Page 18 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“He’s really good at helping you through things like this,” Peter said.

I thought about it and then nodded. “He really is.”

Asher spread his hands wide. “Then I will take the help, for I have no clue what to do with this new me. I am happy that I am not beset with all those compulsive thoughts, but I am afraid of the silence inside me. I do not know what to do with it.”

“We’ll help you figure that out,” Edward said.

“But you have to control Kane so we can do that,” Peter said.

I had a moment of thinkingShouldn’t the last two sentences have been the other way around, but I saw the surety in Peter’s face and the calmness in Edward’s and realized that they’d be okay with the vampire, and that maybe, just maybe, he’d be okay with them.

The seamstress caught my attention at the door. “Makeup and hair will need at least two hours.”

“Two hours! This is just a date, not the wedding.”

“For the wedding we will need four hours, perhaps more.”

My mouth fell open and I just gawked at her. I wanted to ask if she was joking, but I knew better. The seamstress had no sense of humor that I was aware of; I hoped that the makeup and hair people were better, but I doubted it. I went for the door. She called after me, “Two hours, Ms.Blake, and then you still need to go to the club.”

I yelled, “I’ll be back, and it’s Marshal Blake.”

4

I STEPPED OUT INTOthe soft night air and could breathe a little better. It wasn’t any of the people I left behind bothering me, it was the wedding clothes, my family, the wedding. I had started to associate the stress of the big day with Until Death and Beyond Bridal, so every time I walked out the door I felt better. Of course, conversely, every time I walked in I felt worse. Edward trying on clothes had made it fun again, and seeing Peter be a better adult than some of the immortals I knew, and Asher trying, and Kane getting his ass kicked by Peter. Everything fun was associated with the people, none of it with the bridal shop and clothes. It was my dress that was taking so long because I hated every design they came up with, but Jean-Claude had finally helped me pick one. I was a semi-formal-dress-on-the-beach kind of girl, or maybe a small church wedding with close friends and family that you actually liked, so how was I getting married to someone who thought a wedding started at opulent and went up from there?

“Because you love him,” said a man’s voice from the alley beside the shop.

I turned with a smile. “Hey, Damian.”

He stepped out of the shadows into the pool of the streetlight. He was six feet of Danish Viking glory but to say he was red-haired,green-eyed, and pale didn’t really cover it. He was what happens to a redhead when they can’t be in the sunlight for over a thousand years. Hair the bright red of fresh blood, skin that was truly milk white, paler even than Jean-Claude’s Snow White coloring, or my own pasty whiteness.

We stood there smiling at each other in that way that lovers do. Two women walked past us giggling and snapped a picture of Damian. He was dressed for his job as manager of Danse Macabre, the first supernatural dance club in the country, which meant tonight he was wearing a bolo jacket in black satin with a forest-green shirt under it that gleamed in the light so that I knew it was silk. Dating Jean-Claude had taught me what silk looked like under every kind of lighting. The skintight leather pants tucked into knee-high boots were also very Jean-Claude, but then he owned the club, so it was his taste from the decor to the dress code.

The women asked if they could have a picture with him, and he agreed, smiling. They did selfies with all three of them, then both of the women alone, while Damian smiled and looked amazing, but then that was part of his job.

I stood in the doorway of the bridal shop watching and happy to be ignored in tactical pants, an oversized zippered sweatshirt, and cross-trainers. The sweatshirt hid all my weapons easily, the Springfield EMP at my waist with my badge tucked beside it, and a Sig Sauer P238 on the other side for a cross draw along with two ammo carriers on the other side of my belt. Behind the ammo carriers was a fixed-blade Spyderco. I’d skipped the big knife in its spine sheath that I usually wore so I could slump in all the chairs like a teenage boy, or that was what my stepmother had told me when I did it. I had put on the two wrist sheaths with their matching knives. I’d worn them so many years that the feel of them around my forearms was reassuring. In most dressier women’s clothes, I could never have conceal-carried all of it, or at least not easily. I was beginning to remember why I’d dressed like this for years, besides having nofashion sense. Luckily Jean-Claude had enough fashion sense for both of us.

I was debating on rescuing Damian from his fans, or just waving as I went for my car and the crime scene, when they finally moved on, giggling again. I’d never been the kind of woman who giggled much, and it was usually done in private if it had to be done at all.

I started walking toward Damian but spotted another group of women dressed for the club heading this way. I didn’t have time for him to pose with a group that large, or the two couples just behind them. Damian grabbed my arm and pulled me into the alley out of sight from the sidewalk.

I was laughing by the time he had us tucked back into a well of deeper shadows. It was not a giggle, but the laugh was a little higher than normal. I wrapped my arms around his waist, my fingers caressing the silk and the body underneath as I hugged him. He put his arms higher up my back to avoid my weapons. We ended up pressed against each other as close as we could get.

He smiled down at me. “I really appreciate you carrying your guns farther back so I can hug you without risking injury.”

I snuggled harder against the front of him, so that I could feel that his body wasn’t happy to see me yet. “You haven’t fed yet, or you’d be happier to see me.”

He stroked his fingertips down the side of my face. “I’m always happy to see you,” he said.

“I’ve got a crime scene to go to,” I said.

His grip loosened around me. “Are people in danger?”

“No, the victim is already dead. I’m just giving my expertise.”

He tightened his hug again, smiling. “How much time do you have?”

“Not that much, and in the alley, really?” I laughed again, and this one was definitely not a giggle, but the kind of laugh that makes men turn their heads in bars to locate the woman who made it. Boy, would they be disappointed to see me dressed like this.

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