Hello everyone!
I've finally decided to at the very least get the first run of the series on here, and I know I still have like, 5 books to read in total before the new generation takes the stage, but I've been so sucked into The Apothecary Diaries that it's been rather difficult swerving back into vampires haha!
But here we are.
Chronologically working through the second book in the series, we're going to have a look at its legendary fighter who also happens to be known for his other exploits ... namely, in the bedroom.
Or out of it. He isn't all that picky, ya know.
This is the story of how he meets the woman who changes everything for him, how he learns to accept that which he's been given, and how, at the end of the day, we all need to accept our destiny with as much grace as possible.
Because once we do, we may find loopholes. That's what it's essentially all about in Lover Eternal.
So Rhage is our male of choice for the night, and lemme tell you, if you don't love the big oaf then I'm not sure what planet you're on.
He's big, he's strong, and he's got the libido of a sex god, not that he's proud of that last bit, honestly, but we'll get to that in a hot second.
For now, we gotta have a look at the woman he's eventually going to end up with, Mary.
She happens to be neighbours with a vampire named Bella (she'll feature in the following book, so remember her), and friends, too, and also, her cancer's back.
She's already beaten the disease once, had lost her mother to it, but now she needs to undergo more tests so that they tell her what her options are.
This is when Bella introduces her to the Brotherhood, because Mary's also friends with a mute boy named John, who wears a bracelet with an old warrior name on it, so Bella reaches out to the Brotherhood just to be safe. Mary tags along for the meeting to translate for John since he can only speak using sign language ... and that's where she literally gets flattened against the wall by Rhage.
See, our boy gets himself into some trouble with the Lessers - the enemy, natch - turns into his Godzilla alter-ego, and then recovery's always a pain in the butt, so he's over there not seeing well, weaving from one end of the wall to the other, when he hears a voice that calms down everything.
Even when it's telling him to go away and stop sniffing her.
The Brotherhood tasks Rhage with scrubbing Mary's memories, but he instead takes her on a date, which she has trouble believing is actually true considering she thinks she's not pretty enough to attract the attention of someone supermodel-beautiful like he is, so he's fighting an uphill battle already.
Then they get attacked by Lessers, and he doesn't actually do the job he's supposed to do - aka, you know, scrub her memories - so he's going for round two.
Only, the longer the memories are left to rest there in the skull, the more difficult it is to fiddle with them.
But hey, he's pretty good at it - and he'd appreciate if his brothers didn't yak his chain about the females so much, okay? Says he to Tohr, who finally, FINALLY, after who knows how many centuries of this, clicks into the fact that it's not fun and games for Rhage and he needs to be more considerate.
Gotta hand it to our boy, though, he knows how to pivot real fast, so that's not an issue.
Rhage, knowing the Lessers got Mary's purse last time around, camps out at her house and ends up sunburnt the next morning, aka almost turned into a meat skewer, but even as Mary's terrified of the fact that he's a vampire - kind of hard to hide the fact after everything - she takes care of him and feeds him (only for him to have him turn the tables on her and feed HER instead).
But he's in a bind: he needs a safe place for her, and Wrath's unreachable since he and Beth took off for a little alone time, so he just rolls the dice in bringing Mary, a human, to the Brotherhood mansion.
This results in some VERY heavy male posturing, but ends with punishment that's the brothers whipping Rhage as consequence (man the scene of Zsadist trying his hardest to get the hell away from the whip so he doesn't have to do it, even while Rhage is begging him to finish the ritual, both broke my heart and ripped it straight out). Seeing as the Scribe Virgin took away Godzilla so nothing dangerous happened during this, though, Rhage can FINALLY enjoy safe sex with Mary.
See, previously, and up until this point, he's had to keep himself on a very, VERY short leash, because every time he got close to her something weird was starting to happen - aka, his Beast was starting to show up, and he was legit terrified of eating her.
They kind of devise a workaround by chaining him to the bed to test out the theory, and it turns out ... yeah the Beast wants her, but it WANTS her. Not for eating, but for sex.
Listen, I'm not making this up.
So in theory it's all swell and good, except Mary's pushing Rhage away as hard as she could once she's in the whole illness land again, and he has enough trying to fight his way in because he can tell SHE thinks he's never going to be good enough.
Which is all a big misunderstanding anyway, as Mary wants to spare him the sight of her dying, but she eventually caves, and, having gotten the King's word that should something happen to him, she'll be taken care of like she's his sister by blood, Rhage can rest easy. Ish.
Because then they get the actual diagnosis: Mary's dying.
She accepts it; but while Butch is on day duty in the hospital with her (humans being handy like that), Rhage goes to the Scribe Virgin to beg for Mary's life. The Scribe Virgin, being the total bitch that she is at the start of the series, says sure, I'll do it, but you have to keep your curse AND I'll remove all memories of you from her.
I'm not entirely sure why he has to sacrifice two things, unless it's that both she AND him have to sacrifice, but okay.
Except ...
Mary comes running to the mansion, where everyone's been prepping for her funeral ceremony, basically, and while Rhage is panicking about it, the Scribe Virgin is like: dude you didn't tell me she'd ALREADY sacrificed.
You see, Mary can't have children. So no matter how much sex she and Rhage have (which is ... a lot, lemme tell you, especially once they figure out a system in which he'll be feeding from one of the Chosen when he needs to, the Scribe Virgin's "priestesses" as it were that were bred for the singular purpose of serving the Brotherhood), that's not happening.
And the deity decides that's suffering enough, so she allows for Rhage to keep his female. And the Beast, but Mary finds the thing cute anyway and can talk it down when it's out on a rampage, so all's well that ends well, right?
Haha. Wrong.
Remember John and Bella?
John gets practically adopted by Tohr and Wellsie, since when Tohr gets an idea in his head that's usually how it goes, and he'll be starting in the Brotherhood's training program with other pre-transition guys soon, but as for Bella ...
She runs afoul of Lessers looking for Mary. And unfortunately for her, she seems to remind one of them of his deceased wife, so he kidnaps her and takes her into hiding.
This sends none other than Zsadist on a rampage to find her, because, spoiler alert, despite his past and everything, Bella was both intrigued and attracted to him, and the feeling was mutual even though he had no clue what to do with it.
So he's going to burn through every single Lesser he can get his canines on until he finds her.
FIN.
Raw, real, and emotional in all the right places, Lover Eternal shows what impulses can do, but also what good can come of it when you allow yourself to welcome it in. Rhage is one of the most lovable OG brothers to date, and we're starting to open up the lore and the depth of this world Ward created in this book.
Dark Lover was literally only the cover story. Lover Eternal sets the stage for a much, much bigger conflict to come, and it begins introducing characters we'll be seeing a lot more of as time goes on.
And I mean ... it's all about family, at the end of the day. These Brothers show us the true meaning of it in every single scene they're in, whether it's Tohr and Wellsie, Tohr and Rhage, Rhage and Wrath, Mary and Bella.
It's all there. And I dearly hope we get season 2 from Passionflix to see it come to life on screen!
xx
*image not mine
The King - The Shadows - The Beast - The Chosen - The Thief - The Savior
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