Laurell Hamilton - Kiss The Dead

I could see the door to the underground now. Tonight it had two of the black-dressed guards on it. Usually there were guards only on the inside in the little room behind the doors, but tonight and for the next little bit we were going to put guards on the door. We were going to beef up our security everywhere, hoping to discourage the crazy.

“Dev is my tiger to call.”

“It’s not that, Anita. Micah is traveling more for the Coalition. Nathaniel takes care of everyone like a 1950s housewife, but he isn’t dominant enough to handle comforting Mephistopheles.”

“So I’m the go-to person for the hand holding, I get that.”

She shook her head hard enough to make her high, tight braid bounce. “We would never call Jean-Claude about this, that’s my point.”

I stopped walking and looked at her. “Okay, just stop being subtle; you’re not good at it, and I’m not good at figuring it out.”

She smiled. “You stand there dressed like one of us, and you don’t get it.”

I glanced down at my clothes and had to smile back. I was in black T-shirt, black jeans, black belt with a blackened belt buckle, and black boots. They had a heel on them, so they were a little more club than guard, but other than that Claudia was right. My holsters and weapons decorated me like every other guard’s. Unless it was business hours, we didn’t try to hide that we were armed.

“I guess I do have a lot of assassin chic in my closet.”

“I know Nathaniel didn’t pick the shirt because it doesn’t show cleavage, and I’d send a guard back to get lower heels on the boots, but other than that you look like one of us.”

“Thanks, I think.”

She grinned, and it transformed her face into something beautiful, happy. She didn’t smile like that enough. “We trust you to understand whatever we bring to you, Anita. We trust you with the decisions about the guns and violence, and this kind of stuff, too.”

“You mean that Dev is crying?”

She nodded, and the grin faded around the edges. “I couldn’t date this many people. It’s hard enough dealing with just one person at a time. I can’t imagine taking care of this many people.”

“Are you dating someone right now?” I asked.

She blushed. I’d never seen Claudia blush.

It was my turn to grin. “Who is it?”

She shook her head. “You go take care of your lover, leave mine to me.”

“Oooh, lover is it, not boyfriend.”

She laughed, and it was the kind of laugh I’d never heard from her. “Go talk to the Devil.” She walked away, still laughing. I watched her go, and wondered how I’d missed it. It had to be serious for her to mention it at all. Claudia in love; who’d have thunk it? Cool.

I went for the door to the underground, and to take care of my Devil. The thought made my shoulders want to slump a little, as if I were trying to carry something heavy, but I straightened up, took a deep breath, tightened my core, and stood as straight as my five foot three could manage with the help of the three-inch heels. It was a lot of work to take care of all the people I was dating, but there was no one I would trade away. Asher might force us to send him away, but I’d miss him, and I hadn’t been his main sweetie for a year like Dev had. He’d wanted to add an extra girl, not lose the man he loved. I sighed, made sure I stayed standing straight, no slumping, and went to take care of my golden tiger to call, my Devil, who was crying over his broken heart. One of the hardest things to learn about being polyamorous was you could be totally heartbroken about relationship B, but still be happy about relationship C, but having C didn’t make losing B less painful. It meant you had another established relationship to help you heal over the lost one, but your heart still broke. I’d had this idea that if you loved more people you wouldn’t get your heart truly broken unless you lost them all, but like so many theories, reality was different. But as realities went, I wouldn’t have traded mine. I hoped I could convince Dev the same.

I COULDN’T SEE Dev when I first pushed the curtains apart, but I felt him like a brush of heat across my face, which meant his emotions were strong enough that he wasn’t shielding well. The golden tigers were masters of control-they’d had to be to hide from the Harlequin for centuries-but now he was leaking through all that practiced control. I followed that hint of energy to find him sitting beside the fireplace, back against the wall, muscular arms hugging his knees to that nice chest, his head bowed over them so that all I could see was the fall of his blond hair with its highlights and lowlights, from nearly white to a deep yellow. The hair was straight and just long enough to spill around his face and hide it completely while he cried. He was inches taller than Nicky, not quite as broad through the shoulders, but he was still a big guy, and yet he’d tucked himself up so tight that he had been completely hidden behind one of the big chairs that bookended the faux stone fireplace. He was wearing a white T-shirt and pale blue jeans, no shoes, so that he was all pale colors to offset the reds and gold of the new living room.

The guards melted away as I crossed the room toward him. It was my problem now. Oh, hell, it had always been my problem. Because of Asher’s jealousy, no one else but me was dating Dev, so it was just him and me. I said a quick prayer for wisdom because I didn’t know what to say, but I’d learned that it’s not really what you say sometimes, it’s that you’re willing to say something, anything, that you’re just there.

I walked over to him and touched the silk of his hair. He took in a ragged breath, loud and painful, and raised his face. I had a moment to see that handsome face tear streaked, his eyes with their amber brown circle around the pupil and the outer edge of rich, pale blue, blinking up at me, and then he grabbed me around the thighs, those strong arms pulling me in against his body, knees opening up so he wrapped as much of himself around me as he could. When he was sitting down, his face still came above my belly button, almost to my sternum. I suddenly felt small.

I stroked his hair and murmured, “It’s all right, Dev. It’s all right.”

He shook his head, rubbing his face against my shirt. He managed to gasp in a breathy voice, thick with tears, “It’s not all right. It can’t be. It won’t be.”

“Asher’s only going away for a month, then he’ll be back.”

He pressed his cheek against my stomach. “I love him, Anita, I really do.”

“That’s great, Dev.”

“I’ve never been in love before.”

I bent over him and hugged him back, because the first time can hurt like hell. “It’s wonderful and awful, isn’t it?” I said.

He turned his head, and I stood back up so we could look at each other. “Yes, because he’s wonderful and awful.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s about right-wonderful and awful is very Asher.”

“If he heard you say that, he’d assume you meant the scars.”

I petted the side of Dev’s face, tracing the edge of his profile. “I’ve offered to try to fix the scars. He won’t let me.”

“He’s afraid.”

“I know, I’d have to cut enough flesh away to make a new wound and see if I can heal it with sexual energy. If it doesn’t work, then we don’t do anything else.”

“I think he’s afraid to be perfect again.”

“Why?” I asked.

He shrugged those big shoulders, arms tightening around my legs, so that my knees had to bend into his chest, so that I would have fallen except he was there to catch me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and shoulders, and his face was suddenly peering at me through my breasts. He snuggled his face so that I could see his whole face framed by my breasts.