Bullet by Laurell K. Hamilton Page A

had said about how all the big boys kissed me. Micah hugged me, and I realized it was the same way I’d hugged Vivian. It made me sit up straighter and even pull away a little.
    “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    “I’m just wondering what Matthew’s learning and how it will affect him later.”
    “But why did you pull away?”
    I took in a deep breath and said, “Because I won’t let myself huddle like Vivian.”
    He smiled and drew me in so he could kiss me on the forehead. “You will never huddle like Vivian, Anita.”
    I hugged him, pulled him close, and wasn’t so sure. I wanted to ask him, did he want children. He’d had a vasectomy years ago so that a very evil shapeshifter couldn’t use him to get the women of their animal group pregnant. The bad guy had liked them pregnant and liked the pain and sorrow of the miscarriages. He had been one of the most twisted people I’d ever met, and I never regretted killing him.
    I couldn’t have Micah’s biological child, but we’d been sharing a bed and a home with Nathaniel for two years. Did they want children? If I’d really been as brave as everyone thought I was, I would have asked, but I didn’t ask, because I didn’t want to know. I was afraid I already knew the answer.

5
    AN HOUR LATER five of us were walking through the big dungeon door at the bottom of the long stairs leading from the upper parts of Circus of the Damned, where there was a permanent carnival midway and circus ring, plus a freak show that held mostly mythological creatures, to the quiet underground that was the lair of the Master of the City of St. Louis. The first time I’d come through that big, scary door, Jean-Claude had only been one of the master’s minions. I’d killed her to save my life and others, but I’d opened the way for Jean-Claude to be the new master. Talk about your unintended consequences.
    We closed and locked the door behind us and were in an open space bordered by huge gauzy curtains that ran from the floor to vanish into the darkness of the ceiling. When I called this the underground I wasn’t joking. It had been carved out of existing caverns under the city, and to add a homey touch the curtains were the walls of the living room.
    Jason and J.J. were hand in hand ahead of us as he parted the curtains, hitting the opening out of long habit. If it was new to you, the “door” was nearly impossible to find the first time. They went through laughing, looking at each other in a way I never thought I’d see Jason look at anyone.
    We came behind them, my hand in Nathaniel’s and my arm through Micah’s. We almost ran into Jason and J.J. just inside the curtains. Something about the way they were standing made me drop the men’s hands and go for my gun. Maybe I was overreacting, but a lot of our enemies are faster than human. You don’t get a second chance to draw your gun against that kind of speed. I used Jason and J.J. to hide my hands as I tried to see around to what had made them stop, and I could see Jason’s tension level go through the roof. I knew rationally that he’d have yelled a warning if it was a gun situation, but a gun was what I had.
    When I could see around them it didn’t make sense. Wicked and Truth were standing with our other black-shirted security guards, but they were all standing in the middle of the room with Jean-Claude and Asher on opposite sides of the group. It looked for the entire world as if the guards were trying to keep the two vampires apart. What the hell?
    I stepped out with the gun pointed at the floor. “What’s going on?” I asked.
    Some of them looked at me, but most of them looked at one of the two master vampires, waiting for them to answer me. I turned to Claudia, the only female guard we had, and the only woman I’d ever known who was over six feet tall. She came toward me, her long black hair in its tight ponytail moving as she stepped to the edge of the group.
    “We thought they were going to