Was Wrath wrong? (say that three times fast!)

Dark Lover is the second romance novel I read, after Lover Revealed. As you may recall, it stars Wrath, King of the Vampires, who, when we meet him, has been shirking his monarchial birthright in favor of satisfyingly gruesome fights with the anti-vamp Lessening Society.  Wrath is mated to Marissa, but has never consummated their union.  Fellow Black Dagger Brother Darius asks Wrath to see his half human daughter, 25 year old Beth, though her “transition” — a kind of vamp puberty — since halflings often don’t survive and Wrath’s blood is so ancient and strong. Wrath, who has never met a duty he didn’t want to shirk, declines.

We discover that Wrath has one of my most unfavorite motivations for his self-loathing: a childhood tragedy on which he blames his childhood self. Like so many of Ward’s heroes, he’s clinically depressed (feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt, loss of interest in pleasurable activities, lack of appetite, agitation, irritability, etc.).

When Darius dies, Wrath decides he has to help Beth — who has no idea she’s not 100% human –  though her transition and visits her apartment.

And they have sex.

For her part, if you can put aside the fact that Beth’s lust for Wrath coincides with her belief that he’s not only a killer, but in her apartment, at that moment, to to kill her (Ward throws psychological reality a bone by having Beth refer to this perfect storm of emotions as “extraordinary”), she’s pretty refreshingly unconflicted: she wants this hunk o’ man and wants him now.

But poor Wrath. He has a difficult time of it. At first, he thinks Beth is coming on to him because she’s been second hand smoked into submission: he’s been puffing on the BDB equivalent of weed –  until he remembers that “it’s a relaxant, not an aphrodisiac” (right … because roofies, the “date rape drug”, are benzodiazepines, and benzos are … erm … muscle relaxants.  Sorry. I’ll stop.)

Wrath “knew he should say no” because “this was unfair to her.” Why? Because “he was a selfish bastard to take what she was offering in the haze of smoke.”

Post coitus, Wrath adds a few more reasons: she’s Darius’s daughter, she had been the victim of a sexual assault the night before, and she was about to “have her whole world turned upside down” (the transition, not to mention the small matter of her father being a vampire — and recently bombed into smithereens)

I always felt like Wrath was too hard on himself here.  Or am I just giving him the alpha pass?

Tags: Dark Lover, J. R. Ward