Wiggles hissed as I crossed the floor toward the throne. She fixed me with her empty hateful eyes and smelled the air, her long tongue shivering through the slit of the lipless mouth. Nice to see you too, sweetheart. Remember my cattle prod?

Getting a lecture on restraint from the woman who threw a hissy fit and blew up Babylon.

In diplomacy, like in great many other things, the rules of engagement survive only until one remarkable person decides to break them.

I split the omelet between the plates and stopped when Curran's arms closed about me. He pulled me against him, pressing my back against his chest. I heard him inhale my scent. His lips grazed my temple. Here we were, alone, in my kitchen, holding each other while breakfast cooled on the table. This was some sort of alternate universe, with a different Kate, who wasn't hunted like a wild animal and who could have these sorts of things. "What's up?" I asked softly. "Just making sure you know you're caught.

Who snitched?" "We have people monitoring police radio frequencies. They gave Jim a heads-up in case our security had to storm PAD offices and bust you out of there. I found out when I saw Jim walking down the hallway snickering to himself.

People can snap. People have a limit. And some people are just plain nuts.

I was a knight," Andrea said. "I'm not just going to start shooting every dickhead who mouths off to me." "Just making sure." "Besides, if I shot him, I'd do it so nobody could trace it back to me. I'd shoot him somewhere remote, his head would explode like a melon, and they would never find his body. He would just vanish.