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"Rhage was a towering male, big, powerful, stronger than all the other warriors. He was also a sex legend in the vampire world, Hollywood beautiful with the drive to rival a barnful of stallions. Females, vampire and human alike, would trample their own young to get at him.

At least until they got a peak at his dark side. When Rhage's beast came out, everyone, the Brothers included, look for shelter and took up praying."

-Wrath[1]

Rhage is a vampire and a member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood in JR Ward's series of the same name. He's mated to Mary Luce and they are the main characters of the second and fourteenth books, Lover Eternal and The Beast, respectively. Together, they adopted an orphaned girl, Bitty.

Biography[]

Rhage was born in the year 1843 to Tohrture and an unnamed vampire female. He transitioned in the year 1868.

In 1898, Rhage joins the Brotherhood, but he was young and arrogant and made many poor decisions. That same year, he killed an owl, sacred to The Scribe Virgin, and begins to realize there are consequences to his actions. She curses him for the death of the bird with The Beast.

Rhage met Mary when she accompanied John Matthew to the training center as an interpreter and chaperone. Against Wrath's orders, he began seeing her and they fell for each other, but Mary was dying of leukemia and tried to push him away so he wouldn't be devastated after her death. Accustomed to having constant sex with random women to control his Beast, Rhage realized that he didn't want anyone other than Mary and refused to let her push him away.

Rhage bargained with the Scribe Virgin for Mary's life, offering to keep the curse of the Beast for the rest of his life if she would save his shellan. Since there must be a balance, there had to be a sacrifice, which the Scribe Virgin had decreed would be Rhage forsaking Mary for the rest of his life and she would never remember him. However, once theScribe Virgin discovered that Mary was sterile from the cancer treatments, she brought Mary and Rhage together since Mary's inability to bear young was sufficient sacrifice.

Personality[]

Outgoing and constantly cracking jokes, Rhage tends to liven any room. He's comfortable in who he is and what he likes and is happy to join Bitty and even Lassiter in whatever they're binge-watching, whether it's Cheer or Real Housewives, no matter how much ribbing his Brothers give him over it.

Before bonding with Mary, Rhage was a player; he'd been known to have eight different women a week in order to calm The Beast within with a release.[2] After mating Mary, he still flirts with females, but there's no intent behind it.[3]

Physical Description[]

He's 6'8" and the heftiest of the Brothers at 280 lbs. Nicknamed Hollywood for his model good looks, Rhage is blonde with brilliant teal-blue eyes. He has high hard cheekbones, a blunt chin, and a deep rich voice[4], even his feet are pretty.[5] A particular part of him is approximately twelve inches, apparently.[6]

He has a living tattoo on his back of a beastly dragon; when it's touched, he can feel that touch on the corresponding part of his body. When the Beast is fighting him for control, his eyes glow white. The Beast has purple and green scales, a black mane, barbed tail, white eyes, and yellow teeth like daggers.

His wardrobe is entirely black because colorful clothes make him "itch," except for a bright teal, green, and sunset peach Hawaiian shirt that Mary gave him as a joke.[7] He wears a gold Rolex Presidential watch and a plain gold wedding band Vishous made; Mary wears a matching one.[3] While at home, he wears flip-flops no matter the season.[8]

Skills[]

Abilities[]

  • Dematerializing
  • Packing away enough food for three normal people.

The Beast[]

The dragon-like entity that resides within Rhage appears on his skin as a living tattoo; when it emerges, it appears as a three-story tall, fire-breathing Steppe dragon.

Since Rhage and the Beast do not share a conscious mind, he cannot speak to the Beast personally, or vice versa. When the Beast is free to romp and stomp, only Mary and Wrath have been known to calm it down. Everyone else gets out of its way and hides, for The Beast is unpredictable and deadly, and almost impossible to stop. It breaks free of the prison of Rhage's control when Rhage's emotions are greatly elevated by stress, fear, or sexual tension and only loses its form and returns to Rhage's control when it's body is either too exhausted to go on, too badly damaged/wounded to stay conscious, or when requested to by either Wrath or Mary; she can speak to the Beast at any time because it knows and loves her.

Afterwards, he's blind, uncoordinated, and suffers from everything/everyone that the Beast ate being crammed into his stomach. Not to mention that lessers are probably hard on the digestive system.

Relationships[]

Bitty[]

Rhage's adopted daughter

Butch[]

One of his best friends

Lassiter[]

Lassiter and Rhage seem to feed off each other's energy and enjoy annoying the Brothers with their antics. Lassiter looks out for Mary, Rhage, and Bitty in Blood Vow when Ruhn arrives. He distracts Bitty by playing with her and healing her bones, comforts Mary as she cries, and reminds Rhage to hold his faith.

Layla[]

After being mated to Mary, Rhage has to now feed from someone else because Mary's human blood won't be enough to provide him with the strength he needs to fight. Knowing that Mary would be uncomfortable with the idea of having him feed alone with another female he chooses someone from the Chosen, Layla. When he feeds, he brings Mary in with him so that she can witness that nothing more is going on.

Mary[]

Against Wrath's orders, he began seeing her and they fell for each other. When the truth came out, he willingly endured a rythe ceremony and fought for her when she tried to push him away to protect him from the pain of losing her to leukemia. In exchange for saving her life, he agreed to make his alter ego of the Beast permanent and was willing to never see her again; however, since Mary's infertile, that was a sufficient sacrifice for the Scribe Virgin. His favorite part of her is her voice because in the dark when they're in bed, he knows he's not alone and he's safe when he hears her.[3]

Vishous[]

One of his best friends (the other is Butch), they have an ongoing practical joke war.[3] Vishous was the one Rhage went to for advice on how to tie him up to prevent the Beast from taking control while making love to Mary for the first time. Without so much as batting an eye, Butch and V chained him thoroughly to his bed and waited out in the corridor as an extra precaution.[2]

The Jackal[]

When Rhage and The Jackal first meet there's familiarity between them that neither can place and are kind to one another. After they discover they are half-brothers, they embrace each other as family.

Trivia[]

  • Rhage owns a purple GTO that he rebuilt himself and likes to work on with Bitty.
  • He faintly snores.[9]
  • His greatest fear is losing Mary.[3]
  • He's a fan of football[3] and horror.[10]
  • When it comes to Doritos, he dislikes Cool Ranch, original flavour only.[11]
  • He thinks that vegetables are "a caloric waste of space."[12]
  • His weapon of choice is his Beast.[3]
  • "Mangia bene," his favorite quote, means "eat well" in Italian.[3]
  • His favorite TV show is Flavor of Love, Rock of Love, or anything on the Food Channel.[3]
    • He also likes The Mary Tyler Moore Show[12], Real Housewives of New Jersey, and Scandal, although he pretends he's not really watching.[13]
  • He usually has tootsie pops on hand; purple's his favorite.
  • He takes his coffee with cream and sugar.[14]
  • One Halloween, he dressed up as Jason Momoa's Aquaman.[15]
  • He writes "Rhage's Popcorn Reviews" for the Caldwell Courier Journal newsletter and has an extensive list of shows of which he's a fan.
  • Member of the Survivors' Club

Appearances[]

References[]

Gallery[]

Rhage-the-black-dagger-brotherhood-31204454-762-1049


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