Return to the seductive—and dangerous—world of J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood as the fever rises in the war between the vampires and slayers… John Matthew has come a long way since he was found living among humans, his vampire nature unknown to himself and to those around him. After he was taken in by the Brotherhood, no one could guess what his true history was—or his true identity. Indeed, the fallen Brother Darius has returned, but with a different face and a very different destiny. As a vicious personal vendetta takes John into the heart of the war, he will need to call up on both who he is now and who he once was in order to face off against evil incarnate...and rescue his one true love.   Praise for the Novels of the Black Dagger Brotherhood   “Delicious, erotic, and thrilling.”— New York Times bestselling author Nicole Jordan   “Dark fantasy lovers, you just got served.”— New York Times bestselling author Lynn Viehl   “To die for. I love this series!”— New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Brockmann “J. R. Ward’s urban fantasy romance series is so popular I don’t think there’s a reader today who hasn’t at least heard of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.”— USA Today   “Hold on tight for an intriguing, adrenaline-pumping ride.”— Booklist J. R. Ward  is the author of more than thirty novels, including those in her #1  New York Times  bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood series. She is also the author of the Black Dagger Legacy series and the Bourbon Kings series. There are more than fifteen million copies of her novels in print worldwide, and they have been published in twenty-six different countries around the world. She lives in the South with her family. Chapter One Another fucking butterfly. As R.I.P. looked at what was coming through the door of his tat shop, he knew he going to end up doing another fucking butterfly. Or two. Given the pair of long, blond and bubbly that were jiggling their giggly way up to his receptionist, he was not going to be marking any skull and bones shit. These Paris Hiltons and their we’re—so—bad excitement had him looking at the clock… and wishing he closed now, instead of one a.m. Man... the shit he did for money. Most of the time he could be all yeah, whatever about the lightweights who came in to get marked up, but tonight the bright ideas of cutie pies annoyed him. Hard to get enthused about the Miss Kitty set when he’d just spent three hours doing a memorial portrait for a biker who’d lost his best friend on the road. One was real life; the other a cartoon. Mar, his receptionist, came over to him. “You got time to do a quickie?” Her pierced eyebrows went up as her eyes rolled. “Shouldn’t take long.” “Yeah.” He nodded to his padded chair. “Get the first one over here.” “They want to be done together.” Of course they did. “Fine. Get the rolling stool from the back.” As Mar disappeared behind a curtain, the two by the cash register held each others’ hands and twittered together. From time to time, both of them shot him wide looks, like with all his tats and his metal, he was an exotic tiger they’d come to admire at a zoo... and totally approved of. Uh-huh. Right. He would cut his own balls off before he threw them as much as a pity fuck. After Mar took their money, she brought them over and introduced them as Keri and Sarah. Which was more than he’d expected. He’d been bracing himself for Tiffany and Brittney. “I want a rainbow carp,” Keri said as she got into his chair with what she clearly intended to be an enticing arch. “Right here.” She pulled up her tight little shirt, undid the zipper on her jeans and pushed down the top of her pink thong. Her belly button had a hoop with a pink rhinestone heart dangling off of it and it was clear she into electrolysis. “Fine,” R.I.P. said. “How big.” Keri the Seductress seemed to deflate a little— as if her no doubt one hundred percent success rate with college football players had led her to assume he would pant all over the real estate she was showing him. “Um... not too big. My parents would kill me if they knew I was doing this... so it can’t show over a bikini bottom.” Of course not. “Two inches?” He held up his tatted hand and gave her a sense of dimension. “Maybe... a little smaller.” With a black pen, he made a sketch on her, and after she asked him to stay on the inside of the lines, he snapped on his black gloves, got out a fresh needle, and tuned up his gun. It took Keri about a second and a half to sport tears and hang onto Sarah’s hand as if she were giving birth without an epidural. And that was the difference, wasn’t it. There was a huge divide between the hardcore and the wannabe. Butterflies and carps and pretty little hearts were not— The shop’s door opened wide… and R.I.P. sat up a little straighter on his rolling stool. The three men who walked in were not in military uniforms, but they were definitely not civilians. Dressed in black leather from their jackets to their pants to th