If you thought the family drama around your wedding planning was bad, just wait until you hear what Anita Blake is dealing with. Set to marry the powerful (and sexy!) master vampire Jean-Claude and become a vampire queen, Blake comes undone after a phone call with her father doesn't go to plan. As a Catholic, he doesn't approve of the match and has just let her know that he will be coming to town with the grandmother who abused Blake as a child to meet the fiance — but really, to try to convince Blake to end the engagement.
Peter, the adult son of her bounty hunter/U.S. Marshall friend Edward/Ted, comforts Blake after the call ends. She's been Peter's crush since she saved his life as a child, and he's gone on to become something of a monster hunter himself. —Jessica Rogen
The crying had almost stopped. I was just standing there with my arms around Peter's waist while he held me in place, and I leaned against him. I felt light and airy and quiet inside, like the world after a storm wiped it clean. It didn't feel much like me.
Peter hugged me carefully and said, "I've always wanted to hold you in my arms, but this wasn't how I pictured it."
It made me laugh, just a little. "Didn't meet expectations, huh?" I said, sighing with my head still resting on his chest.
"In some ways, no." He stroked his hand down the back of my hair.
I raised up my head up and away from the touch. It was borderline between comfort and more.
"But in other ways, totally exceeded expectations." He smiled down at me, and it was a good smile full of all the years we'd known each other, all the things we'd been through together, how much we'd both grown, though mine had been more internal instead of gaining 10 inches of height like he had. "Thank you for trusting me," he said, and just like that I knew he understood how much it had cost me to fall apart and how much I had to trust anyone to let them catch me while I did it.
"Thanks for being trustworthy," I said.
"Oh, when a woman calls you trustworthy you're so in the friendzone." He made a dramatic face to go with the comment. It made me laugh and start to push away as the far curtain opened and a vampire and a werehyena came through. Asher, the vampire, was tall with long golden hair that he wore loose to hide half his face. The half that showed looked almost artificial in its beauty. Kane, the werehyena, was tall, dark, and sullenly handsome. The vampire said, "Anita, what's wrong?" The hyena said, "Found another man to fuck, I don't know how you find the time."
I wanted to punch Kane in the face, but I debated whether the comment was enough to justify it, or just my anger with my family talking. Peter beat me to it, moving faster than I'd ever seen him move. One second we were holding each other, the next he was across the room punching Kane in the solar plexus with his right hand, so hard it doubled him over, then bringing his left elbow into the side of Kane's face. Kane tried to stand up, swung at him, and Peter raised his left arm to block the blow just in case, but he was already coming up under Kane's chin with as pretty an undercut as I'd seen in a while. Kane fell over backward, and the fight was over.
"I've never seen you move that fast, Peter," Edward said from behind us in the door of the dressing room.
"Or hit that hard," I said.
Peter was staring at his hands like he couldn't quite believe what he'd just done. Apparently, he hadn't seen himself move like that before either.
Asher looked at his fallen lover and then at Peter and then back to Kane. "I apologize for what Kane said, it was inexcusably rude, but could we begin with verbal insults before resorting to violence next time?"
Milligan was back through the curtains with Craven at his heels. Milligan had his pale hair newly military cut. He kept trying to grow it out since testing positive for lycanthropy had gotten him a medical discharge from the Navy, but he hated it touching his ears. Craven was so newly discharged that his black hair was still in its original high and tight. It seemed weird to have Milligan on duty without his usual partner, Custer, but we'd divided all the more experienced military security among the newer guys who were still transitioning from career military to civilian security. It was a good idea, but I still missed Custer, and Milligan was a lot less chatty and comfortable to be around with the newbie.
Milligan said, "Blake, if you're going to pick fights with shapeshifters I'm going to have to stay on this side of the curtain."
"If Kane's involved it might be for the best," I said.
Craven knelt and checked for the pulse in Kane's neck.
"He's a werehyena, I didn't hit him that hard," Peter said, but his voice held a note of panic.
"He's alive," Asher said, but not with the emotion you'd expect about the news. Kane's cruel streak had started to wear thin on everyone.
"He's got a pulse," Craven said.
I heard Peter let out a breath, his shoulders slumping with relief.
"And that's the other reason we're here," Edward said.
"Can you move like that now, too?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Neither of us has ever moved like that. We're stronger and faster, but not like that."
Peter backed far enough away from Kane so he might have some warning if the werehyena came to and wanted to have a rematch. He backed up until he was standing by Edward. Peter looked pale. "I don't know what happened."
"You cleaned his clock," I said.
"You lost control of your temper," Edward said.
Peter just nodded. "Worse than I have in a long time."
"I taught you to fight, and you've learned more at the dojo, but with those skills comes responsibility and judgment about when to use them and how hard to go at it. Today was not the moment to go this hard, Peter," Edward said.
"I know that, I really do, but he said what he said after Anita had talked to her dad on the phone and it was ... I lost control. I don't have an excuse for it, but I'm sorry."
"You didn't lose control," I said, "that was very controlled, very precise."
"I wanted to hurt him, Anita, that's not OK. I'm too big and too strong, and now it's even worse. I have to control my emotions as much as I do the physical stuff, or someone will get hurt, and I could end up arrested."
"Well, if you hit a human this hard someone could get dead," Craven said.
"I don't want to kill someone by accident," Peter said. He suddenly looked scared, the shadow of the boy I'd first met on his face. I didn't blame him.
"You're here to work out with us, right?" Milligan said.
Peter nodded.
"We'll teach you how to manage your new strength and speed, and how to hide it."
"Yeah, that too, I mean if I moved like that in the dojo they'd all know."
"You were fast, kid, but not as fast as we are," Craven said.
Peter looked at him. "Are you serious?"
Craven smiled that smile that big, athletic men have been smiling since the first one realized he was bigger and stronger than everyone else.
"They are serious," Asher said, "and please remember that when Kane comes to, he will take this as a grave insult."
"Is that a threat?" Edward asked.
"No, it is a warning. As I become healthier and less prone to being what Anita calls a shit stirrer, Kane is getting worse. He's only here today for my fitting because he didn't trust me out of his sight."
"The jealousy issues are that much worse?" I asked.
"I fear so."
"How much worse, since we're supposed to be keeping everyone safe?" Craven asked.
Milligan answered, "You haven't been around Kane much, but he'll probably try and tear the kid up next time he sees him."
Asher lowered his head, putting his hands in front of his face like he might weep or didn't want to see Kane lying on the floor. He shoved his hands back through his hair so it pulled back completely, exposing the scars on the left side of his face. It let me know how upset he was because he would never have done that in front of so many people if he'd been thinking about it.
Peter gasped.
Asher froze and then very slowly moved his hands so his hair would fall back like a dark golden curtain to hide behind again. He spoke with his face still hidden. "If Kane wakes and the young man is still here, he will attack him. He can take such an insult to his honor from Anita and others at the apex of our power structure, but he is too insecure to take it from anyone he perceives as less able." He never moved his head at all while he spoke so that his hair was all we could see of his face. He didn't even show us the unmarked side of his face, which meant all his issues had been hit hard by that one small sound.
"If everyone is okay with it, we'll just send Kane to the medical area at the Circus so he can wake up there," Milligan said.
"Fine with me," I said.
"Yes," Asher said, still unmoving as if he was afraid to give Peter a second look at his face.
I walked over to Asher as Milligan picked Kane up like a sack of potatoes, putting him in a fireman's carry over one of his shoulders.
"What if he has a spinal injury?" Peter asked.
"Kid, if his spine was injured he'd either be dead or it'll heal no matter what," Milligan said, and then he walked out while Craven held the curtain for him.
He hesitated in the doorway and said, "We're not supposed to leave you without someone to watch your back."
"We've got her back," Edward said. I was a little uncomfortable with Peter being part of that we, but he had earned the right to be included.
Milligan yelled back, "If Forrester says he has her, he has her. Now let's get the werehyena to medical before he comes to."
Craven almost saluted, remembered in time, and hurried to catch up with Milligan.
I tried to stand in front of Asher, but he moved just enough so that his hair was between me and seeing any of his face. I hadn't seen him this insecure in maybe ever. Damn it. I reached up to touch his hair, but he moved just out of reach, so I dropped my hand to his arm. Which he let me hold, but he was immobile under my touch like he was trying not to be there.
"Asher, please," I said.
"I'm sorry," Peter said.
"Your reaction was honest, don't be sorry for that," Asher said, but his voice held bitterness that made the words a lie.
"It wasn't for the reason you think."
"Now you will tell me that I don't know my own mind. You do have the arrogance of youth and beauty."
"I'm young, but I'm not beautiful, not compared to you," Peter said.
Asher made a sound that was too bitter to be a laugh, but I didn't have another word for it. He pulled away from my hand, and I didn't fight him over it. I had my own issues to work today. I didn't have enough energy left over to deal with one of Asher's famous fits. He was gorgeous, but eventually beauty and great sex aren't enough.
Peter said, "You're so good at hiding the scars with your hair that I forget they are there."
"Good that you can forget that I am ruined."
"All you let me see is the perfect parts of you physically. Nicky lets me see the scars where he lost his eye now, so it's part of him, but you never seem to treat your scars that way."
"Oh, they are very much a part of me, a part that I can never forget. I have wished often that vampires had no reflections like in movies, because then it would not be a constant reminder of what I have lost."
"If that is how you feel, Asher, then why don't you go back to consult with the plastic surgeon? He was hopeful about helping you," I said.
He just shook his head hard enough that his hair moved but never showed any of his face. Peter was right, Asher had spent centuries using his hair to shield his face. He always seemed to know where every shadow or patch of light would hit him and what it would show. He used all of it to keep his scars hidden. The scars didn't cover that much of his face because he could keep the hair over it while looking at someone with both eyes and most of his face, but it wasn't my face, it wasn't me who had gone from the kind of beauty that would make people gasp in wonder, to scars that made people gasp like Peter had.
I felt Jean-Claude like a distant dream down the metaphysical connection between us. He was being subtle because if Asher sensed his presence then he would say that I didn't want him except through Jean-Claude's eyes. Since I was beginning to agree with that, it was hard to argue. I'd only been in an off-again, on-again relationship with Asher for a few years; Jean-Claude had been trying for centuries. That breath of power asked me in emotions to please try. Jean-Claude could have simply spoken in my mind, but that much power between us and Asher would have sensed it happening.
I reached for his hand. He startled, his hand tensing under my touch. He darted a glance at me, a flash of those ice-blue eyes through the wilderness of his golden hair. "Why would you want to touch me when you have unblemished youth before you?"
I settled my hand more securely in his; Jean-Claude was gone from the part of me where I could feel it because touching made all our powers stronger. If Asher realized that it hadn't been just my idea to hold his hand, then it would have made things worse. "You know that Peter and I aren't an item."
"Only a lover will defend someone's honor so swiftly and so decisively."
"Any suggestions, Ted?" Peter asked.
"You made the mess, you clean it up, that's the rule; besides, this isn't the part of Anita's life that I help out with, and I'm good with the division of labor."
Peter took a few steps toward us and my hand in Asher's kept him from moving away. Peter took the hint, though, and stopped where he was, giving the vampire the space he seemed to need. "Somewhere in all that talking, did you imply that you're jealous of me?" Peter asked, so not what I thought he would lead with.
Asher laughed, and it was so bitter it felt like broken glass in my ears just to hear it.
"No vampire mind tricks," Edward said, "or I will join in, and you don't want that."
"No," Asher said, "I do not. My apologies, for losing control for a moment."
Excerpted from Smolder by Laurell K. Hamilton. Copyright 2023 by Laurell K. Hamilton. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Coming soon: Riverfront Times Daily newsletter. We’ll send you a handful of interesting St. Louis stories every morning. Subscribe now to not miss a thing.
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