Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #29)(14)

“I have been grown up for centuries.”

“In age maybe, but you got stuck because you were sick; now you can decide what you’ll be when you grow up for real.”

He stared at Peter, forgetting to keep his hair in place so he gave both eyes and an edge of scars.

“How can you be so wise at such a young age?”

“I’ve had a lot of therapy and I have a great dad, and smart friends,” he said, looking from Edward to me.

“If you stop trying to be the old Asher, we’ll help you figure out who the new Asher is,” Edward said.

“You make it sound simple,” Asher said.

Edward shook his head but stopped midmotion because his head rubbed the stand-up collar. He frowned at the clothes, I think, but said, “It’s not simple. Re-creating yourself after you’ve given up one way of being is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do, but if you pay attention to yourself you can build a life you want, instead of the life that you fell into.”

I had so many questions I wanted to ask, but he’d never answer them in front of this many people, and he probably wouldn’t answer them at all, but more than that I realized he’d opened himself up to Asher. Was it for my sake, for Peter’s, or had Edward seen something in the vampire that made him want to reach out to him? Maybe I’d ask later when we were alone and Edward would give me the look he’d been giving me for ten years, the one that said he knew things I didn’t, and he wasn’t going to share.

“You would help me after I have behaved so badly?”

“Do better from this point on, and before you say it’s as simple as that, I know that changing how you interact with the world is anything but simple.”

“He’s really good at helping you through things like this,” Peter said.

I thought about it and then nodded. “He really is.”

Asher spread his hands wide. “Then I will take the help, for I have no clue what to do with this new me. I am happy that I am not beset with all those compulsive thoughts, but I am afraid of the silence inside me. I do not know what to do with it.”

“We’ll help you figure that out,” Edward said.

“But you have to control Kane so we can do that,” Peter said.

I had a moment of thinking Shouldn’t the last two sentences have been the other way around, but I saw the surety in Peter’s face and the calmness in Edward’s and realized that they’d be okay with the vampire, and that maybe, just maybe, he’d be okay with them.

The seamstress caught my attention at the door. “Makeup and hair will need at least two hours.”

“Two hours! This is just a date, not the wedding.”

“For the wedding we will need four hours, perhaps more.”

My mouth fell open and I just gawked at her. I wanted to ask if she was joking, but I knew better.

The seamstress had no sense of humor that I was aware of; I hoped that the makeup and hair people were better, but I doubted it. I went for the door. She called after me, “Two hours, Ms. Blake, and then you still need to go to the club.”

I yelled, “I’ll be back, and it’s Marshal Blake.”





4

I STEPPED OUT INTO the soft night air and could breathe a little better. It wasn’t any of the people I left behind bothering me, it was the wedding clothes, my family, the wedding. I had started to associate the stress of the big day with Until Death and Beyond Bridal, so every time I walked out the door I felt better. Of course, conversely, every time I walked in I felt worse. Edward trying on clothes had made it fun again, and seeing Peter be a better adult than some of the immortals I knew, and Asher trying, and Kane getting his ass kicked by Peter. Everything fun was associated with the people, none of it with the bridal shop and clothes. It was my dress that was taking so long because I hated every design they came up with, but Jean-Claude had finally helped me pick one. I was a semi-formal-dress-on-the-beach kind of girl, or maybe a small church wedding with close friends and family that you actually liked, so how was I getting married to someone who thought a wedding started at opulent and went up from there?

“Because you love him,” said a man’s voice from the alley beside the shop.

I turned with a smile. “Hey, Damian.”

He stepped out of the shadows into the pool of the streetlight. He was six feet of Danish Viking glory but to say he was red-haired, green-eyed, and pale didn’t really cover it. He was what happens to a redhead when they can’t be in the sunlight for over a thousand years. Hair the bright red of fresh blood, skin that was truly milk white, paler even than Jean-Claude’s Snow White coloring, or my own pasty whiteness.

We stood there smiling at each other in that way that lovers do. Two women walked past us giggling and snapped a picture of Damian. He was dressed for his job as manager of Danse Macabre, the first supernatural dance club in the country, which meant tonight he was wearing a bolo jacket in black satin with a forest-green shirt under it that gleamed in the light so that I knew it was silk. Dating Jean-Claude had taught me what silk looked like under every kind of lighting. The skintight leather pants tucked into knee-high boots were also very Jean-Claude, but then he owned the club, so it was his taste from the decor to the dress code.

The women asked if they could have a picture with him, and he agreed, smiling. They did selfies with all three of them, then both of the women alone, while Damian smiled and looked amazing, but then that was part of his job.