Anita Blake 22 - Affliction by Laurell K. Hamilton Page B

though with that below-the-waist distance that you learn with relatives. Thanks to the nearly four-hour flight, we knew that Juliet was Uncle Steve’s daughter, and that Cousin Richie had been Steve’s son, but both of them had died in the attack that had turned Micah into a wereleopard. Micah and Richie had both been only eighteen, Richie back from basic and about to ship out to an active-duty post and Micah back from college. They’d come home to have one last deer hunt with their dads, but while they’d been hunting the doe they bagged, something else had been hunting them. Micah’s dad had been called away for a suspicious death or he’d have been on the hunt with them.
    Nathaniel took my hand. I could feel the tension thrumming down his arm. I turned and looked at him. His face looked neutral but it was a nervous neutral. I fought the urge to lower the mental shields that kept us from getting a direct feed into each other’s emotions. We did not need to be drowning in Micah’s emotions right now, and once the shields came down, sometimes it was hard to filter strong emotions from anyone I was connected to. It was going to be hard enough to support Micah through the family reunion without actually feeling the emotions with him. So I moved closer to Nathaniel and whispered, ‘You don’t have to be nervous.’
    ‘Tell me nothing will change between the three of us,’ he whispered back.
    ‘Nothing will change between us,’ I said, and squeezed his hand. I would have done more comforting, but one of the vampires from the black SUVs walked toward us. Would I have said
glided
, once? Maybe, but he didn’t glide, he walked. For graceful movement I had Jean-Claude, Damian, Wicked and Truth, or Requiem, or hell, lots of vampires in St Louis who made the one moving toward us seem rough in comparison. He was dressed in a black suit and white shirt; even the tie was black. It was Jean-Claude’s signature black and white, but somehow it didn’t work as well for this guy. Maybe it was the cut of the suit being less tailored or the fact that it was a standard suit that anyone could have worn. Jean-Claude always made sure his clothes were his very personal style. This vampire, with his short black hair and run-of-the-mill clothes, looked like someone had looked down a cast list and said,
one generic vampire needed
. It was boring compared to what I was used to, but I put a smile on my face. I knew how to smile at clients even when I didn’t want to, and this vampire was from the local Master of the City. I could play nice.
    I glanced at Nathaniel and found him smiling brilliantly at the vampire. He had his charming game face on. Whatever he was feeling, he put it off his face and down where it didn’t show.
    ‘Ms Blake, I presume,’ said the vampire, in a voice as bland and unimpressive as his clothes.
    I fought the urge to say,
Well, I’m not Dr Livingston
, but managed to keep the smart-aleck remark to myself. ‘Yes, and Mr Graison.’
    The vampire looked surprised. ‘I’m sorry, our usual protocols don’t demand that I acknowledge a
pomme de sang
or an animal to call.’
    Pomme de sang
was a term for the person a vampire took blood with regularly, but it was more than that, almost a mistress, though often the relationship was only about sharing blood and not about sex. Nathaniel had started out as that for me, but that had been a few years ago. He was my leopard to call, but … ‘He’s our third; that means he’s more than just food, or a pet.’
    ‘I’m not familiar with the term
third
, Ms Blake.’
    ‘The third part of our couple,’ I said.
    ‘But we are given to understand that there are a great deal more than just three parts to your romantic life, Ms Blake.’
    I wasn’t sure what to say to that, except, ‘Just because I’m not monogamous doesn’t mean those closest to me aren’t important to me. Think of Nathaniel and Micah as my spouses.’
    He gave a little bow from the neck. ‘My