Hello everyone!
What can I say ... I'm on a vampire reading binge, yet again.
I would apologise but in all honesty these books are SO good that I don't feel like any apology is even necessary. And if you haven't yet started reading the series, what ARE you waiting for?
Seriously, you're not getting any younger here.
But I digress; I have a few more books in my little sheep ledger to go through, only they've kind of taken a backburner while I move through the first few in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series yet again. Every once in a while, I get literally bit by this urge to go back to where it all started, with the original Brothers, and compare them to where they are now.
It's truly something to see, considering book number ... fifteen, is it? Yeah, book number fifteen in the main series is about to come a-knocking, and I'm still just as much in love with all these vampires as I was when their numbers were fewer.
And so, of course, feeling that irresistible itch, I picked up my trusted electronic copies, and settled on talking about another favourite of mine: Butch O'Neal.
As with the previous posts, especially in this series, there will be links down below to everything I've ever read and was written by J. R. Ward. The list is getting long, but the remaining one is even longer, meaning I should kick my butt in gear and review the lot of them!
But I have a special place in my heart for Butch, right along with Phury, Wrath, Tohr and Qhuinn, so I figured, why not talk about the cop, then?
After all, Lover Revealed is his story.
In book four of the series, the War of the vampires against their mortal enemies, the Lessening Society, is in full swing, and they're being hit right, left and centre, not to mention that the slayers have sort of taken up a new tactic: abducting and interrogating civilians about the Brotherhood, trying to get a grip on the warriors who kick ass.
Into this picture steps Butch O'Neal.
Butch used to be a homicide cop but his interrogating techniques got him sacked from the force and because the woman he had crushed on, Beth Randall, turned out to be a vampire, he got sort of inducted into this society, too, and is currently living with his best buddy Vishous in the Pit, which is a sort of guard house for the big mansion everyone else lives in. As he's human, however, he's not actually allowed into any kind of fights and so he is always on the fringes and never really in the thick of things.
Plus, he's got it bad for Marissa, Wrath's first and now former shellan (wife), who has apparently turned him away. More on that later.
Let's just say a vampire and human together could cause ... complications.
Especially to Marissa, who is already a social outcast because the high society vampires shun her for the fact that she was replaced by Beth, not that it was Marissa's fault. But, you know, aristocracy at its finest.
Things come to a head when Butch is once again denied the ability to help out but he inadvertedly finds himself in the thick of a fight whilst trying to save a young vampire.
Only, things don't go so well, since he gets himself kidnapped.
And nobody (aka Vishous) figures it out until it's too late for the vampires to go out, since, you know, sunlight and all that.
Butch goes through something a bit worse than just interrogation and torture, since the Omega (this being the vampire equivalent of the Devil, only the Devil would have been his plaything) puts a piece of himself into the cop. Things would have gone SO bad if the Scribe Virgin (another deity, this the good one) instructs Vishous how to heal his friend, not that all the evil is taken out of him then and there.
No, what happens is he can now sense lessers, smell them, and they think he's one of them ... until Butch yanks them around and literally inhales them.
Cue pindrop.
But I'm getting ahead of myself: what happens first is that he's delivered to Havers' clinic, and Havers being Marissa's brother means Vishous pulls strings and tells Marissa Butch is there. Turns out, everything was just her brother's meddling: she loves Butch, Butch loves her, but things go from bad to worse pretty damn quick as Havers, finding the two together, throws Marissa out of the house right before dawn.
This leads her to the Brotherhood's mansion, where Beth tells her in no uncertain terms that she's welcome to stay forever if she so chooses.
This may only complicate things for her and Butch, however, as Marissa needs to feed regularly, but can't use him as he's human, so she goes to Rehvenge, Bella's brother (and prime suspect in Lover Avenged) which isn't making Butch happy. Or Rehv, once he figures out just who Marissa is actually into.
Also, it doesn't help Butch had sex that one time with Xhex, Rehv's chief of security ... yeah.
Anyway, back to the inhaling-Lessers bit: nobody really knows what's going on, but they're willing to bet it's not good for their enemies, although to be fair, as the Brotherhood still doesn't let him fight, and Marissa won't feed from him, Butch puts down an ultimatum: he's either in this world, or he's out, even if in a bodybag. He just can't stand looking in from the outside anymore.
Vishous, as always, comes through: because the cop has been throwing off some weird things (weird for a human that is), they're going to check if he has any vampire in him.
And what do you know, he does: Wrath, son of Wrath, actually.
Which means, as he tells Marissa when she argues against it, that he has a very big chance of FINALLY belonging somewhere, after being beaten all his childhood and accused by his father that he allowed his sister to be taken, beaten, raped and killed because she was their father's favourite (this is obviously untrue, but as we learn later, Butch's mom actually DID have an affair with a surgeon, and Butch was the result). So Marissa gives the go-ahead, and the boys all buckle up to see if they can trigger Butch's transition.
They do. And bloody hell, it works!
Now Butch is an actual vampire, but he ALSO can still inhale the Lessers.
Which again means pin drop.
This time, Vishous does some extracurricular searching, and finds that the cop is the answer to an age-old prophecy, and can help stop the Omega. See, when the Omega creates his warriors, he puts a piece of himself in them, so when they're killed, they poof back into that black matter. Butch snips that process short, because by inhaling their essence, he prevents their return home, thus weakening the Omega.
Marissa isn't having it though - she calls out on Butch's hero complex and tells him he's on his own, that she won't watch him self-destruct anymore.
Which of course breaks his heart, but what would you.
The female does pull strings, however, at the meeting of the six primary bloodlines of the vampires where they're going to decide to send all the unmarried females pretty much into a convent, as she reminds them that it's HER vote that counts, not her brother's, because she's older than him.
Ta-da! Take THAT, stuffed-up peacocks!
Things with her and Butch are still on the downslide, however, because neither of them is going to back down: Butch, because he feels this is his destiny, and Marissa, because she just won't.
So they try this not being together thing, and it doesn't quite work, but luckily there are other females in the picture who come to Marissa, and their names are Beth, Mary and Bella, who are all mated to a Brother, and who explain to her that a warrior without a purpose isn't really anyone at all, just a shadow and worth nothing.
Marissa also realises that she's doing to Butch exactly what Havers did to her - pushing him away to try and protect herself, and becoming someone she despises, despite the fact that she has opened Safe Place, a haven for abused mothers and children.
So, after Butch is formally inducted into the Black Dagger Brotherhood as a full member, she returns to him and asks him to simply be safe - but she will support him in his endeavors.
Mating time!
As a subplot, we continue with John, who is introduced in previous books and adopted by Tohrment and Wellsie, except right now, Wellsie is dead and Tohr is ... who knows where, so John is acting out and getting aggressive. Zsadist's warning doesn't help, and after he pounds his annoying attacker, Wrath steps in and forces him to acknowledge the pain he feels and the agony of being once again left alone, after which Wrath and Beth sort of become surrogates so that he has someone to lean on, and someone who can help him through the change that's coming.
A special shout-out goes to Blaylock and Qhuinn, who will be John's boys in the future, because they are just precious.
As you can see, I'm working my way through the jigsaw puzzle without any concrete plan, which means I'm bouncing here, there and everywhere, but I promise you that, once I finally have the books lined up a little bit better in these reviews, EVERYTHING will make sense.
For now, go ahead and start reading them, beginning with Dark Lover.
Because, to coin a Brother: you know you want to, true?
xx
*image not mine
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