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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/de33e4980d9eac83d053957723369563.jpg]]
2A series of [[VampireFiction paranormal]] {{romance novel}}s written by J.R. Ward which follow the lives of the titular Brotherhood: the vampire race's [[BadassArmy most powerful warriors and protectors]]. Each book focuses on a different brother as he battles the de-souled human vampire hunters called ''lessers'', and his [[UnresolvedSexualTension inconvenient growing attraction to a beautiful woman]].
3
4* ''Dark Lover'' (Wrath and Beth)
5* ''Lover Eternal'' (Rhage and Mary)
6* ''Lover Awakened'' (Zsadist and Bella)
7* ''Lover Revealed'' (Butch and Marissa)
8* ''Lover Unbound'' (Vishous and Jane)
9* ''Lover Enshrined'' (Phury and Cormia)
10* ''Lover Avenged'' (Rehvenge and Ehlena)
11* ''Lover Mine'' (John Matthew and Xhex)
12* ''Lover Unleashed'' (Payne and Manny)
13* ''Lover Reborn'' (Tohrment and No'One)
14* ''Lover At Last '' (Qhuinn and Blaylock)
15* ''The King'' (Wrath and Beth again)
16* ''The Shadows'' (Trez and Selena; [[spoiler: iAm and maichen]])
17* ''The Beast'' (Rhage and Mary again)
18* ''The Chosen'' (Xcor and Layla)
19* ''The Thief'' (Assail and Sola)
20* ''The Savior'' ([[AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent Muhrder and Dr. Sarah Watkins]])
21* ''Where Winter Finds You'' ([[spoiler:Trez]] and Therese)
22* ''The Sinner'' (Syn and Jo)
23* ''A Warm Heart in Winter'' (Blay and Qhuinn again)
24* ''Lover Unveiled'' (Sahvage and Mae)
25* ''Lover Arisen'' (Balthazar and Erika)
26* ''Lassiter'' ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Lassiter]] and "a mysterious female")
27* ''Darius'' (Darius and Anne; a prequel)
28* ''The Beloved'' (Zsadist and Bella again)
29* ''A Bloom in Winter'' (Callum and Apex)
30
31While The Black Dagger Brotherhood line of books is continuing, J.R. Ward has been writing a spinoff series about the newly recruited soldiers of the Vampire Race called ''The Black Dagger Legacy'' books. These books occur alongside the main series, revisit some of the old couples in a WhereAreTheyNow fashion while introducing a whole new cast.
32
33* ''Blood Kiss'' (Between ''The Shadows'' and ''The Beast''; Paradise and Craeg; Butch and Marissa)
34* ''Blood Vow'' (Between ''The Beast'' and ''The Chosen''; Elise and Axe; Rhage, Mary, and [[spoiler: Bitty]])
35* ''Blood Fury'' (Between ''The Chosen'' and ''Dearest Ivie''; Novo and Peyton; Saxton and Ruhn)
36* ''Blood Truth'' (Between ''The Savior'' and ''Where Winter Finds You''; Boone and Helania)
37
38J.R. Ward has also added a spinoff series about a prison camp run by the Vampire aristocracy called 'The Black Dagger Brotherhood Prison Camp'' books.
39
40* ''The Jackal'' (Between ''The Sinner'' and ''A Warm Heart in Winter''; the Jackal and Nyx)
41* ''The Wolf'' (After ''Claimed''; Lucan and Rio)
42* ''The Viper'' (after ''The Wolf''; Kane and Nadya)
43
44And a series set in the same world, called the ''Lair of the Wolven'' books.
45
46* ''Claimed'' (Between ''Lover Unveiled'' and ''The Wolf'')
47* ''Forever''
48* ''Mine''
49
50
51Now has a [[Characters/BlackDaggerBrotherhood character page]].
52
53Unmarked spoilers lay beyond. '''You have been warned.'''
54----
55!!This series provides examples of:
56
57* AbusiveParents: Lots of them.
58** Phury and Zsadist's parents were neglectful and emotionally abusive to Phury after Zsadist was kidnapped.
59** The Bloodletter, who abused Vishous in almost every imaginable way, and the Scribe Virgin, who refused to intervene to protect her son, and kept her daughter, Payne locked in stasis because she didn't know what to do with her.
60** Jane's parents were cold and emotionally unavailable, particularly after the death of her younger sister, Hannah. Her mother also raises a hand to hit her when she sasses back in the car, and has their cook throw out her birthday cake as punishment.
61** Butch's father was physically and emotionally abusive. It's implied that he was a mean drunk and not a great father to any of his children, but that he singled Butch out for beatings and especially bad treatment because he knew that Butch was the result of his mother's infidelity.
62** Qhuinn's parents loathed him because Qhuinn was born with heterochromatic eyes and treated him like a curse on the family. While not physically abusive, they ignored and neglected him as a young child and were emotionally abusive to him as he got older.
63** Bella's father and Rehvenge's stepfather was controlling and emotionally abusive, particularly to young Bella, and physically abused their mother.
64** Saxton's father, who disowned him after Saxton came out, and outright says that he hates Saxton in ''The King''.
65** Trez and IAm's parents sold their son into sexual slavery in exchange for status and gifts.
66** Xcor's mother used to chain him up outside at night, and his father rejected him at birth because of his cleft lip.
67* AchillesHeel:
68** Sharp pointy object in the chest of a Lesser and ''POOF''!
69** Sunlight is this to pureblood vampires. Half-breeds may or may not be vulnerable depending.
70* ActionGirl / ActionGirlfriend: Plenty of them:
71** This is Xhex's bread and butter. This causes problems for her and John in ''Lover Reborn''. She wants to fight with the Brotherhood, and that makes his bonded male instincts go crazy. They eventually work it out.
72** Payne, who Wrath notes is just as good as any member of the Brotherhood. Seeing her beat up a guy who tries to mug them is a total turn on for Manny.
73** Sola has a cat burglar vibe going on, and she's a definite criminal. She starts off small, spying on Assail for Benloise, then she and Assail do a little mutual stalking. Things get more action-y when she's kidnapped in ''The King'' she puts a flare out in the face of one of her kidnappers, and beats the other man to death with a chain. Then in ''The Thief'' she assassinates the woman who shot her man so that they could live happily ever after.
74** Erika, a homicide detective. Balthazar is already totally smitten, but the fact that she has his back when there's potential trouble makes him even more attracted to her.
75* AffairBlameTheBastard: Strongly implied with Butch's father.
76* AfterActionHealingDrama: Butch and Vishous, when they're still trying to understand how his Dhestroyer powers work.
77** [[spoiler:Payne's arrival to the medical suite from the Scribe Virgin's dimension after Wrath accidentally breaks her spine.]]
78* AfterActionPatchUp: They're warriors, who fight. This happens between several characters. It actually makes up an important part of Vishous' book with him and Jane. Also happens between Rhage and Mary after he offers a rhythe, between Blay and Quinn, and between Marissa and Butch after he gets beat up in Rehv's club.
79** Beth first meets Rhage when he's giving himself stitches in her downstairs bathroom.
80** An EstablishingCharacterMoment for Beth in ''Dark Lover'', when she brings Rhage some Alka-Seltzer after a fight. This endears her to Wrath.
81* AlliterativeName: Manuel "Manny" Manello. And arguably, '''''R'''''ehvenge, son of '''''R'''''empoon, also qualifies.
82* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: All the canon couples. You know it's bad when the 'softest' guy in the bunch is an alcoholic ex-cop fired for police brutality.
83** Inverted with Xhex and John. He's damn near a saint compared to the rest of the brotherhood, and she's an assassin with no qualms about killing.
84** Also inverted with Payne and Manny.
85* AlienBlood: Pureblooded symphaths sport blue blood, even after the stuff's been exposed to the air. Half-breeds like Rehvenge and Xhex have normal-looking blood but it tastes slightly different to other vampires.
86* AliensInCardiff: The obvious headquarters for a secret society of vampire warriors is...[[CreatorProvincialism Caldwell, NY]]. This is occasionally {{lampshade}}d.
87* AltarDiplomacy: Inverted in The King. Beth engineers a divorce with Wrath so he can hold on to his throne when the glymera tries to remove him over the fact that his heir would not be a full-blooded vampire. They then marry in a human ceremony.
88* AMatchMadeInStockholm: Vishous and Jane in ''Lover Unbound''. Jane lampshades it at various points.
89--> '''Jane''': (''after beginning to trust V'') Gimme an S! A T! An O! A C! Followed by a K-H-O-L-M! What's it spell? HEAD FUCK.
90** And again:
91--> '''Jane''': (''thinking'') Stop it. Do not feel safe with him. The Stockholm Syndrome is not your friend."
92* AnArmAndALeg: We see a flashback of Phury getting his leg caught in the side of a cliff face and then ''shooting himself and tearing it off at the knee'' to get free.
93* AndIMustScream: A couple of notable instances:
94** The end result of the chronic illness The Arrest. The victim becomes totally paralyzed and calcified so that they resemble a statue.
95** It's implied that Payne was at least partially aware during the approximately 250 years she was kept in stasis by the Scribe Virgin.
96** Qhuinn's brother Luchas was tortured and kept for over a year in a barrel of the Omega's blood. He was aware and in pain the whole time. Lash put him there with vague plans of turning him into a ''lesser'' in ''Lover Enshrined'', but then Lash was killed and Luchas was forgotten until the Qhuinn and the Brotherhood found him in ''Lover at Last''.
97* AntagonisticOffspring: Played with by Lash. The Omega conceived him by raping a female vampire, and then planted him in vampire society so that when he matured, Lash would know everything about their culture, where they lived, and how they protected themselves from the ''lessers.'' Lash passes for your bog standard aristocratic sociopath until he flatlines briefly after a fight with Qhuinn. He's resuscitated, but his brief "death" allows the Omega to find him again, kidnap him, kill him for real, and bring him back as a superpowered ''lesser''. The first thing Lash does after being reborn is to murder his adoptive vampire parents and then lead the ''lessers'' on a killing spree targeting the members of the glymera.
98* {{Antidisestablishmentarianism}}: In ''Lover Eternal'' Rhage really likes to hear Mary talk.
99* AntiHero: All of them.
100-->'''The Scribe Virgin''': The Black Dagger Brotherhood is cursed. There are none left in it who do not suffer.
101** Zsadist's arc moves him from out-and-out bad guy to this through the healing power of love.
102* AristocratsAreEvil: The ''glymera'' as a whole. They may not necessarily be out-and-out ''evil'', but you'd be hard-put to find any bunch of people more self-serving, cowardly, head-in-the-sand, hidebound, and obsessed with appearances than the vampire aristocracy. Between their assassination plots, their prejudices, and their backward, shallow worldview, it's hard to feel much sympathy when the raids in ''Lover Enshrined'' result in much of the glymera being killed.
103* ArousedByTheirVoice: Mary's voice is so appealing John 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.
104* ArrangedMarriage: Common for vampires, particularly those of the aristocratic class.
105** Vishous narrowly avoids an arrange marriage to all forty of the Chosen when the Scribe Virgin tells him that she's making him the new Primale. Phury takes his place, and falls in love with Cormia, who was selected as his First Mate.
106** Tohrment and Wellsie. It turned out to be a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage.
107** Wrath's parents. Wrath's father falls in love with his mother Ahna on sight, making this another example of a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage.
108** Wrath and Marissa. The relationship was never consummated, and Marissa spent over three centuries as Wrath's UnwantedSpouse.
109** Half of the conflict in Trez's story involves his efforts to avoid his arranged marriage.
110** In ''Blood Fury'' Peyton's father tried to set him up with an arranged marriage. He and the young woman in question want nothing to do with it, and use the law to prevent their parents going ahead with the marriage without their consent.
111** Similarly, in ''Blood Truth'' another trainee fighter, Boone, conspires with his intended to end their engagement without it reflecting poorly on her (because otherwise she'd be DefiledForever).
112* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Marissa, in the middle of extreme character development, quips about her eventful night.
113--> ''Well, wasn't this the night for firsts. Arson. Sex. Pants.''
114* AsskickingLeadsToLeadership: Rehvenge and the ''symphath'' colony.
115* BabyFactory: The primary job of the Scribe Virgin's ''Chosen''. Aside from record keeping, feeding other male vampires their blood, and worshiping their goddess, they are trained to serve the Primale and deliver his children and ensure the continuing of the vampire race. After he is made the Primale, Phury sees how the system is no longer serving either the vampires as a species or the individual Chosen. He shuts the whole thing down at the end of ''Lover Enshrined''.
116* BadassInDistress: At least once a book. Usually the protagonist of said book, but not always.
117* BadassNormal: Butch, at first. Later Sola and Erika. In the case of the latter two, their mates definitely find it kind of a turn on.
118* BashBrothers: The Brotherhood itself.
119* BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: Phury while detoxing from drugs; he is fighting an internal battle against the reasons why he took the drugs in the first place. His LoveInterest, Cormia, helps him from the outside.
120* BeastAndBeauty: Zsadist and Bella
121* BetterAsFriends: Several examples:
122** Beth and Butch. He was definitely into her in ''Dark Lover'', but she'd already gotten involved with Wrath, and he very shortly there after met Marissa.
123** Marissa and Wrath. After they dissolve their ArrangedMarriage, it's clear that Wrath still respects Marissa very much. Which is part of the reason he doesn't have her brother executed for trying to have him assassinated.
124** Qhuinn and Layla. After a little sexual exploration, but no actual sex, Qhuinn admits to Layla that he's really in love with Blay, and then Layla meets Xcor and is instantly smitten. Qhuinn becomes Layla's ChosenConceptionPartner because they both want a child, and they end up co-parenting twins with their respective mates.
125** Phury and Bella, though it was really only Phury who had the romantic feelings.
126* BigBadEnsemble: For such a long running series, more than a few villains have been introduced across multiple arcs.
127** The Omega, an OmnicidalManiac deity, looking to exterminate the Vampire race with his {{Mooks}}, the Lessers, just to spite his sister diety, the Scribe Virgin.
128** The Fore-Lessers, the chief lieutenants of The Omega who often have their own agendas they pursue alongside that of the Omega.
129** Lash, the child of the Omega who briefly took over the Lessening society. [[spoiler: He is resurrected by the Omega shortly before the Omega's defeat, and returned from ''dhunhd'' to earth by Devina in ''Lover Arisen''.]]
130** The Band of Bastards led by Xcor, trying to unseat Wrath and replace the Brotherhood. They achieved what the Brotherhood couldn't- exterminating all of the Lessers in their home country. As of ''The Chosen'' Xcor and the Bastards are loyal to the King and the Brotherhood, having moved into the mansion.
131** Throe, formerly a member of the Band of Bastards, who seems to be fomenting a coup against Wrath from within the Vampire nobility. [[spoiler: After his first coup attempt fails, he turns to magic, and 'finds' a book of spells that allow him to summon killer shadow demons to do his bidding in ''The Chosen''. His plan is to summon an army of them. Turns out he was being used by Devina to escape the Well of Souls and he ends up trapped there in her place. As of the end of ''Lover Arisen'' he still there.]]
132** [[spoiler: Devina, the sister of the Omega and the Scribe Virgin, and the new BigBad as of ''The Sinner''.]]
133* BigBrotherInstinct:
134** Havers towards Marissa, even though he's her younger brother - to the point that he tries to have Wrath assassinated because he divorced her in order to mate Beth.
135** Rehvenge and Bella are a textbook example.
136** Phury and Zsadist; ironically, Phury is the younger twin but has to constantly pull Zsadist's ass out of the fire. The dynamic changes after Zsadist mates Bella, and Phury goes off the rails.
137** All of the Brothers treat John Matthew like their little brother, and Zsadist in particular takes John Matthew under his wing.
138** Vishous toward Payne, even though it's pretty clear that Payne can take care of herself. Also, Payne toward Vishous. She ''incinerated'' their father because he abused and mutilated V.
139** After being released from the Sanctuary, the Chosen are treated like this by the members of the Brotherhood household.
140* BiggerIsBetterInBed: Male vampires are apparently '''hung'''. Zsadist is treated as being particularly notable example.
141** This is a running theme throughout the Brotherhood, but Zsadist is definitely a standout.
142* BlackEyesOfCrazy: 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.
143* BlindMistake: Shortly after Wrath's vision finally fails completely he makes lots of these, dropping and breaking things and even falling down the stairs at one point.
144* BloodKnight: All the Brothers, but especially Zsadist.
145** Wrath's first description in the series is "off the chain when it came to the business of vengeance, and he hunted their enemies with a single-minded purpose that bordered on the insane."
146** The Band of Bastard is portrayed this way as well, with extra points to their Xcor and Syn, who takes things up a notch by being a vigilante serial killer who Dextered his way across Europe as a side-gig.
147* BlueBlood: The glymera. Any scene of their parties, balls, or political discussions involves at least a dozen brand name items, gold rings, or diamond jewelry being described. Usually subordinate to the King of the Vampires while ruling over their servants with diluted bloodlines, they prove to be just as dangerous to the Brotherhood as the Lessers. At least two attempts to unseat Wrath have been made by the glymera, one by assassination and another by invoking vampire law.
148* BoyishShortHair: Xhex has this; to John she is 'deliciously androgynous.'
149* BrainsAndBondage: Vishous, who is well-read and the most intellectual of the brothers, enjoys bondage.
150* BreakTheBadass: Zsadist completely loses his shit over having to whip Rhage--presumably flashing back to his own abuse.
151* BreakTheHaughty: Rosalhynda/No'One/Autumn was prideful about her beauty and her father's high place in society. After being captured and forcibly impregnated, committing suicide and being resurrected as her daughter's maidservant...not so much. In fact she takes to being very servile and takes joy in doing menial tasks that were beneath her before.
152* BunkerWoman: Happens to Bella in ''Lover Eternal'' and ''Lover Awakened''.
153** Also to Xhex between ''Lover Avenged'' and ''Lover Mine''.
154* CarBomb: How Darius dies, kickstarting the plot. Noted by the Scribe Virgin as being a "dishonorable" death.
155* CareerEndingInjury: A couple of instances:
156** Going completely blind ends any chance Wrath had of being an active fighter again. He'd been going out secretly before, and got the go-ahead to come back to the field because the Brotherhood was down to four active members, but finally losing his sight put a stop to that before it even had a chance to get started.
157** Payne's spinal injury at the end of ''Lover mine''. Paralleled in ''Lover Unleashed'' with a subplot involving Manny's prize racing horse and his decision to try to repair her leg rather than having her destroyed. Thankfully they both get better.
158* CarvedMark: A major part of vampire culture. The Brothers all have a star-shaped scar on their left pectoral, made by the Brothers striking them with a special gauntlet as part of the Brotherhood's initiation ritual. The mating ceremony involves males having the female's name carved into his back, and when a couple has a child, that child's name is added as well.
159* CasualKink: Vishous practiced BDSM with both men and women, humans and vampires, before meeting Jane and no one really made a big deal about it.
160* CelibateHero: Phury, until he meets Cormia.
161* ChildByRape: Rehvenge, Xhex. Most half-sympaths are stated to be this.
162* ChosenConceptionPartner: Layla asks Qhuinn to service her during her ''needing'' with a plan to get pregnant. They had been sexually, but not romantically, involved prior to this.
163* CoolShades: Wrath, though out of necessity, not by choice.
164* CowboyCop: Butch, while he's on the force. He had a tendency to break suspects' noses while they were being held...
165* CrazyJealousGuy: All of the members of the Brotherhood are this towards their mates. According to the lore, all male vampires have this tendency once mated, but males from warrior bloodlines tend to take it up to eleven. Usually this is PlayedForDrama, but sometimes it's PlayedForLaughs, usually at the expense of the male in question who often doesn't realize exactly what's going on, or is in denial.
166** Adding to the Ho-Yay in their relationship, Vishous is also a Crazy Jealous Guy when it comes to Butch. John Matthew does the math in ''Lover Mine'' when he, Vishous, Butch and Xhex are getting ready to raid a farmhouse where a Lessening Society induction has taken place and figures out that Vishous dislikes Xhex because she hooked up with Butch one time and he's jealous that Xhex got a piece of that. (If course, John Matthew also has to talk himself down from a little bit of a bonded male moment when he realizes this.)
167** Speaking of Butch, he coldcocks Revhenge when he realizes that Revhenge is the guy Marissa has been using for feeding. This is before he's even aware that he's half vampire.
168** Likewise, Manny has ''very'' hostile feelings toward a couple of men who check out Payne when takes her to go see his injured racehorse. Like the example with Butch above, this is a case of the vampire part of their heritage trumping the human part.
169** Saxton goes from being Qhuinn's favorite cousin to enemy #1 as soon as he starts sleeping with Blay.
170** Assail seriously contemplates tracking down and murdering a man he sees out on a date with Sola before he even knew Sola's name.
171** Basically, to quote several characters at various points in a number books, bonded males are a thing.
172* CursedWithAwesome: Rhage's alter-ego is a fire-breathing dragon that likes to devour ''lessers'' whole, can take mortal wounds on Rhage's behalf, and can use its wings to fly. Eating ''lessers'' causes Rhage some pretty bad indigestion. Similarly, Vishous' glowing hand of doom is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between this and BlessedWithSuck . It's really useful for things like incinerating buildings, torching cars, and it can serve as a light source, emergency cigarette lighter, and at least once did the job of a makeshift defibrillator. On the other hand, he can't touch anything with it unless he's wearing a lead-lined glove and the precautions he has to take with it are clearly a burden he'd rather not bear.
173* DatingDoSiDo: Diagramming the relationship of various characters would be a difficult task.
174In the beginning of the series, Marissa and Wrath are mated. But then Wrath leaves Marissa for Beth, who Butch was kind of into. Then Butch meets Marissa and he's like, "Beth who?". This, of course, makes Vishous jealous, because he has an IfItsYouItsOkay thing going on with Butch. But then Vishous meets Jane. Jane worked with this guy named Manny, who had a thing for her and kissed her once. Of couse, it turns out that Vishous has a twin sister, Payne, and she and Manny fall in love.
175** Blaylock and Qhuinn have UnresolvedSexualTension. Blaylock starts dating Qhuinn's cousin, Saxton. Qhuinn has an encounter with Layla, and even though they figure out they're BetterAsFriends, they decide have a child together because they both want a family. Meanwhile, there is continued WillTheyOrWontThey between Blay and Qhuinn. Blay and Qhuinn eventually The Then Layla ends up in a love triangle between Throe and Xcor.
176* DarkAndTroubledPast: EVERYONE (except Blay, whose mother and father are the the nicest, most supportive parents imaginable.) Noteable examples include:
177** Wrath watched his parents murdered in front of him when he was a pre-trans. He was locked in an air vent at the time, and deals with a lot of guilt because he stopped screaming so his parents' murderers wouldn't be able to find him and kill him too.
178** Zsadist is the biggest one. To sum up: stolen as an infant, enslaved, raped, beaten, gang raped, beaten and raped some more for a couple hundred years before being horribly mutilated in the course of his rescue and reunion with his brother. Oh, and his parents are dead.
179** John Matthew was abandoned as a baby, raised in an orphanage and then sent out into the world at 16, with no idea what or who he is. As a young adult, he was raped by a man in the hallway of his apartment complex.
180** Butch was abused by his father and blamed by his family for not telling anyone when his sister went out with the boys who later raped and murdered her.
181** Vishous spent his childhood in a warrior camp run by his ruthless warrior father. He dislikes the combat, preferring to read. He is punished for this. When he comes into his empathic powers, he tells his father of his own death. Disturbed, his father has him tattooed as an outcast, and partially castrated.
182** Qhuinn was treated as a living defect by his Glymera parents for his heterochromatic eyes. After Quinn killed another child of nobility defending John Matthew, his family legally disowned him, ritually burned his belongings, and dispatched an honor guard to ''beat him to death on the side of the road''.
183** Trez was sold by his parents in an arranged marriage to the Royal Family for wealth and status. He was treated as their meal ticket and was only saved from his living prison by the actions of his brother [[spoiler: before meeting his beloved Selene, who quickly dies.]]
184** Xcor was rejected by his father, and his mother refused to acknowledge her relationship to him, pretending instead to be a nursemaid. She chained him up chained outside her house like a dog even in winter, kept him half-starved and half-naked and beat him. Then, after his transition, he met the Bloodletter...
185** Darius' stepfather dumped him off at the Bloodletter's war camp without anything but his journal and the clothes on his back after his mother died.
186** Syn's father was a violent alcoholic who often beat him, and kept the body of his dead mother in their decrepit hut as a warning about what would happen if Syn stepped out of line.
187* DatingCatwoman: Xcor and Layla, with Xcor playing the role of Catwoman.
188* DeadpanSnarker: Lots of characters, but especially Vishous.
189* DeathByChildbirth: Extremely common as pregnancy is very risky for vampires and human women carrying half-breed fetuses. Beth's mother dies this way, as does Haver's mate before the story begins. Bella, Layla and Beth all narrowly avoid dying in childbirth.
190* DeathSeeker: Most of the brothers at some point or another, but much of Butch's character arc involves overcoming his death wish. With Marissa's help, of course.
191* DefiledForever: Zsadist initially believes this of himself, to the point of not wanting to touch his daughter because she'll "get it on her."
192** The glymera views Marissa this way after Wrath divorces her - not he had sex with her, but instead because he ''didn't'' - the general consensus among Marissa's peers is that there must have been something wrong with her if Wrath couldn't bring himself to bed her even once in the three hundred years or so they were "together." In a more traditional way, Havers sees Marissa as soiled after he finds her in the aftermath of a sexual liaison with Butch.
193** Generally speaking, this is how females who have sex outside of official mated relationships are viewed by the glymera. For example:
194*** Ehlena's family is already ostracized after being financially ruined, but when her fiancé reveals they've had sex and accuses her of seducing him, she is considered ruined.
195*** Bella's reputation is damaged by a relationship with a male who broke it off with her after Revhenge threatened him.
196*** When No'One/Autumn is kidnapped from her family home, her father is more concerned about the damage to her reputation and to the family's reputation than her physical safety. When it's revealed that she was raped by a ''symphath'' he doesn't want her coming back to the house, and he offers Darius money for her care.
197*** In the Legacy novels, Elise's cousin is murdered, and her parents blame the dead girl for it because she had a wild sex life.
198* DefrostingIceQueen: Xhex for John. Though if you think she's any less of a hard-ass after they become an official couple, you don't know her that well...
199* {{Dhampyr}}: Beth, as well as Butch, Manny, and Jo (and their father.)
200* DisposableSexWorker: In ''Dark Lover'', the ''lessers'' use these to lure civilian vampires out of hiding.
201* DistaffCounterpart and SpearCounterpart: Payne & Vishous and Doc Jane & Manny.
202* DivineParentage: Vishous & Payne.
203* DomesticAbuse: Bella's father (Rehvenge's stepfather) towards their mother. This is one of the reasons Rehvenge kills him.
204** Also, Bitty's biological father towards his wife and Bitty.
205* DoppelgangerReplacementLoveInterest: Mr. O obsesses on Bella because she looks like an idealized version of his deceased girlfriend.
206* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: ''Highly'' averted with Zsadist. His past as a sex slave is written very darkly, and he suffers a great deal of psychological damage as a result. Nobody faults him for killing his "Mistress" and keeping her skull. A little out of the ordinary for a series that portrays males as "macho" and always concerned with looking "weak" in front of their mates. In fact, Zsadist is probably one of the most staunch observers of these gender rules (likely stemming from his abuse), but shows just how seriously these issues are taken when he tells John Matthew that his own rape was ''not'' his fault.
207* {{Dystopia}}: Vampire society has decayed to the point that it's been nearly a century since they celebrated their most important holidays in any meaningful way. The culture, particularly the aristocracy, is deeply patriarchal and classist. The war against the ''lessers'' has been going badly for years, and they are functionally on the verge of extinction.
208* EasyLogistics: Played straight in the first few books. The Brothers and the Lessers trade enough bullets, knives, and explosives after dark to equip an army, and nobody comments on where they get all of this material- much less the cash for it. In later books the Brotherhood is forced to use [[spoiler: Assail's drug cartel]] contacts to get more weaponry. Meanwhile the new Fore-Lessers increasingly comment about how cash-strapped their organization is and how they're running out of ''lessers'' faster than they can be made. The newest Fore-Lesser has turned to drug trafficking and mass conversion of Caldwell's lower level gang members to restore the society.
209* EitherOrOffspring: Vampires and humans have this: either the offspring live a human life, or they transition in their twenties like regular vampires and emerge vulnerable to sunlight, dependent on blood, and capable of dematerializing and rematerializing elsewhere. Vampires and ''symphaths'' are an aversion.
210* EloquentInMyNativeTongue: In a weird version, the Brothers talk like gangsters in English and Shakespeare in the Old Language.
211-->'''Rhage''': ''I am barren of words, my female. For any sounds from my mouth are unworthy of your hearing.''
212-->'''Mary''': What did you say?
213-->'''Rhage''': I like being here with you too.
214* EmergencyTransformation: Done three times, with Mary (human-turned-immortal and cancer-free), Butch (human-turned-vampire), and Jane, (human-turned-tangible-ghost.)
215* TheEmpath: Vampires can smell emotions.
216** Vishous can go a step farther and read minds (and see the future).
217** ''Sympaths'' can both read emotional "grids" and influence them.
218** The Shadow Brothers are something between the two.
219* EnemyWithin: Rhage and his tattooed "friend".
220** Also, Phury and his Wizard.
221** Serena's disease, the Arrest
222* ErmineCapeEffect: Subverted. Wrath only puts on ceremonial robes for...well, ceremonies.
223* EroticDream: Happens a lot. Manny has one about Payne after having his memory wiped in ''Lover Unleashed'', Tohr has one about Wellsie, etc. [[spoiler: Devina uses a near death experience to insert herself into Balthazar's dreams, turning them into this against his will.]]
224* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Butch goes in to interrogate a would-be rapist, knees him in the crotch, and grinds his broken nose into the floor while Mirandizing him.
225-->'''Butch''': Now let's get your paperwork done. I'd hate not to follow proper police procedure.
226* EverybodyHasLotsOfSex: It's a series of erotic novels. This one is a given.
227* EvenEvilHasStandards: Assail crosses a lot of lines in his rise to power, even working with the ''lessers'' to expand his criminal empire despite the fact that they want to exterminate all Vampires. But blood slavery? There's a line even he won't cross.
228* EveryoneIsRelated: Both played straight and averted.
229** Butch turns out to be a cousin of Wrath's, Manny is discovered to be Butch's half-brother, and later they add another half sister, Jo, to the family tree.
230** Xcor initially believes he is the son of the Bloodletter, and would therefore be the half-brother of Vishous and Payne, but it turns out that the Bloodletter was lying to him. He is actually the son of Hharm, and is therefore Tohr's half-brother instead.
231** John Matthew is is thought to be Darius' son due to a close DNA match, and therefore Beth's half-brother. It's initially implied, and then in ''Lover Mine'' it's outright confirmed that he ''is'' Darius reincarnated. Which still makes him related to Beth, but in a very different way. This is not revealed to the characters in the story, however, who still believe him to be Beth's brother and Darius' son.
232** On a more squicky note, the members of the Brotherhood might not actually ''be'' brothers, but given the way the Scribe Virgin's breeding program worked, they ''are'' a lot more closely related than you'd think. Brotherhood candidates come from one of two sources, relationships between members of the Brotherhood and members of the Chosen, and the Primale (who is always a member of the Brotherhood) and members the Chosen (and daughters of the Primale and the Chosen become Chosen themselves.) Sit with those facts long enough and it becomes pretty clear that the family trees of the Brotherhood don't fork all that much, and any two probably have a lot of shared branches.
233* EvilSmellsBad: Initially subverted by the lessers, who give off a strong smell of baby powder in early books. Played straight in later books when they are described as smelling like a combination of baby powder or cheap air freshener and ''roadkill''. The change seems to start to occur after Butch starts draining the Omega's power by preventing ''lessers'' from retuning to him, implying that the weaker the Omega gets, the worse his minions smell.
234* ExtremeMeleeRevenge: The standard response of a bonded male to violence/threats of violence to his mate.
235** When John discovers where Xhex was being held and sees the signs that she was violently assaulted during her captivity, he dismembers and disembowels Mr. D so violently that the kitchen of Lash's safe house is painted black with ''lesser'' blood.
236** After he starts to come out of his HeroicBSOD, this is Tohr's MO when it comes to taking down ''lessers''
237-->'''Qhuinn, watching Tohr work''': Now I know how they make shredded lettuce.
238** Assail goes on a RoaringRampageofRevenge when Sola is kidnapped, that includes killing eight people and ripping the throat out of the man who ordered her abduction and planned to torture and kill her.
239** Syn shreds a trio of ''lessers'' that get trapped in a storage building with him and Jo in ''The Sinner'', partly because he's just like that, but mostly because they're a threat to Jo and he Does Not Like That.
240* EyeScream: Mr. O ''sews Bella's eyelids shut''. Sometime between ''The Chosen'' and ''The Sinner'' Zypher loses and eye to a ''lesser.''
241* FantasticRacism: All over the place.
242** Vampire society considers humans to be "rats without tails." Wrath is notably contemptuous of humans, and only moderates his position after mating Beth, who is half-human.
243-->'''Wrath''': ''(thinking)'' Cattle, all of them.
244-->'''Wrath''': ''(thinking)'' There are only two good positions for a human. A female on her back. And a male facedown and not breathing.
245** ''Lessers'', towards vampires. Mr. X thinks of the race as a good excuse to get away with a murder spree, and Mr. D refers to them as animals that need to be put down.
246** ''Symphaths'' believe themselves superior to standard vampires as well as humans. Vampires don't like ''symphaths'' any better.
247** Shadows consider all non-Shadows "UnKnowables," and inferior.
248** Vampires are also come across as a little racist toward the ''doggen'', but being docile by nature, the ''doggen'' either don't notice or don't care.
249** Humans who find out about vampires nearly always assume that they conform to Bram Stoker-esque stereotypes before being corrected. In almost every instance the vampire doing the correction gets a little huffy about it.
250* FieryRedhead: Wellsie.
251* FirstKiss: Zsadist and Vishous receive theirs over the course of the series. And John, though that's a little more understandable.
252* FriendlyNeighborhoodVampires: Friendly is debatable, but they are the good guys, anyway.
253* FunetikAksent: Butch's [[{{Southies}} South Boston]] accent is sometimes rendered phonetically. Ditto Mr. D's Texan twang.
254* GlowingEyesOfDoom: Subverted. Their eyes glow only in the presence of their mates or people they love.
255* GodsHandsAreTied: Miracles from the Scribe Virgin don't come free, and the price does not seem to be negotiable even for her. For Darius' reincarnation he willingly sacrificed [[spoiler:his voice]], but in order to grant Vishous' prayer for Jane, the goddess herself gave up her beloved songbirds.
256** The Brotherhood may have hit their miracle limit now that the Scribe Virgin is dead/de-powered while her brother the Omega is still largely empowered.
257* GoodThingYouCanHeal: Using the Dhestroyer power really takes it out of Butch. Fortunately Vishous can use his SemiDivine power to keep the side effects at bay.
258* GoodScarsEvilScars: Vampires don't scar unless their wounds are exposed to salt or salt water, so scarring is rare, but there are notable exceptions.
259** The ultimate in-universe example of "good scars" is the star-shaped pectoral scar that marks members of the Brotherhood.
260** Zsadist's scars come across as "evil scars" because of his violent, unstable behavior before getting together with Bella, and he still scares the ever-loving crap out of people who don't know him.
261* GreenEyedMonster: Wrath sums this up pretty nicely in ''Dark Lover''.
262-->'''Wrath''': (thinking) ''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.''
263* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Marissa ''is'' this trope. Beautiful? Check. Kind? Check. Innocent? Check. She gets past the naive stage pretty damn fast though.
264* HalfHumanHybrid: Several. Only Wrath is full-blooded of all the vampires.
265** Beth, Butch, Manny, and Jo are all human/vampire hybrids - although the latter three are really more like one-quarter vampire than one-half, because their father is a half-breed himself.
266** Rehvenge and Xhex are vampire/''symphath'' hybrids, but since most of the narrative is from the vampire POV, the treatment is functionally the same.
267* HappilyMarried: Most of the mated main couples, though Beth and Wrath hit a rocky spot in ''Lover Avenged'' and ''The King''. So do V and Jane in ''Lover Unleashed'' and ''The Thief''.
268** Xhex and John have a lot of issues with Xhex being in the field. They get better, though.
269* HappinessInSlavery: The ''doggen'', a subspecies of vampires able to withstand sunlight.
270* HandicappedBadass: Phury, who is missing the lower half of one of his legs; Wrath, especially after he loses his sight completely; and to a lesser extent, John Matthew, who is mute because he was born without working vocal chords.
271* HandSignals: John Matthew communicates by way of a pen and paper, using American Sign Language, or by whistling.
272* HappilyAdopted: Mary and Rhage's marital troubles over her inability to conceive are solved when they take in the orphan Vampire Bitty. Mary worries over Bitty's mental health and Rhage's ability to handle the stress of being a parent- until Bitty falls in love with Rhage's GTO, treats Rhage's beast-form like an enormous puppy, and starts calling Mary "Mother."
273** Made legally binding in ''Blood Vow'' after her uncle Ruhn makes contact with the three of them. Mary and Rhage worry that he will demand full custody as a blood relative. Ruhn worries that Bitty will grow up without knowing the love of blood-related family. Bitty decides to TakeAThirdOption by inviting Ruhn to live in the mansion while she's formally adopted by Rhage and Mary. Wrath signs off on the idea in a heartbeat.
274** John Matthew is happily adopted by Tohr and Wellsie.
275** Murhder and Sarah adopt Nate at the end of ''The Savior.''
276* HaremSeeker: Subverted by Phury; he accepts the role of Primale of the Scribe Virgin and is expected to... "service" 40 of her Chosen. He manages to weasel out of this requirement, free the 40 Chosen, AND be with his beloved Cormia.
277* HaveYouSeenMyGod: As of ''The Beast'' V has discovered that the Vampire deity, the Scribe Virgin, is dead/un-ascended/no longer a deity and will be appointing a successor for the race. The Brothers are all confused by how this could happen but universally agree that this is a bad thing, especially when the war with the Lessers was swinging in their favor. As of ''The Chosen'' there is a new deity for the vampire race: Lassiter.
278** Per WordOfGod the Scribe Virgin [[spoiler: is living out her life as Beth's cat, Boo.]]
279* HeartbrokenBadass: At least once a book.
280* HellBentForLeather: Leather pants and jackets are pretty much the standard uniform for all the Brothers and the fighters.
281* HemoErotic: A vampire's feeding usually entails sex too.
282* HidingYourHeritage: Rehvenge and Xhex. Xhex wears ''silices'' on her thighs to help contain her "bad side." Rehvenge gets outed when Phury tastes his blood.
283* HolyIsNotSafe: There's a good reason Vampires/Lessers fear and revere the Scribe Virgin/Omega. Questioning either of them over any of their pronouncements will usually bring unpleasant consequences.
284* HonorRelatedAbuse: Qhuinn's parents regards him as a stain on the family because of his heterochromatic eyes. In ''Lover Enshrined'' they send Qhuinn's brother and three others as a ritual Honor Guard to beat Qhuinn to death on the side of the road for disgracing the family.
285* HopelessSuitor: Butch, for Beth, in ''Dark Lover''. Likewise, Saxton for Blay - even though they are together for nearly a year, Saxton knows from the start that Blay will always be in love with Qhuinn, and so the relationship will never last.
286* HospitalGurneyScene: More and more in recent books, as the war with the ''lessers'' heats up.
287* HugeGuyTinyGirl: It's always noted just how large male vampires are, but how large they are in comparison to their female lovers is mentioned a lot. Averted with Payne and Manny, and Xhex and John.
288* IAmXSonOfY: All the males are referred to this way on formal occasions.
289* IdleRich: The glymera families. Their nights are spent dancing at balls or politicking over cigars and fine wine while comparing the purity of their bloodlines or arranging marriages between their children. Their homes and bodies are adorned with so much gold, jewelry, and name-brand clothing, attended by so many servants, and given such deference by common Vampires that one has to wonder where they got all of this wealth from in the first place - and why the Brotherhood fights so hard to defend them.
290* IHaveNoSon: Happens frequently when the glymera are unhappy with their offspring.
291** Qhuinn is thrown out of his house by his father and all of his things are ritually burned after he kills Lash while defending John Matthew.
292** In ''The King'' Saxton point blank asks if his father, Tyhm, hates him. Without skipping a beat he responds "Yes."
293* TheIngenue: Marissa
294* IfItsYouItsOkay: While each are in their very happy relationships, WordOfGod states that Butch feels like this about [[HoYay Vishous.]]
295* ImmortalProcreationClause: Vampire females are only fertile once every decade, and pregnancy is very highly likely to result in miscarriage or death of the mother in childbirth. As Tohrment puts it, 'It's a goddamn ''shellan''-robber'.
296** The reason Wrath is so resistant to having children with Beth.
297* IncompatibleOrientation: Vishous and Butch - sort of. WordOfGod is that Vishous would be Butch's IfItsYouItsOkay guy, but he's in love with Marissa.
298* InstantDramaJustAddTracheotomy: In Lover Reborn, Tohrment has to do this to [[spoiler: Wrath after he's shot in the throat and bleeding out.]] In the back of a moving car, with a pocketknife and a straw, no less!
299* IntimateHealing: Several examples.
300** When Vishous heals Butch after the latter sucks up a lesser, they're usual described as being entwined with each other in a way that sounds written like fan service for slash fans. It's intimate enough that when Jane sees the process the first time, she assumes that they're gay and in a relationship.
301** Manny figures out that sexual arousal triggers Payne's healing powers, providing a cure for her paralysis in ''Lover Unleashed''. He even makes reference to the Marvin Gaye song ''Sexual Healing''.
302** There are lots of instances where people are quick to point out that feeding between for medical purposes is no more intimate than a blood transfusion, there are still more instance where feeding for medical purposes turns into sexy time, particularly when its between two people who are already romantically involved or attracted to one another.
303* InterspeciesRomance: Humans, vampires, and ''symphaths'' are distinct species that can successfully cross-breed.
304* InvoluntaryShapeshifting: Rhage's curse turns him into a dragon whenever he loses control of his emotions. When he's in human form, it forms a tattoo on his back.
305* ItsPersonal: This is pretty much how all the males react if someone hurts their female, but it is especially apparent in ''Lover Mine'', when John finds out that Xhex had been raped by Lash. It's personal because he, too, had been raped, though by a stranger, as a pre-trans. John's drive to kill Lash goes from a 10 to a 20 on a scale of 1-10, and even his friends remark that by raping Xhex, Lash had signed his own death warrant.
306* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Zsadist and Bella, near the end of ''Lover Awakened'', though they get married in the end. Butch and Doc Jane for V in Lover Unleashed.
307* JamesBondage: When Rehvenge is taken by the ''symphaths''.
308* TheJeeves: Fritz.
309* KillItWithFire: During the climax of ''The Beast'' Assail and Zsadist assault the home of a ''glymera'' aristocrat who'd plotted against the king, hastened her husband's death, and kept a blood slave. Assail brings a pistol. Zsadist brings a ''flamethrower.''
310* KindheartedCatLover: Beth's cat, Boo, brings this out in a lot of the Brothers. Wrath is really scary to Beth until Boo leaps into his arms and ''Wrath'' starts purring. IAm comments how he hates Boo, but won't stop petting the cat whenever he visits the mansion.
311** Phury's point when encouraging Wrath and Beth to move in with the Brotherhood is "if she lives with us, we get to keep the cat."
312* KryptoniteFactor: Called a "pyrocant", this can be an external factor such as a relationship, or or internal such as an addiction.
313* LawOfInverseFertility: When Bella goes into needing (the mating period for female vampires) for the first time, Zsadist is told that she has a nearly 0% chance of getting pregnant from the subsequent mating. Near the end of the same book, we learn that she is, indeed, pregnant.
314* LegacyOfService: When Darius dies, he leaves Fritz, his butler, to Beth.
315* LipLosses: Zsadist suffers one of these when escaping his mistress.
316* LongHairedPrettyBoy: With rare exception, the whole Brotherhood, Wrath in particular (he can sit on the ends of his hair without much trouble.)
317* LongLostRelative:
318** Phury and Zsadist, though long before the series starts.
319** John and Beth count as this too, though in a strange way.
320** Also Wrath, Butch and Manny.
321** Human IntrepidReporter Jo, to Butch and Manny.
322* LongRunningBookSeries: Twenty-two so far in the main series, plus eight more books in the spinoff series.
323* LoveAtFirstSight: That's pretty much how male vampire bonding works.
324* LoveRedeems: Layla for Xcor.
325* LoveDodecahedron: Overlapping love triangles galore.
326** In ''Dark Lover'' we have Marissa/Wrath/Beth and Wrath/Beth/Butch.
327* LoveTriangle: [[SiblingTriangle Phury/Bella/Zsadist]]; Rehvenge/Marissa/Butch; Qhuinn/Blay/Saxton.
328* LukeIAmYourFather
329** The Scribe Virgin informs Vishous that she's his mother.
330** Butch, Manny, and Jo share the same father through different mothers, although only Manny ever met him.
331* ManlyGay: Pretty much all the gay or bisexual characters. Anyone who wants to tell Vishous or Qhuinn they're not masculine because sometimes they like to bang dudes is liable to get their ass kicked so hard they'd be coughing up combat boots. Even Saxton, a nattily dressed, well-mannered aristocrat who describes himself as a 'lover, not a fighter' isn't effeminate.
332* MasochismTango: Part of Mr. O's backstory is a mutually abusive relationship with his girlfriend.
333* {{Masquerade}}: Upheld by vampires' ability to erase short term, non-traumatic memories from humans.
334* MayflyDecemberRomance: Vampires are extremely long-lived, with lifespans in the high hundred to a thousand years, so any relationship between a human and a vampire is this. Rhage and Mary, Vishous and Jane, Manny and Payne, and Murdher and Sarah all find various ways around the problem (Mary is saved and Jane is brought back as a ghost by the Scribe Virgin; Manny is regenerated by close contact to Payne when her healing powers are triggered by sex; and Lassiter just gives Sarah an extended lifespan because he's a nice guy like that.) It's unclear if the other two human/vampire couples, Assail and Sola and Balthazar and Erika, will have the same good fortune.
335* MercyKill: After being seized by her final Arrest, Trez asks Selena to blink twice if she wants to die via lethal injection. She blinks twice, and Trez, Manny and Doc Jane assist in the act.
336** This is a part of vampire culture. Terminal patients are often mercy killed by their families as a loophole to suicide preventing entrance to the Fade.
337* MistakenForProstitute: Butch's first interaction with Marissa. He thinks her innocence is too good to be real. It's not, and she tells him off when he tells her to drop the virgin act.
338* MrFanservice: A group of enormous men chiseled like Greek gods who are [[SexGod skilled lovers]] and can [[BodyguardCrush pulverize anything attempting to harm their woman]]... with some HoYay to boot.
339* {{Mooks}}: Unnamed ''lessers'' fit this trope to a T, being about as disposable as used tissues.
340* MookHorrorShow: Generally whenever the Brothers engage the ''lessers'' in combat. Even when the odds are literally 10:1, the Brothers can mop the floor with the Omega's men.
341** Subverted when the Brothers engage ''lessers'' on their own. While the ''lessers'' will still be left dead, the individual Brother will usually be left bleeding out on the pavement.
342* MyGirlIsNotASlut: Although most of the male characters have been around the block a few thousand times, their love interests are either virgins or women with limited and/or previously only unsatisfactory experiences.
343** Xhex is an aversion. It is mentioned that she had a one-time, let's-see-how-this-goes thing with Rhevenge (it didn't go well, and they both decided never to repeat; a liaison with Butch that she absolutely would have repeated if Butch and Marissa hadn't finally sorted their shit out; and a long-term sexual relationship with the Brother Muhrder.
344** Bella gender flips this; in her case, it was Zsadist who was sexually inexperienced (outside of his abuse) and it's Bella who teaches him.
345* MyParentsAreDead: Beth does this to Butch in ''Dark Lover''.
346-->'''Butch''': I heard you'd been in the system. Mind if I ask why?
347-->'''Beth''': Why do you think? No parents.
348* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Subverted. Most of the scariest names belong to the good guys.
349* NasalTrauma: Beth breaks a would-be rapist's nose in self-defense. Later Butch presses the guy's broken nose into the floor to get his point across.
350* NearRapeExperience: Beth in the beginning of ''Dark Lover''.
351* NeverLearnedToRead: Bitty's uncle Ruhn has to have her adoption papers read to him because he never learned to read. He signs the papers by making a quick self-portrait.
352* NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationalization: Lash uses this to taunt John Matthew, having raped Xhex while holding her in captivity. The sex was emphatically nonconsensual.
353* OddNameOut: The starting line up of the Brothers is Tohrment, Wrath, Rhage, Vishous, Zsadist, Phury, and... Darius. Later on it's remarked on by more than one person that Butch is 'the Brother with the weird human name.' Likewise, John Matthew is singled out from the start by his peers in the first round of the training program because of his name.
354* OldRetainer: Fritz.
355* OurAngelsAreDifferent: Our angels are solar-powered immortal beings that dress in Elvis costumes, try (and fail) to climb down chimneys at Christmas, and can't stop watching ''Dr. Phil'' and ''Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.''
356* OurGhostsAreDifferent: One woman was killed by ''lessers'' and was stuck in limbo for awhile before the Scribe Virgin brought her back as a ghost. She's transparent in appearance, but can become corporeal if she tries. To her ''hellren'', she is always solid.
357* OurVampiresAreDifferent: They're a separate species from humans, to start -- you're born a vampire, you don't get "turned." Unless you have some vampire DNA...
358* PainfulTransformation: Rhage, when his beast comes out (and the aftermath).
359** The transition to becoming a fully-fledged vampire. The description makes it seem almost like a ''vastly'' accelerated growth spurt.
360** Humans with vampire heritage can have the transformation kick-started. It is not pleasant, going by Butch's experience.
361** The transformation from human to lesser involves exsanguination, removal of the heart, and getting the blood of the Omega dumped into the body with a jolt of power. Not pretty.
362* ParanormalInvestigation: Two investigators, professional reporter Bill and real estate agent turned IntrepidReporter Jo, come close to finding out the truth about Vampires in ''The Beast'' during their own investigation of the aftermath of a battle between the Lessers and the Brotherhood at an abandoned school. Their work ends up bringing Jo to the attention of the Brotherhood [[spoiler: who recognize her as a half-breed on the cusp of transition.]]
363* ParanormalRomance
364* ParentalNeglect: Frequently and with varying intensity.
365** Zsadist and Phury's parents were abusive and withholding towards Phury because of his cultural status as the "cursed" twin.
366** Jane's parents were cold and emotionally withholding following the death of her younger sister Hannah.
367** Xcor's "nursemaid", who is strongly implied to actually be his mother, used to chain him up outside in the yard at night.
368* PanickyExpectantFather: Par for the course for vampires because of the high mortality rate for both the child and the mother.
369** Tohr initially assumes that Wellsie died from complications of her pregnancy when the Brotherhood comes to tell him she was killed.
370** Zsadist spends Bella's entire pregnancy worrying that she's going to die.
371** Wrath in ''The King''. Justified, because Beth really would have died if the ghost of Wrath's mother hadn't intervened.
372** Blay and Qhuinn, after Layla nearly has a miscarriage - ''twice.''
373* PainfulTransformation: Rhage, when his beast comes out (and the aftermath).
374* ParalyzingFearOfSexuality: Zsadist, as a result of his captivity as a blood slave
375* PolarOppositeTwins: Zsadist and Phury in the early books; Trez and iAm later on. Averted with Assail's twin cousins, Ehric and Evale. Aside from the fact that Ehric talks more, and Evale is the strong silent type, they're personalities are nearly identical.
376* ProductPlacement: Everyone in the series is a brand whore. We get specific brands of everything from clothes, alcohol, cigarettes, cars, household products, and pet foods. YMMV as to whether this helps anchor the story in "reality" or if it's a distraction.
377* PropertyOfLove: When a male vampire bonds, he becomes the property of his female. So far, the feeling between the vampire males and their females is mutual.
378** Averted with Xhex, who makes it clear that she's not going to put her life on hold for John's comfort.
379* PromotionToParent: Rehvenge towards Bella, after the death of her father.
380* PsychicAssistedSuicide: As part of their suite of mental manipulation powers, vampires are able to do this. Assail put the skill to particularly good use.
381* PunishmentBox: Qhuinn recovers his brother from imprisonment in a barrel.
382* PurpleIsPowerful : Rehvenge has amethyst eyes, and he becomes king of the ''symphaths'' in ''Lover Avenged''.
383* RagsToRiches: Beth starts out ''Dark Lover'' having been through the foster system and then an orphanage. By the middle of it, she is revealed to be a high-ranking aristocrat in the vampire world, thanks to her father's rank as ''princeps''. And she inherits a lot of property as well as a butler.
384* RagsToRoyalty: Butch finds out about two-thirds of the way through his book that he is Wrath's cousin.
385* RapeAsDrama: Treated with remarkable sensitivity in a series otherwise very tongue-in-cheek. Ward showcases almost every form of it, from coercion to physical force, and in every gender combination. In all cases the trauma is taken seriously, and each character responds and copes in their own way.
386* RapeAndRevenge: Happens twice. Zsadist gets revenge on his rapist by killing her and taking her skull, though it was not planned. Xhex gets revenge on her rapist, Lash, by killing him.
387** Wrath puts his wedding to Beth on hold until he can avenge her honor by murdering her would-be rapist, Billy Riddle.
388* RapeAsBackstory Rape / Is The New Dead Parents: And four of the major characters get both!
389* ReallyGetsAround:
390** Rhage uses sex and fighting to keep his Beast under control, and he had a reputation for the number of his conquests and his sexual prowess before meeting Mary.
391--> If sex were food, Rhage would have been morbidly obese.
392** Vishous, who had a carefully curated stable of subs, both vampire and human, and male and female, before meeting Jane.
393** Dr. Robert Bluff, the father of Butch, Manny, and Jo by three different mothers.
394** Qhuinn - like other examples, he stopped screwing everything that moved after he realized he was in love with Blay.
395** Trez, before meeting Selena, as a special sort of "fuck you" to his people because he didn't want anything to do with his ArrangedMarriage.
396** Zypher, of the Band of Bastards, who has a reputation that rivals Rhage's.
397* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Tohr gives this to Wrath in ''Dark Lover'' after Wrath blames Darius' death on Tohr's love for Wellsie.
398-->'''Tohrment''': And you've been dead for hundreds of years. You're just too mean to find a grave and lie down.
399** Lassiter drops a couple of doozies on Tohr in ''Lover Reborn'', and Tohr turn around and hits Autumn with one as well.
400--> '''Lassiter, to Tohr''': You want to know what the problem is? You are the problem. I’m sorry you lost your female. Sorry you’re still suicidal. Sorry that you have nothing to get out of bed for — or get into bed for. I’m sorry that you’ve got a boil on your ass and a toothache and goddamn fucking swimmer’s ear. You are alive. She is not. And your hanging on to the past is putting you both in an In Between. You want the fine print? Well, here it goddamn is. She is fading out—not heading for the Fade. And you are the reason it’s happening. This is why she’s there. And the longer you hold on to her, and your old life, and everything you lost, the less of a chance she has of getting free. You are in charge here, not her, not me — so how about you punch yourself again next time, asshole.
401** Blay also drops the hammer on Qhuinn toward the end of ''Lover At Last.''
402* ReincarnationRomance: Selena is reincarnated as Therese courtesy of Lassiter in one of his first acts as the Scribe Virgin's successor.
403* TheRevolutionWillNotBeVillified: Wrath reaches his limit with the constant politicking of the ''glymera'', especially around his wife Beth, and, with Saxton's help, abolishes the monarchy and establishes a vampire democracy. He is elected unanimously.
404* RoadsideSurgery: Tohr performs an emergency tracheotomy on Wrath in ''Lover Reborn'' after he was shot.
405* {{Sadist}}: Many of the ''lessers''. Lash sticks out.
406* SinkOrSwimMentor:
407** This is basically what the Bloodletter's war camp was writ large.
408** In ''Blood Kiss'', the night the first Black Dagger Brotherhood training program meets, they don't actually throw them straight into combat with ''lessers.'' But they do poison the trainees, submerge them without warning in a swimming pool, and force them into feats of endurance to prove their worthiness to join the program.
409* SourOutsideSadInside: Many of the Brothers come across this way, particularly Zsadist and Vishous.
410* TortureCellar:
411** Zsadist was kept in one of these as a blood slave, to the point where when he woke up chained he immediately knew what his new role in the house would be.
412** The Brothers discover a blood slave being kept in one of these in a ''glymera'' aristocrat's house.

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