Page 119 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“The three of us can feel it, Anita, it’s more than just nerves.”

I frowned up at him and in the five-inch heels I was five-eight, only a few inches shorter than him, so I didn’t have to strain my neck. I almost said what most of us say:Aren’t you scared of your family?Most people say it as an offhand remark, a joke almost, but Nicky looked down at me with his one blue eye, and an eye patch where the other eye should have been. I wouldn’t joke with Nicky about scary families because his mom was still in prison for what she’d done to him and his siblings. My family had its problems, and some of them had screwed me up pretty bad, but compared to Nicky’s childhood mine had been a cakewalk onSesame Street.

“I don’t think I’m afraid of my family,” I said, shifting my weight again in the heels; they’d been a mistake, but I looked fabulous in them, and my family made me insecure enough to want to look fabulous. Nicky gave me a look that said plainly he didn’t believe me, but I believed me, so it was okay.

Was I really afraid of my very Catholic family meeting Jean-Claude for the first time? I ran my fingers down the pleats of my skirt. I was regretting it like the heels. The skirt was short, which made my legs look long and beautiful, according to the loves of my life. I wasn’t usually a pleat kind of girl, but it made the skirt swing as I moved, and it was the nicest skirt I had that wasn’t skintight.Somehow skintight and short wasn’t a meet-the-family outfit. So, pleats with a royal-blue silk shell blouse that matched the blue in the plaid of the skirt. The short bolero jacket was black, which matched the rest of the color in the plaid. The jacket didn’t quite hide the badge clipped to my waistband but did hide the gun that was in an inner “pants” holster just behind the badge, and the extra magazine/ammo holders on the other side of the skirt. I had a tailor who reinforced all the waistbands on my girlier clothes, otherwise the skirt would never have held up to this much equipment.

I was even in full makeup, which I almost never wore. I looked like I was ready for a hot date instead of seeing my family for the first time in years. I knew why I had dressed up and thanks to being metaphysically connected to Nicky and other people in my life, they knew, too. I’d been prepared to see my dad and stepmother, Judith, to discuss if he was walking me down the aisle or if they were even coming to my wedding, but I hadn’t expected that my stepsister Andria would be coming with them. She and I were both over thirty. She was a lawyer, and I was what I was; she was even engaged to another lawyer. Of course she’d get engaged if I was engaged. I couldn’t beat Andria at anything that mattered to my family.

Andria was the girly one. The perfect blond, blue-eyed, straight-A student. She was even tall like her mother. I got good grades, but not as good. People told me I was pretty when I cleaned up or wore makeup or dressed nice. She was always dressed up, always perfect. She had a sense of style and what clothes matched and flattered her that only dating Jean-Claude had taught me. Fashion was neither natural nor a strength for me and I found the fact that Jean-Claude didn’t have any comfy clothes disturbing. What kind of person didn’t have any sweats, or lounging jammies? He had pajamas, but they were all silk and he never slept in them. I wasn’t complaining about sleeping in the nude, and silk looked great on him and felt even better next to my skin, but I had old jeans and sweatshirts I’d had since college. I had clothes to do yard work in, or paintsomething. He didn’t. Centuries of being judged constantly by the other vampires so that any sign of weakness was used against him and using his beauty to survive had made him always be on, always aware, like some wandering photographer would come by at any second. To me it would have been a terrible pressure; to Jean-Claude it was normal. Dressing up made him feel better. It had taken me a long time to realize that fashion was part of what made him feel comfortable. Dressing up was his comfy clothes somehow. I knew that now and accepted it, but it would never be my version of comfy. I wanted my clothes to cover me and to serve a purpose. Today’s purpose was to be the beautiful swan instead of the ugly duckling. Sad but true that my family’s opinion of me still mattered that much to me. I’d really hoped I’d grown past the need for their approval since I was almost certainly not going to get it. I was marrying a vampire; to them I might as well be marrying a demon straight out of hell. If they’d ever met a real demon they’d understand the difference, but they hadn’t seen real evil with a capitalE. They lived in ignorant bliss while people like me risked everything to fight against the forces of evil, so they could come here and be self-righteous and tell me I was corrupt and going to hell.

I caught a glimpse through the crowd of people coming our way. Did I recognize that blond head? Was that them? My stomach clenched tight, my pulse racing into my throat so it was hard to breathe. Was Nicky right, was I actually afraid of my family? That was ridiculous, they’d never laid a hand on me in violence, well no one who was coming on this visit. It wasn’t like Nicky’s past, or Nathaniel’s. Nothing that violent or monstrous. The relief when I realized the people were strangers was huge. Damn it, my dad wasn’t that bad.

There was a lull in the passengers going past us, I guess they were between planes or something. Only a handful of people were in line to go through security. Ru had vanished again, though I don’t know how. I didn’t look around for him because like concealed carry, if you mess with undercover people you draw attention to them. Thelong hallway that my family would be coming down sometime soon stretched empty until you got to the bored TSA security person at their small lectern. They were the one who would tell people you’ve crossed the line and can’t go back.

Nicky leaned over me and spoke low for just me as people rushed past to make their planes, “It’s not a game of who had the suckiest childhood, Anita. It’s okay to be afraid and to feel fucking traumatized if that’s how you feel.”

I stared up at him, his face so close to mine. “But I wasn’t traumatized,” I said.

“Your lips say that, but your pulse rate and the sweat on your palms and down your spine say different.”

“Can’t hide anything from a shapeshifter,” I whispered.

He grinned and said, “Therianthrope, or didn’t you get the new vocabulary memo about using a more inclusive term for lycanthropes and other shapeshifters?”

It made me smile like he knew it would. “You don’t give a damn about politically correct vocabulary.”

He smiled down at me, his face so close it filled my vision. “Not a damn bit.”

“You’re always telling me you can’t bodyguard and kiss in public,” I said.

“I think we’re safe unless someone runs into us with a roller bag,” he said, and moved in for a kiss, and I helped him lay his lips against mine. I was wearing bright red lipstick and full-on base makeup, so we had to behave ourselves, because if we smeared it I didn’t have the makeup with me to fix it. Usually I don’t do base, so I just clean off the lipstick and then reapply. No muss, no fuss, but I didn’t have the products or the skill to fix clown makeup lipstick if we got carried away today. It was one of the most careful kisses Nicky and I had ever shared. He pulled back with a line of red down the middle of his lips. Some of the men in my life had coined the phrasethe go-faster stripe. Couldn’t really argue, so I hadn’t.

Nicky smiled and whispered, “Zoom, zoom.”

I giggled, which I almost never did. “You read my thoughts.”

“Part of my job,” he said. He wasn’t wrong. He whispered, “I’m your Bride, you’re supposed to fuck us, throw us at your enemies so we delay them and allow you to escape. You’re not supposed to keep us around this long, and you’re definitely not supposed to fall in love with us.”

“I guess if I’d been a vampire I’d have known the rules,” I said.

“Necromancers, all the vampire powers, none of the downsides,” he said, smiling.

“Not all the powers,” I said, smiling up at him, and somehow we were holding hands while I gazed up at him, far too romantic for public when my face had been plastered all over the place in connection to Jean-Claude. Not long ago the internet rumors had me dumping Jean-Claude and running away with Nicky. It had gotten so bad he’d had to stop being my main bodyguard, but then Deimos attacked and I’d wished for Nicky that night, so screw it, safety first. The public and the press knew we were all polyamorous and in a larger-than-normal poly group, but knowing Jean-Claude and I both had other lovers, some shared, some not, didn’t stop outsiders from defaulting to monogamy rules and trying to apply them to us. One gossip site had posted pictures of Jean-Claude with Angel, one of our shared girlfriends, on his arm for a public event. I’d been serving a warrant of execution in a different state, and the rumor mill had him dumping me for her.

We broke the kiss and turned to see a group of younger women either high school or early college age texting busily on their phones. Shit. They’d post it to social media before I could collect my family from the plane and flee. It wasn’t Deimos I was afraid of finding us but various hate groups or media. The first-ever vampire king of America was getting married to one of the U.S. Marshals with the Preternatural Branch, which meant he was marrying someone who hunted down and executed rogue vampires and shapeshifters, or anyother supernatural citizen that started piling up a body count. But I wasn’t any preternatural marshal, I was the Executioner, I was War. The first was a nickname the vampires had given me back when I still believed sincerely that I would never, ever date a vampire, but the second nickname the other marshals had given me. It was a play on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse; I was War because I had the highest legal kill count of any marshal. If they’d only known that my best man, Marshal Ted Forrester, aka Death, had a much higher count if all his kills were counted, but Edward wouldn’t tell and neither would I. Marshals Bernardo Spotted-Horse and Otto Jeffries were Hunger and Plague respectively. They knew Edward’s background, too, but since they had secrets of their own they weren’t talking either.

Nicky took a Kleenex out of his pocket and started wiping at his mouth to get off the go-faster stripe. “Let’s not confuse your family.”

“They know I’m poly,” I said.

“Knowing it and being able to deal with it aren’t the same thing,” he said.

He had a point, so I let him wipe my lipstick away and reassure me my lipstick still looked perfect. Another big group of people started down the hallway’s slight curve toward the TSA check desk. I caught a glimpse of very blond hair again, but this time when the crowd parted it was my dad. He hadn’t seen me yet. His face was neutral just walking. He was five-eight, still trim, and looked, well... like my father. He was wearing khaki slacks with a blue polo shirt, and some sort of jacket unzipped. Even his wardrobe was the same. He looked like he always did, always had; part of me was relieved and part of me resented it. I don’t know why that last part. We hadn’t seen each other in eight years. He turned his head to speak with someone and I caught a flash of pink. The crowd thinned as people passed us with their bags. My stepmother, Judith, was with him, tall, slender, smiling. It wasn’t unexpected. I’d known she’d be here, but my stomach knotted anyway. What I could see of herbright blond hair was fastened back with a bright pink scarf or headband. The hair was smooth and styled and perfect. Her makeup would be the same. She was wearing a pink designer sweatshirt, I couldn’t see what else, and then I realized she had a pink shadow with her. It was Andria in a matching outfit, with her own straight blond hair tied back with a pink band. They’d done matching outfits a lot when we were younger. Mother-daughter outfits in pastels, which I looked terrible in but made both of them look great. I’d protested the outfits until Judith stopped including me in the mix; I was about eleven. I hadn’t wanted to be excluded since Judith was now the only chance for a mother that I had, I just hadn’t wanted to wear pink.

Nicky moved me behind him automatically as some other passengers almost bumped me. It hadn’t been on purpose, but he was officially my bodyguard, so I let him do his job. The hate groups had gotten worse as the wedding got closer; they didn’t want us to have a happily-ever-after ending, monogamous or otherwise.

My father’s face lit up when he saw me; he looked genuinely happy to see me, which was great, because that hadn’t been a given. It made me smile back and wave. He waved and then they were there with us. He hugged me with enthusiasm, and I did the same, and then his hand found the gun at my belt, and he tensed, unsure where to put his hands, so he pulled away awkwardly. He hadn’t been a fan of his little girl working with the police, let alone becoming one, too dangerous.

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