Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #29)(117)

Damn it, I shouldn’t have brought Nicky today. He leaned over and whispered into my hair, “I’m supposed to keep you safe, I needed to be here.”

I smiled up at him, then heard my name called in a happier tone, “Anita!”

I looked past my family to find a very tall, young blond man that it took me a second to realize was my baby brother. He was in college now and a foot taller than the last time I’d seen him. “Josh!” I said, and went to greet him through the crowd, leaving Nicky behind with the others. He wouldn’t hurt them in front of this many witnesses. They couldn’t hurt him emotionally because his emotions didn’t work that way. Everyone was safe, or so I thought as Josh bent down so we could hug.

Then a voice with a thick accent said, “Anita Katerine, God has sent us to save your immortal soul from damnation.”

Josh stiffened and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

I turned from him to see an elderly woman who was even shorter than me walking up behind us. I said the only thing I could say. “Hi, Grandma.”





About the Author

Laurell K. Hamilton is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series and the Merry Gentry, Fey Detective series. A Terrible Fall of Angels, the first book in an exciting new series, features Detective Zaniel Havelock in a world where angels and demons walk among us.

With more than forty novels published, Laurell continues to create groundbreaking fiction inspired by her lifelong love of monster movies, ghost stories, mythology, folklore, and things that go bump in the night. Her love of the macabre, books in general, animals, and nature led her to degrees in English and biology. She is a nonpracticing biologist but uses her science background to add an extra level of realism to her fiction.

She currently lives in St. Louis with her family, two spoiled Japanese chins, a house panther, and a house lion. In her free time, Laurell trains in Filipino martial arts with a specialization in blade work, and travels to scuba dive and bird-watch as often as she can.