Smolder


 
 
 
 Titles by Laurell K. Hamilton
 Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Novels
 
 Guilty Pleasures
 The Laughing Corpse
 Circus of the Damned
 The Lunatic Cafe
 Bloody Bones
 The Killing Dance
 Burnt Offerings
 Blue Moon
 Obsidian Butterfly
 Narcissus in Chains
 Cerulean Sins
 Incubus Dreams
 Micah
 Danse Macabre
 The Harlequin
 Blood Noir
 Skin Trade
 Flirt
 Bullet
 Hit List
 Kiss the Dead
 Affliction
 Jason
 Dead Ice
 Crimson Death
 Serpentine
 Rafael
 Sucker Punch
 Smolder
 
 Merry Gentry Novels
 
 A Kiss of Shadows
 A Caress of Twilight
 Seduced by Moonlight
 A Stroke of Midnight
 Mistral’s Kiss
 A Lick of Frost
 Swallowing Darkness
 Divine Misdemeanors
 A Shiver of Light
 
 Specials
 
 Beauty
 Dancing
 Wounded
 
 Anthologies
 
 Strange Candy
 Fantastic Hope
 
 Zaniel Havelock Novels
 
 A Terrible Fall of Angels
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 BERKLEY
 An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
 penguinrandomhouse.com
 
 Copyright © 2023 by Laurell K. Hamilton
 Excerpt from Slay copyright © 2023 by Laurell K. Hamilton
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 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Hamilton, Laurell K., author.
 Title: Smolder / Laurell K. Hamilton.
 Description: New York: Berkley, [2023] | Series: Anita Blake, vampire hunter
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022040947 (print) | LCCN 2022040948 (ebook) | ISBN 9781984804495 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781984804518 (ebook)
 Subjects: LCGFT: Novels.
 Classification: LCC PS3558.A443357 S66 2023 (print) | LCC PS3558.A443357 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23/eng/20220831
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022040947
 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022040948
 Cover design by Tim Green / Faceout Studio
 Adapted for ebook by Kelly Brennan
 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 pid_prh_6.0_142855945_c0_r0
 
 
 
 This book is dedicated to everyone who has had the courage to face their personal demons and fight.
 
 
 1
 EDWARD STOOD IN front of the half circle of mirrors getting fitted for the wedding clothes he’d be wearing as best man in my wedding. I’d been his best man/person less than a year ago, so turnabout was fair play. He was even hating the clothes almost as much as I hated the formal-length dress that his bride had forced me to wear at the last moment when I thought I’d get away with a tux like the men. Now it was his turn to think he’d get to wear a tux and find out he was half right. Since I was marrying someone who either designed or helped design most of his own clothes, Jean-Claude had ideas for spicing up the traditional boring clothes that most modern men wore. Normally his fashion sense wouldn’t have bothered Edward, who had a very traditional style, but now as he glared at himself in the mirror he was bothered, very bothered.
 “You have got to be kidding me,” he said. His blue eyes were already starting to turn pale like winter skies, which usually meant he was about to kill something, or that he wanted to kill something.
 Peter, his very grown-up son, and I sat in little chairs that were usually reserved for mothers of the bride, or other members of the female side of the wedding, because men didn’t have to come to the designer wedding couture side—ever. Edward was my bestest friend, but I grinned at him, because I was enjoying the men getting outfitted in something they hated so much more than any normal tux.
 “You look great,” I said, smiling, and that at least was true, unlike me in every bridesmaid dress I’d ever been forced to wear.
 He looked to Peter for a different opinion. “This is ridiculous.” He spread his arms out to his sides so that Peter could get the full effect of the black leather and cloth tailcoat with its high, stiff collar that framed about half of Edward’s head. His blond hair looked brighter yellow than I’d ever seen it, maybe it was the black leather framing it? Or maybe it was his desert tan, which wasn’t tanned by most standards, but it was the most color I’d ever seen on Edward’s skin.
 “Except for the collar, the jacket looks great on you, and the collar isn’t bad, it’s just”—Peter made a waffling motion with his hand—“it’s odd, like it shouldn’t be there, but I really like the leather over the shoulders, and the scalloped leather over the forearm looks like a leather bracer from armor. It’s really cool, Ted.” Peter’s desert tan was a lot darker than Edward’s; technically they were stepson and stepfather, but for them it wasn’t about genetics, it was about love.
 Edward’s glare softened a little and turned back to the mirrors. He took a visible deep breath and let it out slowly as if he were counting to ten. He pulled on the edges of the jacket as if it needed to be settled in place, but it fit him perfectly; the little bump of the tails on the coat actually drew the eyes to his ass, and since we had never ever been anything but friends I didn’t usually notice Edward’s body like that. I’d thought of tailcoats as old-fashioned until I saw the first of our wedding party in them and realized that they actually accentuated everyone’s booty a lot more than modern jackets did.
 “Why do I hate this so much, besides the stand-up collar?” he asked.
 “Maybe it’s just so different from your usual