Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #27) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,230

a gentleman, Dukie,” she said, voice huskier than it needed to be.

He blushed until his cheek was darker than her lipstick. Angel was good.

75

THE MOTEL HAD all the charm of a chain motel, which is to say none, but it was clean. One window in each room looked out on thick green forest with more evergreens reaching up toward the cloud-bedecked blue sky than we ever had in Missouri. The view made the generic room not matter. I could see getting up and going hiking, bird-watching, tracing down the scent of water on the air and finding the closest lake. So many possibilities and I wasn’t going to get to do any of them. Traveling as a marshal meant that it was all about the case. Sometimes the scenery was pretty, even glorious like this, but it didn’t matter. Unless I had to chase a shapeshifter through the forest outside, it might as well have been a big-screen TV set to New Age wilderness music.

“Anita.” Edward’s voice came from behind me, and just by the tone, I knew it wasn’t the first time he’d called my name.

“I’m sorry, Edward. What were you saying?”

I turned from the window to look into the room. It was ridiculous that we were having this discussion at all, as if I would ever really have sex with Olaf. But since he was a shapeshifter and might be able to smell if we were lying, we all had to pretend that we weren’t lying and that there was a snowball’s chance in hell that Olaf and I could date.

Nicky was standing with his back to the wall nearest me so he could see the room and the window. We were five stories up, but I’d seen shapeshifters climb up and down the outsides of buildings higher than that. Edward was sitting on the corner of the queen bed closest to Nicky and me. Angel was sitting on the bed with him, but she had taken off her heels and scooted all the way up on the bed so she could sit with her back to the headboard and the pillows she’d propped up behind her. Olaf was sitting in the corner of the couch that was almost at the foot of the bed. Custer was in the doorway to the connecting room. He was leaning his shoulder against the doorframe almost the way that Angel had cocked her hip at the sheriff’s office. I wondered if he realized that he was echoing her; with Custer, I was never quite sure.

Milligan was leaning near the outer door that led into the hallway. The fact that both of the ex-SEALs had taken up posts by the only two doors hadn’t been accidental. Custer might not have realized that he was doing the guy equivalent of what Angel had done earlier, but he knew why he was in charge of one of the doors. I knew that Olaf was very aware that both of the men were between him and the exits; if he was bothered by their positioning, he didn’t show anything.

Pierette and Ethan were on the other bed. Ethan sat on a corner of the bed, almost mirroring Edward. They both wanted their feet flat on the floor so they were ready to bounce up in case they needed to move quickly and decisively. Pierette sat against the headboard like Angel, but her back was against the bare headboard. The only pillow she was using was the one she was hugging to herself. Where Angel was stretched out and happy on her bed, Pierette was huddled in on herself. I’d seen her in the gym, at martial arts practice, on guard duty, and she never looked like this. It wasn’t her. It was an act for Olaf’s benefit, but she’d played it wrong. Olaf liked women to be afraid of him eventually, but I’d never seen him be attracted to anyone who already seemed so beaten down.

If everyone had run their big plan by me beforehand, I’d have been able to give the women pointers, but it was too late now. It was almost a shame, since Olaf had been willing to like them in that serial killer way when he first laid eyes on them. Now he watched the room, but his gaze didn’t slow down when he ran it over the women.

We had sodas and water that we’d picked up from the shop downstairs, and a coffeemaker that was doing its best to make coffee.