The Black Dagger Brotherhood (23 page)

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.

a.k.a. Butch O'Neal

—LOVER REVEALED, p. 321