Kiss the Dead (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #21)

SOMEONE WAS STROKING my face, saying softly, "Anita, Anita, wake up, sweetheart."

I cuddled into Micah's hand, and then realized that the body behind me wasn't Nathaniel, too tall, too broad, and all I could feel was Micah's hand, not his whole body pressed to the front of me. It made me blink awake. I saw the living room in the Circus, and remembered sex with Dev, knew it was his arm around my waist, his body pressed against the back of mine.

I raised up enough to realize I'd been lying on a pillow and Dev's arm. He moved in his sleep and made a soft groan.

"How long have we been asleep?" I asked.

"Guards say less than two hours," Micah said.

I looked up at Micah. His hair was loose around his shoulders and he was wearing a pair of jeans, T-shirt untucked, which usually meant he'd dressed in a hurry. He liked his T-shirts tucked in like I did, and he always did something with his hair.

"What's wrong?" I asked, and just like that a spurt of adrenaline washed over me. I was alert, realizing I'd left my weapons in a pile against the far wall, out of reach. Shit, that was careless.

Dev tensed against me and raised that big upper body off the couch, behind me. "My arm is completely asleep; fuck."

"Nothing's wrong," Micah said, "everyone's safe."

I sat up and felt the dried stickiness between our bodies give way. Dev yelled, "Ah, holy shit!"

I froze in midmovement. "What?"

"Condom... glued... to body... and you," he said in a tight, pain-filled voice.

"That's why you clean up afterward," Micah said, but he was laughing.

"Sorry," I said, "I won't move."

"It's okay... damage done. Damn!"

"I didn't move," I said.

"I did."

"I thought you said, damage done."

"You're unglued, but I'm stuck to myself."

Micah was laughing full out now. He stood up and offered me a hand. I took it, but I was already looking at my weapons all the way across the room. Technically we were safe, and there were always bodyguards around, but... guns are useless if they're out of reach.

He pulled my hand so that I was standing in front of him. He wrapped his arms around me, but kept them a little higher on my back than usual. He was still laughing, his face alight with it, those green-gold eyes sparkling. It made me wonder if a natural leopard would look like that if it laughed like a person.

"Everything is okay, Anita, you don't need the guns."

I wrapped my arms around him and looked into his eyes. Flat-footed we were even, eye to eye. "Am I that easy to read?"

"For me," he said, smiling.

Dev got up carefully from the couch. "I'm going to clean up."

"Anita needs to rinse off, but only rinse off, no shower sex."

I looked at him, and Dev said, "I think I lost skin off my bits, so she's safe; ow."

"Zerbrowski called," Micah said.

I tensed all over again. He hugged me tighter and repeated, "They need you at the station, that's all."

"Why? What's happened?" I couldn't relax into his arms this time. Zerbrowski wouldn't have called if there wasn't something wrong.

"They've got a man who claims to be the human servant to a master vampire named Benjamin. He won't speak to anyone but you."

I started to say I didn't know a master vampire by that name, and then the light dawned. Barney the vampire, Barney Wilcox, our first suspect in the abduction of the girl, had said that the leader of their rebel movement was named Benjamin. Barney had said Benjamin was old school and had a human servant. I hadn't believed him, or I'd thought his "leader" was pretending to be that powerful so the others would follow him. I hadn't believed that any vampire powerful enough to have a servant would buy into such modern ideals as vampires being independent of any master, just good little citizens. I'd assumed any master vampire would know better.

"Is he really a human servant?" I asked.

"They can't tell. You know that one of the points of having a human servant is that they can be the vampire's human presence. If he seemed like anything else, he'd be a bad human servant, right?"

I thought about it, then nodded. "Though by that definition I suck as a human servant, since I so don't hit the radar as human."

"You're a special case," he said.

I nodded. "Sure."

"Were you expecting Benjamin or his representative to show up?" he asked.

"No, I thought the other vampire was lying, or being fooled. I'll get dressed and check him out."

"Clean up first, trust me," he said, smiling.

"The police or the would-be human servant aren't wereanimals; they won't be able to smell anything."

He smiled a little wider. "Anita, rinse off, make it fast, but the police are sitting on your visitor. He'll be waiting when you're ready."

"I didn't hear my phone, did I?" I asked.

"Apparently not," he said.

"So Zerbrowski called you to get me."

"It's daylight, he can't call Jean-Claude."

"True."

"What's wrong? You look way too serious. What are you thinking?"

"That the first time Benjamin's name was mentioned it was a trap to kill me, and now his servant just walks into the police station to talk to me; why? Why not try to contact us in the old vampire tradition of meeting under a white flag to negotiate?"

"Maybe he thought he'd stand a better chance of living through it with the police watching you."

I looked at Micah. "Are you saying that he felt safer with the cops than with us?"

"He's human; that means a lawyer, and a trial if he turns himself in, but if he meets you on a hunt you can kill him. He might wonder what you'd do in private with all your shapeshifter guards around you."

"Good point."

"Clean up, get dressed, get armed, and someone will drive you to talk to him."

"I can drive myself."

"You said the first time was a trap to kill you. They know you're on your way, why not ambush you en route?"

I opened my mouth and then closed it. "Okay, I'll take guards, but they can only go so far into the police station; beyond that they just have to sit and twiddle their thumbs."

"Thank you for just saying okay, and not arguing." He smiled and kissed me, then licked his lips.

I frowned. "You tasted Dev on my lips, didn't you?"

His eyes rolled upward, as if he were thinking, and then I realized he was tasting. "Mm-hm," he said.

"You know, if you weren't a wereleopard that would probably bother you."

He shook his head. "It's not being a wereleopard that makes sharing you okay with me, but I probably wouldn't let you know I could taste another man on your lips if I weren't a wereleopard. If I were just human, I'd pretend more."

Once I would have had to ask questions to understand what he meant, but I totally got it now. Sometimes I thought a little bit more "animal" would help a lot of people be more real and honest in their lives.

"I'll rinse off in the showers. I'll be quick."

"Dev will be there; resist temptation."

I frowned at him. "I have bad guys to catch, I won't get distracted."

He raised an eyebrow.

I grinned, and blushed, then rolled my eyes. "Okay, I won't get distracted today."

He smiled, and kissed me again. "That's my girl."

And I was.