Free Anita Blake 22 - Affliction by Laurell K. Hamilton Page A

to.’
    ‘You are a lazy cat,’ I said, smiling.
    ‘But I’m
your
lazy cat,’ he said.
    Juliet said, ‘Is there something I should know about Dev, too?’
    ‘He’s a bodyguard,’ Micah said.
    ‘Are you sure? I’ll run what interference I can about you and Nathaniel, but I can’t help if I don’t know what to protect.’
    ‘Dev isn’t my lover,’ Micah said.
    Dev turned around, his face alight with mischief. The next pool of darkness came and he spoke out of the dimness, ‘Oh, but I so would be if only you would say yes.’ His tone of voice was teasing.
    But Juliet took it seriously, sort of. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus, please don’t tease in front of the family at the hospital.’
    Dev turned to her. ‘I know how to behave. Promise.’
    ‘He does,’ I said. ‘He just doesn’t bother most of the time.’
    ‘Well, please, please, bother this time.’
    ‘I may tease in private with Micah, but I would never do anything to make this ordeal worse.’ He turned a very serious face to Micah. ‘If I haven’t said it out loud, I am sorry about your father.’
    ‘Thank you, Dev,’ Micah said.
    ‘You are a lazy cat, but a good one,’ I said.
    ‘Don’t tell. You’ll ruin my reputation with the other guards.’
    It made us all smile, which may have been part of his purpose. That, and it was Dev. There was more than one reason that his childhood nickname had been Devil and a reason that it was still his name. Of course, when your legal first name is Mephistopheles, almost anything is an improvement.
    Micah leaned in against me so that he could bury his face against the side of my neck. Nathaniel moved his free hand up to stroke along the line of neck that Micah had bared by snuggling into me. Juliet talked to us as she drove. We found out that she and her husband did run a working farm. They had two kids. Most of his generation of cousins were either married or in the military, and a lot of them had kids. Being introduced as the fiancée was going to mean a lot of wedding and kid questions. Peachy. Micah asked questions and replied to her, but mostly we petted him, and felt his tension rise, until we pulled into the hospital parking lot, and I could suddenly taste his pulse on my tongue as if the emotion were mine. I redid my shields between me and my leopard king and prepared to go meet the rest of his family. The only concession we made was that Micah took my other hand. It meant I couldn’t go for my gun if bad guys jumped us, but Dev was with us, and bad guys were the least of our worries tonight. I’d take a nice straight-up firefight to families and hospitals any night.

9
    Juliet pulled into the parking lot with Nicky in the second SUV like a shadow behind hers. ‘See,’ Dev said, ‘you didn’t lose Nicky.’
    ‘No one likes an I-told-you-so,’ she said, and began to drive up and down the lanes looking for a parking spot. She passed a lot of police cars of every flavor in the parking lot. ‘My job just got easier. What’s with all the police?’ Dev asked.
    Juliet pulled into a parking space with a county sheriff car on one side. Nicky had to drive past us. There were no other parking spots as far as the eye could see. ‘One of their own is inside,’ I said. ‘We always come like this.’ I unbuckled my seat belt.
    Dev turned in his seat, belt free, and said, ‘I understand his friends and coworkers, but some of these marked cars are from towns away. There’s even one from Wyoming.’
    ‘Dad’s been the county sheriff for a long time,’ Micah said. ‘He knows a lot of people.’
    But it was Nathaniel who said the truth. ‘There’ll be officers here who don’t know Sheriff Callahan, but once the word goes out that there’s an officer down for any reason, they come to make sure the family has everything they need and that the officer is never alone. They do vigil.’
    Juliet turned in her seat so she could see Nathaniel. ‘How do you know that? Your dad a cop, too?’
    ‘No, but I’ve