Paranormal
![J. R. Ward - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B001H6OGQA.jpg)
Forever (2) (Lair of the Wolven, The)
Lydia Susi and Daniel Joseph's story continues in the Lair of the Wolven series from #1 New York Times bestselling author J.R. Ward.
For Lydia Susi, there is no sweet sorrow in saying goodbye to the man she loves. As a wolven hiding among humans, she's used to being alone-until destiny gives her the kind of love she never dared to dream about. But after a sudden devastating diagnosis, grief is the only thing she sees in her future.
As an operative for a clandestine arm of the United States government, Daniel Joseph always expected to die an early death. He just assumed it would be out in the field-not in a laboratory hospital bed. With his time running out, he refuses a potentially lifesaving treatment to focus on making sure that Lydia finds her wolven clan.
Following an attack on the lab's compound, Daniel fears his former boss is coming after the two of them. Marshaling his strength, he must call on all of his training to protect his love…even if it means her moving on without him.
For Lydia Susi, there is no sweet sorrow in saying goodbye to the man she loves. As a wolven hiding among humans, she's used to being alone-until destiny gives her the kind of love she never dared to dream about. But after a sudden devastating diagnosis, grief is the only thing she sees in her future.
As an operative for a clandestine arm of the United States government, Daniel Joseph always expected to die an early death. He just assumed it would be out in the field-not in a laboratory hospital bed. With his time running out, he refuses a potentially lifesaving treatment to focus on making sure that Lydia finds her wolven clan.
Following an attack on the lab's compound, Daniel fears his former boss is coming after the two of them. Marshaling his strength, he must call on all of his training to protect his love…even if it means her moving on without him.
Readers Top Reviews
GigiJaimeIsaacDaphne
This book had me in tears and I could not put it down…sneaking snippets of it in the middle of the night where I’d wake up in the morning with the book in my arms….cantankerously I will wait for the next book, UGH!
amy jo tomlinson
Another amazing book by Jr ward. Only thing that stinks is I’ll have to wait again for book 3. It’ll be worth it jr ward never disappoints me if you are into vampire wolves and tons of action love and togetherness read her books especially this series and of course the main series Black dagger brotherhood
Jeanne E.
Omg. Sooo thrilling and so BDB. Blade is such a fascinating character and Daniel deserves to be alive and functioning! No telling what will happen with them and Lydia but one can only hope that good will prevail and the secret of the androids is revealed in the next book. I cannot wait! One of my top authors of all time! ❤️❤️❤️
Gloria J. Blackwell
When I get a J.R. Ward book, everything is put on the back burner until I'm finished. I received the book Tuesday night and was finished by Thursday night. With too many questions. I assumed Gus was killed. Was he or is he being held captive by the bad guys? Will David take the drug or was it in the I.V. that he had and does not know it? Will anyone find out the secrets that Blade has or will he spin off into his own book? If so, I hope that book is the tell all for him and his race. The biggest question is, when is the next book? It seems like an eternity between books. I'm hoping the next one is a good length. And soon. Impatiently waiting.
Anna-Marie BuchnerGl
Is is just me or did anyone else feel way too many questions left unanswered. Cliffhanger much. Like what's up with Xhex? Why the mountain? Is she going to be alright. Did you notice that Daniel seemed to be rebounding? Did Gus secretly start giving him the Vita? WTH happened to Gus. OMG is he dead? Who was in his house? What Company offered him a job? And Cathy OMG what's going on there? Why did Lydia have to go to the mountain? Was it to come in contact with Blade? (I feel for Blade) he's really not a bad guy just trying to avenge his sister. Then we have Daniel I'm still confused with his sudden spurt of whatever LOL. As for the title Forever, I seriously didn't feel like there was a Forever for any of them. Lots going on in this read and I've noticed that seems to be the theme in all her latter reads. I hope in the next book we might get some answers.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter One ONE
Advance Genetics Lab
Walters, New York
A VOLCANO ERUPTING IN the open jaw of a shark.
As Lydia Susi leaned into the monitor, one half of her brain identified the image for what it was, a PET-CT scan of the chest of a twenty-nine-year-old male with extensive stage small-cell lung cancer. The cross section, which cut the patient's rib cage in horizontal slices, showed the tumors in the right lung, which seemed bigger to her, and two new masses on the left side. Given that this was both positron emission tomography with F-fluorodeoxyglucose in conjunction with computed tomography, the growths were well visualized, but also appearing as hot spots given the highly metabolically active abnormal cells.
It was a very clear and helpful diagnostic picture of a dying man's respiratory landscape, and yet, her Ph.D. in biology aside-as well as forgetting about the last six months of looking at similar images-she was nonetheless struggling to stay connected to what she was looking at and what it all meant: i.e., that the traditional immunotherapy, just like the chemotherapy, hadn't worked.
"Daniel…" she whispered as the doctor beside her cued up the next cut and continued to drone on.
Instead of properly processing any of the information, her brain continued to treat the slideshow as a Rorschach test of avoidance, her thoughts skipping away from the grim news to pull random pictures out of the oblong frame of red-tinted shadows and yellow-and-orange clouds. It wasn't stage four cancer run amok, no, absolutely not. It was a first-generation video game, where you could drop a crudely pixelated soldier onto an alien planet and use the boulders of tumor growth to take cover behind while blocky monsters chunked around and tried to eat you. No, wait, it was a plate in a psychedelic buffet line, with only the baby new potatoes part of the Grateful Dead entrée having been spooned on. How about Jackson Pollock, in his little-known oncology period? Sofa slipcover pattern? Bowl of fruit.
The visual extrapolation that finally stuck was that of a volcano, her mental cracked-up-Krakatoa seated where the spine formed a little triangular notch on the bottom of the chest cavity's slice, the ghostly point of the vertebra seeming to launch an eruption that was tinted with that angry Kool-Aid red and the comic strip yellow and the autumn hearth orange, the whole of it contained within an outline that reminded her of that scene in Jaws, when Chief Brody goes to Quint's to hire the contractor to kill the shark.
All those boiled, open jawbones hanging around, their graceful contours like the shape of the rib cage.
Here's to swimmin' with bowlegged women.
"I beg your pardon?"
Lydia looked over at the white-coated doctor who'd been talking at her. Given that the man was staring over in surprise, she'd clearly shared that little ditty about genu varum out loud-and what do you know. She hadn't properly processed him, either. Trying to remember his name, she failed, and if she had to describe him ten minutes from now, she knew she'd suck at that, too. Then again, he had anonymous looks, his thinning brown hair side parted, his unremarkable eyes myopic behind rimless glasses, his facial features functional rather than attractive. With his surgical scrubs hanging loose on a thin, nonathletic body, it was like his IQ was so high, his brain co-opted all of the available nutrients and calories out of his digestive tract before they ever got a chance to fill him out.
The one thing she did know about him, and that she would never forget, was that he was a brilliant oncologist.
"Sorry," she mumbled. "Please continue."
He pointed to the screen with the tip of his Montblanc pen, the little white star on the top making the rounds of the tumor growth like a fly trying to decide where to land. "As you can see here, the primary site has increased by-"
"Yeah, yeah, she knows that already."
As the booming voice cut through the narrative, Lydia thought, Thank God.
Turning away from the monitor, she clung to the eyes of the man who marched up to them. Augustus St. Claire was unlike every other researcher and clinician. Standing well over six feet tall, with an Afro and a wardrobe that consisted solely of t-shirts from the sixties, he looked like someone who belonged in Jimi Hendrix's band. Instead, he was the leader of this privately financed facility that was exploring medical advances well under the radar of...
Advance Genetics Lab
Walters, New York
A VOLCANO ERUPTING IN the open jaw of a shark.
As Lydia Susi leaned into the monitor, one half of her brain identified the image for what it was, a PET-CT scan of the chest of a twenty-nine-year-old male with extensive stage small-cell lung cancer. The cross section, which cut the patient's rib cage in horizontal slices, showed the tumors in the right lung, which seemed bigger to her, and two new masses on the left side. Given that this was both positron emission tomography with F-fluorodeoxyglucose in conjunction with computed tomography, the growths were well visualized, but also appearing as hot spots given the highly metabolically active abnormal cells.
It was a very clear and helpful diagnostic picture of a dying man's respiratory landscape, and yet, her Ph.D. in biology aside-as well as forgetting about the last six months of looking at similar images-she was nonetheless struggling to stay connected to what she was looking at and what it all meant: i.e., that the traditional immunotherapy, just like the chemotherapy, hadn't worked.
"Daniel…" she whispered as the doctor beside her cued up the next cut and continued to drone on.
Instead of properly processing any of the information, her brain continued to treat the slideshow as a Rorschach test of avoidance, her thoughts skipping away from the grim news to pull random pictures out of the oblong frame of red-tinted shadows and yellow-and-orange clouds. It wasn't stage four cancer run amok, no, absolutely not. It was a first-generation video game, where you could drop a crudely pixelated soldier onto an alien planet and use the boulders of tumor growth to take cover behind while blocky monsters chunked around and tried to eat you. No, wait, it was a plate in a psychedelic buffet line, with only the baby new potatoes part of the Grateful Dead entrée having been spooned on. How about Jackson Pollock, in his little-known oncology period? Sofa slipcover pattern? Bowl of fruit.
The visual extrapolation that finally stuck was that of a volcano, her mental cracked-up-Krakatoa seated where the spine formed a little triangular notch on the bottom of the chest cavity's slice, the ghostly point of the vertebra seeming to launch an eruption that was tinted with that angry Kool-Aid red and the comic strip yellow and the autumn hearth orange, the whole of it contained within an outline that reminded her of that scene in Jaws, when Chief Brody goes to Quint's to hire the contractor to kill the shark.
All those boiled, open jawbones hanging around, their graceful contours like the shape of the rib cage.
Here's to swimmin' with bowlegged women.
"I beg your pardon?"
Lydia looked over at the white-coated doctor who'd been talking at her. Given that the man was staring over in surprise, she'd clearly shared that little ditty about genu varum out loud-and what do you know. She hadn't properly processed him, either. Trying to remember his name, she failed, and if she had to describe him ten minutes from now, she knew she'd suck at that, too. Then again, he had anonymous looks, his thinning brown hair side parted, his unremarkable eyes myopic behind rimless glasses, his facial features functional rather than attractive. With his surgical scrubs hanging loose on a thin, nonathletic body, it was like his IQ was so high, his brain co-opted all of the available nutrients and calories out of his digestive tract before they ever got a chance to fill him out.
The one thing she did know about him, and that she would never forget, was that he was a brilliant oncologist.
"Sorry," she mumbled. "Please continue."
He pointed to the screen with the tip of his Montblanc pen, the little white star on the top making the rounds of the tumor growth like a fly trying to decide where to land. "As you can see here, the primary site has increased by-"
"Yeah, yeah, she knows that already."
As the booming voice cut through the narrative, Lydia thought, Thank God.
Turning away from the monitor, she clung to the eyes of the man who marched up to them. Augustus St. Claire was unlike every other researcher and clinician. Standing well over six feet tall, with an Afro and a wardrobe that consisted solely of t-shirts from the sixties, he looked like someone who belonged in Jimi Hendrix's band. Instead, he was the leader of this privately financed facility that was exploring medical advances well under the radar of...
