His frown was less dark and more confused. "What's new for you? Dancing?" And so much more, but all I said was, "Yes." "And you let some strange college boy grind all over you for your first time? That's stupid, Ali." Not going to be embarrassed, not going to be embarrassed. "First, he wasn't grinding on me, and second, you're no better than him." A solid minute of silence, then "You are terrible for my ego, you know that?" I could say the same to him.

Everyone at school seems to go by a nickname. Kat, Frosty, Bronx, Boo Bear, Jelly Bean, Freckles.

I looked around, counting the competition. Sixteen. To win, all I had to do was incapacitate each one, place my hand over their hearts and turn my palm into a flame. Easy. Yeah right.

What's that smell?" I froze. What? Did I really smell so distasteful he had only to lean in my direction to catch a putrid whiff of me? I stayed the urge to break his freaking nose for pointing out my stinkiness. He sniffed again. "I can't place it." "How bad is it?" I asked, my cheeks heating. "It's good. Some kind of flower." My first thought: Hurray! I don't stink. My second: Ohmygod!

I’m not a bad person. I haven’t killed anyone. I (rarely) lie. I don’t kick little puppies. So why do people look at me as if the world would be a better place without me?

I would have been here sooner but Lysander held me prisoner in our cloud," Bianka said with a grin. "He wouldn't relent until Sabin gave the ok. Which I still don't understand and will continue to punish him for until he spills. Secrets or guts, I don't care which.

Strider's bedroom "The only thing hanging on the wall that wasn't a weapon was the portrait just over the bed. No. Not true, he thought then. The portrait was a weapon, too. Of seduction. In it Strider was utterly naked and whisking through the cloads like an avenging angel. He was holding a teddy bear in one hand and a stream of pink ribbons in the other. Anya had given him the nearly life-size monstrasity as a joke. But the joke was on her. He loved the thing.