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Characters / Black Dagger Brotherhood

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The Brotherhood

    Wrath 
Wrath: Welcome to the wonderful world of jealousy. For the price of admission, you get a splitting headache, a nearly irresistible urge to commit murder, and an inferiority complex. Yippee.
His Royal Highness Wrath, son of Wrath. The king of the vampires, the only purebred vampire left on the planet, and the leader of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Beth's hellren, later husband, and Little Wrath's father.

  • Arranged Marriage: His first marriage to Marissa. They never consummated it.
  • Barbarian Long Hair: Straight black hair down to the small of his back and muscles like whoa.
  • Better as Friends: With Marissa. His respect for Marissa saves her brother's life when Havers tries to assassinate him.
  • Cool Shades: Wrath, though out of necessity, not by choice
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Watched his parents get murdered by Lessers when he was a pre-trans. He was locked in an air vent at the time and feels a lot of guilt for being silent so that the assassins wouldn't find him too.
  • Everyone Is Related: Discovers three half-human cousins, Butch, Manny, and Jo, through a distant cousin.
  • Fantastic Racism: Towards humans, until he falls in love with the half-human Beth.
  • Handicapped Badass: After he completely loses his sight.
  • Kindhearted Cat Lover: In Dark Lover Wrath is extremely scary to Beth, until Beth's cat Boo leaps into his arms and Wrath starts purring.
  • Panicky Expectant Father: Justified, as it's stated Beth would have died if not for Wrath's mother's ghostly intervention.
  • Rape and Revenge: Puts his wedding on hold to go murder Beth's attempted rapist. Unfortunately, he is interrupted by Mr. X before he can get the job done.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: King of the vampires and maintains an active role in the war against the Lessers. Ironically, it's his focus on fighting and his refusal to rule that contributed to the decline of lack of cohesion in vampire society. It takes a lot of books for Wrath to really start to rule and begin to reverse the problems caused because of the leadership vacuum he created by refusing to actually lead his people.
  • Stock Ninja Weaponry: Favors hira shuriken.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Torhment gives him this in Dark Lover.
    Tohrment: And you've been dead for hundreds of years. You're just too mean to find a grave and lie down.
  • Vampire Monarch: Wrath. Until they become a democracy in The King.

    Rhage 
He wanted to give her another word to say, something like luscious or whisper or strawberry. Hell, antidisestablishmentarianism would do it.
Rhage, son of Tohrture, a.k.a. Hal E. Wood. Cursed by the Scribe Virgin for causing the death of a barn owl, he transforms uncontrollably into a dragon when he loses control of his emotions. Mated to Mary and adopts Bitty.

  • Big Eater: Rhage routinely consumes enough food to feed a small third-world country.
  • Cursed with Awesome: Rhage's curse manifests as a fire-breathing dragon alter-ego that likes to devour lessers whole. After the transformation ends, Rhage is blind, weak, in pain, and usually violently ill from eating lessers. The Beast becomes more manageable after he begins his relationship with Mary, but it's still not entirely reliable. For example, it tries to make a snack out of Vishous and Assail during the Brotherhood's attacks the lesser headquarters in The Beast, and Mary has to be called in to talk it down.
  • Enemy Within: Rhage and his tattooed "friend".
  • Hunk: Rhage is acknowledged by everyone as being ridiculously attractive. In a cast replete with really attractive male characters, he is explicitly stated to be the most absolutely stunningly gorgeous.
  • Involuntary Shapeshifting: Rhage's curse turns him into a dragon when he's stressed. When he's in human form, it forms a tattoo on his back.
  • Large Ham: Rhage is the largest and most beautiful member of the Brotherhood, and also their largest of ham.
  • Painful Transformation: When his beast comes out (and the aftermath).
  • Really Gets Around:
    If sex were food, Rhage would have been morbidly obese.

    Zsadist 
Zsadist: I was dead until you found me, though I breathed. I was sightless, though I could see. And then you came... and I was awakened.
Zsadist, son of Ahgony. Bella's hellren and Phury's twin. Nalla's father.

  • Abusive Parents: In vampire culture, twins are unlucky. Zsadist, the "lucky" twin, is abducted by his nursemaid and sold into slavery. As a result, Phury grows up knowing that he is The Un-Favorite.
  • A Love to Dismember: Keeps the skull of his former mistress in his quarters.
  • Bigger Is Better in Bed: Zsadist's *ahem* hardware is treated in this way. He is repeatedly described as being "enormous" below the belt or otherwise regarded by others with a sense of envy and/or awe.
  • Black Eyes of Crazy: Piss Zsadist off and his yellow eyes turn black. Everyone who knows him thinks he has naturally black eyes, until he falls in love with Bella and starts to mellow out. Everyone is baffled to realize that he and Phury actually have the same eye color.
  • Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Z paves the way for all the other Brothers with daughters by being dead set against his daughter ever dating.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Repeatedly beaten and raped by a mistress who kept him as a blood slave, then mutilated during the escape.
  • Defiled Forever: Zsadist initially believes this of himself, to the point of not wanting to touch his daughter because she'll "get it on her."
  • Establishing Character Moment: In Dark Lover:
    The front door swung open, and Zsadist strode into the house.
    Wrath glared. "Nice of you to show up, Z. Busy tonight with the females?"
    "How about you get off my dick?" Zsadist went over to the corner, staying away from the rest.
  • First Kiss: With Bella in Lover Awakened.
  • It's Personal: Blood slavery. See Kill It with Fire below.
  • Kill It with Fire: Brings a flamethrower to destroy the home of a glymera aristocrat keeping a blood slave.
  • Long-Lost Relative: To Phury before the series, as a result of his abduction and being sold into blood slavery.
  • Panicky Expectant Father: Zsadist spends the entirety of Bella's pregnancy on tenterhooks, particularly after she's put on bedrest. By the end, he's convinced she's and the child are both probably going to die in childbirth.
  • Paralyzing Fear of Sexuality: Zsadist, as a result of his captivity as a blood slave.
  • Rape and Revenge: Kills his rapist and takes her skull as a trophy.
  • Rape as Backstory: By his mistress and whatever men she was entertaining.
  • Sex Slave: As well as a blood slave.

    Brian "Butch" O'Neal 
Wrath: You've got some of me in you, cop. Course, I always knew you were a royal. Just didn't think it went past the pain-in-the-ass part, is all.
Dhestroyer, descended of Wrath, son of Wrath. A former homicide detective with Caldwell PD. He discovers the vampire world when trying to protect his friend, Beth Randall, from the group of mysterious gangsters who turn out to be the Brotherhood. Later falls in love with the King's first wife, Marissa.

  • Abusive Parents: Butch's father who really isn't was physically and emotionally abusive, and his mother allows the abuse to happen because she feels guilty for making her husband raise another man's child.
  • Badass Normal: Until he finds out he's a half-vampire and is put through a jumpstarted transition.
  • Better as Friends: With Beth, and later Xhex.
  • Cowboy Cop: Butch, while he's on the force. According to J.R. Ward, "Butch O'Neal was absolutely my kind of guy—a hard-ass renegade who, although he didn't always follow the rules, had his own code of honor." See Establishing Character Moment below.
  • Cursed with Awesome: His power as the Dhestroyer makes him physically ill. He and Vishous work out how to contain it, but every time he uses it he gets violently sick.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Butch grew up emotionally and physically abused by his father who wasn't his biological father, and knew it, and was blamed by his entire family for the rape and murder of his older sister, Janie. It's pretty obvious throughout the books that this has messed him up psychologically.
  • Death Seeker: He admits to being a little bit suicidal ever since his sister's murder, and engages in a lot of self-destructive behavior, including unprotected sex with lots of partners, excessive drinking, drug use, recklessness on the job, outright criminal activity as a kid (he knows how to hotwire a car because he used to boost them as a teen), and more. He tries outright to kill himself after he's rescued from the lessers in Lover Revealed, and when he's still human and struggling to deal with Marissa's need to feed from a male vampire, he considers walking away from the Brotherhood even though he knows that they'll have kill him if he does.
  • Emergency Transformation: Butch is a human-vampire hybrid that never went through the transition. In Lover Revealed, Vishous jumpstarts his transition with the help of Wrath, Marissa and Beth as an alternative to him walking away from their world.
  • Establishing Character Moment: In Dark Lover:
    "If you can't afford [an attorney], one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights as I've stated them?"
    "Fuck you!"
    Butch palmed the back of the guy's head and pressed that busted nose into the linoleum. "Do you understand these rights as I've stated them?"
    Billy moaned and nodded, leaving a smear of fresh blood on the floor.
    "Good. Now let's get your paperwork done. I'd hate not to follow proper police procedure."
  • Everyone Is Related: Discovers that he's a half-vampire of the royal line through a distant cousin. [[ Spoiler:Later finds out that Manny is his paternal half-brother and Jo is his half-sister.]]
  • Hopeless Suitor: For Beth. He moves on pretty much the instant he sets eyes on Marissa.
  • If It's You, It's Okay: This for Vishous. Jane has already stated her approval.
  • Intimate Healing: Does this with Vishous after he uses the Dhestroyer power to inhale a lesser.
  • Long-Lost Relative: To Wrath, and later to Manny and Jo.
  • Rags to Royalty: Literally royalty, since he's Wrath's cousin.
  • The Un-Favorite: Butch was the Un Favorite in his family. His father also blamed him for the rape and murder of his older sister. It's implied that his father singled him out for abuse because he knew Butch was the product of infidelity.

    Vishous 
"Vishous, could you stop grinning like that? You're beginning to freak me out."
Vishous, son of the Bloodletter. Is born son of the Scribe Virgin and carries her glow in his right hand—which is a powerful energy force capable of vast destruction. Possesses healing capabilities. Jane's hellren.

  • Abusive Parents: Vishous' and Payne's father was abusive in almost every imaginable way, including starving and beating him, forcing him to fight a skilled warrior with a broomstick the day after his transition, and by having one of the men in the camp partially castrate him by tearing one of his testicles off blacksmith tools. Vishous' mother is aware that all this is happening, but doesn't intervene. The Scribe Virgin's inner monologue toward the end of Lover Unbound implies that this is because she believes that his suffering is her punishment for bearing her own children - violating the rules that granted her one act of creation in making the vampire species - and she is convinced that taking action to protect him will only result in greater suffering in the future. Vishous spends most of his time acting as though he is unaffected by his childhood until it all comes to a head in Lover Unleashed, and his grief over the fact that his parents did not protect him is forced to the surface. He demands to know why his parents hurt him, as he did not ask to be born.
  • Arranged Marriage: The Scribe Virgin attempts to set Vishous up as The Primale, which would make him responsible for impregnating the purest-blooded vampire females in her service to restore the species.
  • Brains and Bondage: Vishous, who is well-read and the most intellectual of the Brothers, enjoys bondage. When he reveals this to his surgeon shellan, she is a little disturbed at first, but she comes around to the idea, and comes to enjoy 'working him out' at his penthouse from time to time.
  • Blessed with Suck: This is how he views his glowing hand of doom and his visions of the future. Both have their uses, but the down sides far outweigh the upsides for him.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Vishous spent his childhood in a warrior camp run by his ruthless warrior father, who takes every possible opportunity to abuse, isolate, and humiliate him.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Vishous is a veritble font of cutting, sarcastic remarks, often delivered deadpan.
  • The Empath: Can read minds and see the future. Notably, his visions all involve death in some way. He mentions on more than one occasion that he know exactly how all his Brothers are going to die, he just doesn't know when and where, so there's nothing he can do to prevent any of the deaths from happening.
  • Ice King: After The Bloodletter forces him to burn the books he cherished, Vishous realizes that his father will destroy anything and everything that he cares about. So, he decides not to care about anything or anyone. He spends the rest of the next three centuries emotionally shut down and disconnected. Even after befriending Butch and bonding with Jane, he remains cold and distant with pretty much everyone else, and he has to work hard to overcome the instinctive urge to withdraw from his own feelings.
  • If It's You, It's Okay: Word of God is that Vishous is this for Butch, and while they never exactly cross the lines into a sexual relationship, they do get their toes right up to the very edge of it (see Pseudo-Romantic Friendship below). Incidentally, Jane is okay with Butch taking Vishous for a session at his BDSM pad when Vishous is becoming unhinged in Lover Unleashed, although it's unclear whether or not this means that she would also be okay with them actually having sex. Her point of view narrative makes explicit that part of the reason she's okay with the scenario in the first place is that she knows Butch is completely devoted to Marissa, and so any sexual release happening would be incidental to the real purpose of emotional release. Whether that means she's cool as long as there's no actual sex involved, or she cool if there's sex just so long as it's in the context of taking Vishous off the emotional rollercoster is up for debate.
  • Intimate Healing: Does this with Butch every time Butch uses the Dhestroyer power to inhale a lesser.
  • Harem Seeker: Subverted. He's squicked out at the thought of being the Primale, and only accepts initially because he knows that the war with the Lessening Society is going badly and they don't have enough Brothers to get the job done anymore. He fights tooth and nail every step of the ceremony just to register his protest.
  • Long-Lost Relative: To Payne. He didn't even know that she existed, which is part of what starts his emotional spiral in Lover Unleashed.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: The Scribe Virgin.
  • Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: Even setting aside all the times Vishous has to cleanse Butch after he does his business hoovering up lessers, Vishous and Butch have a very physically affectionate friendship, and Vishous admits outright in Lover Unbound that he was in love with Butch for a while, and "totally wanted to have sex with" him. While all that sexual energy got redirected to Jane when Vishous bonded with her, it's made clear that Butch is only the second most important person in his life by a slim margin, and a lot of their interactions continue to have a noticeable semi-romantic undertone, including lots of looking into each other's eyes, emotional embraces, and at least one instance of what can only be described as cuddling.
  • Semi-Divine: Vishous is the son of the Scribe Virgin, the vampires' creator diety. He also has a twin sister named Payne.

    Phury 
Phury: I am the strength of the race. I am the Primale. And so I shall rule!
Phury, son of Ahgony. Zsadist's younger twin brother. Cormia's hellren and Ahgony "Aggie"'s father.

  • 10-Minute Retirement: His behavior and drug use in Lover Enshrined get him removed from active duty with the Brotherhood, although he technically remains a member because the Primale has to be a Brother. He gets his act together toward the end of the book and stops using, reconciles with his twin and the other members of the Brotherhood, and then is fully reinstated in the next book.
  • Abusive Parents: Phury is the younger twin, which in vampire culture means that he is "cursed." When Zsadist was abducted by his nursemaid and sold into slavery, Phury's father Ahgony made it clear to him that he was The Un-Favorite. Doesn't stop him from naming his son with Cormia after his grandsire, though they call him Aggie.
  • Arranged Marriage: Takes on this role in the Brother Vishous's place when he becomes the vampire race's Primale, the one responsible for impregnating all of the Scribe Virgin's handmaids to repopulate the vampire species.
  • Battle in the Center of the Mind: His fight with the Wizard, with Cormia supporting on the outside.
  • Better as Friends: With Bella, though his feelings for her were one-sided.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: He begins to spiral out of control after Zsadist and Bella are mated because he can't reconcile his feelings for Bella with the reality that she's with his brother and he wants them to be happy. He ends up taking his frustration out on the lesser he hunts, and develops a reputation for slicing them up and torturing them before killing them.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Phury for Zsadist; ironically, Phury is the younger twin.
  • Broken Ace: His antics with the lessers and his drug use get him effectively removed from the Brotherhood and finally kicked out of the house in Lover Enshrined.
  • Celibate Hero: He swears a vow of celibacy when he sets off to find Zsadist, and he sticks with it until he meets Cormia.
  • Enemy Within: The Wizard, who is an anthropomorphic representation of all of Phury's feelings of failure and inadequacy.
  • Functional Addict: Right up until he isn't functional anymore. Phury uses red smoke (which is apparently some kind marijauana-like drug) to quiet his negative thoughts. Over the course of books 3 - 6, he becomes less and less functional and the Wizard gets more and more intrusive, until he finally takes heroin in an effort to make it go away. He ends up O Ding and nearly dies.
  • Handicapped Badass: Has a prosthetic leg. He lost the original when his foot got stuck in a cliff face while he was liberating his twin from blood slavery. So Phury shot his own leg off at the knee.
  • Harem Seeker: Subverted. Phury took on the responsibility of becoming Primale so that Vishous if free to be with Jane. He's not at all keen on the idea of servicing Scribe Virgin's forty handmaids. He becomes increasingly disturbed by the Baby Factory implications and the fact that the Chosen have no choice in their own role in their relationship. In the end, he frees the Chosen, and mates Cormia. He remains Primale, and is responsible for taking care of and managing the Chosen whether they choose to live on earth or in the Sanctuary, but he sees himself as a father figure to them.
  • Kindhearted Cat Lover:
    Phury: If [Beth] lives with us, we get to keep the cat.
  • Long-Haired Pretty Boy: More than one character remarks about his good looks and his long, multi-colored hair.
  • Long-Lost Relative: To Zsadist, since they were raised apart after Zsadist was abducted. Z did not recognize him when Phury infiltrated his mistress's home to break him out.
  • Love Martyr: For his twin - Phury dedicates his entire life to finding and rescuing Zadist, and then to keeping Zsadist from hurting himself and others after he is rescued. For his part, Zsadist repeatedly tells Phury that he needs to live his life and stop trying to save him.
  • Nice Guy: Phury is a genuinely kind, caring person, but a lot of his selflessness comes from a dark place.
  • The Un-Favorite: Phury was the second of two healthy twins, born to a mother who survived birth, a rarity for their species. Because balance is a fundamental aspect of their religion, and too much good luck is considered a harbinger of future disaster, Phury is seen as unlucky. His family are implied to believe that Zsadist's kidnapping is the disaster that balances out the good fortune of Phury's healthy birth. Phury is ignored by his parents, who sink into catatonic depression (mother) and alcoholism (father). He mentions that they didn't notice when he left to find Zsadist.

    Tohrment 
Wellsie's hellren and John Matthew's adoptive father. After his shellan and their unborn young are killed by lessers, he abandons the Brotherhood and goes missing. Later returns and mates No'One/Autumn.
  • Crusading Widower: After he recovers from his Heroic BSoD following Wellsie's murder, Tohrment dedicates himself to killing as many lessers as possible to avenge her death.
  • Death Seeker: Tohrment spends about eight months in the wilderness after Wellsie dies, living off of deer blood and waiting to die of starvation. He starts to get his act together in Lover Avenged, but goes into every fight hoping to be killed. The only thing that keeps him from taking more proactive steps to end his life is the fear that he won't be reunited with Wellsie and his unborn child in the Fade if he does something that could be interpreted as suicide. It takes until the end of the tenth book, Lover Reborn, for him to get his poop in a group.
  • Happily Married: To Wellsie.
  • Long-Lost Relative: Xcor is his half-brother through their father, Hharm.
  • Panicky Expectant Father: When Wrath calls him into his study to break it to him that Wellsie is dead, he assumes that it's because of her pregnancy. She was actually murdered by lessers.
  • Perfectly Arranged Marriage: His first marriage to Wellsie.
  • Second Love: With No'One/Autumn, but only after a lot of ups and downs.

    John Matthew 
Tehrror. A mute pre-transition vampire who grew up in the human world, later discovered to be Beth's half-brother by their late father Darius. Darius reincarnated. Xhex's hellren.

  • Dark and Troubled Past: Abandoned as a baby, raised in an orphanage, released into the world with no support when he was sixteen, raped by a stranger in the stairwell of his apartment building, and calling the suicide hotline until he was discovered by Bella and identified as a pre-transition vampire.
  • Everyone Is Related: It's clear from the beginning that John Matthew's father was a member of the Brotherhood, because he bears the warrior name Tehrror. Later it seems that he's Darius's biological son, which makes him Beth's half-brother. Per The Black Dagger Brotherhood: An Insider's Guide, he's Darius reincarnated.
  • Handicapped Badass: He was born without working vocal cords.
  • Hand Signals: Born without working vocal cords, he communicates using these, American Sign Language, and a whistling system.
  • Happily Adopted: By Tohrment and Wellsie.
  • It's Personal: When Lash rapes Xhex.
  • Long-Lost Relative: To Beth, through Darius.
  • Rape as Backstory: Began calling the suicide hotline to hear Mary speak after he was raped by a stranger in the stairwell of his apartment building.

    Qhuinn 
Son of an aristocratic vampire family, made the Unfavorite because of his heterochromatic eyes. Later mates Blaylock and fathers Rhampage and Lyric with Layla.

  • Abusive Parents: Qhuinn is The Un-Favorite to his parents because of his heterochromatic eyes, which his parents hope will be fixed when he transitions into an adult vampire. When this proves not to be the case, his father becomes physically violent with him and arranges for Qhuinn's brother to have him honor-killed. In his The Reason You Suck speech to his parents, Qhuinn asserts that his parents would be equally contemptuous towards their other son and daughter if they didn't conform to glymera standards.
  • Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Becomes strongly upset at the idea that his infant daughter Lyric might ever bring a male home.
  • Chosen Conception Partner: Has this arrangement with Layla.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Most of Qhuinn's character arc involves him overcoming the abusive standards placed on him by his glymera family.
  • Incompatible Orientation: Subverted: Qhuinn has sexual relationships with men and women, but wants to conform to his parents' standards by mating a female and having glymera-accepted children. He overcomes his internalized homophobia, mates Blay, and raises children with him.
  • Panicky Expectant Father
  • Please, Don't Leave Me: In The Chosen Qhuinn learns that the pregnant mother of his children was meeting with attempted regicide and terrorist Xcor in secret. He threatens to strip Layla of her parental rights, fires his pistol in the nursery in front of his infant children, and dismisses Blay's rights as an adoptive father. Blay packs up and tells him it's over and refuses to return until Qhuinn has apologized to him and Layla and restored her parental rights.

    Blaylock "Blay" 
Son of a vampire civilian family; joined the training program at the same time as John Matthew and Qhuinn. Later mates Qhuinn and adopts his children Rhampage and Lyric. Lyric is named after Blaylock's mother.

    Darius 
Darius, son of Marklon, son of Horusman. Father of Beth Randall and John Matthew.

  • Dead On Arrival: Just about. The first scene of the series is Darius asking Wrath to help his half-human child through her transition into a full vampire. The second scene is Darius dying in a car bombing arranged by lessers.
  • Long-Lost Relative: To Beth and John Matthew. He at least kept a close watch over Beth during her childhood and, when she became a reporter, read every one of her stories and made note of all the awards she won. His last act is sending Wrath to help her through her transition.
  • Odd Name Out: The first Brothers introduced in Dark Lover are Wrath, Rhage, Zsadist, Vishous, Phury, Tohrment... and Darius.

    Murhder 
A former member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, who suffered a mental break, left the Brotherhood, and went into hiding in a famous "haunted" hotel. Xhex's ex.

Black Dagger Brotherhood Trainees

    Paradise 
Blooded daughter of Abalone, First Advisor to Wrath, son of Wrath, King of all vampires. Convinces her father that she wants to join the Black Dagger Brotherhood training program for self-defense, when she actually wants to fight in the war against the lessers and disavow the glymera standards. Becomes the Primus, the last trainee standing on their orientation night. Later Craeg's shellan.

  • Action Girl: The Primus, top of the trainee class.
  • Better as Friends: With Peyton.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: Carries her poisoned and incapacitated friend Peyton out of danger during orientation. Later has to be ordered to abandon other trainees who can no longer walk during the endurance challenge.
  • The Determinator: The last trainee standing at the end of the Black Dagger Brotherhood training program's orientation night, which makes her the Primus.
  • Missing Mom: Abalone frequently wishes that Paradise's mother were still alive to help advise him on how to care for his daughter. He gives Paradise the ultimatum that she must have a mating like her parents did. Paradise assumes he means an Arranged Marriage. He means he won't allow her to marry anyone other than her true love.
  • Rebellious Princess: As a daughter of the glymera, from one of the Founding Families, Paradise is expected to be cloistered, protected, and cherished. Instead she becomes a soldier. She has to talk her father around into agreeing and goes on to become the top of the class.

    Craeg 
Blooded son of Brahl the Younger. The son of a floor layer, a blue collar vampire, Craeg has a resentment for all aristocrats thanks to his Dark and Troubled Past. Later Paradise's hellren.

  • Dark and Troubled Past: His father died in the lesser raids on vampire aristocrat homes. He worked for a family that locked all of their servants out of their panic room and left them to be slaughtered. Then the lessers stole their victims' identification, found their addresses, and went to their homes and butchered their families. Craeg witnessed his mother and sister's murders, then went to the Endelview estate and buried all of the dead he found there, including his fellow trainee Axe's father. The owners of the estate have yet to face any consequences for abandoning their employees.
  • Due to the Dead: Buried all of the victims of the lesser attack at the Endelview estate, including his father and his fellow trainee Axe's father.
  • Justice Will Prevail

    Peyton 
The young heir of an aristocratic vampire family who joins the Brotherhood's training program.

    Novo 
A vampire civilian who joins the Brotherhood's training program.

    Axwell "Axe" 
The son of a woodworker who died in the lesser raid at the Endelview estate. Elise's hellren

  • Missing Mom: Axe's mother left when he was a child. His father built an entire house for her in the hopes that she would return.

     Rex Boone 
The son of a vampire aristocrat family, who is disowned when he breaks off his arranged marriage with another vampire aristocrat, Rochelle.

The Chosen

    Cormia 
Phury's shellan and Ahgony's mother.

  • Baby Factory: Her original role towards Phury. She is the highest ranking Chosen, and so is responsible for becoming pregnant with the Primale's child to restore the species.

    Payne 
Daughter of the Scribe Virgin and the Bloodletter, making her Vishous's twin sister. Raised among the Chosen, she meets Wrath when his blindness becomes absolute and helps him to learn how to fight with no vision. Wrath accidentally severs her spine and Jane brings in Dr. Manny Manello surgically repair her, though she uses her own divine power to heal herself. Later mates Manny.

  • Action Girl: The only vampire allowed to spar with Wrath.
  • Action Girlfriend: Payne is a warrior and the daughter of warriors. Her husband is a doctor and explicitly a noncombatant.
  • Intimate Healing: With Manny. Manny even references the Marvin Gaye song.
  • Long-Lost Relative: To Vishous. He didn't even know that she existed. Also apparently to Xcor, until it's revealed that the Bloodletter only adopted Xcor and they are not biologically related.

    Layla 
Mother of Qhuinn and Blay's children, Lyric and Rhampage; [spoiler:Xcor's shellan]].

  • Chosen Conception Partner: After the Primale dissolves the Baby Factory aspect of the Chosen, Layla asks Qhuinn to service her during her needing and to be this for her.
  • Dating Catwoman: Her relationship with Xcor is complicated, what with him trying to commit regicide and usurp the vampire throne.

    No'One Autumn 
Nonverbal servant of the Chosen. Later revealed to be Xhex's biological mother Rosalhynda and [[mates Tohrment as his second shellan]].

    Selena 
A Chosen suffering The Arrest.

  • Enemy Within: Her illness, The Arrest, which will eventually result in her total paralysis and calcification like a statue.
  • Mercy Kill: When her paralysis becomes total, Trez asks Selena to blink twice to signal that she wants to die via lethal injection. She blinks twice, and Trez, Jane, and Manny follow her wishes.
  • Reincarnation Romance: Through Therese.

Aristocrats

    Elizabeth "Beth" Ann Randall 
Believed herself to be a human journalist until Wrath appeared to reveal to her that her father was a vampire and she was about to undergo transformation. Queen of the vampires and Wrath's shellan later wife, and Little Wrath's mother.

  • Action Girl: After seeing Wrath shot, Beth brains a man with a blunt object. Then she crouches over Wrath with a small knife and kills an attack dog coming after them. When Butch and Vishous arrive to back them up, she is in full protector mode and hisses at them. Doubles as Action Girlfriend.
    Vishous: She was standing over his body, ready to take the cop and me on with her bare hands if she had to. Like Wrath was her cub, you feel me?
  • Better as Friends: With Butch.
  • Death by Childbirth: Narrowly avoids this through an emergency hysterectomy.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: Mother was human and father was vampire. She has no idea until Wrath shows up to assist her, fulfilling her father's dying wish. In The King, the glymera assert that this is why she's unworthy to be queen—as he's the last pureblood vampire in the world, any of their children will be human hybrids.
  • Long-Lost Relative: To John Matthew, her half-brother.
  • Near-Rape Experience: At the beginning of Dark Lover.
  • Rags to Riches: Grows up orphaned in the foster care system; inherits a lot of property and a butler when her father dies; then becomes the queen of the vampires.

    Bella 
Rehvenge's younger half-sister and Zsadist's shellan. Nalla's mother

  • Abusive Parents: Bella's father and Rehvenge's stepfather. He used to police his eight-year-old daughter's eating habits due to the petrifying fear she'd gain weight. This meant Bella went hungry a lot. Watching Bella pour herself another bowl of cereal is a very emotional moment in Rehvenge's life.
  • Law of Inverse Fertility: Bella has her first needing (fertile period) during Lover Awakened and Zsadist is assured she has a 0% chance of getting pregnant during the subsequent mating. She gets pregnant.

    Marissa 
Marissa, blooded daughter of Wallen. Havers's elder sister. Formerly Wrath's Unwanted Spouse, later Butch's shellan.

  • Arranged Marriage: Her first marriage to Wrath, which would have made her queen of the species. They never consummated it and they end the marriage amicably when Wrath meets Beth.
  • Better as Friends: With Wrath. His respect for Marissa is why he spares her brother's life when Havers tries to assassinate him.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Defiled Forever: After she ends her marriage with Wrath, despite never having consummated it, the glymera and her own brother believe her to be this.
  • Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Marissa is this trope. Beautiful? Check. Kind? Check. Innocent? Check. She gets past the naive stage pretty damn fast though.
  • The Ingenue: Starts as this, though in Blood Kiss she proves to Butch that she doesn't need to be sheltered.
  • Mistaken for Prostitute: The first time Butch meets her, he assumes that her innocence is too good to be real. He tells her to drop the virgin act. She tells him off.
  • Unwanted Spouse: For Wrath at the beginning of the series.

    Wellesandra "Wellsie" 
Blooded daughter of Relix, mated of the Black Dagger Warrior Tohrment. She becomes pregnant with their son over the course of the books, and becomes something of an adoptive mother to John Matthew.

    Nalla 
Blooded daughter of the Black Dagger Brother Zsadist and his shellan Bella.

    Lizbitte "Bitty" 
Adopted daughter of the Black Dagger Brother Rhage and his wife, Mary Madonna Luce.

  • Abusive Parents: Her biological father was extremely physically abusive, breaking nearly all of Bitty's bones. They healed wrong and have to be rebroken and set properly before her transition.
  • Happily Adopted: By Rhage and Mary.

    Saxton 
Quinn's cousin and a vampire aristocrat. The King's solicitor. For a time, his cousin's romantic rival for Blaylock. Later gets together with Bitty's uncle, Ruhn.

  • Abusive Parents: Thyme, Saxton's father and Qhuinn's uncle, disowns Saxton after his son comes out. In The King Thyme forbids Saxton to address him as "Father."
  • Better as Friends: With Blaylock, when Blay admits to still being in love with Saxton's cousin, Qhuinn.

    Elise 
Axe's shellan

    Rochelle 
A vampire aristocrat who breaks off her Arranged Marriage with Boone.

Vampire Civilians

    Ehlena 
Rehvenge's shellan.

    Ruhn 
Bitty's uncle and a possible guardian for her after her parents' deaths. Ruhn surrenders his guardianship rights to Rhage and Mary so that he can continue to have a relationship with his niece. Later becomes involved with Saxton.

  • Long-Lost Relative: To Bitty, much to Rhage and Mary's alarm.
  • Never Learned to Read: Spent his whole life as an artist and craftsman for the glymera apparently as an underground vampire fighting champion. He paints a self-portrait in lieu of a signature.
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: Ruhn is introduced as an average civilian artist working for the glymera. Saxton learns via a phone call that Ruhn is also an underground vampire MMA fighting champion, capable of deadly feats of close combat.

    Assail 
Seems to take up Rehvenge's criminal empire.

  • Even Evil Has Standards: Is not above murder, drug dealing, and collaborating with lessers to expand his criminal empire, despite their plan to exterminate all vampires. But blood slavery is a line he won't cross.
  • Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Has this ability.

    Duran 
Imprisoned by his father.

    Ahmare 
Charged by a vampire crime lord to go recover the prisoner Duran in exchange for her brother's life.

    Helania 
A vampire civilian who becomes obsessed with solving and avenging her sister's murder.

    Therese "Tres" 
A vampire from Detroit who is the spitting image of Trez's deceased lover, Selena.

Humans

    Mary Luce 
Mary Madonna Luce, a suicide hotline employee and cancer survivor and later the Vampire Race's semi-official therapist.

  • Aroused by Their Voice: Mary's voice is so appealing John Matthew calls the suicide hotline every night just to hear her talk, and Rhage is so attracted to her voice he practically assaults her on their first meeting, trying to get her talk to him.
  • Emergency Transformation: When Mary's cancer returns, Rhage begs the Scribe Virgin to cure her. The Scribe Virgin agrees, provided that Mary lose all memories of Rhage and their love. An anguished Rhage agrees. Then the Scribe Virgin learns that Mary is infertile and feels that Mary has suffered enough. She cures her of cancer and grants her immortality.

    Dr. Jane Whitcomb 
A trauma surgeon who discovers the vampire world when Vishous is brought into her Emergency Room. Later Vishous's shellan and a ghost rather than a human.

  • Abusive Parents: Jane's parents were cold and emotionally unavailable to their daughter after the death of Hannah, Jane's younger sister.
  • Emergency Transformation: Jane dies in a car accident. Vishous begs his mother to restore her. The Scribe Virgin doesn't bring her back to life, but does allow her to return as a ghost, and Vishous is capable of touching her with his divine power.
  • If It's You, It's Okay: In Lover Unleashed, tells Vishous that she would be okay with him having sex with Butch.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different
  • The Un-Favorite: Jane was this in comparison to her terminally ill sister Hannah. After Hannah died, the situation turned into Abusive Parents.

    Dr. Manuel "Manny" Manello 
Jane's former colleague, a surgeon whom Jane brings in to reconstruct Payne's spine after a traumatic accident. Later discovered to be a half-vampire half-human hybrid closely related to Butch and of Wrath's genetic line. Mates Payne.

    Marisol "Sola" Morte 
A human cat burglar who becomes involved with the vampire world on a job. Strong close relationship with her grandmother.

  • Action Girl: In The King, Sola beats a man to death with a chain and then severs his hand.

    Dr. Sarah Watkins 
A human surgeon who discovers the vampire world when one of her patients is revealed to have an inhuman six-chambered heart.

    Jo Early 
A real estate agent turned Intrepid Reporter.

Symphaths

    Rehvenge 
Half-vampire half-symphath hybrid; Bella's older half-brother. Drug dealer and owner of the club Zero Sum. Ehlena's hellren.

  • Abusive Parents: Rehvenge's biological father raped his mother. His mother's husband and Bella's father was so abusive to both of them that Rehvenge's first after transitioning into an adult was to kill him.
  • Alliterative Name: Rehvenge, son of Rempoon.
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: How he takes over the symphath colony.
  • Child by Rape: Like most half-symphaths.
  • Promotion to Parent: After he murders Bella's abusive father.
  • Purple Is Powerful: Has amethyst eyes. Becomes king of the sympaths.
  • Sex Slave: His arrangement with the symphath queen makes him this. In exchange, she doesn't reveal his identity as a half-breed to the vampire race.

    Xhexania "Xhex" 
Bouncer at Zero Sum and Rehvenge's second-in-command. Half-vampire half-symphath hybrid. John Matthew's shellan.

Shadows

    Trez "Latimer" 
One of two Shadows brothers who works at Zero Sum with Rehvenge and Xhex. iAm's brother.

    i Am 
One of two Shadows brothers who works at Zero Sum with Rehvenge and Xhex. Trez's brother.

  • Kindhearted Cat Lover: Claims that he hates Boo, but won't stop petting the cat every time he visits the Brotherhood's mansion.

     maichen 
Formerly Catra. A Shadows princess betrothed in an Arranged Marriage to Trez. Later rebels against her mother the queen by disavowing her name and mating iAm.

The Band of Bastards

    Xcor 
Leader of the Band of Bastards. related to Wrath through an illegitimate line. Layla's hellren. Has a cleft palate.

  • Abusive Parents: His adoptive mother used to chain him up outside at night.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Abandoned by his biological parents for having a cleft palate, Xcor's adoptive mother used to chain him up outside. Then he was found and raised by the Bloodletter, the abusive leader of a warrior camp who partially castrated Vishous.
  • Long-Lost Relative: To Vishous and Payne at first. It turns out that he was the Bloodletter's adopted son, and that he's actually Tohrment's half-brother.
  • Love Redeems: Thanks to Layla.

    Syn 
A member of the Band of Bastards.

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