OH! For the love of books!
OH! For the love of books!
Episode 55 Books 13 to 15
JR Ward Black Dagger Brotherhood Series. Book list and overview of books 13 to 15
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"Hello book worms and welcome to OH! For the Love of Books!, This show gives you information from the books I have read or ones you suggest for me to read. I'm your host, Jessica Vickery, and thank you for joining me
1st Main Point
Here are the next 3 books in the Black dagger Brotherhood.
Book 13 The Shadows
Trez “Latimer” doesn’t really exist. And not just because the identity was created so that a Shadow could function in the underbelly of the human world. Sold by his parents to the Queen of the S’Hsibe as a child, Trez escaped the Territory and has been a pimp and an enforcer in Caldwell, NY for years- all the while on the run from a destiny of sexual servitude. He’s never had anyone he could totally rely on... except for his brother, iAm.
iAm’s sole goal has always been to keep his brother from self-destructing- and he knows he’s failed. It’s not until the Chosen Serena enters Trez’s life that the male begins to turn things around... but by then it’s too late. The pledge to mate the Queen’s daughter comes due and there is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and no negotiating.
Trapped between his heart and a fate he never volunteered for, Trez must decide whether to endanger himself and others—or forever leave behind the female he’s in love with.
But then an unimaginable tragedy strikes and changes everything.
Staring out over an emotional abyss, Trez must find a reason to go on or risk losing himself and his soul forever. And iAm, in the name of brotherly love, is faced with making the ultimate sacrifice...
Trez was the second son born to a family of modest wealth, however, his twin, iAm, didn't thrive and wasn't expected to live for very long. Since Trez appeared perfectly healthy, Queen Rashth had the twins' astrological charts altered to reverse the birth order and declaring Trez the Anointed One, essentially the breeding stud to the heir of the throne, instead of iAm.[2]
While this station brought wealth and status to his family, it effectively imprisoned Trez in a life of pampered servitude. Raised by the queen's staff in a white cell, he went on a hunger strike until they sent iAm to him, which was when the dysfunctional relationship between the twins began.[3] s'Ex prevented his first escape attempt and to keep Trez in line after he threatened to take his own life, s'Ex threatened to torture and murder iAm if Trez tried it again.[4]
It took him another twenty years to realize that the jewels they constantly kept him adorned with were set in steel, which prevented him from dematerializing. When the perfect opportunity presented itself, he stripped naked and dematerialized through the air vents and escaped.
The first sign of habitation he came across was a cabin in the Adirondacks, but he was forced to hide when Rehvenge and the Princess arrived for their rendezvous as per their blackmail arrangement. After she left, Trez helped Rehvenge when he collapsed from the poison she used against him. In return, Rehvenge took Trez under his wing and helped him acclimate to both human and vampire society.[5] As punishment for leaving for the outside world and mingling with other races, the s'Hisbe ordered him to work for Rehv[6] and he continued to take care of him after his meetings with the Princess. When Rehvenge faked his death, the Iron Mask went to Trez and later, Trez opened shAdoWs. Trez continued to manage both nightclubs after Rehvenge became king of the sympaths.
Twenty years after leaving the s'Hisbe, Trez met Selena when the Chosen moved to Rehvenge's Great Camp and although they were attracted to each other from the start, Trez's sex addiction and Anointed One status in addition to the disease she was keeping a secret, they stayed away from each other for the most part. This was made more difficult when he moved into the Brotherhood's mansion and she continued to service the blood needs of the Brothers.
When Selena could no longer keep her disease a secret, Trez devoted himself to making sure she got to do everything she wanted before the end. This was complicated by the queen's orders to finally bring him to heel even though the princess had secretly fallen in love with iAm, but she was ultimately foiled in a coup led by maichen and s'Ex. Trez ensured that Selena knew she was deeply loved and was able to depart on her own terms. After her passing and in a near-death experience of his own, he had a vision of Selena telling him that his time on earth wasn't finished and he needed to be there for his brother.
Despite her message, he was extremely depressed and considered taking his own life until he met Therese, his mate's doppelganger, who was working at his brother's restaurant. They quickly fell in love, which was interrupted when Therese learned that her mother had been admitted to ICU at Havers' clinic. She reunited with her family and her mother recovered, but then Trez came clean about Selena and Therese's resemblance to her. Feeling used, and rightfully so, she told him that she never wanted to see him again.
While suffering from one of his frequent migraines, he had a vision of Lassiter resurrecting Selena from her funeral pyre. Sensing she was in danger, he went to the rooming house where she was staying and found that she was trapped in a fire in the building. He enlisted the help of the Brotherhood to rescue her and during her close call, she remembered her previous life, which healed the rift between them because they were both partly right and partly wrong.
Once she recovered, she and her family moved in with Trez since her mother needed to stay close to the clinic due to her heart condition. He's currently working towards his degree in human law and real estate[7], which is his first experience with formal education.
Selena was the last sequestered scribe until she stepped down when Phury was declared the Primale so she could mate with him. When Phury declared he would be monogamous to his shellan, she joined her sisters in adjusting to the real world by moving to Rehvenge's Great Camp.
Although she was sick with the Arrest, she kept it a secret because she didn't want anyone's pity, and chose to focus on serving the blood needs of The Black Dagger Brotherhood instead[2], which was where she met Trez. They avoided becoming entangled with each other, her because of her disease and him because of his position as the Anointed One, until her illness became apparent. At that point, it became apparent that Trez had bonded with her.
Since there's no treatment or cure, Selena chose to live as if she had all the time world ahead of her and Trez wanted to give her the world. When the end came, she was afraid of being locked helpless in her body and opted for assisted suicide.[3]
Book 14 The Beast
His name is Rhage—the deadliest fighter and most voracious lover of all the Brotherhood, whose inner beast could never be tamed. But Rhage found his eternal love in Mary Luce, a woman who once bore a life-threatening curse, while dreaming of eternity with her vampire warrior and protector.
Rhage was born in the year 1843 to Tohrture and an unnamed vampire female. He transitioned in the year 1868.
In 1898, Rhage joins the Brotherhood, but he was young and arrogant and made many poor decisions. That same year, he killed an owl, sacred to The Scribe Virgin, and begins to realize there are consequences to his actions. She curses him for the death of the bird with The Beast.
Rhage met Mary when she accompanied John Matthew to the training centre as an interpreter and chaperone. Against Wrath's orders, he began seeing her and they fell for each other, but Mary was dying of leukemia and tried to push him away so he wouldn't be devastated after her death. Accustomed to having constant sex with random women to control his Beast, Rhage realized that he didn't want anyone other than Mary and refused to let her push him away.
Rhage bargained with the Scribe Virgin for Mary's life, offering to keep the curse of the Beast for the rest of his life if she would save his shellan. Since there must be a balance, there had to be a sacrifice, which the Scribe Virgin had decreed would be Rhage forsaking Mary for the rest of his life and she would never remember him. However, once theScribe Virgin discovered that Mary was sterile from the cancer treatments, she brought Mary and Rhage together since Mary's inability to bear young was sufficient sacrifice.
Mary was born to Cecilia Luce and an unnamed father. Her mother named her after the Virgin Mary. Due to her mother's strong religious beliefs, she was raised Catholic, but at times Mary questioned her mother's belief, ultimately because her mother had died. For awhile, Mary worked with autistic children teaching them how to read and write, while also counselling. Sadly, Mary underwent intensive treatment for leukemia. After surviving it, she became an accountant for a law office and volunteered for a suicide prevention hotline.
John Matthew, a mute orphan, regularly called the Suicide Prevention Hotline and listened to Mary talk to him. One night, concerned for her safety, he followed her home. While relaxing in the backyard, she spied John, a scrawny boy, and invited him to join her. He confessed that he lived across from the hotline office and worried about her getting home safely since it was in a bad neighbourhood, which was why he'd followed her.
As was her custom, Mary's neighbour, Bella, came over to visit and recognized Mary's visitor as a pre-trans vampire. She coaxed John Matthew into visiting the Brotherhood's compound, vaguely describing it in a way that led John Matthew and Mary to think it was a type of martial arts dojo. John Matthew refused to go without Mary and while in the training centre, Mary met Rhage. At that time, he'd had very recently changed into the Beast and was mostly blind while recovering, but was immediately attracted to Mary's voice, trapping her to a wall and instructing her to keep talking.
Although Mary's memories of the trip to the compound were removed, Rhage convinced Bella to set him up on a blind date with Mary. On the date, she met Rhage, going by the name Hal E, for what she believes is the first time, but upon seeing how gorgeous he was, she thought it was a joke at her expense; she couldn't believe that a man like him would fall for her. After their meeting, he dropped by her house and they began to spend time together.
They fell for each other, but Mary's leukemia returned and it's terminal. Afraid of hurting Rhage with her pending death, remembering how bereft she was after losing her mother to multiple sclerosis, she tried to push him away. Accustomed to having constant sex with random women to control his Beast, Rhage realized that he didn't want anyone other than Mary and refused to let her push him away.
She works at Safe Place, which she helped Marissa to create, where she originally met Bitty and her mother. When Annalye was dying of a miscarriage, Mary brought Bitty to her to say good-bye. As the girl touched her mahmen's hand, Annalye passed away and Mary blamed herself for traumatizing Bitty. Shortly after that, Rhage was dying of a gunshot straight to the heart and although she could follow him into the Fade, she was reluctant to leave Bitty all alone in the world. Mary managed to coax the Beast into healing the wound, saving Rhage's life, but was wracked with guilt because she felt it was for the wrong reasons.[2]
Bitty's father was abusive and gave her multiple fractures all over her body.[1] One day, he put her in the hospital with a compound fracture in her leg, which required a titanium rod with expectations of more surgeries as she grows.[2]
After being released from Havers' clinic, she and her mahmen were living in poverty and Bitty's father tried to murder them with a chainsaw. Butch, Rhage, and Vishous killed the father and left his body in the woods to disintegrate at sunrise, then they took the females to Safe Place, where they were the first residents. In fact, it was Marissa's encounters with them at her brother's clinic that prompted her to begin the first shelter for children and the abused females of the species. [3]
When Annalye died of a miscarriage, Mary and Rhage adopted her. She had a dream where her unborn sibling came to her and she knew he would have been her brother; she named him "Charlie."[4]
Bitty's major bones had to all be broken and reset due to the damage. She couldn't go under anesthesia because she was allergic. Because of this, Rhage went into Beast mode in Havers' clinic, destroying one of the rooms.[5]
After meeting her uncle, Ruhn, Bitty stays with Mary and Rhage, requesting that Ruhn also move in with them.
Book 15 The Chosen
Xcor, leader of the Band of Bastards, convicted of treason against the Blind King, is facing a brutal interrogation and torturous death at the hands of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Yet after a life marked by cruelty and evil deeds, he accepts his soldier's fate, his sole regret the loss of a sacred female who was never his: the Chosen Layla.
Layla alone knows the truth that will save Xcor's life. But revealing his sacrifice and his hidden heritage will expose them both and destroy everything Layla holds dear - even her role of mother to her precious young. Torn between love and loyalty, she must summon the courage to stand up against the only family she has for the only man she will ever love. Yet even if Xcor is somehow granted a reprieve, he and Layla would have to confront a graver challenge: bridging the chasm that divides their worlds without paving the way for a future of even greater war, desolation and death.
As a dangerous old enemy returns to Caldwell, and the identity of a new deity is revealed, nothing is certain or safe in the world of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, not even true love . . . or destinies that have long seemed set in stone.
In 1731, deep within a damp and dirty cave, Xcor was born breach during a historic blizzard. His father, Hharm, had disavowed him on the spot, claiming Xcor was a cursed child, and leaving him to his mother's care. Under threat of death by Hharm, she was forced to raise Xcor, but she did so without care, kindness, compassion, or love. By the time he was old enough to crawl, she kept him chained in the yard outside her cottage and never brought him inside. When Hharm was killed when Xcor was still a young child, Xcor's mahmen was freed from her obligation and abandoned Xcor, still chained in the yard. She never even looked back when he cried out for her not to leave him. Xcor never even learned her name. Terrified, cold, and hungry, Xcor found a way to break the chains around him and to feed to stay alive, becoming a vicious killer.
As a pretrans, he spent nearly a decade in an orphanage.[2]
Over the years, he remained isolated in the abandoned cottage and he fed off off wildlife in the forest nearby. When he was going to go into his transition, he made a deal with a female vampire in the nearby village: she would see him through his Transition and feed him and he would give her the cottage. He survived into adulthood, barely, and left his home forever, wandering the world. He eventually came upon a group of vampires led by the Bloodletter, who were tracking down some lessers; Xcor managed to get involved in the fight and survived it.
Known as the vampire who could only sire "weakling females" and a single "cursed boy," the Bloodletter saw the opportunity to save face by claiming such a strong fighter as his get, so he lied to everyone, including Xcor. In the Bloodletter's training camp he was forced to fight for his very survival under its brutal conditions which were deliberately cultivated by his alleged father. This required him to become inured to meting out physical violence, including the torture and rape of vanquished foes, and shutting down any traces of compassion or caring in his psyche.
Despite how cunning and hard he became, there was no denying that a thread of honour hid at the core of him. As a result, the other soldiers followed him willingly, practically worshipping him and obeying him without question. He formed an elite group of soldiers which he termed his "Band of Bastards," and together they and the Bloodletter roamed Europe, taking and killing at will, but always remembering not to reveal their true heritage to the humans, per the Old Laws.
It wasn't until Payne exacted her revenge upon her father, the Bloodletter, for the brutal treatment of her twin, Vishous, that Xcor and the Band of Bastards learned that he was not, in fact, the Bloodletter's blooded son. In spite of this, the Band of Bastards agreed to continue following Xcor's lead. He brought them overseas to Caldwell, determined that the vampires needed a change in leadership, and began plotting a coup.
During an assassination attempt on Wrath, Xcor was severely injured. In a desperate move to save his captain, Throe contacted the Chosen Layla using the blood she'd fed him when he was injured in the Brotherhood's clinic. Continuing to pretend to be an ally of the Brotherhood, he had her feed Xcor with her powerful, healing blood. One look, one taste of Layla's blood, and Xcor was struck with the mating instinct.
Attempting to ignore his need for Layla, Xcor focused on his plans to overthrow the King's power and position instead of killing him, intending to install himself on the throne. He began working with various rogue members of the glymera, trying to politically maneuver them into submission and compliance. What Xcor soon discovered, however, was that many of the glymera weren't to be trusted, as they would dispose of Xcor just as easily as they'd planned to depose Wrath.
As time went by, and despite his ambition to seize power, Xcor found it difficult to concentrate on anything but Layla. Using the knowledge of the location of the Brotherhood's mansion, Xcor blackmailed Layla into meeting with him once a month for a whole year. Those platonic visits tormented both of them, but at the same time, eased them a bit, as being close to each other and seeing the other safe and unharmed did much to provide them both some relief.
When Wrath abolished the monarchy and turned the race into a democratic-republic, going with the theme of a new world and transition, the move surprised Xcor and he came to respect Wrath. This change, coupled with the fact that warring with the Brotherhood only put Layla in danger, made Xcor decide to drop all his plans of seizing power.
That decision created a schism between him and Throe, who still had great aspirations for ridding their people of its newly elected president, Wrath. When push came to shove, the rest of the Band of Bastards chose their loyalty to Xcor over Throe, who was then banished from the group. The damage was done, however, Throe had revealed Xcor's bonding to a Chosen living with the Brotherhood. To Xcor's surprise, however, the other Bastards hadn't resented his luck. Instead, they were curious and a little in awe that Xcor could win the love of such a beautiful, pure vampire of the highest echelons of their society.
Xcor was severely injured, suffering a broken back and nearly dying from his wounds. The Brotherhood kidnapped him off the field of battle, hiding him away in the Tomb where he was plugged into human medical machinery to try to save his life. Their intention was to get him well so he could stand trial for attempting to kill Wrath, and thus be legally executed. Xcor's death would, they figured, serve as a message to the glymera as well about the price of treachery.
While Xcor was unconscious and recovering, Layla traveled over to the Sanctuary and researched his past history. It was there that she discovered that Xcor was really the blooded son of Hharm, and that his half-brother, Tohrment, had been granted by Wrath the office of serving as Xcor's executioner once the trial had finished. Rushing back to the mansion to tell the others, Layla went into early labour. After a difficult time of it, she finally gave birth to fraternal twins, who were named Rampage and Lyric.
After being comatose for months, Xcor woke as Qhuinn attempted to murder him. To avoid killing Qhuinn, Xcor escaped to a cabin in the woods where Layla found him using the blood bond between them.
When Wrath sent a peace envoy to the Band of Bastards asking to meet so the issue between them could be resolved once and for all, Xcor agreed to it. There he knelt before Wrath and agreed to accept him as his King and leader, to abide by the law Wrath had established, and to serve the race together with the Brotherhood. The Band took to their knees out of loyalty to Xcor and vowed the same. When lessers attacked and Xcor led the Band in defending the king alongside the Brotherhood, Wrath had the Bastards move into the Brotherhood's mansion to consolidate their power base and assure everyone's safety. From then on Layla and Xcor were allowed to live together as mated shellan and hellren.
The youngest of the Chosen[1], Layla was trained as an ehros, but was never called upon in that capacity and so she felt unfulfilled since that was supposed to be her duty. Instead, she focused on providing blood for the Brothers who couldn't take the veins of their shellans.
When Throe was injured, the Brotherhood had Layla feed him to save his life, but never revealed to her his involvement in the coup the Band of Bastards were attempting. Throe later used her blood in his veins to summon her to get her to feed Xcor when he was dying after an attempt on Wrath's life. Still under the impression that Xcor was a noble fighter of worth, she did so without ever knowing that he was the one who'd attacked the king. As his identity became apparent to her, she worked with Xhex to track Xcor using her blood to locate him.
When she went into her needing, she found a possible solution to the emptiness by having a young and asked Qhuinn to service her since he, too, was without family. Although the two of them weren't romantically involved, the two of them had grown close since both of them felt adrift without any real family.
Layla began to miscarry soon after and in order to keep her pregnancy a secret, she went to Havers, who treated her like trash for seeking medical treatment while pregnant without the permission of the Primale. When Phury learned of her condition, she felt ashamed and renounced her status as a Chosen, declaring herself fallen. Seeing Layla's suffering, Payne over-extended herself to heal Layla and stop the miscarriage.
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In my next episode we are going to continue with the next few books of my favorite series from JR Ward The Black Dagger Brotherhood.
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