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

WHEN TAKING BODYGUARDS to a police station, you have to make sure that none of them have outstanding warrants. The wererats especially recruited from some rough places. Bram, tall, very dark, and handsome, with the military haircut that he just kept getting redone, waited with the car. He'd been army, rangers, and then a wereleopard had attacked him in some jungle somewhere, and he'd had a medical discharge. The army's loss, our gain.

I purposefully didn't bring anyone that I was dating. I didn't want any more problems with the women at work, or the men for that matter. The multiple gorgeous boyfriends seemed to piss both groups off, just for different reasons. The men got all insecure, and the women got all jealous. So, Godofredo's tall, dark, and very solid muscle stayed at the car with Bram. I took Claudia and Pride in with me.

Claudia was partially to amuse myself. I loved watching the male cops react to such a large, beautiful, and physically imposing woman. It just giggled me, and I was starting to own the things that made me happy, not because it made sense, or was horribly important, but it was just a happy.

Claudia had thrown a black windbreaker over her arsenal, and her arms, so that she didn't frighten the other police too badly. I loved that she was another woman, and she looked as dangerous as she was; I was always too small to scare people just by showing up. Pride stood beside her like a gold shadow to her dark beauty. He was six-one to Mephistopheles' six-three. Pride's hair was short, falling in curls about an inch below his ears. His face was a little more triangular than Dev's, and his eyes were a pale gold that wasn't quite a brown and wasn't dark enough to be wolf or lion amber. I'd asked Pride what he put on his driver's license and he'd said brown, but it was a lie, just like Nathaniel was forced to put blue on his license, because lavender wasn't an option. Standard answers rarely covered the men in my life, or even the ones who worked for me.

Pride was handsome, broad shouldered, athletic, and good enough armed and unarmed that Claudia didn't have a problem with him being her backup. She had no higher praise. But honestly, Pride's two greatest assets for today were that he wasn't my lover, or anyone else's permanent sweetie, and he was gorgeous. I was hoping I could sort of wave him in the direction of Detective Arnet, Millie, and all the women at work, and distract them from my actual boyfriends. Maybe I could even take some pressure off Brice, though honestly my main interest was me. Brice was new, and one of the loves of his life hadn't been threatened by Arnet. She was beginning to spook me, and I wasn't easy to spook.

The only serious downside that Pride had was that he didn't flirt. He could seduce, or date, but he seemed incapable of light flirting. But the other gold tigers that I wasn't sleeping with had other issues; one was a hothead, another was a serious historian and scholar and loved his books more than anything, and the last one was scouting out another vampire kiss where weretigers were the main animal to call of the Master of the City, so Pride was it.

I got up to the two of them, and they fell to either side and slightly back of me. Pride said, "I'm still not happy being your sacrificial lamb for the female wolves at work. Thorn flirts better."

"He's got a temper. I don't want him anywhere near my job."

"Wrath has a very even disposition."

"And he's so deep into his role as historian for the Harlequin that he doesn't remember he's a man, let alone that he likes girls."

"I think he likes his books better than any woman," Claudia said.

Pride and I just nodded, though it made me look at her and ask, "Did you try to date Wrath?"

She blushed, only the second time ever, and both times over me asking about her dating.

"You did," I said.

Pride stumbled in the smooth stride he normally had. "Wrath? Why Wrath?"

And in that moment, I knew that Pride had looked at her and at least thought about it; thought about her as a woman.

"He's not a guard, but he can still handle himself in an emergency. I don't want to date a potential victim, but I don't want to date another bodyguard, or mercenary. They get competitive."

"With you?" I said.

"Yeah."

"I like a woman who can keep up with me," Pride said.

Claudia looked across me at him, and I watched her look at him. "I had you pegged for a competitive bastard," she said.

"I like to be the best, but I don't have to win."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said, and her voice sounded thoughtful.

I had a very alien urge to match-make. I didn't do that, ever, but suddenly it seemed like such fun. If Claudia hadn't hinted that she had a steady lover, I'd have pushed it, but it was too new a thought. I wanted to have more information before I did anything stupid, or helpful. I let it go, as Pride and Claudia both reached for the door at the same time. They glared at each other.

"See," she said.

He gave a small bow and stepped back, letting her hold the door open for me. His handsome face was that arrogant, almost angry, beauty that he wore as his blank cop face. Whatever he was feeling, he didn't want to share.

I went through the door, leaving Claudia looking at him as if she'd never quite seen him before. In the midst of catching bad guys maybe we could have a little romance, and for once, it wouldn't be mine. Cool.