Jason is a werewolf and a stripper at Guilty Pleasures (stage name 'Ripley'). We meet him for the first time in The Lunatic Cafe.
Appearance
Straight blond baby-fine hair and blue eyes, often described as the blue skies of a spring morning. Initially mentioned to be almost the same height as Anita, so very short for a man. In the next novel he's exactly Anita's height, and later in the series his height is specified as 5'4".
Age
- "couldn't have been more than twenty" (The Lunatic Cafe and Bloody Bones)
- 22 (Cerulean Sins)
- 23 (Blood Noir)
Trivia
- best friends with Nathaniel
- an occasional lover of Anita
- Gemini
- hometown is near Asheville, North Carolina
History
The Lunatic Cafe
We meet Jason is at the Lunatic Cafe after Anita kills Alfred. The smell of blood and the general excitement draws Jason into the room like a hungry animal. He crawls to Anita and starts nuzzling her stomach, seemingly unaware she has a gun pointed at his head. She isn't certain whether he's going for food or sex, and either way isn't inclined to allow it happen, but can't get him to let go without shooting him. Marcus refuses to help, so she's just about to kill Jason in self-defense when Rafael offers his blood to draw Jason off instead. The last Anita sees of Jason before leaving is him shifting shape.
A few things remind Anita of Jason in the following scenes, but later in the book when she's told that Jason is missing she has forgotten who he is. We learn that Jason is a new werewolf and a pack member, and still has a sponsor, who can't find him. Richard considers Jason responsible enough that he wouldn't risk going out alone on the day of full moon.
Anita follows up on a few different theories on what might have happened to Jason, but the real culprit turns out to be Kaspar Gunderson. He calls Anita, claiming to have found Jason and asking her and Richard to come help since as a swan he can't control a werewolf on a full moon. They and Edward go, but in reality it's a trap to get all of them as targets in Kaspar's private hunting game. Jason has been too stubborn to change for their sport, disappointing the customers, and they threaten to shoot him as a leverage to get the rescue party to comply in turn. Anita gets locked in Jason's cage for food or sex, as either is likely to make him shift. He does his best to control himself even while being taunted, but ends up nuzzling her again. Richard manages to order Jason off her eventually, even after he starts to change, and he manages to pull back to human form and huddle into himself. The captors re-wound Anita's arms as an extra incentive, which brings Jason back to lick at the blood, but he manages to hold off from shifting long enough for Anita to escape the cage. Once he does change he loses all control. Richard stays behind to smuggle Jason out through a tunnel before the police can find either of them.
Bloody Bones
In this novel Jason accompanies Jean-Claude to Branson, Missouri where Anita is investigating a variety of preternatural issues. We learn that Jason has become Jean-Claude's pet and snack, and is there to give him a bit of entourage and to rub into Anita's face what being a werewolf actually means. Jason is sent to hunt down their missing belongings, and Anita reluctantly lets Larry to drive so that Jason doesn't have to rent a truck. They manage to locate everything but Jean-Claude's coffin, and when they get back near dawn Jason looks disturbingly alert in Anita's opinion despite lack of sleep. Jason also doesn't seem disturbed by the brutality, deaths, the hierarchy of strength, or the wardrobe choices that apparently frequent his new existence. He tests his dominance against Anita when the situation arises, but accepts her as dominant to him quickly. As a result Anita won't allow him to bunk with Larry as planned. Jason ends up sharing a bed with Jean-Claude instead, wearing nothing but bikini briefs, and enjoying Anita's embarrassment. Jason only stops making advances to Anita once Jean-Claude witnesses it and degrees her off limits.
On their way to Serephina we learn that Jason knows more about the preternatural politics in the area than Anita does. Once they get there it turns out Jason is self-sacrificing enough to be willing to switch places with two local girls when Serephina's people insist on torturing someone as part of the "festivities". Instead of whipping they make Jason to have sex with Bettina and Pallas while everyone is watching, which he's hesitant about but agrees to, until they start to rot on him during the act. This traumatizes him deeply, and when the fighting starts he rips the two into pieces. Afterwards he has to donate blood to Jean-Claude for a second time that night to save his life, which makes Jason barely able to walk out of the room. Serephina's ghosts unnerve and scare him, but despite being terrified he holds the door for the rest of them when they leave the house.
When they reach Anita's hotel room again Jason desperately wants a shower and isn't happy when Anita and Larry debate the where. He goes with Larry in the end, with Anita's blessing. It's unclear where Jason sleeps, but he wakes up in the early hours of the morning and leaves with Larry to fetch some food high in protein to counter the blood loss.
Later, when Anita are at a mass grave for zombie raising, Serephina confronts Jason and Jean-Claude in Anita's hotel room, attempting to force them to come with her. Jason jumps her at a crucial moment, allowing them to flee. He gets the right side of his face bruised from chin to forehead in the struggle, and the room gets trashed. They reach Anita and Larry in time to deep Serephina's people from taking them either, and further bloodshed is avoided when they promise to come to Serephina under their own volition. We don't see Jason's reaction in discovering that Bettina and Pallas are still alive, so it's possible it doesn't come to him as a surprise that ripping rotting vampires to pieces isn't lethal to them. During the meeting Serephina threatens to give Jason to Bettina and Pallas again, or to keep him in his wolf form until he can't return to his human shape. Jason gets badly hurt in the eventual fight, enough to land him into hospital with broken ribs, a punctured lung, and other internal damage, but his lycanthrope healing takes care of all of it in record time.
The Killing Dance
TODO
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We later learn that what Jason is to Jean-Claude is called being his pomme de sang. The timeline is inconsistent enough to claim that he's been that since before The Lunatic Cafe, but that doesn't match with what we learn in Bloody Bones.
Jason loves to tease Anita or flaunt his being a stripper and/or sexuality. Lately he has been quite pleased to get a blush from Anita after "taking one for the team" because before, he was not on her guy radar for possible sleep partners. He was always just in the background, but in later books the readers learn more about his background and about him. He has an intense fear of rotting vampires or anything similar due to being rotted on by two vampires (Bettina and Pallas) in a sexual context.
In Narcissus in Chains, Jason has cut his hair short "businessman short", and in the more recent novels, Jason has taken on a more complex role as Anita's friend and sometimes "fuck-buddy", showing a surprisingly quick and discerning mind, quick to assuage Anita's fears when she breaks down after having tortured Deputy Thompson in Blue Moon, and to point out how she has been neglecting Nathaniel's sexual needs at the beginning of Incubus Dreams. Hence, Anita has begun to understand and incorporate more S&M into her sexual roles with Nathaniel. Anita comments in following books that in any other scenario being tied up would terrify her but with Nathaniel and the right context it turns her on, which she does not quite seem to understand but is starting to accept.
As Jean Claude states so eloquently, Jason is the only person that can give Anita hard truths and not make her angry. He is one of her closest friends and someone that teaches her that there are different types of love.
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