Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

‘I’ll go,’ Dev said, and stepped out of the shower on slightly unsteady legs. The water that he’d been blocking suddenly cascaded down on me. I hung my head down so it wouldn’t get in my eyes and mouth. I wanted to ask where Dev was going, but I couldn’t figure out how to say words yet. I was still quivering happily from the orgasm; coherent speech was a few minutes away.

Nicky was still buried as deep as he could be, hands still holding my hips in place, so that even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t have moved. He leaned over me and laid a kiss on my back and said in a voice growling deep, ‘You’d think they’d get used to the fact that you’re a screamer.’

Apparently, Nicky and Dev had heard the other guards pounding on the door. I tried to be embarrassed that they’d all heard me screaming, but Nicky chose that moment to lean over me and growl. The sound of it seemed to vibrate through my body as if as long as he was buried inside me I would resonate with the growling depth of him.

I shivered for him.

He leaned his face close to mine, so that the water splashed over us both. ‘If Dev hadn’t been here I would have set my teeth into your shoulders and marked you as mine, but mustn’t scare the tigers.’ And he growled again with his chest curved over me, his face touching mine. I made a small, helpless noise of happiness, and he laughed so deep a sound that it should have had teeth and claws around it.

I woke blinking into a bar of golden sunlight, made more gold by the blond hair that was spilling across my face. The sunlight was a slit in the curtains. The bed was moving, and I blinked through the hair and sunlight to see Nicky sliding out of the bed. That meant the very warm and softly muscled someone wrapped around the back of me was Dev. I tried to sweep the hair out of my face and realized my arms were pinned by his arm. He snuggled closer, arm flexing as I tried to move. Apparently Dev was a serious snuggler.

I heard deep voices soft and low at the door. I was able to turn my head and see around Dev’s head enough to see Nicky naked at the partially open door, but couldn’t see who he was talking to. Then he opened the door, and Edward walked in, which made me suddenly look down to see how much of me was covered with sheet. It hadn’t seemed that important a minute ago.

Dev had not only my arms pinned, but the sheet trapped at about my waist level between us. At the moment his arm covered some of my breasts, but some is not enough when the person who just walked into the room isn’t a lover. Yes, Edward was one of my best friends, but it wasn’t the same as having a best girlfriend.

I could reach my sheets with my hands pinned, but I couldn’t actually get any more sheet to cover me because it was caught between Dev’s body and mine. Crap! I did the only thing I could: I hid behind Dev and said, ‘Just a minute, Edward.’ I planned on my voice being calm and matter of fact. I failed.

Edward laughed, that rare real laughter for him, and the fact that he did it in front of Nicky meant he approved of him in some way. ‘I’ll turn my back until you cover up.’ His voice was made up mostly of laughter. I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard him sound quite that pleased. It wasn’t just this moment of embarrassment for me, as I poked Dev and made him blink awake so I could grab covers; I thought it was Donna and her working her issues, so that there would be a wedding. Maybe I was being all girly and projecting, but Edward was happy. When we met years ago we were both pretty miserable; I just didn’t know it.

‘I’m moving, I’m moving,’ Dev said, as I pushed at him a little furiously.

Edward was standing with his back to the bed like he’d said, but his shoulders were shaking with laughter. Nicky stood beside him totally nude and totally comfortable, as he watched me struggle to hide my nakedness and drag all the covers off Dev. He didn’t care any more than Nicky did – stupid wereanimals and their lack of modesty, and stupid me still caring this much.

Edward was bent almost double, laughing so hard it sounded like he was having trouble breathing. ‘Glad I could lighten your morning,’ I said, grumpily.

It made Dev grin, and then Nicky chuckled.

I pointed a finger at Dev. ‘Don’t you dare.’

Dev’s mouth quirked as he fought not to laugh. Nicky’s face was alight with suppressed laughter. I fled to the bathroom with the king-size sheet wrapped around me like the most oversized robe in the world, grabbing my overnight bag as I moved, so that I actually tripped over the sheet and fell in the doorway to the bathroom.

‘Motherfucking son of a bitch!’

That was it; both of them laughed out loud. I gathered my sheet and what was left of my dignity and closed the door to the bathroom to the sounds of masculine laughter. I rolled my eyes at myself in the mirror and realized that I had no idea why Edward was in our room. I was betting it was business, which meant crime to solve, bad guys to catch, and a mysterious master vampire to find. That took the smile off my face, but I realized not entirely. Yeah, things were bad, and last night had been brutal, but I could still hear the men laughing to themselves. It was a good sound, and not a bad way to start the day.

Marshal Hatfield sat in Deputy Marshal Chapman’s office on the edge of her chair with the warrant of execution spread on the edge of his desk. She wanted to sign it over to me. There was precedent for it, but for some reason Chapman didn’t want her to do it.

Hatfield gazed up at him with hollow eyes. I wondered if she’d slept at all. Her hair was coming loose in strands as her ponytail sagged at the nape of her neck. She’d looked so crisp and together yesterday; now she looked like she needed a hug. I wondered if she had anyone in her life who could give her one.

‘I don’t understand, sir. It would have been Marshal Blake’s warrant in the first place, if she hadn’t been shot.’

‘The warrant was assigned to you, Hatfield, and we expect you to fulfill it.’

A look of near pain came over her face; lines that hadn’t been there before showed sharp and harsh. I’d have put her under thirty, but in that moment I put her over, but it wasn’t age it was just stress. It’ll mark you up. Sometimes the marks fade and sometimes they don’t. Just as smile lines are the mark of every happiness you’ve ever had, so some lines are the mark of every disappointment carved into your flesh as surely as any scar.

‘Technically, sir, Hatfield is a part of the Preternatural Branch of the service just like we are,’ Edward said.

‘I’m aware of that, Marshal Forrester.’

‘Well then, sir, you are aware that we are not in your direct line of command because you’re regular service and we’re preternatural service.’

Hatfield blinked at Edward, as if she weren’t tracking everything, but she’d heard something that seemed important.

‘Hatfield was in my direct command for several years, Forrester; she knows her duty.’

‘I thought our duty was to execute each warrant in the most efficient way with the least loss of life,’ I said.

Chapman frowned at me. ‘Of course,’ he said.

‘Then Blake should take this warrant,’ Hatfield said. ‘I’ll still work with her and Forrester to complete it, but I’d feel more comfortable with her in charge of the overall investigation.’

‘You have been a law enforcement officer longer than Blake. You have five years more experience than she does,’ Chapman said.

‘I do, and there are men on the force who are ex-military and she’s never been that either, but none of us have her background in dealing with the undead, sir. I believe that my lack of experience in that area led directly to the five deaths yesterday.’