenres will continue to rise and fall in relative popularity, and that some new ones will come along that we can’t begin to guess at. But I think the overall trend of sexuality will probably remain where it is.

And speaking of sexuality…now a word on Butch and V.

Where to start.

The first inclination I had that there was going to be a sexual component to their relationship was in Dark Lover, when the two of them spent the day together in Darius’s guest room. There was something so intimate about the pair of them lying in those beds, drunk, talking. And then they moved into the Pit with each other and became inseparable. To be honest, I was clear from the beginning what V felt toward Butch, and I was also aware that Butch was clueless about it—but I sat on the dynamic, keeping it to myself. I wasn’t sure how to handle it. Or how readers would feel about it.

I do that sometimes. I have whole plotlines that happen in the world that I don’t put in the books, and I leave them out for a variety of reasons. Most of the time it has to do with story-focus and book-length issues. For instance, the short story in this compendium about Z and Bella and Nalla has been in my mind for about eighteen months now, but there was nowhere I could put it in any of the books.

Sometimes, though, I leave plotlines out because I’m not sure how to deal with them. As I wrote the first three books, there were all these scenes between Butch and V, both on the page and in my head, and they fascinated me. The whole time, I was like…Okay, when’s Butch going to tweak to what’s doing with his roommate, and what’s his reaction going to be to the way V feels about him?

As I kept banging away at the keyboard, the question in my mind was, Do I bring the dynamic out on the page? And if so, when? Eventually I decided to make the leap. The way I saw it, I had already tiptoed into some tricky waters over the course of the first three books, and it went okay—but more important, the story deserved that kind of honesty.

Lover Revealed was the logical choice for it in terms of timing.

When Butch was abducted at the beginning of his book, the single-minded focus with which V approached the rescue is reminiscent of the way Z went after Bella in Lover Awakened. The thing was, though, the obsession could have been explained by him and the cop being best friends. I knew I had to make it clear that things were beyond friends on V’s side, and the scene where he comes to see Butch to heal him in quarantine, and catches Butch and Marissa together, was when I exposed the feelings to the reader in V’s POV:

It was pretty clear what (or who) he wanted by the description—and it wasn’t Marissa. I have to admit I was a little trepidatious. I’d previously hinted at V’s “unconventional interests,” but I had always led with the BDSM stuff, not the fact that he’d also been with males. And here he was, a primary hero in the series…who’s attracted to another primary hero.

Butch is not bisexual. He’s never been into men. He is, if I were pushed to define him, a V-sexual, as it were. There’s something about his relationship with Vishous that crosses the line on both sides, and to the cop’s credit, he doesn’t bolt or get freaked out. He’s with Marissa, and he’s committed to her, and the V thing hasn’t made anyone uncomfortable because boundaries are respected.

I have to say, I think the scene of Butch’s induction into the Brotherhood, when V bites him, is off-the-chain erotic:

As I’ve said, I wasn’t sure how readers were going to take the whole V/Butch thing, and after the book came out I was surprised. Overwhelmingly, folks wanted more of the two of them! The fact that the readership was so incredibly supportive is a testament to their open-mindedness and I’m very grateful for it. I’m also thankful for trailblazers such as Suzanne Brockmann, who, with her Jules Cassidy character, paved the way so that males like Blay can get their happily-ever-afters, too, and Brothers like V are accepted for just who they are.

And now a couple of random thoughts about Lover Revealed…

Butch didn’t just make me blush; I had my first case of writer’s block with him.

It wasn’t because he was getting naked all the time, though.

With each succeeding title the books were getting longer, and I was becoming concerned. If the trend kept going? I’d be turning in tomes. The issue appeared to be that the world had started developing its own plot—something that was particularly true with Butch’s story—so the events weren’t just about the heroes and heroines anymore.

For me as the author, the fact that I have the freedom to explore the ins and outs of the Omega and the Scribe Virgin and the war with the Lessening Society is part of what I like about the series. Bigger, however, is not necessarily better. During the revision process, my editor and I always check the pacing just to make sure there’s no fat on the page. It’s rewarding when we don’t find any—but also daunting when you see those little numbers in the upper corners getting higher and higher.

Anyway, when I started drafting Lover Revealed, I decided I was going to be “smart,” given the complexity of all the plotting. I decided that I was going to consolidate a bunch of the up-front scenes to save page space.

Right.

Sure, this made sense practically, but the Brothers didn’t like it at all. As I tried to retrofit the beginning scenes, cramming them in together, the voices in my head dried up. It was the eeriest thing. Everything went dead quiet, and I confronted what I’ve always feared the most: Because I have no clue where my ideas come from or how I do what I do or why certain things happen in the world, I’m always afraid the Brothers will pack up their leathers and their daggers and leave me with nothing.

Four days. The dead zone lasted for four days. And because I can be dense, it wasn’t immediately clear to me what the problem was. Finally, after I was going half-psychotic from the silence, it dawned on me…Huh, you don’t suppose I’m trying to jockey these scenes around too much just to save on page count?

As soon as I stopped worrying about length, everything flowed again and the Brothers came back. Takeaway? Good old rule number eight trumps just about every other concern I might have. Every story demands different things, whether it’s pacing or description or dialogue…or page count. The best thing you can do is remain true to what you see. I’m not saying you should be inflexible during revisions. Not at all. But be brutally honest in that first draft—then you can worry about editing things out later.

On another subject…a lot of people ask me what the deal with Butch’s father is. Specifically, they want to know if he’ll play a role later in the series. The answer is, I don’t know. I can see a pathway where there could be some very interesting family ties, but it’s a wait and see situation. I am quite sure of one thing, though: Butch’s father had to be a half-breed. The male had to either have gone through the transition, but been able to endure sunlight as Beth can, or the change didn’t hit him and he functioned in the world as an aggressive human.

The other question that I often get about Butch’s background has to do with the rest of his family and whether he ever reunites with them. That answer I do know, and it’s no. He’s said his good-bye to his mother, and his brothers and sisters have been shutting him out for years. The one person from his old life he does miss is José de la Cruz—although something tells me the two of them aren’t done yet.

Finally, of all the books, male readers tend to like Butch’s best, and that doesn’t really surprise me. It’s got a lot of good fight scenes, and the world building is more extensive than in some of the other stories, where the romance might take up more space. And some of the guys have commented that they love the idea that there is a great force inside of them, one that rocks the world and puts them in a position of power, and with the Omega’s tinkering, Butch certainly has that.

Plus, they think Marissa is hot.

So that’s my take on Butch. Now…for V.

*sigh*

Vishous, Son of the Bloodletter

Age: 304

Joined Brotherhood: 1739

Height: 6′6″

Weight: 260 lbs.

Hair color: Black

Eye color: White with navy blue rims

Identifying physical marks: Scar of the Brotherhood on left pec; tattoo on right temple; tattoos on groin area and thighs; JANE carved across shoulders in Old English. Partially castrated. Wears black glove on right hand always. Goateed.

Note: Is born son of the Scribe Virgin and carries her glow in his right hand—which is a powerful energy force capable of vast destruction. Sees visions of the future. Possesses healing capabilities.

Weapon of choice: His right hand.

Description:

Mated to: Dr. Jane Whitcomb

Last movie watched: Flicka with Dakota Fanning

List book read: The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene

Favorite TV show: The Golden Girls

Last TV show watched: The Young and the Restless

Last game played: “This little piggy goes to market…”

Greatest fear: Being by myself in the dark

Greatest love: Knitting

Favorite quote: “The plane! The plane!”

Boxers or briefs: Panties

Watch: Ladies’ Seiko

Car: Don’t have a car—I ride a Vespa

What time is it while you’re filling this out: 1:16 a.m.

Where are you? In the bath

What are you wearing? Suds that smell like coconut and vanilla

What’s in your closet? Floral prints, no stripes (because I’m a bit “hippy”), pumps in size 16, and a dresser full of Spanx

What was the last thing you ate? An entire bag of Lindt dark chocolate truffles. I think I’m about to go into my needing soon. I always get cravings right before it hits.

Describe your last dream? I was in a field of wildflowers, running about—nay, frolicking—with a unicorn who had a pink mane and tail. I had gossamer wings and a wand, and everywhere I went I left clouds of fairy dust.

Coke or Pepsi? Orangeade

Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe? Audrey, because I want to BE her

Kirk or Picard? Riker. Goatees are SO attractive

Football or baseball? I’m not really interested in sports. All I can think about is how much laundry will need to be done at the end—all those yucky grass stains and ground-in dirt. I mean, honestly.

Sexiest part of a female? Her underwear drawer

What do you like most about Jane? The way she polishes my nails

Best friend (excluding shellan): Rhage. Definitely Rhage. He is the strongest, smartest vampire I’ve ever met. I worship him. In fact, I’m starting a religion based on him, because everyone needs to know how perfect he is.

Last time you cried: Yesterday. That meanie Butch took my knitting needles and hid them. I curled up into a little ball on my bed and wept tor HOURS.

Last time you laughed: Yesterday, when—

*At this point, the answer is scribbled out and below is written:

Actually, it was ten minutes ago, when I beat the ever-living shit out of Rhage for macking my interview, thank you very much. What a freak. Here’s my real answers-oh, and BTW, Dakota Fanning isn’t in Flicka-and I know it because I looked the DVD up NOT because I saw the damn movie.

Last movie watched: Stripes (great flick, Rhage is a fidiot, but he knows his films)

List book read: Richard Scarry’s Lowly Worm Storybook to Nalla

Favorite TV show: CSI (LV, of course) or House if you’re talking, like, fiction shit. Otherwise, SportsCenter.

Last TV show watched: Some fakakta episode of Columbo with Butch (actually it was good, just don’t tell him that)

Last game played: Pin the tail on the ass—guess who was the donkey?

Greatest fear: Don’t have one anymore. Lived through the worst thing that could happen to me, and now I don’t need to worry about it.

Greatest love: Duh

Favorite quote: “Rhage is a fucktwit.”

Boxers or briefs: Commando

Watch: Nike Sport in black

Car: Escalade, black, I share with the cop

What time is it while you’re filling this out: 9:42 a.m.

Where are you? The Pit in front of my Four Toys.

What are you wearing? Leather mask, ball gag, restraining harness, latex uni, handcuffs, and some metal clips, the strategic placement of which I’ll detail only if you ask nicely. Kidding. Black muscle shirt and nylon sweats.

What’s in your closet? Leathers, shirts, shitkickers, and weapons.

What was the last thing you ate? I bit Rhage’s head off just now. Does that count?

Describe your last dream? It was about Rehvenge. So it’s none of your biz, true?

Coke or Pepsi? Coke.

Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe? Neither.

Kirk or Picard? Both.

Football or baseball? Baseball.

Sexiest part of a female? I’ll tell you what the sexiest part of Jane is: her grip.

What do you like most about Jane? Her mind.

First words spoken to her were: “Are you going to kill me?”

Her response was: “No.”

Last gift given to her: Was nothing special.

Most romantic thing you’ve ever done for her: I don’t do romance. It’s schmaltzy.

Most romantic thing she’s ever done for you: I don’t know. Like, I said, I’m not into romance. Shit…well, I guess it’s what she did with that thing I made her, even though it was nothing special. It’s just a necklace made of these gold links…see, she likes my name for some reason. The way it’s spelled. So I took the characters from the Old Language and turned them into links for a necklace down in my forge. I wanted the chain to be delicate enough so she wouldn’t feel like she had a noose around her throat, but still readable…man, it took for-fucking-ever to get the weight right and the design correct. I ended up having to spell out my name twice, and there still wasn’t enough length on the thing. So I added her name in the Old Language in the middle—so she’s surrounded by me. Anyway. She never takes it off. Whatever.

Anything you’d change about her? Yes, but it’s private.

Best friend (excluding shellan): Butch, then that asshole Rhage. Plus I get along okay with Wrath when we don’t want to kill each other.

Last time you cried: Yeah right I’m answering that.

Last time you laughed: I dunno, cracking Rhage was kind of fun—put a smile on my piehole just fine, true?

Out on the compound’s lawn, Butch and I pack up the duffel and take Edna back to the mansion, where we spend about fifteen minutes weeding through the rose garden picking up the rockets. After we find all four and detach their parachutes, we go into the library and Butch gives me a hug. He smells good.

Butch: Himself is waiting for you in the basement.

J.R.: I’m not looking forward to this.

Butch: (smiles a little) Neither is he. But look at it this way, it could be worse. You could have to write another book on him.

J.R.: (laughs) Roger that.

I head off, crossing the foyer and going into the dining room, which has been cleaned up. On the other side of the flap door into the kitchen, Fritz, butler extraordinaire, is polishing silver with two other doggen. I chat with them and end up trying to fend off offers of food and drink. I fail. As I go down into the basement, I have a mug of coffee and a homemade raisin scone wrapped in a damask napkin. The scone is delicious and the coffee is just the way I like it: superhot with a little sugar.

At the bottom of the basement stairs I look left and right. The cellar is huge, with great stretches of open space broken up by storage rooms and HVAC piping. I have no idea where V could be, and I listen, hoping for direction. At first all I hear is the sound of the ancient coal furnace that is up ahead, but then I catch a beat.

It’s not rap. It’s a rhythmic, metal-on-metal clanging.

I follow the sound all the way down to the far end of the basement. It takes me a good five minutes of walking to get to where V is, and along the way I finish the scone and the coffee. As I go, I try to think what the hell I’m going to ask him. He and I don’t really mix all that well, so I figure this is going to be short and not-so-sweet.

As I come around the last corner I stop. V is seated on a stout wooden stool wearing heavy leather chaps and a muscle shirt. In front of him is an anvil on which is a deep red dagger blade that he’s holding with a pair of calipers. He has a blunt hammer with a special grip in his glowing hand and is pounding the tip of the weapon. Between his lips is a hand-rolled, and my nose registers the woody smell of Turkish tobacco, the sharp acid of hot metal and dark spices.

Vishous: (without looking up) Welcome to my workshop.

J.R.: So this is where you make the daggers…

The ovenlike room is about twenty by twenty and has whitewashed concrete walls like the rest of the basement. Black candles are lit all around, and next to the anvil is an ancient brass pot full of sparkling sand. Behind V is a sturdy oak table on which are a variety of daggers in various stages of creation, some just the blades, others with handles.

V turns and thrusts the still-red metal slice into the sand, and I’m struck by how strong he is. His shoulders are roped with muscle, and so are his forearms.

As he waits, he releases a stream of smoke from his lips and taps the hand-rolled on the edge of a black ashtray.

I am uneasy around him. I always have been. It makes me sad.

V: (without looking at me) So you survived the rocket-man routine with the cop, huh.

J.R.: Yes.

I stare at him as he takes the blade from the sand and wipes it with a thick cloth. The metal stretch is irregular in shape and consistency, clearly in the process of being birthed. He examines it, tilting it around, and as he frowns the tattoos on his temple move closer to his eye. Putting the hammer down, he brings his glowing hand back to the blade and clasps it. Light flares, pulling sharp shadows out of the softer candlelight, and a hissing sound sizzles into the air.

When he removes his hand the blade is brilliant orange, and he lays it down on the anvil. Picking up the hammer, he strikes the hot metal over and over again, the clanging sound ringing in my ears.

J.R.: (as he pauses to look at the blade) Who are you making that for?

V: Tohr. I want to have his daggers ready.

J.R.: He’s going to fight again?

V: Yup. Doesn’t know it yet, but he is.

J.R.: You must be glad he’s back.

V: Yup.

Vishous hits the nascent blade with his glowing hand again and then repeats the banging. After a while he thrusts the metal slice back into the sand and finishes his cigarette.

While he stabs out the hand-rolled, I feel as though I’m intruding and also not getting the job I came to do done. As the silence continues, I think of all the questions I could ask him, like…how does he feel about Jane being a ghost? Is he worried that he can’t have children? How are things with his mother? What’s it like for him to be committed to one person in particular? Does he miss his BDSM lifestyle? Or is he still practicing it with Jane? And what about Butch? Has their relationship changed?

Only thing is, I know that the answers would not be forthcoming, and the silences that follow each inquiry would be deeper and deeper.

I watch him work the blade, alternating the heat and the pounding, until he’s evidently satisfied and puts the dagger on the oak table. I wonder for a moment if now isn’t when the interview will really start…except he just stands up and goes to some smaller lengths of metal rodding that are in the corner. He’s going to start another blade, I realize.

J.R.: Guess I better go.

V: Yup.

J.R.: (blinking quickly) Take care of yourself.

V: Yup. You too.

I leave his workshop to the sound of the hiss as his hand comes into contact with metal. I go more slowly than I came, maybe because I’m hoping he’ll have a change of heart and come after me and at least…well, what would he do? Nothing really. A union between the two of us is my aspiration, not his inclination.

As I meander along, the empty mug and wrinkled napkin in my hand, I find myself truly and honestly depressed. Relationships require effort, sure. But you need to have one in the first place in order to work on them. V and I have never clicked, and I’m beginning to realize we never will. And it’s not that I don’t like him. Far from it.

To me, V is like diamond. You can be impressed and captivated by him and want to stare at him for hours, but he will never reach out and welcome you. As with him, a diamond exists not to be shiny and sparkly or because of who bought it to put on someone’s hand—those functions are simply by-products of the results of the incredible pressure inflicted upon its molecules. All that brilliance comes from its—and his—hardness.

And both will also be around long after all of us are gone.

Vishous

Dr. Jane Whitcomb

Phury

John Matthew

Wrath and Beth

Butch and Marissa

Zsadist and Bella

Cormia

The Directrix

Amalya (who becomes the new Directrix of the Chosen)

Layla

Qhuinn

Blaylock

Rehvenge

Xhex

Dr. Manny Manello

The Scribe Virgin

Payne

The Bloodletter

Grodht, solider in the war camp

St. Francis Hospital

Brotherhood mansion, undisclosed location

The Tomb

ZeroSum (corner of Trade and Tenth streets)

Jane’s condo

The Commodore

The Other Side (the Chosen’s Sanctuary)

Vishous, son of the Scribe Virgin, falls in love with Dr. Jane Whitcomb, the human surgeon who saves his life after he is shot by a lesser.

Opening line: “I am so nor feeling all this cowhide.”

Last line: Without another word he dematerialized back to the life he’d been given, the life he was leading…the life he now, and for the first time, was grateful he’d been born into.

Published: September 2007

Page length: 502

Word count: 159,404

First draft written: July 2006-April 2007

God, where to start.

Vishous was, hands down, the single worst writing experience of my life. Getting his story on paper was a miserable exercise in torture and was the first and thus far only time I have ever thought to myself, I don’t want to go to work.

The whys are complicated, and I’ll share three of them.

First of all, each of the Brothers is a separate entity in my head, and they’ve all had their own way of expressing themselves and their story: Wrath is very dictatorial, very blunt, and I have to race to keep up with him. Rhage is always a cutup—even when the serious parts come rolling through, there’s a goofy sidebar going on. Zsadist is reserved and suspicious and chilly, but we’ve always gotten along. Butch is a total party—with a lot of sex talk thrown in.

V? Vishous is and has always been—and excuse me for being blunt—a prick. A self-contained, defensive prick who doesn’t like me.

Putting his story on the page was a nightmare. Every single word was a struggle, particularly when it came to his first draft—most of the time I felt as if I were having to pry the sentences from bedrock using a kiddie hammer and a salad fork.

See, for me, drafting is really a two-part enterprise. The pictures that I have in my head guide the story, but I also need to hear and smell and sense what’s going on while I’m doing the writing. What this usually means is that I step into the shitkickers of the Brothers or the stillies of their shellans and go through the scenes as if I were living the events through whoever’s POV I’m in. To do this, I play the scenes backward and forward, like you would a DVD, and just record, record, record on the page until I feel as though I’ve captured as much as I can.

Vishous gave me next to nothing to work with, because I couldn’t get behind his eyes at all. The scenes that were in POVs other than his were fine, but his? Nothing doing. I could watch, but only from afar—and as a lot of the book is from his perspective, I felt like banging my head against the keyboard.

Look…yes, this is fiction. Yes, it’s all in my mind. Except, believe it or not, if I can’t get into a POV deeply, I feel like I’m making stuff up—and that isn’t a happy place. Honestly, I’m not that bright—I’m not going to get it right if I just guess. I have to be inside a person to do things right, and having the V-door slammed in my face was the root of most of my misery.

Things did break eventually, though. More on that in a little bit.

The second reason Lover Unbound was a hard book to write was that there was content in it that made me nervous, because I wasn’t sure whether the market would bear it. Two things in particular worried me: Bisexuality and BDSM (bondage, dominance, sadomasochism) are topics that not everyone is comfortable with even in terms of subplots, much less when they involve the hero of a book. But that wasn’t the full extent of it. In addition, V had been partially castrated and had forcibly taken a male after he’d won his first fight in the war camp.

The thing was, V’s complex sexual nature colored a lot of his life—including his relationships with Butch and Jane. In order to show him properly, I felt like I had to present all sides of him.

In the first draft of Lover Unbound, I played things so conservatively that the book was flat. I went very light on the bondage scene with him and Jane right before he lets her go, and I didn’t put anything about him and Butch in at all.

In the process, I totally violated my own rule number two (Write Out Loud). And, big surprise, the result was something that was about as appealing as a dead sunfish on a summer dock—nothing moved and it stank. I stewed and hemmed and hawed for a week or so, just tinkering with scenes involving John Matthew and Phury. In my heart I knew I had to jump off the cliff and stretch some boundaries, but I was exhausted and uninspired from the effort of trying unsuccessfully to drag V’s POV out of him.

Talking to my editor was what got me off my ass and back in the game. She and I discussed the things that were weighing on me, and she was like, “Go for it—just get it all in there and let’s see how it plays out on the page.”

She was, as usual, right. In fact, the message she gave me that day was the message she’s always given me since way back in the Dark Lover era: “Push it all the way, go as far as you can, and we can evaluate later.”

When I went back into the manuscript, I was one hundred percent committed to balls-to-the-walling it—and was surprised that there were really only three scenes that I markedly changed. Two were with Butch and V, with the newer content beginning on pages 209 and 369 respectively, and then I added the scene with V in the war camp that starts on page 287.

The rest of the alterations or additions were relatively minor, but changed the tone of the Butch/V interactions entirely—proving that a little goes a long way. Take, for example, the opening pages of chapter thirteen (p. 135). Butch and V are in bed together, and V is healing Butch after the cop did his business with a lesser. If you read through the second, third, fourth, and fifth paragraphs of my first draft, you’ll note that V is admitting to himself he needs soothing in the form of another warm body next to his. It’s not Butch’s body specifically, however, and there is no mention of anything sexual. It’s purely a comfort thing:

What I added in the second draft were these two paragraphs:

Much more honest about what was really going on. Much better. Could have gone even farther, but it was enough—so much so that it required me to add the few sentences that followed, to clarify for the reader that Jane was the object of V’s desire now.

That’s the thing with writing. Books to me are like ships on oceanic courses. Small, incremental changes can have huge effects in their ultimate trajectory and destination. And the only way to get it right is to constantly reread and double-check and make sure that what’s on the page takes the reader where they have to go. Once I made those changes (there were a number of other places where I did a little tinkering—including, for example, the dagger scene in the beginning of the book where Butch lifts V’s chin up with the weapon Vishous just made for him), the writing in V’s POV got much easier.

Bottom line? I look at the whole mess as yet another example of rule number eight at work: Once I was more true to what was in my head, the writing block was lifted.

As for the scene from the war camp where V loses his virginity by taking another male? Man, I just wasn’t sure how people would view him after that one. The thing was, he wasn’t given a choice, and it was the standard of the camp: In hand-to-hand combat practice, losers were sexually dominated by winners. The key, I decided, was to show as much context as possible—and to depict V’s internal commitment after it was over that he would never do it again.

After my editor read the new material, I was relieved when she said that it worked for her, but I remained concerned what the overall reader reaction was going to be. For me as an author, reader response is something that weighs on me, but in a curious way. It’s in my mind because unless people buy the books I write, I’m out of a job. But the thing is, I can’t write to please readers, because I truly don’t have much control over my stories. The best I can do, as I’ve said, is always be mindful and respectful and thoughtful with the challenging content. I suppose I kind of live by the motto, It’s not what you do, but how you do it.

Funny, though. Little did I know that the negative reaction about V’s book would concern something else entirely.

Which brings us to Jane.

The third reason the book was so agonizing to write was because I got Jane wrong on the first pass. I’ll admit, I was so concerned with V that although I had plenty of scenes with Jane in the initial draft, the dynamic between the two of them was relatively lifeless. The problem was, I interpreted Jane as a cold scientist. What happened, then, was that there were two chilly, reserved people interacting, and that is about as much fun to write/read about as an ingredient list on a soup can.

My editor figured it out, though. Jane was a healer, not a white lab coat. She was a warm, caring, compassionate woman who was more than just a repository for medical knowledge and know-how. On the second trip through the park with the manuscript, I tapped into Jane’s core, and the relationship between her and V started to sing, reflecting more what was in my head.

On a side note, one of the first scenes that I saw for V and Jane hit me way back when I was writing Lover Awakened in 2005. I was running at the time, and this vision of V standing in front of a stove, stirring hot chocolate, suddenly came to me. I watched as he poured what was in the pan into a mug and handed it to a woman who knew he was going to leave her. Then I saw her standing at the window of her kitchen, looking out at V, who was outside in the shadows cast by a street lamp.

That, of course, became the good-bye that starts on page 322 of their book.

When the scenes from the Brothers come to me, they do not arrive in chronological order. For instance, visuals of Tohr and where he ultimately ends up hit me before Wellsie even died on the page. So, in the case of the hot-chocolate exchange for Lover Unbound, I was stuck wondering how in the hell Jane and V were going to end up together. The thing was, I knew she was a human, and I wanted for them what the others had, namely a good seven or eight centuries of mating. But with Jane not being a vampire, I had no clue how that was going to happen—plus I knew she got shot, because I’d seen V’s visions and knew what they meant, even if he didn’t…

When I outlined Lover Unbound, I just kept wondering how the two of them were going to have an HEA, and I was really worried. What if there wasn’t one at all? But then I got to the end…and saw Jane standing in V’s doorway as a ghost.

I was actually relieved and thrilled. I was like, Oh, this is great! They get the long time frame!

Unfortunately, some readers didn’t see it that way, and part of that I blame on myself.

Usually when I get to the end of a book, I feel that although I wish I could refine the line-by-line writing even more (I’m never satisfied), I’m confident that the scenes themselves and the way the plotlines flow is rock-solid. I’m also fairly certain that I’ve given sufficient context and grounding for the reader so that they can see where things started, what happened, and how everything ended up.

For me, I was so relieved about Jane and V’s future (with her life-span issue being resolved), that I took for granted readers would feel the same way. My mistake was that I underestimated the challenge to romantic convention with her being a ghost, and I was unaware that it would be a problem to the extent it was for some. I’ve been over and over the disconnect in my mind (the one between the market and my internal radar screen) and have decided that part of it is my background in reading horror and fantasy—because the resolution worked within the world and provided the hero and heroine with a solution, I just assumed it was okay.

Except here’s the thing: Even if I had realized it was going to be a problem for certain folks, I wouldn’t have changed the ending, because anything else would have been a copout and a lie. I don’t write to the market and never have—the stories in my head are in charge, and even I don’t get to see what I want to happen in the world occur. That being said, if I were writing the book again, I’d put in another ten pages or so at the end with V and Jane interacting to show the happiness they both felt—so readers were superclear that in the couple’s minds things ended up just fine.

The way I view it? This series has pushed a lot of boundaries, pushed them hard, but I’ve always been careful about the hows and the whys. I truly try to be respectful of the genre that gave me my start and has long been my book of choice—and romance is and will continue to be the basis of each of the Brotherhood books.

On that note…V and Jane as a couple. Man, they were hot. I didn’t blush as much at the computer as I did with Butch, although whether that was because the cop brought me to a new level or I just expected that kind of stuff from V, I’m not sure.

The scene where V’s in his bed and Jane is giving him a sponge bath was really erotic, and I saw everything about it so clearly. Especially this part where she’s, ah, attending to a certain place:

For V, before Jane came along, sex and emotions were not linked at all. In fact, except for Butch, and to some extent the Brotherhood, emotions were just not a part of his life, and that makes sense. Growing up in the war camp left him with an attachment disorder that persisted into adulthood and colored his relationships. The question is, then, what made Jane—and for that matter Butch—different?

I think Jane and Butch are a lot alike—for one thing, they’ve both got the smart-ass thing down. Take for instance this little volley between V and Jane, which is one of my favorite exchanges in all the books:

I also think V’s into Jane because she’s no weak and floundering woman. The scene of her abduction from the hospital shows that, especially here when Rhage has her over his shoulder, and Phury is trying to calm her using his mind control tricks:

At that moment, Jane reminds of me of Butch back in Dark Lover, after he brings Beth to Darius’s mansion and faces off at the Brothers. Even outnumbered, he’s still a fighter. And so is Jane.

I also believe that both Jane and Butch are driven to do good in the world. Between her being a surgeon and Butch being a cop, the two of them are cut in the hero mold—so V has a lot of respect for them.

Finally I suspect, as appears to be true for all the Brothers, there is a pheromone thing happening. The Brothers, and indeed all the males I’ve seen thus far, seem to bond instantaneously and irrevocably when they get into the vicinity of their mate. So I can only assume there’s some kind of instinctual component at work.

But back to V and Jane. From my perspective, one of the strongest emotional exchanges in the book comes when V allows Jane to Dom him at his penthouse, right before he lets her go. For him to put himself at the mercy of someone sexually, considering what had been done to him the night of his transition when he was held down and partially castrated, is the biggest commitment he can make to another person. The scene, which starts on page 315, really shows him for the first time in his life choosing to be defenseless. Back in the war camp, as a pretrans, he was vulnerable by circumstance and physical design, and he’s spent the rest of his life making sure he’s never at the mercy of anyone. With Jane, however, he is willingly giving himself over to someone else. It’s a declaration of love that goes farther than words.

And again, that’s my point about sex scenes. Yes, that stuff between them was hot, but it’s manifestly significant to their character development.

Now for a word about the Scribe Virgin and V.

Talk about mother issues, huh? When V first sauntered onstage in Dark Lover, I knew that hand of his was significant, but I had no idea just how important it was or what its larger implications were. In fact, during the writing of the first two books, even I didn’t have a clue that Vishous was the son of the Scribe Virgin. It’s kind of like Boo or the coffins: When I see something really vividly, I put it in, in spite of the fact that I might not know what it has to do with anything.

It wasn’t until Lover Awakened-ish that it clicked: white light equals Scribe Virgin. V has white light. Therefore V equals Scribe Virgin. I thought it was a great twist, and I was so good about not blabbing about it on the message boards or at signings when my leaf (the one that keeps secrets inside) dropped. Frankly, once I tweaked to V’s lineage, I was surprised that no one else really caught the connection. (I think there might have been one or two speculations on the boards that got close, but I deflected them with lawyerly nonanswers.)

In Lover Unbound, V and his mom had a hard time relating, which, given what she’d kept from him and what she’d been complicit in subjecting him to, is understandable. But things worked out, and for a lot of people, their favorite scene in the book is the one at the end, where Vishous goes to see his mother:

The Scribe Virgin is not one of the most popular forces in the series. Personally, I respect her, and to see her giving up her one personal attachment (her birds) to balance the gift she gives her son (in the form of Jane coming back) really got to me. I’ve had people ask why she can’t just fix everything, i.e., with respect to Wellsie and Tohr (even John Matthew broaches this issue, too), but the thing is, she’s not a total free agent in the world she created. Absolute destiny is always at work—and is the purview of her father, I suspect.

V and his mother are reconciled to some degree at the end of Lover Unbound. But what remains to be seen is what happens when V’s twin, Payne, comes forward. Somehow I don’t think V is going to take that well to the way his sister’s been treated—or the fact that his mother has never mentioned Payne to him previously.

So that’s Lover Unbound.

They say that every author in the course of a career has a couple of books that are just grueling, and Vishous’s was definitely that way for me. Each one of the Brotherhood books has been a unique challenge, and getting them out is WORK. I struggle at the computer every day, but there’s always some small reward, whether it’s a dialogue exchange that really sings, or a great description, or a really good chapter ending. With V, the rewards were delayed, to be sure. It wasn’t until the final product was done that I sat back and was like, Okay, this works. This is all right.

I’m proud of LU, and I think it is a good book…I’m just really grateful that the Brother who came next was true to his nature—a total gentleman.

Because if it had been another like V?

I don’t know that I could have gone through that kind of struggle again right away.

Phury, Son of Ahgony

Age: 230

Joined Brotherhood: 132

Height: 6′6″

Weight: 275–285 lbs.

Hair color: Multicolored

Eye color: Yellow

Identifying physical marks: Star-shaped scar of the Brotherhood on left pec; missing lower half of right leg; name CORMIA carved across shoulders in the Old Language.

Weapon of choice: Dagger.

Description:

Mated to: The Chosen Cormia

Last movie watched: What About Bob? with Bill Murray

List book read: Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss (to Nalla)

Favorite TV show: Can’t really think of a favorite—I’m not big into TV, to be honest.

Last TV show watched: Unwrapped on the Food Channel—with the Chosen—they love to see how things are made. I think it was on potatoes?

Last game played: Gin rummy with Layla and Selena.

Greatest fear: Letting down the people whom I love.

Greatest love: Cormia

Favorite quote: “Heroes are made, not born.”

Boxers or briefs: Depends on the cut of the trousers.

Watch: Cartier men’s Tank in gold.

Car: BMW M5 dark gray/silver.

What time is it while you’re filling this out: 10 p.m.

Where are you? Rehvenge’s Great Camp in the Adirondacks.

What are you wearing? Canali dress slacks, in cream, bright white button-down from Pink with citrine studs as cuff links (present from my shellan), black Hermes belt, black Hermes loafers (no logo because of the one on the belt), no socks.

What’s in your closet? How much time do you have? I like Italian designers, for the most part. I wear a lot of Gucci. Have some Prada, of course, and the old standbys Armani and Valentino for men. Zegna and Canali. But I also have I said, who’s a real up-and-comer, although the ordering process is complicated, and Tom Ford, who, thank God, got back in the game. I go through English moods as well and get out my Dunhill and Aquascutum. Not a lot of French, I’m afraid. No, wait…I’m getting some Dior later tins week. The artist in me loves beautiful clothing. I like how it hangs off your body and die silhouettes it creates. And there’s no need to be uncivilized if you have the choice. By the way, it’s hard to believe Butch and I have the same taste. We actually bond over it.

What was the last thing you ate? Cranberry scone with clotted cream.

Describe your last dream? I was shopping. And not tor clothes. I was in this supermarket with a cart full of laundry detergent and fabric softener, going up and down the aisles looking tor the way to check out. It was truly bizarre. Weirder still when I woke up, because Layla said she wanted to learn how to use the washing machine. (The lesson didn’t go well, unfortunately. I love that female, but the domestic arts? Not her thing. She does, however, have a spectacular skill of which we’re all in awe.)

Coke or Pepsi? Neither. I don’t like sodas.

Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe? Audrey. Hands down.

Kirk or Picard? Picard.

Football or baseball? Neither. I’m not a huge sports guy. Better to ask me Leonardo or Michelangelo. And it would be Michelangelo.

Sexiest part of a female? I’m going to pass on this one. I’m just not comfortable answering that kind of thing.

What do you like most about Cormia? The way she looks at me.

Most romantic thing you’ve ever done for her: You’d have to ask Cormia. But I make certain that every day I do a little something that is just for her. Whether it’s making sure that she has enough of the toothpaste she likes, or taking her for a driving lesson, or finding a perfect hawk feather out in the woods and bringing it back to her, or surprising her with a flat stone I found in a riverbed. The small things matter—especially as she’s just getting used to the idea of having property that is hers and hers alone. And, you know…my shellan doesn’t favor fancy jewelry or clothes. She likes to dress in my shirts and doesn’t fuss over herself, so I guess I’m the girl in this mating. You know…to her credit, she has a true affinity for the simple things…like that feather. She was enthralled. It was from a red-tailed hawk, and I found it when I came back from NA one night and was out for a walk by myself. I brought it home and disinfected the tip and gave it to her. She loves things with color.

Most romantic thing she’s ever done for you: Funny that you should ask that. The hawk feather? She took it to Fritz and with his help made a quill pen out of it for me. Tile nib is sterling silver and gold. The pen sits in a stand on my desk. I use it to sign things for my brokerage accounts and whatnot, and also to draw her, it’s probably the best thing anyone’s ever given me.

Anything you’d change about her? No. Nothing.

Best friend (excluding shellan): My twin, Z.

Last time you cried: I’ll keep that private, if I may.

Last time you laughed: Not long ago. With Cormia. But the context is private.

After my noninterview with V, I head up to the kitchen and hand over my mug and napkin, along with my compliments, to Fritz and his staff. I’m informed that Phury has arrived and is waiting for me in the library, and I head there.

Breaching the room’s majestic entrance, I find Z’s twin facing the stacks. He’s got on a spectacular pin-striped black suit, and the contrast of his wavy, multicolored hair with the precisely tailored dark wool is arresting. He turns as I arrive. His shirt is blush pink with white collar and cuffs, and his tie is one of those Ferragamo small prints in red and pink…birds, I believe the pattern is birds.

Phury: (frowning) What’s wrong?

J.R.: Oh, nothing. (Looking around deliberately to avoid his yellow eyes.) God, I love this room. All the books…

Phury: What’s happened?

At this point I head for one of the silk couches and sit down facing the fire. The cushions curl up around me, and the crackling of the cedar logs makes me think of winter things, like snow falling and canopy beds that are heavy with comforters and pillows.

Phury joins me on the sofa, jogging his trousers up at the thigh before sitting down. When he crosses his legs it’s in the European fashion, knee over knee, not ankle to knee. His hands link in his lap, his massive diamond pinkie ring flashing…and making me think of V.

Phury: Let me guess…the interview with tall, dark, and icy didn’t go very well.

J.R.: I’m not surprised, though. (trying to shake self out of it) So tell me, how are the Chosen liking this side?

Phury: (eyes narrowing) If you don’t want to talk about him, we won’t.

J.R.: I appreciate the kindness, but honestly, that’s just the way it is. I’ll be fine.

Phury: (after a long pause) Okay…the Chosen are doing surprisingly well. All but five have come for a visit on this side, and what they do here varies based on their personality and predilections. The way it works, we usually have anywhere between six and ten in the house up north and…You’re not tracking.

J.R.: Between six and ten. Personality. Predilections.

Phury: (standing up) Come on.

J.R.: Where?

Phury: (holds out hand) Trust me.

Like Z—and all the Brothers for that matter—Phury is someone you can put your faith in, so I lay my palm in his and he pulls me to my feet. I hope we’re not going to see V, and am relieved when, instead of heading back to the kitchen, we go up the grand stairs. I’m surprised when he takes me into his old bedroom, and the first thing I think of is that it smells of red smoke, all coffee and chocolate together.

Phury: (stops in the doorway, frowning) Actually…lets go to the guest room next door.

Clearly he’s noticed the scent too, and I’m happy to help him avoid what is no doubt a trigger for him. We step out into the balconied hall and go into the room Cormia stayed in when she was at the mansion. It’s grand and lovely, just like his, just like all of theirs. Darius had spectacular taste, I think to myself as I look at the lush silk drapery and the museum-quality Chippendale dressers and the glowing landscapes. The bed isn’t so much a place to sleep, but a sanctuary to be absorbed in—with its canopied top and acres of red satin bedding, it is exactly what was in my mind when we were downstairs by the fire.

Phury: (taking off his suit jacket) Sit here. (points to floor)

J.R.: (planting it, cross-legged) What are we—

Phury: (mirroring me on the floor and putting palms out) Give me your hands and close your eyes.

J.R.: (doing what he asks) Where are—

The sensation that comes next is something like submerging your body in a warm bath—except then I realize that in fact I’ve become liquid; I am the water and I’m flowing somewhere. I panic and start to—

Phury: (voice coming from far distance) Don’t open your eyes. Not yet.

A century later I feel like I’m condensing again, becoming whole…and there’s a new smell, something like flowers and sunshine. My closed lids diffuse a sudden light source, and my weight is absorbed by a soft pad as opposed to the short-napped Oriental I’d first seated myself on.

Phury: (taking his hands away) Okay, you can open now.

I do…and am overwhelmed. I blink not from disorientation, but from too much orientation.

When I was little I spent my summers on a lake in the Adirondacks. My mother and I would move up there at the end of June and stay straight through until Labor Day—and my father would come on the weekends and for a block of two weeks at the end of July and the beginning of August. Those summers were the happiest times in my life, although part of that, I’m realizing as I get older, is the glow of nostalgia and the simplicity of youth. Still, for whatever cause, colors were brighter back then and watermelon on a hot day was wetter and sweeter and sleep was deeper and easier to come and no one ever died and nothing ever changed.

I have been far away from that special place for many years now—distanced in a way that a trip up the Northway can no longer cure. Except…I am there now. I am sitting in a meadow of long grass and clover and there are monarch butterflies drunkenly skipping from milkweed to milkweed. A red-winged blackbird is letting out its call as it heads for a row of shagbark hickory trees. And up ahead…there is a red barn with a flagpole and a massive stand of purple lilacs in front of it. A dark green Volvo from the eighties is parked to one side, and woven wicker lawn furniture marks the pale stone terrace. The window boxes are the ones my mother planted every year with white petunias (to match the white trim on the barn), and the porch pots have red geraniums and blue lobelia in them.

I can see the lake on the other side of the house. It’s deep blue and sparkling in the sunshine. Farther out in its midst is Odell Island, the place where I’d take my boat and my friends and my dog for picnics and swimming. If I turn my head, I see the mountain that rises up from the meadow, the one on which my family going back for generations is buried. And if I look behind me, I see across the meadow my great-uncle’s white house and then my best friends’ house and then my cousin’s Victorian manse.

J.R.: How did you know about this?

Phury: I didn’t. It’s just what’s in your mind.

J.R.: (looking back to the barn) God, it feels like my mother’s in there getting dinner ready, and my dad’ll be here soon. I mean, it really…is my dog still alive?

Phury: Yes. That’s the beauty of memories. They don’t change and they’re never lost. And even if you can’t recall all of them anymore, the pathways they created in your brain are always with you. They’re the infinity for mortals.

J.R.: (after a while) I’m supposed to ask you a lot of questions.

Phury: (shrugging) Yeah, but I thought you’d appreciate this answer.

J.R.: (smiling sadly) Which is?

Phury: (puts hand on my shoulder) Yes, it’s still all here. And you can come back anytime you like. Always.

I stare out over the landscape of my childhood and think…well, shit. Isn’t this just like Phury. I’ve been totally sniped by his kindness and thoughtfulness.

Bastard. Lovely, lovely bastard.

But this is the essence of him. He knows what you need more than you do, and he delivers. And he’s also flipped the interview on its head, making it about me, not him. Which is also his way.

J.R.: I’ll bet you give fantastic birthday presents, don’t you. The really freaky-thoughtful kind.

Phury: (laughing) I think I do all right.

J.R.: You wrap well, too, don’t you.

Phury: Actually, Z’s the best bow man you ever want to see.

J.R.: Who in your life would do something like this (sweeps arm around) for you?

Phury: Lots of people. Cormia. My Brothers. The Chosen. And also…myself. Like the whole recovery thing? (Pauses.) This is going to come out way wrong, just totally nancy, but the whole stop-using thing? That’s my gift to me. For instance, right now, you’re glad you’re here, but it’s hard too, right? (I nod.) Well, recovery hurts like hell sometimes, and it gets lonely and sad too, but even at its most difficult moments, I’m grateful tor it and I’m glad I’m in it. (Smiles a little.) For Cormia, it’s the same. Making the transition out of the strict traditions of the Chosen has been a real challenge tor her. Its not easy to completely restructure everything about your life. She and I…we kind of bond over that. I’m redoing the way I’ve lived, you know, as an addict for the last two hundred years, and I’m discovering who I really am. She’s doing a lot of the same work. We flounder and triumph together.

J.R.: Is it true Cormia’s going to design Rehvenge’s new club?

Phury: Yup. and she’s finished. They’re starting construction on it as we speak. And Wrath’s commissioned a new Safe Place facility from her as well. She’s thrilled. I bought her a CAD program and taught her how to use it…but she likes to do everything on paper. She has an office in Rehv’s Great House with an architect’s desk—no chair, she stands up when she’s drafting. I’ve bought her every book on architecture I can think of, and she’s devoured them.

J.R.: Do you think the other Chosen will find mates?

Phury: (frowning) Yes…although any males who come sniffing around are going to have to get through me first.

J.R.: (laughing) You’re going to be as bad as Z with Nalla, huh?

Phury: They’re my females. Every one of them. Cormia is my mate, and I love her in a deeper, very different way, but I am still responsible for the futures of the others.

J.R.: Something tells me you’re going to do an outstanding job taking care of them.

Phury: We’ll see. I hope so. I can tell you one thing, when it comes to their hellrens, I’m going to choose character over bloodline every time.

There’s a long silence that’s companionable, and after a while I let myself fall back in the grass and stare at the sky. The blue positively glows, and the white of the cotton-puff clouds is brilliant and a little blinding. The pair together remind me of fresh laundry for some reason, maybe because it’s all so sparkling clean and the sun is warm on me and everything smells so good…

Yes, I think to myself, these are the colors I remember…the ones from childhood, their vividness enhanced by the wonder and the excitement of just taking them in.

J.R.: Thank you for bringing me here.

Phury: I didn’t do anything. This is just where you wanted to go. And it’s a lovely trip, by the way.

J.R.: I couldn’t agree more.

The other questions I might have asked him drift out of my mind and into the fair skies above. When I hear a rustle of grass beside me, I realize he, too, has lain down. Together we stretch out on the grass, hands behind our heads, legs crossed at the ankles.

Eventually we return to the mansion and the bedroom we’d been in, and we talk about nothing special. I know that Phury’s giving me a chance to reorientate and I appreciate his thoughtfulness.

When it’s finally time for me to leave, he and I go down the hall to the study. I say good-bye to Wrath and Beth, and Phury stays there to have a meeting with the king and queen. As I put the grand staircase to use, I hear the voices of the doggen once again coming from the dining room. They’re setting up for Last Meal, laying out the place settings for the Brothers and the shellans.

Fritz comes forward, opens the vestibule’s door, and leads me back out to the Mercedes. Before I get into the sedan, I glance up at the mansion’s dour gray facade. Lights glow in almost every single window, evidence that in spite of the grim, bulwark-like exterior, there is great life and joy inside.

I slide into the backseat of the car, and as Fritz shuts the door I see that there’s a small black leather pouch on the place where I should be sitting. After the butler gets behind the wheel, I ask him what it is, and he says that it’s a present for me. When I start to thank him, he shakes his head and tells me it is not from him.

As the partition rises between me and Fritz, I take the satchel, pick apart the tie at the top, and spill its contents out into my palm.

It’s a small black-bladed dagger, still warm from the forge. The workmanship is breathtaking…Every detail, from the hilt to the razor-sharp tip, is perfectly wrought, and the miniature weapon gleams. It took its maker a long time to create it…and he cared about the outcome, cared greatly.

I curl my palm around the gift just as the Mercedes eases forward and we descend from the mountain, heading back for the “real world.”

Phury

Cormia

The Wizard

Rehvenge

Xhex

Lassiter

Tohrment

Zsadist and Bella

John Matthew

Qhuinn

Blaylock

Wrath and Beth

Fritz

Butch O’Neal

Rhage

Doc Jane

iAm

Trez

The Scribe Virgin

The Omega

Lohstrong (Qhuinn’s father)

Lash

Mr. D

Havers

Amalya, Directrix of the Chosen

Selena

Pheonia

The Princess

Payne

Low (the biker)

Diego RIP (gang member in the jail)

Skinhead (unnamed man in the jail)

Eagle Jacket (the human drug dealer)

Stephanie (the manager at Abercrombie & Fitch)

The Brotherhood mansion, undisclosed location

The Other Side (the Chosen Sanctuary)

Havers’s clinic, undisclosed location

ZeroSum (corner of Trade and Tenth streets)

Screamer’s

The Caldwell Galleria

Cabin in the woods, Black Snake State Park, Adirondacks

Rehvenge’s Great Camp, Adirondacks

The farmhouse (Lash’s birthplace), Bass Pond Lane

Lash’s parents’ house

Blaylock’s parents’ home

The Caldwell Police Department

Phury finds love and conquers both his addictions and his race’s restrictive social and spiritual constructs.

Opening line: Time was not, in fact, a draining loss into the infinite.

Last line: I love you forever didn’t always need to be spoken to be understood.

Published: June 2008

Page length: 534

Word count: 162,403

First draft written: December 2007-March 2008

I love Phury. He was a dream to write, he truly was. And as I said, boy, did I need the break.

On that note, some thoughts about my daily working patterns.

My writing schedule is pretty much set in stone. I write seven days a week, no excuses, no compromises: sick days, holidays, travel days—my butt is in the chair. I’ve kept this up for about ten years now, and I think I’ve missed three days in that decade—due to extremely extenuating circumstances. I’ve gotten up at four-thirty in the morning in Manhattan in hotel rooms to write. Sat down after root canals. Stayed inside when it’s sunny. My point is—writing is a priority, and I make it clear to everyone around me that writing time is nonnegotiable. It’s not that I’m a superhero. I’m just very disciplined, for one thing, and for another, I need to write. If I don’t, it’s like not exercising. I just get antsy to do it.

Were all these days stellar examples of drafting at its finest? Absolutely not. I can write crap just like everyone else does sometimes. But I keep after it and rework it and just hammer away until the words feel right. Often, it’s slow going, and tedious. When I’m laying down a first draft, I can do only about six to ten pages a day. When I revise those pages, the first trip through is usually no more than ten pages a day. Then it’s fifteen. Then it’s twenty. After my editor reads the manuscript, I’ll go through it again and again, doing no more than twenty-five pages a day. If I’m hitting copy edits, maybe I’ll do forty. For galleys? It’s hard for me to do more than fifty or seventy-five.

The thing is, I don’t write fast, I write long—which means I just put the hours in.

My normal day starts when I get to the computer upstairs around eight. I write for two hours. Take a break to make more coffee (during which I sometimes check e-mail downstairs), then go back up for another two hours. After that I run and come back and spend the rest of the day editing and dealing with business-related stuff. This all changes, however, if I’m under deadline—which means nothing except a run takes me away from the computer.

I do not have Internet access on either computer I write on, and I strongly urge folks, if they can afford the luxury, to draw that line and keep Web and e-mail distraction far, far, far away from their writing machines. See, for me, the writing uses a very specific part of my brain. If I stop working to deal with other issues, it can be a struggle to get back to the zone I was in before I put on my business head.

No one goes up into my working space except my dog (who’s always welcome) and my husband (who’s usually welcome). I don’t describe it anywhere, and there are no pictures of it. I will say that it is extremely uncluttered and has a tremendous amount of light. I think part of the reason I’m so territorial about the physical space is that keeping the real world out helps me to focus on what’s in my head. I’m also by nature, as I said, rather private, and the writing is very personal to me—so I’m quite protective of it.

In addition to my agent and my editor (and all the spectacular folks at my publisher’s who are incredible), I work with a lot of absolutely amazing people. My personal assistant makes sure everything runs smoothly and keeps me in line by being thoroughly unimpressed by any of the J. R. Ward stuff and liking me for me (well, most of the time it’s about our friendship—sometimes I drive her insane and she stays only because she loves my dog). My research assistant is a walking, talking Brotherhood encyclopedia who can find obscure pieces of knowledge and know-how with amazing alacrity—he’s also endlessly patient with me and one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. I also have a six-foot-ten-inch consigliere with a metal fetish—because everyone who writes about vampires needs one of those—and a woman who, even when six months pregnant, is willing to hump bags around hotel lobbies and go to conferences and make sure the trains run on time (we call her the APA).

My critique partner, Jessica Andersen (who writes fabulous paranormals), and I met like eight years ago, and we’ve been through a lot of ups and downs (the downs are what we call roadkill periods). She writes plot-driven stories and I’m into character sketches, so we don’t have a thing in common when it comes to material—which is one of the reasons I think we work so well together. I call her my CP, but because I don’t really share my content much, she’s more like a brain trust. I run a lot of business as well as writing issues by her, and she never fails to give me good advice.

My two assistants run the J. R. Ward message boards and the BDB Yahoo! Group and work with a tremendous team of volunteer moderators, most of whom have been with the Brothers from the very beginning. Our mods are amazing, and I’m so grateful for what they do just because they like the books.

Everything’s a team effort. And I couldn’t get the time and space to write like I do without the help of these folks.

Usually my days end around nine at night, when my husband and I get to spend a little time together before we pass out and get up and do it all over again. The truth is, I’m actually kind of boring. I’m mostly in my head all of the time—writing consumes my life, and the solitary existence nourishes me as nothing else could or has: I’m happiest at the computer by myself with my dog at my feet and it’s been that way since day one.

I kind of believe writers are born, not made—but that’s not specific to writing. I think it’s true of athletes and mathematicians and musicians and artists and engineers and the hundred million other endeavors that humans pursue. And in all my life, I believe the single best thing that’s ever happened to me, aside from having the mother I do, is that I found my niche and have been able to make a living out of doing what I love (my husband has had a huge hand in this whole publishing thing, so I thank him for that).

Now, before I nancy out completely and get all mushy with gratitude, let’s talk about Phury.

I have always seen Phury as a hero. From day one. I’d also been aware all along that his book was going to be about addiction—which was going to be tricky. To be honest, I was very concerned about the heroin thing. I remember, when I got the image of Phury passed out next to the toilet in that bathroom, going, Oh, God, no…I can’t write that. How are people going to be able to see him as a hero if he shoots up and ODs? And my problems weren’t just about him doing it, either.

The thing is, heroes are not always right, but they are always strong. Even if they tear up or break down, the context that brings them to that state is so overwhelming that we excuse them for their brief unraveling. With Phury abusing red smoke and exhibiting an addict’s need to protect his habit (with all the lying that implies), I was really concerned that if I didn’t portray him correctly, readers would view him as weak, instead of tortured.

Tortured is okay for heroes. Weak, in terms of constitution, is really not.

I think it’s understandable that Phury has some serious problems getting through the day. Considering all the stuff with Zsadist, and the complex interweave of guilt and sadness and panic that Phury’s had to live with all these years, the red smoke was a way of self-medicating his feelings. The first step to depicting him sympathetically was bringing the Wizard out before the readers so they had an idea of what Phury was trying to shut up with all the blunt rolling and lighting. Once again, like V’s actions at the war camp, it was all about context.

The Wizard is the voice that drives Phury’s addiction, and it lives in Phury’s head:

The next thing that needed to be shown was Phury beginning to realize that he is an addict. For him to be a hero, he had to conquer his drug use, and the first step of recovery is recognizing you have a problem. The initial inkling for him comes when he and a lesser are looking for some privacy to fight downtown and they interrupt a drug sale. When it looks as if the transaction won’t go through, the desperate buyer ends up attacking the dealer, killing him and cleaning him out before taking off:

Identifying with another addict was the start for Phury. But things had to get worse before they got better:

Phury’s getting the boot from the Brotherhood was not just about his addiction, but also about his other method for dealing with his emotions—torturing lessers before he kills them.

This was, originally, something I thought Zsadist was doing. I even alluded to it on the message board. Except I was wrong. It was Phury who was cutting up slayers before stabbing them—which is pretty hard-core. Funny, when I saw the scenes, I just thought that Phury, the nice one, the kind one, wouldn’t do something as base and cruel as torture. But here’s the thing—and I think to some degree it’s one of the points of Phury’s book: Even people who dress well, come from titularly good backgrounds, and look put-together can be totally unhinged on the inside.

Speaking of backgrounds, a word on Cormia. The parallels between her and Marissa are obvious. Both are high-stationed females suffering under the load of social expectations they were born into—and both transform themselves, becoming agents not only of their own liberation, but of others’ as well (the vote at the Council meeting and her work at Safe Place for Marissa; helping Phury to transform the Chosen for Cormia).

As a couple, I think Phury and Cormia work on a lot of levels, and in this passage I think she sums up her side of the connection well:

Of course, this puts her in direct conflict with her role as First Mate—who under the traditions of the Chosen must share the Primale with her sisters. This clash between Cormia’s upbringing and who she is and what she truly wants is the core of what she struggles with, not only romantically but individually.

On Phury’s side, I think that in addition to the instinctual bonding thing he has going on, Cormia really sticks by him. She is incredibly steadfast and accepting, and the two of them go through a lot. She is also instrumental in his recovery—more on this later.

Phury’s decent into the dark hell of his addiction truly bottoms out after he’s with Cormia sexually. The scene where he takes Cormia’s virginity was a hard one to write, because I knew I had to be very careful with what I saw, and I didn’t want there to be any confusion: Cormia absolutely wanted what happened to go down, but Phury, in his haste, truly believed he had hurt her.

There is nothing sexy about rape. Period.

Phury’s misconception about his actions drives him right into the Wizard’s playground. He’d had a near miss with heroin already (in Lover Awakened), and I suppose his doing H was inevitable, given his addiction and his emotional instability. It did break my heart, however:

It was a wonder Phury lived through it, and I shudder to think what would have happened if Blay hadn’t come to stay at the mansion and he and Qhuinn and John hadn’t walked into that spare bedroom.

So that was Phury’s bottom, and to his credit he didn’t stay there. The first significant step he took in his recovery was the choice he made the following day. He goes to complete the Primale ceremony with Layla, but instead of laying with her, he sits on the steps in the vestibule of the Primale Temple and makes a personal resolve to stop drugging:

This in turn led to what was for me the most significant scene between Cormia and Phury as a couple—the one where she helps him through his detox hallucinations. By taking him around his parents’ overgrown garden and directing him to clean it up (the scenes start on page 468), Cormia is a hero in her own right, being strong when her male can’t be and providing him with leadership when he needs to be led.

The symbolic nature of the ivy, when Phury’s either remembering how it covered the statues in his parents’ garden or using it to do away with one of his drawings, is obvious. The past has been choking him all along, and I loved the fact that during those hallucinations, not only does he free the statues, but he frees himself—and gets to see his parents in a happier place.

As a result of the detox, Phury then has the lucidity and the gumption to re-haul the whole construct of the Chosen—which was about fricking time. I love this part when he becomes resolved:

That is Phury’s inner heroic nature being truly realized—and man, does he go to town with it when he goes to see the Scribe Virgin.

About that confrontation. During his conversation with the Scribe Virgin, I think he hits on what is her essential failing when it comes to the race she created and loves. She’s too overprotective and has to, as Phury says, have faith in her creation. The traditions of the vampire race are hindering their survival as much as the war with the Lessening Society is, and things must change: The pool of candidates for the Brotherhood must be opened up so that more warriors can be brought on, and the Chosen need and deserve to be liberated.

A note on all the social and religious restrictions within the vampire race. There were those at the beginning of the series who criticized the books for being too male-dominated and chauvinistic. But that was the point.

Rule four: Plotlines Are Like Sharks. They must move or die.

The series needed to start at a place where there were things to be fixed, otherwise there would be no struggles, no conflict, no evolution and resolution. And even with the improvements made in Lover Enshrined, the world remains ripe with strictures that need changing or areas where conflict is going to breed—Rehvenge’s Lover Avenged is going to have a lot of that.

A symphath working with the Brotherhood? Pow.der.keg.

The thing is, plotlines must advance across a credible playing field of people. Always. For example, to me, the most powerful scene in Phury’s book comes when he leaves the Scribe Virgin’s private quarters after having freed the Chosen. Here, he returns to Chosen’s sanctuary:

I’ll be honest: I bawled like a baby right there. It was just the most perfect moment for Phury—and it couldn’t have happened if there hadn’t been something huge to fix in the world.

And speaking of things that needed to be fixed, a word on Phury and Z. The relationship between the twins had to be addressed in the course of the book, and there was some serious stuff to deal with. Phury had a lot of pent-up frustration and anger, and it eventually came out (I’m thinking of that scene in front of the mansion that starts on page 277, where the two of them go at it). I will say that I think Z’s lack of gratitude was more about the current suffering he was dealing with—namely the concern about Bella and her pregnancy—than a fundamental resentment over the fact that he had been saved. After all, it’s hard sometimes to be grateful that you’re walking the planet when the very foundation of your life is unstable.

Phury needed the acknowledgment from his twin, and needed the thank-you, though. Hands down for me, one of the most moving scenes in the series—and the one I absolutely wept at when I wrote it—was the reunion of the twins following the birth of Nalla. By this point, Phury’s on the road to recovery and has redefined his role as the Primale—and Bella and Nalla have lived through the birth, so Z’s in a much better place as well. The twins, however, remain estranged. At least until Zsadist comes up to Rehv’s house in the Adirondacks and approaches his brother while singing Puccini:

If you look throughout the book, you’ll see that here and there I put in a line about things not needing to be said to be understood. We’re talking about scenes between John and Cormia, Phury and Wrath, Phury and Cormia. I wanted it all to lead up to this moment, when Z’s emotions are too complex and overwhelming for him to explain, so he must sing to get his point across. And his message is received in exactly the manner it is given: The grand thank-you voiced in song is lovingly embraced by the one being thanked. Perfect.

The theme of silent communication also comes into play in the last line of the book. Here Phury is holding Cormia close to his heart after suggesting they get mated back at the Brotherhood mansion:

And that just about sums up Phury and Cormia.

Some thoughts about John Matthew and Lash.

One of the great things about John Matthew (who is Darius reincarnated) is that in the earlier books I could introduce parts of the world to the reader through his eyes. As he is unfamiliar on all levels with the vampire thing, what was new to the reader was new to him. John has also lent great continuity from book to book: On balance, the POVs change with each story, and thus far, once I’ve done a hero and heroine, except for in Slices of Life outside the books, I do not return to them (although I think in Rehv’s story that might change—I can see where Wrath might come back in a huge way). John, however, has been a constant—as well as constantly evolving as he goes through his life.

As I begin to prepare for John’s book (which might well be coming after Rehvenge, I’m not sure), I wanted to show readers how the whole time thing works with respect to the Omega and the Scribe Virgin—as a way of anticipating the Darius reincarnation issue. To this end, Lash as the Evil’s son, which I knew about much earlier, was the perfect way to do this. At the end of Lover Revealed, when the Omega says to Butch: “Lo, how you inspire me, my son. And may I say you would be wise to search for your blood. Families should congregate.” (p. 427), the Omega is making a reference to his defensive reaction to Butch’s changing the dynamic of the war. Having “spawned” Butch, in a sense, and being at the cop’s mercy, the Omega realizes that he needs to do something to counteract the threat to his survival. What he does is this. After Lover Revealed, the Omega went back in time, impregnated a female vampire, and created Lash. Lash was not in existence prior to the time between Lover Revealed and Lover Enshrined (the lapse of a matter of months reflected the Evil’s failed attempts at procreation, which were not detailed), but was created when the Omega went back to the early eighties at the start of Phury’s book.

This, of course, created a problem. For me as the author, bringing in a major character like Lash and having to explain why all of a sudden everyone knew him was just not going to work—it would have involved way too much exposition. So I had to work off of absolute time—which is different from the fungible time the Scribe Virgin and the Omega can manipulate at will. Absolute time is the absolute destiny that is the sole province of the Scribe Virgin and the Omega’s father. This absolute truth and time in the vampire world reflects the culmination of all the choices ever made by all actors in that universe, and the books have to run on that absolute—otherwise it’s a mess (or, more accurately, a boring stretch of explaining and flashbacks).

Lash is therefore shown from the day John Matthew first meets him on the bus. Which is, in absolute time, exactly what happens.

It’s on this same absolute time that the John Matthew and Darius thing went down. When Darius is killed in Dark Lover, and he goes to the Scribe Virgin in the Fade, John Matthew does not exist. But after the Scribe Virgin and Darius strike a deal, the Scribe Virgin steps back in time and plants John Matthew/ Darius in that bathroom in the bus station as an infant. John Matthew then develops over the course of those years independently of the vampire world—until his destiny brings him in contact with Bella through Mary in Lover Eternal (after Darius is dead). Technically, therefore, John Matthew and Darius coexist for a period of years, but there is no contact between them.

A mind-bender for sure. But kind of cool.

Anyway…I could keep going on and on, but I might as well end here. Get me started on the Brothers and their world and I’m a windup toy with no end of enthusiasm.

So that’s Lover Enshrined…and the series so far.

On some level, I can’t believe I’ve actually written the first six books already. It’s been a blur, a strange, fascinating, terrifying ride that’s taken me to places, both in terms of writing and on a personal level, that I couldn’t possibly have predicted.

I’m grateful for all of it. Even the really hard parts (and there have been some).

Next up is Rehvenge.

And if you thought the first six were humdingers…wait’ll you get a load of him.