“It’s rude to read minds without permission,” I point out.
“Oh, come on, it’s not like I haven’t heard it before, and you are here to revisit us. How are you not thinking about our past? Yours and mine.”
Such an outcome engineer. “But I loved your book.”
“Wait, not me? You didn’t love me?”
He is truly the golden retriever of the Brothers. Irresistible, charming, and loyal. Also in need of attention and food at all times. On that note, he’s smiling again as he puts another spoonful of that mint chocolate chip into his mouth.
“Of course I loved you.”
“Past tense?” He puts a hand over his heart. “I’m devastated.”
“Oh, comeon.”
But I have to laugh, and when I do, I can see him relax. It’s a reminder that he really does have a good heart underneath all the bluster.
“How’s the beast?” I ask.
Rhage sits back, and wags his spoon. “The best pet ever. I’ve almost got him house-broken at this point.”
This is not true. But he’s not going to talk in a serious way about his curse, the one he kept so that Mary would live, the thing bartered under the belief that she would continue on without him, never knowing of him or what they’d meant to each other. It was a cruel bargain, although the Scribe Virgin wasn’t being arbitrary. She always believed in balance, and saving Mary’s life was a huge blessing that required a leveling of the scales that was equally profound.
Of course, Mary’s scales had already been balanced.
And so here we are, the two of them together for as long as he lives. After which Mary will no doubt choose to go right into the Fade with him.
Or…will she?
“How’s Bitty then?” I ask.
He positively inflates with pride. “My daughter isperfect.”
One of the things that I love about writing the BDB books is how huge and sprawling the world is (it’s also one of the hard parts, but more on that in the “For Writers” section). Everything and everybody is interconnected—six degrees of Kevin Bacon, only with fangs. Bitty entered the books as a young suffering in a terrible domestic violence situation. She and hermahmenwere taken in by Safe Place, and over the course of many books, culminating inThe Beastand thenBlood Fury, she found her permanent home and family with Rhage and Mary.
Bitty is one of my absolute favorite people after the time jump.
But what is coming for her is horrific, and I feel the same way now as I did with Butch, a nauseous combination of guilt and helplessness.
“She’s my girl.” He pauses with a full spoon. “And honestly, how lucky are we? Mary and I were prepared to never have any young, but things worked out.”
He has no idea about Bitty and L.W., how the son of the King broke her heart inLover Forbidden. I stay out of it because, again, it’s not my role to intervene, and it dawns on me that I have something in common with Lassiter. Apart from certain TV shows. I do not envy that fallen angel. To have to sit on the sidelines and watch, although at least he can provide some guidance—and he does get involved from time to time, even though he technically shouldn’t.
Rhage keeps going. “That she got through her transition safely, and now, how she’s making a difference at Luchas House? Mary is really training her well, and I can see her taking everything over sometime far off in the future.”
He follows through on the bite, and the private smile on his face is a universal one for parents, when we imagine our kids living independent, fulfilling lives. Optimism is its own kind of delusion, but at least it’s a pleasant one.
God, this is hard, and I just have to trust that somehow, some way, everything has always worked out in the end.
“And Mary is…” His eyes assume a faraway look. “She is my biggest blessing. As a bonded male, nothing is more important than my mate—although Bitty is right behind her.”
Even though I didn’t want to write about him, I am so glad I did, and he’s a great example of how HEAs do indeed happen, even when they seem impossible. And yeah, wow, he and Mary had someseriousroadblocks. However, one of the agreements that I made with myself when I startedDark Loverwas that whatever I was shown, I would write. I figured it would includea lot of fighting and drama and...other things of the horizontal variety.
Rhage challenged me to stick to that vow.
The romance market has evolved over the last twenty years. Needless to say, when I was draftingLover Eternalback at the end of 2004, it was kind of a different world and the genre conventions were fairly rigid. Rhage breaks a pretty big foundational construct, and it leads to a heartbreaking scene between him and Mary. I remember wondering how readers would handle it, whether they would stick with the series, if I’d sunk everything before I even got started.
There’s this old adage for authors, that it’s not what you do in a book, it’s how you do it. I think that’s totally true, and certainly for what happened between Rhage and Mary early on in their relationship was a brutal conflict. Yes, there was a reason for it, but Jesus, when he came back to their room, after he did what he had to do to level himself off and keep her safe from the beast? I can remember that scene like I wrote it yesterday.
