Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,162

took me a moment to realize what he was referring to, which let me know just how tired I was, but when my brain caught up to the comment I blushed. Red, hot, to-my-roots blushed, which I’d almost stopped doing.

Nicky laughed, high and delighted. It was such a happy sound that it made people look at us.

‘I haven’t seen you blush like that in years,’ Edward said.

‘Fuck you both,’ I said, and went for the elevator. I was going to see Micah and Nathaniel and then go to the hotel. I might not be as freaked about it as Dev had been, but I could feel thicker things than blood drying on my skin as I moved. I didn’t even want to know how much, or exactly what, was in my hair.

It occurred to me after I’d pressed the button that we were covered in rotting flesh and fresh blood, and Micah’s dad had an open wound that they were leaving open to the air. We couldn’t go near him.

I hit the earpiece and hoped that he and Nathaniel could come down, or out to us. I needed to see them, touch them, and know they were all right with more than just a voice over the telephone. I felt exhausted and yet, weirdly, wasn’t sure I’d be able to sleep. It was like that after a fight sometimes, exhausted but jazzed.

Nathaniel answered the phone. They could come down and say good night. Yay, so very yay! There, the edge of tears now. I didn’t usually get this emotional this soon after the violence, but sometimes it was as if my mind didn’t know how to cope so it kept trying out different strategies – humor, sarcasm, exhaustion, embarrassment, sadness. Once I’d just been numb, that was how I’d survived, but the problem was that in trying to cope with my job I’d become numb to everything. It had been damn depression, and then Jean-Claude had found me and broken down the walls that I’d so carefully built around myself. The good news was that I’d never been happier. The bad news was that in feeling love, I felt other things, too, and some of them were not so good.

The elevator doors opened and Micah and Nathaniel were there and it was everything I could do to not fall into their arms and start to sob. Two things stopped me. One, I’d have gotten zombie bits all over them and then Micah couldn’t have gone back into his father’s room without a shower. Two, if I threw myself into my boyfriend’s arms and sobbed like a freaking girl I’d never live it down. The other cops would see me as a girl, and I needed them to see me as one of the guys, but as I reached out a hand to each of them, rather than flinging myself on them like I wanted to, I wasn’t sure being one of the ‘guys’ was worth it.

50

The front desk clerk of the very nice hotel took one look at the four of us as we walked through the doors at an hour till dawn and assumed that something was wrong at the hotel. I wanted to see Jean-Claude before dawn, so I didn’t have any patience left for it.

‘We’re just going to our room,’ I said.

He looked us up and down, and his face said clearly he didn’t believe we had a room in his fine establishment. I think the room rate was probably above most cops’ salaries.

It was Edward who touched my shoulder and made me realize I’d taken a step toward the desk clerk. He spoke under his breath. ‘Ease down.’

I tried to swallow past the pulse that was suddenly trying to jump out of my throat. What was wrong with me? I nodded to let him know I’d understood.

It was Dev who smiled and charmed the man, flashing the room card that he had. He’d actually seen the rooms while I was off in the mountains hunting vamps with Nicky and Ares. Thinking his name caused that tightening of the chest, the reaction in the gut that would happen for a while. At least he hadn’t been a lover, and the moment I thought it I felt bad for being relieved that I hadn’t been closer to him, but I was relieved all the same.

We had a suite of rooms, and basically Jean-Claude had taken over a floor of the hotel, which was why we’d invited Edward to