I'm reading Nalini Singh's Psy-Changeling Series and this was originally written for a contest she was hosting to celebrate the release of Mine to Posses. (I did not win.)
(Re-posted from my old blogger)
The subject of this contest is our favorite romance hero/es and why we love them. I would have to say that of all the heroes out there my absolute favorites are the tortured alphas. They aren’t always the nicest guys around, but they’ve got their reasons for it. Whether it’s a loveless/abusive upbringing, betrayal or the death of a loved one these guys have had their hearts broken and are going to make sure no one does it again. The world sees them as aloof, cold or even down right heartless beasts and they sometimes go out of their was to prove them right. Then the one meant for them comes into their life and they fall in love ... kicking and screaming the whole way down. Some realize the danger right away and do their best to drive their heroine away, some mistake it for something else and don’t see it coming till it wallops them right upside the head, while others want the love, but don’t know how to go about winning it or keeping it. I know I’m not alone in this because there are several series, many supernatural romance, where all the heroes are tortured in one way or another.
My favorite of these fellows is hard to choose. Off the top of my head, I’d have to say Sebastian, Lord Dain, from Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels. His father was a cold man who cared more for his estate than anything else. After losing his wife and two young children to illness he chose to marry a young Italian lady who’s noble family had money. He found her to passionate for his taste and, after she gave him an heir, he stopped having “relations” with her. This led to a very tense and unhappy home life for our very young hero. It did not help that he took after his mother’s family in both looks and temperament. He was a sensitive young boy who was very aware that he didn’t look like others and that his father was ever disappointed in him. His mother disappears when his is just 8 years old and all his father will tell him is that his mother is Jezebel. He hates his mother for abandoning him and begins to develop his mistrust of the female species. The fact that his mother would abandon him drives it home in his mind that even a mother could feel no love for someone like him. He is promptly hustled off to school where he is picked on and taunted. He fights back and earns the respect of the bullies and is then determined to be the worst of lot. His first experience with a woman , a whore, at the age of 13 teaches him that with enough money people will deny you nothing and sets out to become as rich as humanly possible.
As an adult Dain has achieved everything he's set out to. He's rich, he's feared, and he lives life on his terms. Knowing that his father prizes his family’s title and reputation, Dain has set out to be the biggest blot on the family name that he can be. He spends his time drinking, gambling and whoring, when he’s not collecting antiques and works of art or making loads of money. His one foray into decent society led him into the hands of a gold digger and he then swore off anything to do with women who are not professionals at all cost. He avoids ladies like the plague. He believes himself ugly, evil, and unlovable and has built a shell around himself that is all those things and unapologetic about it.
Through his fall we get to see inside him, which is what draws me most about this type of hero's story line. There is a part of Dain that is still that lonely little boy who's only ever wanted to be loved and shown affection. While he falls in love we get to see him learn to accept that part of himself and learn that he can love and is worthy of being loved. Really, though, my favorite parts are the times where his lady shows him some affection and he is so socked and thrown off balance that he goes into a bit of a tailspin. Those are the moments that touch me most because those are the moments his character seems most realistic to me. Damn, I think I'm going to have to go read it again now!
Others I am partial to off the top of my head are: Zsadist (J.R. Ward’s Lover Awakened), Asterius (P.C. Cast’s Goddess of the Rose), Hades (P.C. Cast’s Goddess of Spring), Connor McCabe (Patti O’Shea’s Through a Crimson Veil), and Zarek (Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dance with the Devil).
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