Anita Blake - The Harlequin Part 48

Haven stayed in town with his new lions. Joseph, his wife, and his brother all vanished. Most of the pride was offered a chance to join Haven's new pride. Some accepted. Haven and his fellow enforcers seem to be trying to live by my rules. I've managed to keep Haven out of my bed for now. The lioness seems strangely okay with that. Again, part of me wishes I knew why the beasts inside me are suddenly so reasonable, but most of me doesn't want to poke at the miracle too much.

I'm just glad something is getting easier to deal with, instead of harder.

Richard had left the church before I threw up. He never saw me have my moment of conscience, or panic. Whatever. We aren't dating anymore, again. This one may stick, and the thought doesn't upset me, which is why it may stick.

Jake left town. Strangely, some people remember he was a Harlequin, and some don't. He and his master are worried that Marmee Noir will come back and try and use me again. He gave me a pendant made of a metal so soft I can bend the edges. It's carved with symbols I don't know. I'll have my metaphysical therapist, Marianne, look at it when I see her next weekend. Jake has made me promise to wear it al ways. After seeing Marmee Noir's slippers with little pearls, so real in the church, I'll wear the amulet, always. Small price to pay to avoid the Marmee Darling.

I found a priest to hear Malcolm's confession. I think it took like three days, with food breaks, to hear it all, but he had been saving up for centuries.

Remus and Cisco are still dead. Nothing changed that. I could bring them back as zombies, but that wouldn't be bringing them back at all. Remus's last words keep coming back: "I'm sorry." Sorry about what? Sorry he thought he'd failed to protect me? Sorry that he was dying? Sorry in general? I was the one who was sorry. I'd gotten him killed.

Peter calls me sometimes and we share our survivor's guilt. This isn't the first time people died and I lived, but it's the freshest. Peter still wants to grow up and be like his soon-to-be stepdad. If Cisco's death, and almost dying, couldn't cure him of wanting to play mercenary, then I'm not going to be able to talk him out of it.

Talking about things I'm not going to be able to talk people out of... I need to try to meet Nathaniel's needs, all his needs. I discussed with Jean-Claude that Byron had offered to teach me how to dominate Nathaniel. Jean-Claude agreed that I needed a teacher if I was serious about topping our p.u.s.s.ycat. But Jean-Claude suggested a different teacher, one who was most certainly a top and not a bottom. Asher would be more than happy to teach me about BDSM, if I truly wanted to learn. Honestly, I'm not sure I do, but for Nathaniel's sake, I've got to at least try. Don't I? If I try and can't do it, then I've at least tried. If I don't try and we break up, then it's all my fault. I don't want to feel like any of my breakups are my fault anymore. There had to be a point with Richard, early on, where I didn't compromise. Maybe if Richard had agreed to sleep with me when I first asked, there would have been no room for anyone else. Maybe, if... I don't want to look back at Nathaniel and say Maybe, or If only. I'll compromise; I'll bend, though it's not one of my best things. Sometimes it feels like when I bend, that I'll break. Will letting Asher teach me how to make Nathaniel happy break me? I hope not.

A LICK OF FROST

The heat is on once again as America's only native-born faerie princess, Meredith Gentry, returns- and her s.e.xy, suspenseful saga continues-in the brand-new adventure, A Lick of Frost. Leaving behind the faerie court, Merry plunges into her Los Angeles life as a private investigator, only to have faerie intrigue reach out to her yet again. Still, her coterie of handsome bodyguards are close at hand, and her erotically charged efforts to conceive an heir must go on ... or else. When federal charges are levied against her bodyguards, human and faerie justice come into conflict. Between the two worlds lies territory fraught with dangers neither a princess nor a private eye can antic.i.p.ate. At every turn Merry's tangled web of family and politics threatens to bring her face-to-face with a fate much worse than death.

Look for Laurell K. Hamilton's new Meredith Gentry novel, A Lick of Frost, coming October 30, 2007 from Ballantine Books.