Anita Blake 20 - Hit List (38 page)

Olaf left a note for me again. This one was much shorter than the last one:

“Anita, I will not be your pet cat, so I will stay away from you until I find my way as a lion. I won’t let you do to me what you did to Nick. I still want you, but on my terms.” He didn’t sign it, but then he didn’t need to.

The nurse he flirted with was in surgery when he left, but the doctor with the short brown hair, Dr. Patience, who had liked him and Bernardo so much, she’s gone missing. Edward and I both think that Olaf took her, but we can’t prove it. He still hasn’t done anything illegal in this country. Technically, he’s still a marshal in good standing, and thanks to another marshal who just won a court case worth millions because he caught lycanthropy on the job and was fired because of it, well, Karlton is still a marshal, too. Micah set her up with the local werewolf pack in her home city. He’s also recommended a family counselor who specializes in helping everyone related to the victim make the transition.

Ethan came home with us, one more tiger to add to the rest. I asked my other sweeties about sending Cynric home now that we had another blue tiger, but Jean-Claude doesn’t understand why Cynric’s age bothers me. He feels we made a commitment to him and to the vampires and white tigers of Vegas. Nathaniel thinks Cynric is tied to me too metaphysically to take the separation well. “He’s in love with you, Anita. Don’t send him away.” Micah shares some of my discomfort with Cynric’s age, but what if Jean-Claude and Nathaniel are right? So, for now, our teenager stays.

The Mother of All Darkness is dead, well and truly dead, and I’d never felt power like the rush of drinking her dry. The Harlequin have all either joined us, or gone back to trying to have lives of their own. We’re safe. Which means that two days a week I get to stay at my house and have windows and air and light, and Micah and Nathaniel come with me, and sometimes Jason comes, and sometimes other tigers, but my vampire lovers can’t risk the sunlight. But five days and nights a week I’m with Jean-Claude. We’re still working out how to live together with everyone.

It’s better having a couple of the tigers be female and helping with the men, and some of the newest men being more hetero-flexible, so that I’m not every damn person’s only squeeze. I’ve learned you can fuck this many people, but you can’t take care of this many people’s emotional needs. You can fuck ’em, but you can’t date ’em. Some of the men are happy with being fuck buddies, but most of them want more. People say that women are the romantic sex, but you couldn’t prove it by my life. My boyfriends are all more romantic than I am, and so are my lovers.

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels by Laurell K. Hamilton 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

STRANGE CANDY