Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,139

with a head full of unruly black hair said, ‘How’s your hand, Marshal?’

I flexed my right hand and nothing hurt. ‘I’m fine.’

He smiled, flashing a dimple to one side of a nice mouth. His eyes were a nice, solid brown, not too dark, not too pale. ‘You’re going to need ice on your face, though.’

It had hurt when Rickman hit me, but it wasn’t until the new detective said something that it started to ache. The fact that it hurt this much with my healing abilities meant Rickman had intended to hurt me badly. I felt less bad about the rib thing.

‘I’m MacAllister, Detective Robert MacAllister; friends call me Bobby.’

I wanted to ask if we were friends, but comments like that were taken as either hostile or flirting, so I took it for what it was. ‘Glad to meet you, Detective, Bobby. I’m Anita.’ I said it on automatic, my attention on the cluster of men I could see through Bush’s and MacAllister’s chests. I felt separate from it all, distant and almost floating. Fuck, I was in shock. How could I be in shock from a puny fight like this?

Dev was at my side. He touched my face, gently, turning so he could see the mark. ‘If you keep ordering us to stay out of the fights, all the other bodyguards are going to make fun of us.’

That made me smile, which was probably his goal. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

Nicky moved up beside us. ‘You did just get out of the hospital.’

I turned to look at him. What I could see of his face through the fall of his hair was set in bored, stoic lines, but I realized that I’d ordered him to stay out of the fight no matter what. Would he have been forced to watch someone hurt me badly, try to kill me, and been helpless to help me, because I’d given him a direct order? I wasn’t sure, and I should have thought of that before I spoke. I felt off my game.

I reached my left hand out to him and he wrapped his bigger hand around mine. I didn’t normally hold hands with my lovers when they were being bodyguards, but it was the best I could do to apologize for making it impossible for him to do his job, maybe, by not thinking my words through. I should have been able to know if what I said had crippled his ability to guard me that much, but I couldn’t seem to think my way through the maze in my head. His hand was warm and real in mine. It helped.

He smiled, and that was enough to make me happy that I held his hand even in front of the cops.

Bush said, ‘Hey, Nicky, does the marshal ever let you guys actually protect her?’

Nicky grinned at him. ‘Every once in a while.’

‘Naw,’ Dev said, ‘she’s usually protecting us.’

Bush looked up at the taller man, as if waiting for the joke, but something in Dev’s face stopped him and made him frown instead. He might have asked if we were kidding, but someone came up behind us who made Bush stand at the cop’s version of attention. MacAllister was suddenly all serious. The other officers cleared out around us as if we were all suddenly contagious. Whoever was behind me was someone in charge. They weren’t in charge of me, but I was in their house, and that meant …

‘Marshal Blake, Detective Rickman, I need to see you both in my office, now.’

With a serious face, MacAllister leaned over and whispered, ‘Called into the captain’s office first time you step inside; fast work.’

‘About par for me,’ I said, and then turned with a professional face, but a hand going up to the blossoming bruise on my cheek. I’d let Rickman hit me so that everyone wouldn’t get all hysterical about Dev and Nicky being wereanimals, because nothing undercuts someone’s accusations like being made to look unprofessional and a bully. It had worked, but a sympathy bruise is a sympathy bruise, and I was going to see if this one could be multipurpose. I was going to milk it, just in case the captain was upset about me breaking one of his detectives.

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Captain Jonas was a large African American man who looked like he’d probably played high school ball, maybe college, but the desk job had started to round out his middle to the point where I wondered if he had to pass the