Chapter 8 Rhage, son of Tohrture
Rhage, son of Tohrture
There’s a narrow door in the far corner of the billiards room that opens back up to the foyer.
You dump out on the flank of the grand staircase, and even though the kitchen is my ultimate destination, first I have to go over to another entry that’s set into the massive, ornamental base of the way upstairs.
The panel I’m after was crafted to look exactly like all of the articulated paneling, hidden but for the polished brass ring you pull.
As the seal is broken, a rush of cedar-scented, hand-milled French soap buffers into me, like it’s been locked inside and begging for an escape.
I don’t enter. I just lean in.
It’s the males’ bathroom, and oh, God, the agate.
I love a good agate bathroom. This one has been redone since the first lot of books, and I totally approve of the black and brown stone that covers the floors, walls and ceilings.
And of course the furniture is perfect. In the low glow from vintage fixtures, the moss green velvet sofa looks like something Oscar Wilde would have had in his living room, and the side tables are exquisite.
Naturally, the stalls with their individual sinks are tucked discretely around the corner.
I keep going, making a wide circle around the base of the ornate staircase that seems right out of Buckingham Palace.
The dining room is on the other side, and even though there are other ways of getting into the kitchen, I take a detour into the enormous space that reminds me of the one at the Breakers at Newport, RI.
The table remains as long as a bowling alley, and all the carved chairs lined up on both sides look like an army in formation.
The sideboards, too, are where they’ve always been, the paintings and the sculpture, as well.
No sterling place settings with beautiful porcelain, though.
No crystal glasses set, or flowers in vases, or candles flaring gently in the candelabra.
The fact that all of it is shut down is a reminder of how change is more common than permanency.
Darius built this vast palace on this defensible location with the idea that the Brotherhood would live here together with their families.
When that didn’t happen, I know he mourned the opportunity lost—and then he died and his dream came true.
At least he did return to see it, if only through a different set of eyes.
John Matthew.
A lot of people ask me whether they should read Darius first, before Dark Lover.
That book is the story of how Beth, Wrath’s leelan and Queen, came to be put on the planet, and as origins stories go, I think it’s a heart wrenching one.
Without it, though, the daughter of a human and a Brother wouldn’t have found herself unknowingly lost in the human world, on the verge of a transition that will kill her if a vampire doesn’t feed her and see her through it.
At which point Wrath entered the picture and all of us were off to the races, so to speak.
Personally, I still think people should start with Dark Lover.
And you know, as I reread Wrath and Beth’s story recently, I was reminded that I was not a good enough writer to have typed out that manuscript.
I may still not be. It’s just so complete, everyone playing a vital role, from Butch being the only one who can go look for Beth when Mr. X abducts her in the daylight to the very end, where Wrath spares Havers’s life as a gift to Marissa in return for how badly he’s treated her over the years.
It’s so tight, all amends made, all the loose ends resolved—with the promise that Rhage is up next.
All I want is one good female, he says in the last scene. But I guess I’ll settle for quantity until I find her...
This coming after Vishous points out to him that he should be so lucky to smooch like Wrath and Beth.
As I push my way through a flap door into the butler’s pantry, and then proceed down to the archway into the kitchen, I’m remembering the way Dark Lover ended, with Fritz telling the Brothers not to throw linens and asking if anybody wanted peaches—
“I have two spoons,” Rhage says as he looks up over a half gallon of Breyers mint chocolate chip.
He holds up the one he isn’t using and smiles at me—and I literally blink in the glare of his ridiculous attractiveness. I mean, the eyes really are stupidly bright aquamarine, just like the water in the Bahamas, and the hair is thick and blond and curls up off his incredible face, and his teeth…
His teeth are so white they could qualify as bathroom tile.
Setting all of that off is skin that’s smooth and golden brown, like he’s just come back from a holiday in the—well, Bahamas.
Tonight, he’s wearing a black muscle shirt and the empty holster for his daggers is still strapped onto his chest. His full-length black leather trench coat is laying on the rough-hewn oak table next to him, and given the bumps under it, I know that’s where his knives are.
And clearly a number of other weapons as well.
“I’ll take a rain check on the ice cream.” I go over and sit across from him. “But more for you—”
“More for me.” He puts the spoon he offered down and bows to me. “You are such a giver.”
Rhage is such an orderly little eater—then again, you could make the argument that he’s had a lot of practice. I give him a minute to take a couple more bites, noting that he’s started on the right and is working his way across in rows. Like it’s the dessert equivalent of corn on the cob.
I feel a familiar sting of guilt as I watch him.
I didn’t want to write his book, Lover Eternal.
It’s the second in the series, and at the time, all I could think of was that I wanted to get to Zsadist’s story.
More on that later, but yeah, as I arrived at the end of Dark Lover, I had to decide which of the Brothers to do next.
I had ten installments in my head, but only had a three-book contract.
Z’s was supposed to end everything, except I had to write him as number three because it was clear I was going to get fired again when no one read these crazy-ass, out-there novels.
(Um, note on the out-there: ApollyCon’s Monsters panel from this year was like, “Hold my beer…,” but I digress.)
Anyway, in my gut I knew it was Rhage, except come on. What a snore. A beautiful, funny, charismatic vampire falls in love with a woman who—
When a slicing headache stops my thoughts, he murmurs, “Yeah, I’ve heard you didn’t want to write about me.”
As I level a stare at him, he flashes a gamin smile.
“It’s rude to read minds without permission,” I point out.
“Oh, come on, it’s not like I haven’t heard it before, and you are here to revisit us. How are you not thinking about our past? Yours and mine.”
Such an outcome engineer. “But I loved your book.”
“Wait, not me? You didn’t love me?”
He is truly the golden retriever of the Brothers. Irresistible, charming, and loyal. Also in need of attention and food at all times. On that note, he’s smiling again as he puts another spoonful of that mint chocolate chip into his mouth.
“Of course I loved you.”
“Past tense?” He puts a hand over his heart. “I’m devastated.”
“Oh, come on.”
But I have to laugh, and when I do, I can see him relax. It’s a reminder that he really does have a good heart underneath all the bluster.
“How’s the beast?” I ask.
Rhage sits back, and wags his spoon. “The best pet ever. I’ve almost got him house-broken at this point.”
This is not true. But he’s not going to talk in a serious way about his curse, the one he kept so that Mary would live, the thing bartered under the belief that she would continue on without him, never knowing of him or what they’d meant to each other.
It was a cruel bargain, although the Scribe Virgin wasn’t being arbitrary.
She always believed in balance, and saving Mary’s life was a huge blessing that required a leveling of the scales that was equally profound.
Of course, Mary’s scales had already been balanced.
And so here we are, the two of them together for as long as he lives. After which Mary will no doubt choose to go right into the Fade with him.
Or…will she?
“How’s Bitty then?” I ask.
He positively inflates with pride. “My daughter is perfect.”
One of the things that I love about writing the BDB books is how huge and sprawling the world is (it’s also one of the hard parts, but more on that in the “For Writers” section).
Everything and everybody is interconnected—six degrees of Kevin Bacon, only with fangs.
Bitty entered the books as a young suffering in a terrible domestic violence situation.
She and her mahmen were taken in by Safe Place, and over the course of many books, culminating in The Beast and then Blood Fury, she found her permanent home and family with Rhage and Mary.
Bitty is one of my absolute favorite people after the time jump.
But what is coming for her is horrific, and I feel the same way now as I did with Butch, a nauseous combination of guilt and helplessness.
“She’s my girl.” He pauses with a full spoon. “And honestly, how lucky are we? Mary and I were prepared to never have any young, but things worked out.”
He has no idea about Bitty and L.W., how the son of the King broke her heart in Lover Forbidden.
I stay out of it because, again, it’s not my role to intervene, and it dawns on me that I have something in common with Lassiter.
Apart from certain TV shows. I do not envy that fallen angel.
To have to sit on the sidelines and watch, although at least he can provide some guidance—and he does get involved from time to time, even though he technically shouldn’t.
Rhage keeps going. “That she got through her transition safely, and now, how she’s making a difference at Luchas House? Mary is really training her well, and I can see her taking everything over sometime far off in the future.”