Format: E-book
Read with: Kindle Paperwhite
Length: Novel
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Black Dagger Legacy, #2
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Hero: Axwelle
Heroine: Elise
Sensuality: 4
Date of Publication: December 06, 2016
Started On: August 29, 2018
Finished On: September 02, 2018

Blood Vow by JR Ward is the second book in her Black Dagger Legacy series. As is usual for Black Dagger Brotherhood/Legacy novels, the story is more than the tale of the main protagonists; Elise, blooded daughter of the Princeps Felixe and Axwelle, son of Theirsh (Axe).

Axe is one of the soldier recruits in training with the Brotherhood and it is through them that the opportunity for a high paying bodyguard job comes up. Axe is chosen (he needs the money more than some others do), and falls instantly in lust with Elise, the coveted, protected, and smothered daughter of an aristocrat family.

Axe comes from a lower class family given the Vampire societal hierarchy. Carrying a lot of guilt and anger inside him, his salvation had come from the opportunity to fight and that is what the Brotherhood had offered him. His past is shrouded in abandonment, a father whom he found lacking for all the love and care he had bestowed upon his creations hoping that the wife who had left him would one day come back, and guilt over the way he had abandoned his father when he had needed Axe the most.

Being rich does not provide comfort and love of the kind that makes ones life wholesome. That is a lesson Elise learns day in and day out as her father tries to smother her by being overprotective. The fact that no one in her family wants to talk about the recent murder of her cousin, and everyone wants to bury their grief makes Elise itch to do something about it. Elise realizes that there is a need for trained psychologists who can help their race, and that is what she sneaks out to do every evening when the sun sets; to graduate from university as a certified therapist able to help those who need it the most.

Meeting Axe changes things for Elise as well. She dares take risks she otherwise would never have dreamed of taking, and in doing so finds passion of the kind that moves her in every single way possible. Axe tries to deny himself from tasting the bits and morsels of Elise that is on offer. But it is a battle he loses spectacularly as he gives in to the combustive passion between them, and ultimately finds himself feeling love of the kind that sweeps one off their feet.

Blood Vow also brings to readers the arc that completes Rhage, Mary, and Bitty’s story. I say completes because by the time Blood Vow ends, I believe every aspect of Rhage and Mary’s life that needed resolutions have been covered. But one never knows if something won’t come up in time. It has been a painful journey that Rhage and Mary has taken to reach this point. With Bitty in their lives, it would have seemed like that everything had come full circle. But with Bitty’s uncle from her mother’s side turning up, there is a bit more of the heartache and pain to go through before the happy times arrive once again.

I liked the overall story and enjoyed bits and pieces of it. I did not connect very well with Elise, though she was perfectly sweet and all that is required. But nothing substantial came of her character except her coming clean with her father that she wanted to move out and start out on her own. Her father did not even come to know about Elise and Axe. I would have loved to see that. It would have given the story a much needed closure in that regard. But perhaps, because Elise wanted to strike out on her own and go independent, there did not seem to be much of a point to it.

Rather than the the story of the main protagonists, it often felt like the focus was more on Rhage, Mary, & Bitty. I am not complaining though. But I thought the whole point of going in this direction was to provide readers with fresh characters and their stories, not to delve deeper into, and give closure to all aspects of the main characters that we have come across in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series itself. The scene with Lassiter towards the end was perfect. I laughed so hard, making it a memorable ending.

Recommended for fans of the series, especially those who love Mary and Rhage!

Final Verdict: While the purpose of this series is sort of lost on me, Blood Vow does deliver a story that keeps the pages turning. After all, JR Ward is one hell of a storyteller.

Favorite Quotes

When she was standing in front of him, he purred deep in his throat. “How was dinner,” he asked in a growl. “Did you like it?”
Her lips parted, her breath coming hard. “He was good company.”
“I wasn’t asking about him. How was the steak.”
With that, he reached out and locked his hand on the back of her neck. Pulling her up against him, he arched his hips into her so she felt exactly what he was about.
Elise gasped, her eyes closing as she went limp.

The slicing sound of those two sharp halves coming together over and over again so close to his erection made him nearly orgasm. And then she was right where the action was.
She ran those scissors directly up the length of his erection.
Grabbing on to the blankets, fisting them hard, Axe kicked his head back, gritted his teeth, and groaned, “I’m coming—oh, fuck …”
The release was stronger than any he had been having down at that sex club, the sensations so crisp and clean, they were just like those blades, slicing through his body.

Lapping at the tip of him, she opened wide and tried to keep her teeth out of the way—and she must have succeeded, because although he went stiff all over, there were no yelps. Instead, he arched his spine and worked with her as she found a rhythm: Up and down, sucking him, stroking him on the bottom with her palm. Faster … faster …
“I’m going to come—” He groaned and went rigid—but also tried to push her away.
No, she was going to see this through.
As he barked out a curse, she took all of his orgasm, which seemed to drive him mad with passion, his convulsions and the response in her mouth as erotic an experience as she could ever imagine.

“Turn for me?” Axe said in a tone that was so close to a begging.
Rising up on the balls of her feet, she pivoted around, showing him her backside. That was when she hooked her thumbs into her underwear and took it to the floor, bending her body while keeping her legs locked so she showed him exactly what she knew he wanted to see.
He didn’t have to say a word of approval. His pumping purr and those volcanic eyes told her everything she wanted to know.

Using the small of her back and her hips, she began to ride him, and he helped her, countering her thrusts with those of his own, a momentum getting started. Her breasts swayed and her breath caught and the firelight turned everything into slow motion—or maybe that was her brain.
The oncoming release was like a train inside her body, gathering speed, the pleasure compounding on itself, radiating from her sex. And all the time they kissed and locked eyes and—
Her orgasm came first and unexpectedly, like a rubber band snapping, only there was no sting of pain, just a bursting and a welling and round after round of pleasuring contractions that she wanted to get lost in forever. And then Axe was thrusting up hard, going even deeper, a kicking taking over just as it had in her mouth.

As he moved back for her to join him, she lifted her lips so he could kiss them at the same time she put her hands on him.
And not as in on his shoulders or his biceps, his stomach or even his ass.
Axe arched so hard, he threw his head into the back wall of the shower. “Fuck—”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry—”
“Like I care?”
With a guttural sound, he kissed her, his hips jerking as her grip restrengthened, the sex surging between them, going from a low-level burn to a solar flare in a split second. And he was not gentle with her. Desperation made his hands rough as he yanked her against him, and his mouth was brutal on hers, and his need went out of control.
But dearest Virgin Scribe, she matched his desperation with a starvation of her own.

As Elise looked down past her breasts and her stomach, it was an erotic shock to see the huge male crammed into the bottom of the shower stall, his hot eyes staring up at her, his tongue licking free of her core, flashing pink before he went back in again—
Another orgasm racked her body and she ground down on his mouth, working herself against him.
In response, he came at her with even greater intensity.
He was possessed and possessing her … and the erotic pleasure was almost too much for her to handle, the sensations ricocheting through her body, her brain sizzling, her senses on fire.
She didn’t want him to stop.
And he didn’t.

When he bared his fangs, she knew he was going to go for her jugular, and she wanted him there. Turning her head to the side, she bared herself to him—
The strike was brutal, his fangs going in so deep, she screamed—but not in pain, even though it hurt in a delicious way.
This was the marking she had heard about.
This was the owning of the female by the male, the staking of the claim. And sure enough, he held her in place at the throat with his teeth as he marked her from the inside out by coming into her sex.
But he wasn’t done with her.

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