by J. R. Ward
“She did?”
Cormia nodded. “Tried to put a piece of pizza in it. The cheese.”
“Everywhere?”
“Everywhere . ”
Phury spoke up. “That’s okay, Layla. You can always clean the pan and try again. ”
“I don’t think the pan’s going to work anymore, ” came the reply.
Phury’s voice dropped. “I’m so not going to ask. ”
“Aren’t they metal?”
“Should be.”
pp. 526-527
The Brothers on the Board
Brothers on the Board
When the adventure of these books being released first started, back in September of 2005, I had no idea how popular they would become. I was also incredibly clueless about the Internet. I didn’t even know that Yahoo! Groups existed, or that message boards were a way authors connected with their readers, or that blogs and online reviewers were so important.
It wasn’t until after Lover Eternal came out in March of 2006 that I started to focus on what kind of Internet presence I wanted to have. I set up a Yahoo! Group and started a message board. Now, three years later, we have thousands and thousands of readers on both, and have established a good community of folks.
Naturally, the Brothers come out every once in a while on the message board, and one of the best things about their visits, to me, is how the readers get involved. As whatever rolls goes down, the Cellies (as the enthusiastic members of the message board call themselves) join in, adding their comments (and actions! ). I can’t tell you the number of times I’ll be rolling in hysterics, not just because of what the Brothers are doing, but because the readers are right along with them.
Here are just a few of my favorite frat-boy moments, and not surprisingly Rhage tends to be front and center in a lot of them. Bear in mind, when the Brothers come out on the board, they are in terms of their stories wherever I am in the process of writing, and I’m always at least one book ahead of where the readers are—so when V gets razzed for falling in love with Jane, the book that was out was actually Lover Revealed. Also, for the most part, as you follow the action, the Brothers are on their computers, but you’ll see when what transpires slips into action—and you’ll have to use your suspension of disbelief a little in these parts! Finally, I’ve edited out the Cellie comments and changed the content a little so it makes sense out of context, but you can enjoy the threads in all their glory on the BDB boards, which can be found at www.jrwardbdb.com/forum/index.php.
So, yeah, the Brothers definitely are just the way they are in the books when they come out on the boards—there’s a lot of fooling around. But it’s not all fun and games.
Lassiter, the fallen angel who is introduced in Lover Enshrined, actually made his first appearance on the boards. It was so odd. As is typical of the Brothers, I can be doing something totally unrelated to them when all of a sudden it’s WHAM!—download time. Lassiter was like that. I had him in the back of my mind for a long time, knowing only bits and pieces of what he was. And then one night I was just answering questions. . . .
I’ll let you see for yourself. Again, the Cellie comments have been largely edited out, and some changes have been so the content makes sense, but here’s Lassiter’s grand entrance:
Clearly, they didn’t listen to Wrath, however. . . .
Lassiter and V definitely share history, and the fallen angel has a lot of enemies. But he does return Tohrment to the fold after having taken a bullet for Wrath, so there are a lot of ties that bind him and the Brotherhood. Watching him with the Brothers over the next couple of books (and on the boards, if he chooses to appear) is going to be a wild ride, I promise you!
For the most part, when the Brothers show up on the boards, it’s totally unexpected. I’m the only one who goes on as them, and I usually have no idea who will come out or what will happen or when they’ll demand to be heard. In a few cases, though, I have known what was doing. The rollout of V going after Lassiter and saving him, for example, was one that I knew about, and accordingly, I gave notice to the Cellies that something was going to go down that night.
The below is another occasion when I was aware of the whole thing. I put out an invitation and said that the Brothers were going to be on the board, but what I didn’t tell folks was that it was going to be for Phury and Cormia’s mating ceremony. I had just finished their book and gotten it off to my editor, and I was feeling like I wanted to involve everyone in their joy.
What transpired, though, was absolutely incredible. There were so many people posting and so many refreshes to the board within every given moment that we killed the server. Which is traumatic, but kind of cool. Fortunately, everyone stayed with us and we fixed the problem, and the result . . . is my single favorite thing on the message board. To date, the Ceremony, which is located in the Brother Interaction Thread Forum, has well over two hundred fifty thousand views. When we closed the thread, there were over seventy pages of posts, and as you can see, the Cell was having a ball, toasting to the mating of a male and a female of worth.
Yeah, this is my favorite thing out of the over fifty-five hundred different threads we’ve made. I love the community of readers that make up the BDB board, and if you read the unedited version of the Ceremony, you’ll see how great they all are.
And now, without further ado, I give you Phury and Cormia. . . .
Slices of life from the Board
Slices of life
Slices of Life are little vignettes of the Brothers that I’ve posted on my message board. If you’re a member there, you’ll recognize them! If you aren’t, here they are reproduced. Again, the Board may be found at www.jrwardbdb.com/forum/index.php.
Movie Night
posted May 17, 2006
This first one was posted after Lover Awakened was written, just as I was starting to work on Lover Revealed:
So the question was asked on the loop what free time is like for the Brothers. And what the girls did at the mansion. And I figured I’d share this little Slice of Life with folks. . . .
The Brotherhood did movie night the other night and it was hysterical! Well, movie day, as it were. The bunch of them ended up piling into the Pit—which, I’d like to point out, only has two leather couches and not a lot of floor space. Picture this: Wrath and Beth in one corner of a couch. Rhage and Mary on the opposite side. Z on the floor with Bella in his lap. Butch and Phury on the other couch. V behind the Four Toys on his chair. The place was like a frat house, and they watched the first two Die Hards back-to-back. Between Phury’s red smoke and V’s hand-rolls the place smelled delicious. Butch was drinking a lot of Scotch (well . . . duh). V was into the Grey Goose. Mary and Bella were drinking chardonnay. Rhage was into the Perrier—busy rehydrating from a hard night on the streets with the lessers.
Halfway through the first movie, someone fell asleep. And can you believe it? It was Wrath! He’s usually so incredibly focused but he’s been working too hard. The thing was, he had his Brothers and his shellan—his family—all around him, and they were safe. He literally passed out, head flopping back on the top of the sofa, his long, long hair all over his chest (he’s grown it out superlong because Beth loves it that way). Beth slid his sunglasses off and tucked a blanket around him—which was a nice thing to do, except . . . unfortunately the movements woke him a little, and he ended up repositioning himself all over her—he fell back asleep, mashing her up against Rhage. She just laughed. She was so relieved he was relaxing a little. She has to see him get up during the day and pace and pace and pace around their bedroom. It just about kills her, because he’s almost stopped sleeping at all and he’s losing weight. Straight up? This king stuff is killing him.
Anyway . . . Fritz kept bringing over hors d’oeuvres—you remember the spinach crepes Rhage loves? The group of them went through trays of those and other things. Fritz was so happy, running back and forth in the tunnel between the main house and the Pit.
Rhage, naturally, insisted on yell
ing out lines. You know what his favorite one is, of course: “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.” But ’bout halfway through the second movie, he started nuzzling the back of Mary’s neck. And then his hands started traveling. She tried to get him to cut it out—but not too hard. When his eyes flashed white, the two of them disappeared for a little while. Um . . . Er . . .
ANYWAY, Phury was really quiet. He’s gotten terribly quiet. Sadly quiet. He keeps to himself mostly, and was really there more because he felt he had to be than because he wanted to be.
Z watched both movies for the first time. He was ABSORBED by them. Imagine the surprises in store—when Mr. Takagi gets shot by Alan Rickman? When the body shows up in the elevator with Ho Ho Ho on the shirt? When Mc-Clane is in the ventilator shaft? Then later when McClane’s wife Tasers that idiot reporter? Z LOVED the movies. . . . He jumped in the right places and cursed at the screen and snarled and yelled. He was all involved and had a death grip on Bella through the whole thing. The only time he looked away from the TV was to make sure she had something to drink. Or to eat. Or to ask if she was comfortable. “Too cold? You need another fleece, maybe?”
I will say—even though I shouldn’t—that Bella had a huge bite mark on her neck. He’d fed from her about an hour before they started to watch the movies. He’d gotten home from a night of fighting and he felt this . . . urge . . . to feed. He ended up sidling up to her in the bathroom. She was just out of the shower and was talking to him about this writing class she’s taking online. Anyway . . . he was staring at her in the mirror, and she was chatting away and toweling off her hair and . . . she stopped and asked him what was wrong. When she got the picture, she turned and smiled at him. Um . . . dropped the towel she had wrapped around herself. At first he was apologetic about it. Like embarrassed, almost, because he hadn’t come to her before. But then she was in his arms and he lowered his mouth to her throat and.....................well, they really got into the swing of things. *clears throat* Boy, did they ever . . . *blushes* Er . . . ANYWAY . . .
V stayed out of the movie thing, for the most part. He was doing searches on the Internet, although what he was looking for I have no clue. Every once in a while someone would yell at him to get off the computer. He ignored them until Butch fired an empty beer can at him. (And who was drinking the beer? Beth . . . she likes Sam Adams, remember.) V ended up sitting with Phury and Butch. The bachelors, as the others call them.
Sooooooooooooo, that was movie night (day). Next one is going to be an Aliens marathon. And yeah, Rhage is going to insist on acting out the alien-out-of-the-stomach routine on the floor in front of the TV *sigh* Hollywood’s just like that, you know?
Wrath and the Letter Opener
posted July 23, 2006
This one is done properly, and it’s long—but man, what a scene with Beth and Wrath at the end, huh?
Whoever said it couldn’t snow in July had their fucking head wedged.
Wrath sat back in his throne and looked at the piles of white before him: Requests to him as king for intervention on civil matters. Powers of attorney to Fritz for banking transactions. The glymera’s constant stream of “helpful suggestions,” all of which served only them.
It was a wonder the pansy desk could hold it all up.
From behind him he heard a series of metallic clicks, and then the shutters rose for the night with a whirring noise. Along with the lifting of steel came a rolling bass rumble, advance warning that one of Caldwell’s summer thunderstorms was getting its groove on.
Wrath sat forward and picked up his magnifying glass. The damn thing was getting to be an extension of his arm, and he hated it. First, the piece of shit didn’t really work: He couldn’t see much better when he used it. And second, it reminded him that for all intents and purposes his life had been reduced to a desk job.
A desk job with purpose and honor and nobility, sure. But still.
Idly, he picked up an envelope opener that bore his royal seal, and he balanced the tip of it on the end of his forefinger, suspending the knife-shaped slice of silver in midair. To make the game harder on himself, he closed his eyes and moved his hand around, creating instability, testing himself, using senses other than his weak eyes.
With a curse he cracked his lids back open. Christ, why was he wasting time here? He had about ten thousand things he needed to do. All of which were urgent—
From the open double doors across the study he heard voices—and, riding his uncharacteristic wave of procrastination, he tossed the opener onto the snowbank of shit he had to do and walked out. At the balcony he planted his hands on the gold-leafed balustrade and looked down.
In the foyer below, Vishous, Rhage, and Phury were getting ready to go out, yakking it up while they double-checked their weapons. And off to the side Zsadist was leaning back against a malachite column, one shitkicker crossed over the other. He had a black dagger in his hand, and he was tossing it up into the air and catching it over and over again. On each trip the blade caught the light in flashes of navy blue.
Damn, those daggers V made were fantastic. Sharpened to a razor edge, weighted perfectly, the handle contoured with precision for Z’s grip alone, the weapon was not state-of-the-art, it was a state of grace: a simple configuration of steel that meant survival for the race.
And fuck-you, have-a-nice-trip-back-to-the-Omega for the lessers.
“Rock on,” Rhage said as he went for the door. Heading over the mosaic tiles of the foyer, he moved with his typical swagger and impatience, clearly craving the fight he was damn well going to find, his beast no doubt as ready for some hand-to-hand as he was.
Vishous was right behind him, all cool strides and lethal calm. Phury was likewise collected, his limp not noticeable in the slightest, thanks to the new prosthesis he was using.
In their wake, Zsadist stood from the column and sheathed his dagger. The slide of metal on metal reverberated up to Wrath like a sigh of satisfaction.
Z’s vicious black eyes followed the sound as it lifted. In the light from overhead his scar was very noticeable, that distorted upper lip more pronounced than ever. “’Evening, my lord.”
Wrath nodded down at his brother, thinking that the Lessening Society was facing a demon in the male who stood down there. Even though Bella was in Z’s life, whenever he left to go fighting, his hatred came back. With a nasty aura, the burn weaved through his bones and muscles, becoming indistinguishable from his body, making him as he had always been: a savage capable of anything.
Though, considering what the guy’s shellan had been put through, Wrath didn’t fault him for the killing rage. Not in the slightest.
Z walked to the door and then paused. Over his shoulder he said, “You look tight tonight. And not in a good way.”
“It’ll pass.”
The smile that flashed was a slash of aggression, nothing happy. “I can’t count to ten for very long. Can you?”
Wrath frowned, but the brother was already out the door. Out into the night.
Left by himself, Wrath headed back for his study. He sat down behind the frilly desk, and his hand found the envelope opener, his forefinger running up and down the dull edge. As he looked at the thing, he knew someone could kill with it. Just not with any finesse.
Cranking his fist tight, as if the silver opener actually were a weapon, he pointed the thing out in front of him, leveling it over his paper mountain. As he moved, the tattoos running up his forearm stretched out, his crystal-clean lineage all loud and clear in black ink. Not that he could read the purebred stamp of approval.
Jesus, what the fuck was he doing here ass-rotting on this throne?
How had this happened? His brothers out working the war. Him sitting here with a goddamned letter opener.
“Wrath?”
He looked up. Beth was in the doorway, wearing a pair of old cutoffs and a muscle shirt. Her long dark hair was down past her shoulders, and she smelled like night-blooming roses . . . night-blooming roses and his bonding scent.
God . . . there were edges you just couldn’t work off on a treadmill. There were things that were missing even if you burned yourself out until the sweat ran as fast as the blood in your veins.
Yeah . . . before you knew it, you lost your edge. You went from being a dagger to a desk ornament. Castrated.
“Wrath? Are you okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I’m steady.”
Her dark blue eyes narrowed, and the color struck him as being the same as Z’s dagger blade catching the light: midnight blue. Beautiful.
And the intelligence in them was just as sharp as that weapon.
“Wrath, talk to me.”
Downtown on Tenth Street, Zsadist jogged over the pavement quick as a breeze, quiet as a ghost, a leathered-up wraith tracking his prey. He had found his first kills for the night, but at the moment he had his body on Master Lock, holding himself back, waiting until there was a little privacy.
No fighting in public for the Brotherhood. Unless you absolutely had to.
And this little impending shindig was going to create some noise. The three lessers ahead of him were primes, all paled-out, looking to go at it, moving with the deadly rhythm of heavy bodies on solid ground.
For fuck’s sake, he needed to get them in an alley.
As the four of them went along, the storm overhead stretched out its arms and started to pound on the night, its lightning flashing, its thunder cursing. Wind sprinted down the streets, then tripped and fell, forming gusts that pushed and then relented at Z’s back.