Лорел Гамильтон: Rafael

PRAISE FOR SUCKER PUNCH

“Blake’s twenty-seventh outing (after Serpentine ) is a crafty murder mystery wrapped in plenty of fur and fury. Fans of the series will be pleased to see Anita Blake’s return.”

— Library Journal

“Well written, very descriptive, and a fast-paced read.”

—The Reading Cafe

“Deliciously evocative, compelling, and a well-rounded story!”

—Fresh Fiction

“Laurell K. Hamilton continues to deliver an original, fast-paced, captivating story. It is edgy, twisted, suspenseful, and touches on quite a few emotions.”

—Literati Literature Lovers

“A very nice new novel. . . . I had a great time with this volume!”

—Between Dreams and Reality

PRAISE FOR LAURELL K. HAMILTON AND THE ANITA BLAKE NOVELS

“Hamilton remains one of the most inventive and exciting writers in the paranormal field.”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris

“If you’ve never read this series, I highly recommend/strongly suggest having the Anita Blake experience. Vampires, zombies, and shifters, oh my! And trust me, these are not your daughter’s vampires.”

—Literati Book Reviews

“A sex-positive, kick-ass female protagonist.”

—Starburst

“Number one New York Times bestseller Hamilton is still thrilling fans . . . with her amazing multifaceted characters and intricate multilayered world, a mix of erotic romance, crime drama, and paranormal/fantasy fiction. Her descriptive prose is gritty and raw, with a mosaic of humor and horror to tell this complex, well-detailed story. But it’s her enigmatic stable of stars that continues to shine, managing their improbable interpersonal relationship dynamics.”

— Library Journal

Titles by Laurell K. Hamilton

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Novels

Guilty Pleasures

The Laughing Corpse

Circus of the Damned

The Lunatic Cafe

Bloody Bones

The Killing Dance

Burnt Offerings

Blue Moon

Obsidian Butterfly

Narcissus in Chains

Cerulean Sins

Incubus Dreams

Micah

Danse Macabre

The Harlequin

Blood Noir

Skin Trade

Flirt

Bullet

Hit List

Kiss the Dead

Affliction

Jason

Dead Ice

Crimson Death

Serpentine

Sucker Punch

Rafael

Merry Gentry Novels

A Kiss of Shadows

A Caress of Twilight

Seduced by Moonlight

A Stroke of Midnight

Mistral’s Kiss

A Lick of Frost

Swallowing Darkness

Divine Misdemeanors

A Shiver of Light

Specials

Beauty

Dancing

Wounded

Anthologies

Strange Candy

Fantastic Hope

A JOVE BOOK

Published by Berkley

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

penguinrandomhouse.com

Copyright © 2021 by Laurell K. Hamilton

Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

A JOVE BOOK, BERKLEY, and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

ISBN: 9780593332917

Ebook ISBN: 9780593332924

First Edition: February 2021

Cover art by Shutterstock

Cover design by Jeff Miller/Faceout Studio

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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So many of you told me that you wanted Rafael, Claudia, and all the rest of the wererats to have a book where they were center stage; well, this one’s for you and all the other readers who told me they wanted more stories faster. Write faster, you say! So here’s the next book just in time for the Year of the Rat! As the old year slips away and the Year of the Ox begins, may it be full of hope, happiness, good health, and prosperity for the whole world.

CONTENTS

Cover

Praise for Laurell K. Hamilton

Titles by Laurell K. Hamilton

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Acknowledgments

About the Author

1

I WAS WORKING out in the weight room with Claudia, who was a more serious weightlifter than I would ever be, but she was teaching me how to trust my new supernatural strength. In the movies you become a vampire or a werewolf or whatever, and you just automatically know how it all works. In real life it wasn’t automatic, or at least it wasn’t for me. In all honesty, lifting some of the weights scared me, which meant I couldn’t lift them, because my mind convinced me it was impossible, which was why I’d started spending part of Saturday in the gym with Claudia. She was helping me work through my nerves and had patiently explained that a lot of people had the same issues when they first became shapeshifters. I wasn’t exactly a shapeshifter, but close enough. What were we talking about between lifting heavy objects? Men. You can take the human out of the girl, but you can’t take the girl out of the wererat, or something like that.

“But Rafael is literally tall, dark, and handsome. His house is beautiful, and the pool is so nice I’m beginning to want one. He’s polite, well-spoken, a gentleman.”

“All that is true,” Claudia said.

“So why doesn’t he have more lady friends?”

“Ask him,” she said, and lay down on the weight bench and started to wrap her dark hands around a truly frightening amount of weight. She was six feet, six inches tall and already had enough muscle visible around the sports bra and double shorts that I knew she could lift it. I’d seen her lift that much before, but it still sort of scared me for shoulder press. I’d owned cars that didn’t weigh as much as she was about to lift on the specially reinforced bar. If she were merely human and it fell on her neck, she’d have a crushed larynx and be dead before medical help could arrive. If it landed on her chest, I might be able to call for help before she suffocated from not being able to expand her chest enough to keep breathing, but I couldn’t lift it off her. I could not spot her at these weights. I’d pointed that out to her, and she’d replied with, “This is the weight I’d be doing if you weren’t here.” She had a point, so I let it go.

I thought I lifted respectable weight for being five foot three and female, but trying to lift in the same room with Claudia always made me feel sort of puny; of course, the Hulk might feel kind of puny trying to keep up with her, so I guess I shouldn’t worry about it.

She got the weight clear of the bar. Lowered it slowly and with perfect control. The only sign of strain was the way her muscles corded and the sound of her breath as she did a sharp exhale and pushed the bar upward again. I knew we were doing pyramid sets, so she’d be doing three to five reps on this last weight, but part of me just wanted her to put it back on the rack and be done. It wasn’t that I thought she couldn’t handle reps with it, I just wasn’t sure my nerves could handle watching her do it.