Hero Moment of the Week: Zsadist — J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood.

Tomorrow is going to be a crammed day on the blog, so I’m doing the Hero Moment of the Week today.

I know that Zsadist gets his own book further into the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, but I’ve only read about 80% of the first book, Dark Lover, and won’t be reading further.

However, I do want to highlight a moment in the first book that really stood out for me.  The moment when Beth, the heroine of the first book, finds herself in a pantry, and comes face to face with Zsadist.

~ spoiler alert ~

Beth has been warned to never be alone with Zsadist, even though he’s nominally a good guy (good vampire), and if she does find herself alone with him, to get herself the hell away from him at top speed.  Quite apart from the warning, Zsadist is not the prettiest vampire in the world.  With peircings, tattoos and scars, he looks exactly like what he is:  A creature who has seen more than one battle, and just barely lived to tell the tale, and only then with some psychological scarring to go along with it.  You could say he’s functioning adequately, but only on his good days.

The first time he ever meets her, within ten seconds he’s ripping his clothes off, ready to take her sexually whether she’s willing or not…he’ll talk her into it, no problems.

Yep, he’s one scary dude.

The fact that he gets his own book as a romantic hero, that millions of women have sighed over, is amazing.

But there’s a tiny glimpse of humanity about Zsadist late in the first book.  When Beth gets trapped in the pantry with him, she shrinks back, terrified.  Why not — wouldn’t you?

“Christ, I know I’m ugly,” he snapped. “But don’t fear me. I’m not a total savage.”

And he grabs something blindly off the shelf and leaves.

Regardless of the rest of the book, that moment resonated for me.

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