So we skip merrily over the next several days with pithy lines about how they’ve bought donated blood to keep the vampires happy and birth control pills and also Matthew can smell it when Diana is about to menstruate.  But it’s “different” from regular blood in some undefined way.  Why does it always have to be different?  Either you’ve neutered your vampires into being perfect saints and they ignore blood all the time anyway, or they’re legendary monsters anyway so who cares because they’re already eating people.

I swear, this didn’t become a problem until we started turning vampires into romantic leads, and then it’s like all authors collectively went “Oops.  Uh, I dunno.”

And…more summarizing, more domestic activity, more boring, boring bullshit.  Apparently they’re all just sitting around, doing yoga and playing scrabble.  There’s some nods given to the aunts trying to teach Diana magic, and to Miriam teaching the witches about vampires, but honestly, it takes a backseat to all the happy domestic activity such as making popcorn and snogging in the kitchen.

Ah, yes, let’s get around to talking about this impending war.  Which…honestly, why do they keep calling it a war?  We find out that the Knights of Lazarus only has a couple dozen people in it, instead of hundreds like they used to have, and Matthew wants to raise an army…um, do go against the nine people on the Congregation?  Do they have more?  Do they assume that all of creature-dom is going to side with the Congregation?  And really, how do you fight a war like this?  They have no goals or aims.  There’s nothing really to fight over except Diana’s womb.  Are they going to hole up in the farmhouse there forever and ever?  Are they going to storm the Congregation’s HQ (wherever that is) and take it over?  The only reasons to go to war are for control of territory or people.  Either they want to oust the Congregation or take something they have.  Otherwise, this isn’t a war any more than the ‘war on drugs’ is a war.  It’s matter of changing legal and public opinion, not a matter of staging bloody battles over nothing.

But no, this book is going to carry on as if this is a war-war, complete with marshals and armies and knights without telling us what the fuck they even plan on fighting. 

Matthew put his paper down and glowered. “I’m not going to discuss my strategy with you. Stop interfering and leave Marcus to me.”

That’s right, Miriam, no discussion!  You just have to follow him blindly, unquestioningly, with no explanation.  Marcus gets one, though, because he’s a dude.  And we all know that, in war, you kill people with dicks.  That’s why only boys get to know what’s going on.  Because they have the deadly dicks.

You might have thought it was with swords or guns or arrows.  Nope.  Deadly dicks.  That’s why girls can’t join in.

But he’ll tell Diana.  Well, he’ll tell her some things.

If you want to know about the Knights, I’ll tell you.”

Two hours later my head was spinning with information about the brotherhood. Matthew had sketched out an organizational flowchart on the back of my DNA reports. It was awesome in its complexity—and it didn’t include the military side.

Wait, earlier in the chapter, he only had a few people.  But now he’s got oodles and oodles?  So…um, is anyone ever going to tell us what the Congregation has, since Matthew apparently has tons of people already and still needs an army besides?

You know, I’m happy for the prospect of some bloody fighting in which Matthew might get offed, but in spite of all that, we’ve kind of just been tossed into this war plot without any reasoning behind it.  Miriam said “it’ll be civil war” a few chapters ago, but we’ve seen no signs of large-scale, organized aggression from the other side, just individual aggression.  It seems like a really sudden thing to include in the book, one that’s been shoehorned in rather than a natural progression of the plot.

Diana goes in for a less at witchcraft with her aunts, which apparently is different from magic.  I guess it’s…spells vs the innate powers that Diana has?  It’s not very well explained, but point is, Diana sucks at anything that actually requires effort and learning and not being a super special Mary Sue with insta-powers.

She gets frustrated at having to learn things and put in effort like the rest of us mortal plebes, so she runs off to see Matthew.

The note of command was slight, but it was there. “Let’s find you something to eat. That always makes you more agreeable.”

“Are you managing me?” I asked darkly.

“You’ve just now noticed?” He chuckled.

Now he’s openly mocking the fact that he treats her like a child.

Later, Matthew and Diana go walking in the woods, being a goofy cute couple, when thankfully some plot arrives.  A new vampire that Matthew is afraid of shows up.  This new chick is Juliette, and she immediately presents herself as ‘kooky’ by saying vague statements and then mimicking everything Diana does.  And then there’s just more talking.  I think Juliette is trying to go for that mix of vamp and cloudcuckoolander, which is more or less fine, except Matthew’s all scared of her and she has yet to do anything even remotely threatening.  She just shows up and starts talking about her and Matthew’s past in a slightly weird way.

Ah, there we go, Juliette grabs a hold of Diana by the neck.  Well, it’s something at least.  And then Juliette…kisses her.  To see what all the fuss is about, she says. 

This is getting just weird.  Juliette is clearly supposed to be some broken bird character who just can’t understand love, or some nonsense, but…well, she’s so stock.  And she’s continuing to put a focus on Diana and Matthew’s relationship, rather than moving to anything more interesting, and the whole mess is getting passed off as action.  It’s not.  It’s just a kooky version of more of the same.

Juliette is going to kill Matthew and take Diana to the Congregation, because that’s her orders.  Matthew tries to get in the way, they fight, and Diana spontaneously starts using witchfire.  Except she describes it as shooting a bow that has magically come out of nowhere.  Um…does Diana include archery in her list of uberskills?  Or is that part of the magic, too?  Either way, she shoots fire at Juliette instead of arrows.  So she kills Juliette that way, but then sees that Matthew is hurt, too!

Yay!

Oh, ahem, I mean, oh noes, poor romantic lead.  He’s dying, Diana cries, there are sweeping declarations about how she just can’t live without him and him telling her that she must and, really, you’ve all heard this before.  It’s so cliched and shmultzy.

The only thing that could improve this scene is Matthew actually dying, but we all know that’s not actually going to happen, so instead we have to suffer through this overwrought pile of cheese.

The rest of the group shows up then, and Marcus tells her he can’t stop Matthew from dying, because he’s been too injured.  So Diana flips out and…um, summons the goddess Diana.  *sigh*  And also some old lady that was mentioned as being one of the ghosts in the house, I think she’s one of Diana’s ancestors. 

So…I give up.  I don’t even know anymore.  Greek goddesses are walking around, logic has left the building.  I mean, did goddess-Diana invent witches?  Is she the source of magic?  Are witches Wiccan because…you know what, no, I’m not even going to finish that thought because it hurts too much.

Anyway, the goddess…gives permission?  Or something?  I don’t know, she doesn’t really do anything.  Diana just says “I wanna keep him” and the goddess says “okay, he’s yours.”  Then Diana slices her arm open so Matthew can drink her.  After that revives him enough (how?) he moves to on to drinking from her neck, and that whole scene is done up with such sexual imagery that it’s almost embarrassing to read.

And then…she just sort of sits there, gladly letting him suck her dry, and it ends with sort of the implication that she’s dying.  I think.

Actually, I have no idea how to react to this.  It’s just so…random.  I mean, we don’t know why Diana wanted him to drink her, because there was never any reason for us to think that her blood would have life-saving properties.  She didn’t go into this venture thinking…anything, so we don’t know if she intended to die for him or intended just to lose a little blood for him.  The whole scene was just this weird set of disconnected events that just…happened, and despite all the potential for drama, the writing turned it quite soulless. I’m not even sure I can properly scream about giving up one’s life for a man, because I can’t even tell if that’s what she was trying to do or not.

God, what a mess of a book.